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were obviously inspired by the one just quoted. As I read it,
in a reprint shown me by a Professor who had edited much
of the early literature on the subject, I could not but remem-
ber the one in which our Lord tells His disciples to consider
the lilies of the field, who neither toil nor spin, but whose
raiment surpasses even that of Solomon in all his glory.
‘They toil not, neither do they spin?’ Is that so? ‘Toil
not?’ Perhaps not, now that the method of procedure is so
well known as to admit of no further question—but it is
not likely that lilies came to make themselves so beautifully
without having ever taken any pains about the matter. ‘Nei-
ther do they spin?’ Not with a spinning-wheel; but is there
no textile fabric in a leaf?
What would the lilies of the field say if they heard one of
us declaring that they neither toil nor spin? They would say,
I take it, much what we should if we were to hear of their
preaching humility on the text of Solomons, and saying,
‘Consider the Solomons in all their glory, they toil not nei-
ther do they spin.’ We should say that the lilies were talking
about things that they did not understand, and that though
the Solomons do not toil nor spin, yet there had been no
lack of either toiling or spinning before they came to be ar-
rayed so gorgeously.
Let me now return to the Professor. I have said enough to
show the general drift of the arguments on which he relied
in order to show that vegetables are only animals under an-
other name, but have not stated his case in anything like the
fullness with which he laid it before the public. The conclu-
sion he drew, or pretended to draw, was that if it was sinful

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