p. 8 | Design in Creation

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 14, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 23.

Design in Creation

A gentleman who had discarded the thought of Deity from his mind, while traveling in Australia was led in a remarkable way to a belief in His existence. His own account of it is as follows:

"Journeying on a day as close and sultry as can well be imagined, I became, after some hours' travel, so weary, that at length I cast myself down beneath the most shady tree I could find, unable to hold out any longer, and determined to await the cool of the evening. As I lay thus, after some time I saw the seed-stem of a little plant, close before me, move in the slightest degree several times, each time accompanying the motion with a single low, sharp sound like the tick of a watch. Interested to discover the connection between the motion and the sound, I leaned over and examined it. It was a small plant, with a short and more than proportionally thick flower-stem, having a single seed-pod at the extremity. The seed-pod was an oblate spheroid, not much larger than a garden-pea; but it was composed of a number of sections, which, shrinking as it ripened, separated themselves from one another: and finally each section detached itself at the bottom of the stalk, which ran right through to the upper side, and sprang out nearly straightening itself; so that eventually, when all the sections had extended themselves, it would be something like an open umbrella. But to the extremity of each of these sections, before it sprang out, on the inside was attached a single small round seed, which was cast, by the spring of the section to which it belonged, to a considerable distance. I struck the stem lightly, and thus artificially expedited the process of disjunction, and found that the seeds were thrown out upwards of two feet. On paying close attention to the plant itself, I observed that its stem was so stiff, that the wind could have no power to sway it to and fro, and thus scatter the seed; so low, likewise, that amidst the surrounding grass, the wind would scarcely ever reach it in force sufficient to carry the seed away; and lastly, that it was placed in the midst of leaves all spreading upwards and outwards in a funnel-form from the root, so that, if the seed were not cast beyond them, they would catch and carry it back again to the bosom of the plant itself. The disadvantage, then, was threefold, and so complete in the whole as to bar this little fraction of nature from the performance of one of its grand generic offices,—that of properly depositing its seeds. Nothing could relieve it but some mechanical contrivance; and here was that mechanical contrivance; and not only was it a contrivance in itself, but there was design and adaptation in fixing the very juncture of its operations. The seed should not be thrown off till it was ripe; and, till it was so ripe that its very reservoir began to separate into fragments, this mechanical contrivance could not act. The completion of the ripening process was the condition on which the contrivance for scattering the seed depended for coming into action. It was an instance of design and contrivance so indisputable, that there was no leaving it to be accounted for in any way but by the agency of a God."