Produced by Al Haines. "But Love, that moves the earth, and skies, and sea, Beheld his old love in her misery, And wrapped her heart in sudden gentle sleep; And meanwhile caused unnumbered _ants_ to creep About her, and they wrought so busily That all, ere sundown, was as it should be, And homeward went again the _kingless folk_." —_The Earthly Paradise._ *KINGLESS FOLK* *AND* *Other Addresses on Bible Animals.* BY THE *Rev. JOHN ADAMS, B.D., Inverkeilor.* Edinburgh and London: OLIPHANT, ANDERSON & FERRIER. 1897. *CONTENTS.* KINGLESS FOLK, The Ant HOOKS OF STEEL, The Bear THE SACRED BIRD, The Dove LITTLE, BUT WISE, The Coney CROWNED WITH HONOUR, The Ass’s Colt THE REDBREAST A BORN MATHEMATICIAN, The Bee THE BIRD OF FREEDOM, The Swallow A HOUSE OF GOSSAMER, The Spider LITTLE FOLLIES, The Fly PEARLS, NOT PEAS, The Pearl-Oyster SOME OTHER SHELLS CALVES OF THE STALL, The Calf FUR OR FEATHER?, The Bat ONWARD AND UPWARD, The Eagle THE VICTOR VANQUISHED, The Lion THE BIRD OF THE DAWN, The Cock-crowing PEACE *The Ant.* "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."—Prov. vi. 6-8. Of what use is a sluggard? "Everything in the world is of some use," says John Ploughman, "but it would puzzle a doctor of divinity, or a philosopher, or the wisest owl in our steeple, to tell the good of idleness; that seems to me to be an ill wind which blows nobody any good, a sort of mud which breeds no eels, a dirty ditch which would not feed a frog. Sift a sluggard grain by grain, and you’ll find him all chaff." A sluggard is really a good-for-nothing, and no better advice could be given to boys than this: "Get out of the sluggard’s way, or you may catch his disease and never get rid of it. Grow up like bees, and you will never be drones." In this passage from the Book of Proverbs, Solomon advises the sluggard to go back to school that he may learn _wisdom_, for his folly is quite equal to his idleness. He is too lazy to drive in a nail, and as the old jingling rhyme has it, "For want of a nail a shoe came off, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a man was lost, for want of a man a battle was lost, and for loss of a battle a kingdom was lost." Because of the sluggard’s first idleness in refusing to drive in the nail the whole kingdom comes down about his ears. It is not much ease he gets for all his scheming, and therefore he is sent back to school to learn wisdom.