Uniting the point of view of exegesis with that of natural science, one of the greatest and broadest minds of antiquity, Origen, has written these noble words: The providential action of God manifests itself in the minute corpuscles of the animals as well as in the superior beings; it directs with the same foresight the step of an ant and the courses of the sun and the moon. It is the same in the supernatural domain. The Holy Spirit which has inspired our sacred Scriptures has penetrated them with its inspiration to the last letter: Divina sapientia omnem Scripturam divitus datam vel adunam usque litterulam attigit.... [194] The reader will doubtless pardon a professor of exegesis, whose admiration for the prince of entomologists has made him his biographer, for terminating this analysis of the naturalist’s philosophical and religious ideas by a synthetic view which brings him into closer communion with his hero: “all things are linked together,” as he himself has said, [195] and the study of the Holy Scriptures, if he could have devoted himself thereto, would certainly have led this noble and penetrating mind to render the same testimony to the truth of Christ and the Church as that which it has rendered to the truth of the soul and God. CHAPTER XXI A GREAT PREPARATION The title which we have given this chapter is that which M. Perrier, the eminent Director of the Museum of Natural History, lately inscribed at the head of a remarkable article in the Revue hebdomadaire. In this the author showed how just and how far inferior to his deserts are the honours so tardily accorded to the man whose life and labours we have sketched. We assuredly cannot say that Fabre’s name and his work have until lately remained unknown or even undervalued. At an early period he was honoured by the admiration and friendship of such men as Dufour and Duruy. On several occasions his works have been crowned by the highest awards of the Institute. Not content with belonging to the Zoological Society and the Entomological Society of France, and with being elected in 1887 corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, he has also been granted, as though in emulation, the title of honorary member by the most famous foreign academies, the Scientific Societies of Brussels, Geneva, etc., and the Entomological Societies of London, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.