THE CARE OF GOD.

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tumbler affords abundant space for a hundred and fifty millions of these little creatures.

The phosphorescent appearances presented by them are not, however, without an important design. It is probable that God, whose knowledge is unbounded, foreseeing that man would learn to traverse the mighty deep, and explore the most distant regions of the globe, has given this brightness to the ocean to lessen his dangers, and to render his nights less gloomy.

Especially will this seem likely when it is remembered, that it is only seen in the night season, and is vivid in proportion to the darkness. It disappears before even the feeble light of the moon, and increases with the agitation of the sea; so that during the prevalence of storms, it greatly diminishes the dense gloom which at such times even the moon and stars cannot penetrate. It casts such a light on the ship and the rigging, that the sailors may execute their allotted tasks with certainty; and at all times it points out to the cautious mariner the lurking danger of sunken rocks, shoals, and unknown coasts.

How delightful is it to dwell on such proofs of the Divine care! "Are not," said the gracious Redeemer, "five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs

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SECURITY OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

of your head are all numbered," Luke xii. 6, 7. Nor let it be supposed that such minuteness of regard is not of unspeakable importance. On a circumstance, apparently inconsiderable, others of evident magnitude may depend. Captain Cook, for instance, was sailing on the ocean in a dark and tempestuous night, when a flash of lightning discovered to him a vessel which glanced along close by his side, of which, but for the lightning, he must have run foul. It might be thought improbable that two ships, steering from parts of the world very far distant from each other, should yet move so exactly in a line as to dash against each other in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, to fill, and to go to the bottom, in a sea where all the ships in the world might be so dispersed as that no one should be seen by the sailors on board another; yet this must have happened but for that flash of lightning which obeyed the command of the God of providence!

The same gracious superintendence extends to ourselves in our most minute concerns, if we love God, and are the called according to his purpose, Rom. viii. 28. In this case, we may look for the tenderest proofs of Divine regard. We shall then know the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to be our Father. How important, therefore, is the inquiry, Do I love God?

PHOSPHORESCENCE OF FISH.

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For if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, he is labouring under a tremendous curse, and exposed to future and remediless woe. How sad is it when any, without the least scrutiny into their state, suppose they may rejoice in the doctrine of Providence, when it is unhappily evident that they have no hope, and are without God in the world! To those who are reconciled to him through the death of his Son, and to those alone, it is said, "All things are yours; whether life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's," 1 Cor. iii. 21-23.

Passing now from these all-important considerations, it may be remarked, that larger creatures than those already referred to, yet residing in the waters, are sometimes luminous. Thus Pliny, a very celebrated Roman philosopher, was aware that certain fishes have the property of diffusing light around them, and imagined it to be occasioned by a fluid with which they are covered. His countrymen, who indulged their appetites to great excess, were accustomed to eat a shell-fish, called the pholas, in darkened apartments, that they might have the pleasure of seeing the scintillations emitted while they gratified their palates.

Other instances of the same kind might be easily

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THE LANTERN-FLY.

ravine, and glaring all the way down in a wavy, continuous, lambent flash."

At night, the lantern-fly glitters by thousands among the dark recesses of the banyan tree; and may also be observed dancing in perpetual motion around the outer branches of the spreading tamarind, producing a brilliant and singularly beautiful effect.

A similar power is also possessed by the candle-fly. The real object of it is not thoroughly understood; but it is supposed to be designed to enable it to discover its prey, and to steer itself safely in the night.