darkness unfathomable reigns. Look once more. The vision changes; a hazy cloud of light now fills the field of the telescope. Whence comes the light of this mysterious object? Its home is in the mighty deep, as far beyond the 5 limit you had vainly fixed, - ten thousand times as far, as that limit is beyond the reach of human vision. 10 And thus we mount, and rise, and soar, from height to height, upward, and ever upward still, till the mighty series ends, because vision fails, and sinks, and dies. Hast thou then pierced the boundary of light? Hast thou penetrated the domain of darkness? Hast thou, weak mortal, soared to the fountain whence come these wondrous streams, and taken the light at the hand thereof? Knowest thou the paths to the house thereof? Hast thou stood 15 at yonder infinite origin, and bid that flash depart and jour. ney onward, days and months and years, century on century, through countless ages, millions of years, and never weary in its swift career? Knowest thou when it started? Knowest thou it because thou wast then born, and because 20 the number of thy days is great? Such, then, is the language addressed by Jehovah to weak, erring, mortal man. How has the light of science flooded with meaning this astonishing passage? Surely, surely we do not misread, -the interpretation is just. To him who, in the love of Nature, holds *From two Greek words, signifying a view of death And healing sympathy, that steals away 5 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, To Nature's teachings, while from all around 10 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 15 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 20 To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, The oak And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 25 Yet not to thine eternal Shalt thou retire alone nor couldst thou wish Thou shalt lie down Couch more magnificent. . Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales 35 In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 10 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound the dead are there, And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down 15 In their last sleep So shalt thou rest the dead reign there alone. and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 20 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train 25. Of ages glide away, the sons of men, The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes So live, that when thy summons comes to join Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed LXXXIV. - THE USES OF THE OCEAN. SWAIN. [The following extract is a portion of a sermon of striking eloquence and beauty by the Rev. Leonard Swain, of Providence, Rhode Island, published in the "Bibliotheca Sacra."] THE traveller who would speak of his experience in foreign lands must begin with the sea. God has spread this vast pavement of his temple between the hemispheres, so that he who sails to foreign shores must pay a double 5 tribute to the Most High; for through this temple he has to carry his anticipations as he goes, and his memories when he returns. The sea speaks for God; and however eager the tourist may be to reach the strand that lies before him, and enter upon the career of business or pleasure 10 that awaits him, he must check his impatience during this long interval of approach, and listen to the voice with which Jehovah speaks to him as, horizon after horizon, he moves to his purpose along the aisles of God's mighty tabernacle of the deep. 15 66 It is a common thing, in speaking of the sea, to call it "" a waste of waters.' But this is a mistake. Instead of being an encumbrance or a superfluity, the sea is as essential to the life of the world, as the blood is to the life of the human body. Instead of being a waste and desert, it 20 keeps the earth itself from becoming a waste and a desert. It is the world's fountain of life and health and beauty; and if it were taken away, the grass would perish from the mountains, the forests would crumble on the hills, the harvests would become powder on the plains, the continent 5 would be one vast Sahara of frosts and fire, and the solid globe itself, scarred and blasted on every side, would swing in the heavens, silent and dead as on the first morning of creation. Water is as indispensable to all life, vegetable or animal, as the air itself. From the cedar on the mountains to the lichen that clings to the wall; from the elephant that pastures on the forests, to the animalcule that floats in the sunbeam; from the leviathan that heaves the sca 10 into billows, to the microscopic creatures that swarm, a million in a single foam-drop, all alike depend for their existence on this single element and must perish if it be withdrawn. This element of water is supplied entirely by the sea. 15 The sea is the great inexhaustible fountain which is continually pouring up into the sky precisely as many streams, and as large, as all the rivers of the world are pouring into it. The sea is the real birthplace of the clouds and the 20 rivers, and out of it come all the rains and dews of heaven. Instead of being a waste and an encumbrance, therefore, it is a vast fountain of fruitfulness, and the nurse and mother of all the living. Out of its mighty breast come the resources that feed and support the population of the world. 25 Omnipresent and everywhere alike is this need and blessing of the sea. It is felt as truly in the centre of the continent, where, it may be, the rude inhabitant never heard of the ocean, as it is on the circumference of the 30 wave-beaten shore. We are surrounded, every moment, by the presence and bounty of the sea. It looks out upon us from every violet in our garden-bed; from every spire of grass that drops upon our passing feet the beaded dew of the morning; from the bending grain that fills the arm of the reaper; from bursting 25 presses. and from barns filled with plenty; from the broad foreheads of our cattle and the rosy faces of our children; |