THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

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We might pluck a flower, and at a glance tell its name, the month of its blooming, the colour of its leaves, and the shape of its stalk; but how long it would take us to be able to tell how the juices are drawn up from the ground, what makes it grow, what gives it colour; what determines its shape, and how it has life! So we read over a short text, and think we understand it; but the more we think it over, the more we find in it.

I have been trying to understand the words of our text. I think I do in some degree; but not fully, I fear.

Those who live by the sea-side often find that, after a great storm, there are a multitude of little shells washed up from the bottom of the sea. Some of these are like gold; some, like silver; some spotted or mottled; some, are pink; some green; some look as if the rays of the setting sun had fallen on them, and painted them so beautiful; and away down in the ocean are millions of such. Why are they made so beautiful? What eye ever sees or admires them? The fish that swim over them cannot admire them; and men cannot go down and walk along the bottom of the ocean and see these beautiful things. Who can? God can! His mind planned every one, his hand formed every one, his skill painted every one. Every day, we are told, after creating new things, God looked upon what he had made, and saw that all was very good. So he looks down into the solitudes of the ocean, and sees the gems and the pearls and all the beautiful things there, and re

joices over his works! Why should he not? They are the creations of infinite wisdom.

Sometimes we climb up a steep mountain-side, and when we have got far up, beyond where the trees grow, and above where the bushes grow, we come to a steep rock up which we cannot climb, -and there, far up on a shelf of that steep rock, hangs a little, beautiful flower. All the skill of earth could not make one like it. It hangs and waves there alone, bending its head to the winds, and pouring its sweetness on the air, Whose eye will see it? Did an angel ever pause to admire that little flower, and praise its Maker? We do not know! But we do know that God is there, and sees it, and takes care of it. We know that he sees the beautiful mottle fish which leaps up in the dark river of the forest, and which thus mutely praises his name. No human eye can see the wild eagle of the mountain, as he first leaps from the tree, and with new wings mounts up towards heaven; but he who gave that eagle his keen eye and his strong wing, and who painted every feather on his breast, is there, to rejoice over his works. When the lithe horse of the prairie bounds forward, in his joy and gladness, snuffing the morning-air without fear or restraint, there is no man there to see and admire his beautiful form and free movements; but God, his Maker, is there, and he rejoices over his works. Anything that is worthy of his hand in its creation, is worthy of his regard when made. And it is not merely over his great works, such as the ocean that rolls, and

foams, and dashes,-it is not merely over the great volcano that comes surging and rolling up from the inside of the earth till it has made a mountain of cinders and a great river of liquid fire, -it is not merely over the high mountain, whose top reaches far up where nothing but eternal snow and ice are, it is not merely over the great sun that hangs in the heavens, and shines on in his strength from age to age,—that God rejoices; but he looks at every little flower that opens, at every little leaf that shakes in the wind, at every feather that covers the little bird of the air, and over them all he rejoices, for they are his work, and worthy of the Divine hand.

Take

Children, you have all heard and read of Egypt. It is a wonderful country. There is no rain there, and yet the land is watered and very fertile. Of old it was a land of plenty, and the great grainhouse from which the old Roman empire used to fetch its bread. And that whole land is watered and made fruitful by one single river! that away, and it would at once be only a dreary sand-heap. Every Spring, that river rises and overflows its banks, and the people have their little canals dug and their little dams built to catch the water; and then they go out and sow their rice on the waters. The rice sinks down, and the waters after a while dry up, and the rice grows, and they have a great harvest. Thus they "cast their bread upon the waters, and find it after many days." For a great while, it was a matter of wonder what made the river rise so

and overflow its banks. At last a man, named Bruce, followed the river till he got far up among the mountains, nearly a thousand miles from the mouth of the river, and there he found that these great mountains were covered with snow. It is the melting of this snow in the Spring, that makes the river rise so high. Up, far up among the hills he went, till he came to a little pond or spring. It was the very fountain and head-water of the Nile How he sat down and rejoiced over his toil, and how he looked at that little fountain! It was the beginning of great things! Now are we not to believe that, for thousands of years before Bruce ever saw it, the eye of God was watching it, as it poured out its waters and sent them down to fertilize the whole of Egypt? Are we not to believe that the Lord rejoiced over this wonderful work of his, when for the first time the gushing stream found its new channel, and marked out the line of its march from the mountain to the great

sea.

Some of the works of the Lord are perfect, and will never be improved in the future. The rainbow that hangs on the skirts of the storm, and seems the child of the thunder and the rain, will never be more beautiful than it now is. The dawn of the morning, when the stars first begin to turn pale and twinkle farther off, and the rays of red and yellow shoot up from the east, as heralds, to tell us that the monarch of the day has mounted his car and will soon be here,-calling the hilltops to catch their first smiles, and waking up the