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industry from the bottom of the waters, till they grow into formidable rocks, and broad forests, whose branches never wave, and whose leaves never fall.

In other parts we shall see those "pale glistening pearls" which adorn the crowns of princes, and are woven in the hair of beauty, extorted by the restless grasp of man from the hidden stores of ocean. And, spread round every coast, there are beds of flowers and thickets of plants, which the dew does not nourish, and which man has not sown, nor cultivated, nor reaped; but which seem to belong to the floods alone, and the denizens of the floods, until they are thrown up by the surges, and we discover that even the dead spoils of the fields of ocean may fertilize and enrich the fields of earth. They have a life, and a nourishment, and an economy of their own, and we know little of them, except that they are there in their briny nurseries, reared up into luxuriance by what would kill, like a mortal poison, the plants of the land.

We must not omit to consider the utility of the sea; its utility, I mean, not only as it furnishes a dwelling and sustenance to an infinite variety and number of inhabitants, and an important part of the support of man, but in its more general relations to the whole globe of the world. It cools the air for us in summer, and warms it in winter. It is probable that the very composition of the atmosphere is beneficially affected by combining with the particles which it takes up from the ocean; but, however this may be, there is little or no doubt, that were it not for the immense face of waters with which the atmosphere comes in contact, it

would be hardly respirable for the dwellers on the earth.

Then, again, it affords an easier, and, on the whole, perhaps a safer medium of communication and conveyance between nation and nation, than can be found, for equal distances, on the land. It is also an effectual barrier between nations, preserving to a great degree the weak from invasion and the virtuous from contamination. In many other respects it is no doubt useful to the great whole, though in how many we are not qualified to judge. What we do see is abundant testimony of the wisdom and goodness of Him who in the beginning "gathered the waters together unto one place."

There is mystery in the sea. There is mystery in its depths. It is unfathomed, and perhaps unfathomable. Who can tell, who shall know, how near its pits run down to the central core of the world? Who can tell what wells, what fountains are there, to which the fountains of the earth are in comparison but drops? Who shall say whence the ocean derives those inexhaustible supplies of salt, which so impregnates its waters, that all the rivers of the earth, pouring into it from the time of the creation, have not been able to freshen them?

What undescribed monsters, what unimaginable shapes, may be roving in the profoundest places of the sea, never seeking, and perhaps from their nature unable to seek, the upper waters, and expose themselves to the gaze of man! What glittering riches, what heaps of gold, what stores of gems, there must be scattered in lavish profusion on the ocean's lowest

bed! What spoils from all climates, what works of art from all lands, have been ingulfed by the insatiable. and reckless waves! Who shall go down to examine and reclaim this uncounted and idle wealth? Who bears the keys of the deep?

And oh! yet more affecting to the heart and mysterious to the mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in that wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea! Where are the bodies of those lost ones, over whom the melancholy waves alone have, been chanting requiem? What shrouds were wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood, and of placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that secret tomb?

Where are the bones, the relics of the brave and the fearful, the good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife, the husband, the brother, the sister, and lover, which have been tossed and scattered and buried by the washing, wasting, wandering sea? The journeying winds may sigh, as year after year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain cloud may weep in darkness over the mingled remains which lie strewed in that unwonted cemetery.

But who shall tell the bereaved to what spot their affections may cling? And where shall human tears be shed throughout that solemn sepulchre? It is mystery all. When shall it be resolved? Who shall find it out? Who, but He to whom the wildest waves listen reverently, and to whom all nature bows; He who shall one day speak, and be heard in ocean's profoundest caves; to whom the deep, even the lowest deep, shall give up all its dead, when the sun shall sicken,

and the earth and the isles shall languish, and the heavens be rolled together like a scroll, and there shall be 66 no more sea."

LESSON XIX.

SONG OF THE STARS.

WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,-

In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,

And this was the song the bright ones sung.

"Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,-
The fair blue fields that before us lie,-
Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.

"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;"
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo, yonder the living splendors play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!

"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,

How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!

And the path of the gentle winds is seen,

Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.

"And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews.

"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent.
To the farthest wall of the firmament,-
The boundless visible smile of Him,

To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim."

LESSON XX.

ST. PETER'S CHURCH AT ROME.

ST. PETER'S is the largest, and far the most expensive structure in the world. The area of its noble piazza is eleven thousand and fifty-five feet long; its front is one hundred and sixty feet high, and three hundred and ninety-six feet wide; it is six hundred and seventy three feet long, and four hundred and

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