RIVER CRAYFISH. 117 



wisely laid down for created beings, and we become 

 lost in wonder, at the marvellous and inscrutable laws 

 brought to bear in its furtherance. The saltness of 

 the sea, the metal iodine residing in its countless 

 myriads of weeds, the migrations of the mighty hosts 

 of fish, the ebbing and flowing of the tide, the labours 

 of the coral insect, the strange sponge-growths, trade 

 winds, and warm currents setting in from one region to 

 another, all evince the operation of laws, far too vast 

 for man, with all his boasted power, to penetrate or 

 understand. As there are " sermons in stones, voices in 

 running brooks, and good in everything," so is there 

 beauty and evidence of Divine foresight to be found 

 under every fragment of drift-wood, cast between the 

 rocks ; each upturned stone discloses some wonder of 

 creation, and as the mighty billows thunder on the 

 strand and carry in their backward rush the beds of 

 ever- wearing shingle, fretting and grinding with them, 

 frail humanity can but look from nature, up to nature's 

 God, and feel its own utter insignificance. 



The ocean's broad expanse, when lulled in calm 

 tranquillity, is no less a subject for pleasant and pro- 

 found meditation, and he who seeks a field for peaceful 

 reflection may find it by drifting away on the unruffled 

 bosom of the deep ; and as the bark bears him slowly 

 onward, Montgomery's lines will not fail to strike his 

 memory : — 



