THE SALTS OF THE SEA. 259 



contemplated througli the microscope ; tlien every drop of water 

 in the sea is discovered to be in tune vith the hosts of heaven, for 

 each stands forth a peopled world. 



498. Catching, as we contemplate the hosts of heaven through 

 The microscope and the tclcscope and the moving creatures of the sea 

 the telescope. througli the microscopo, the sphit of Chalmers, and 



borrowing his fine imagery, let us draw a contrast between the 

 glories of the heavens and the wonders of the insect world of earth 

 and sea, as to the mind of a devout philosopher they are presented 

 through these instruments : '' one leads him to see a world in 

 every atom, the .other a system for eveiy star. One shows him 

 that this vast globe, with its mighty nations and multitudinous 

 inhabitants, is but a grain of sand in the immensity of space ; the 

 other, that every particle of clay that lies bmied in the depths of 

 the sea has been a living habitation, containing vdthin it the work- 

 shops of a busy population. One tells him of the insignificance of 

 the world we inhabit ; the other redeems it from that insignificance 

 by shoTN-ing in the leaves of the forest, in the flowers of the field, 

 and in every di'op of water in the sea, worlds as numberless as the 

 sands on its shores, all teeming -^ith life, and as radiant with glories 

 as the fiimament of heaven. One suggests that, beyond and above 

 all that is visible to man, there are fields of creation which sweep 

 immeasm'ably along, and carry to the remotest regions of space the 

 impress of the Almighty hand ; the other reminds us that, mthin 

 and beneath all that minuteness which the eye of man has been able 

 to explore, there may be a region of invisibles, and that, could we 

 draw aside the veil that hides it from our senses, we should behold 

 a theatre of as many worlds as astronomy has unfolded — a universe 

 "VN'ithin the compass! of a point so small as to elude the highest 

 power of the microscope, but where the wonder-working finger of 

 the Almighty finds room for the exercise of his attributes — where 

 He can raise another mechanism of vrorlds, filling and animating 

 them all mth the evidences of his glory." When we lay down the 

 microscope, and study the organisms of the sea by the light of 

 reason, we find grounds for the belief that the sea was made salt in 

 the beginning, for the marine fossils that are found nearest the 

 foundation of the geological column remind us that in then- day the 

 sea was salt ; and then, when we take up the microscope again to 

 study the foraminiferes, the diatomes, and corallines, and examine 

 the structure of the most ancient inhabitants of the deep, comparing 

 their phvsiology with that of their kindred in the fossil state, we 



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