THE CLOUD EEGIOX. ETC. 279 



places which stand in need of like offices. Familiar with clouds 

 and sunshine, the storm and the calm, and all the phenomena 

 which find expression^ in the physical geography of the sea, the 

 right-minded mariner, as he contemplates "the cloud without 

 rain," ceases to regard it as an empty thing ; he perceives that 

 it performs many important offices ; he regards it as a great 

 moderator of heat and cold — as a " compensation" in the atmo- 

 spherical mechanism which makes the performance perfect. 

 Marvellous are the offices and wonderful is the constitution 

 of the atmosphere. Indeed, I know of no subject more fit for 

 profitable thought on the part of the truth-loving, knowledge- 

 seeking student, be he seaman or landsman, than that afforded 

 by the atmosphere and its offices. Of all parts of the physical 

 machinery, of all the contrivances in the mechanism of the 

 universe, the atmosphere, with its offices and its adaptations, 

 appears to me to be the most wonderful, sublime, and beautiful. 

 In its construction, the grandeur of knowledge is displayed. 

 The perfect man of Uz, in a moment of inspiration, thus bursts 

 forth in laudation of this part of God's handiwork, demanding 

 of his comforters, " But where shall wisdom be found, and where 

 is the place of understanding? The depth saith, It is not in me ; 

 and the sea saith, It is not with me. It cannot be gotten for 

 gold, neither shall silver be w^eighed for the price thereof. No 

 mention shall be made of coral or of pearls, for the price of 

 wisdom is above rubies. Whence, then, cometh wisdom, and 

 where is the place of understanding? Destruction and Death 

 say, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears. God under- 

 standeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof; for 

 he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole 

 heaven ; to make the weight for the winds ; and he weigheth the 

 waters by measure. When he made a decree for the rain, and a 

 way for the lightning of the thunder, then did he see it and 

 declare it ; he prepared it, yea, and searched it out."* When 

 the pump-maker came to ask Galileo to explain how it was that 

 his pump would not lift water higher than thirty-two feet, the 

 philosopher thought, but was afraid to say, it was owing to " the 

 weight of the winds;" and though the fact that the air has 

 weight is here so distinctly announced, philosophers never re- 

 cognized the fact until within comparatively a recent period, and 

 then it was proclaimed by them as a great discovery. Kever- 

 * Job, cbap. xxviii. 



