90 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



of passengers, her powerful mechanism, and her 

 vast stores of wealth traversing against wind and 

 tide, not some narrow strait of an inland sea, but 

 the vast ocean that lies between the opposite sides 

 of the earth ; and carrying with her knowledge 

 and cultivation, liberty, and the means of human 

 advancement ! 



The depth of the sea is another question which 

 seldom fails to suggest itself to the minds of the 

 contemplative visitor of its shores. What that 

 depth is, what untold wonders and inexplicable 

 mysteries the abysses of the sea contain, have 

 always afforded a subject of sublime speculation. 

 It is, indeed, scarcely possible to look on the calm 

 surface of the deep, and think of the marvels and 

 the mysteries which lie beneath, without emotions 

 akin to those with which the devout astronomer, 

 in the stillness of the night, contemplates the 

 starry heavens, and thinks of the mysterious worlds 

 they contain, their number, their magnitude, their 

 grandeur, and the questions that suggest them- 

 selves as to their probable inhabitants and their 

 physical forms, intellectual powers, their degrees 

 of knowledge, the length of their lives, and the 

 many similar questions that force themselves upon 

 his imagination. 



And there is, in fact, much that is analogous 

 in the degree of success which has attended human 

 efforts to penetrate the mysteries of the ocean 

 depths, and to investigate those which bslong 

 to the inconceivably remote objects of the firma- 

 ment. In the former case comparatively shallow 



