258 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



niable evidences of careful adaptation and of 

 express design on the part of the great Author of 

 life, whose tender care has been bestowed alike on 

 the most minute as well as the greatest of His 

 creatures ! Of all this the observations we have 

 already made afford ample confirmation. 



Let us wander away along this patch of sand, 

 on which there has not been impressed the mark 

 of a footstep since the tide left it white and 

 smooth, with clean-washed pebbles and shells 

 scattered over its surface, and here and there a 

 piece of olive or pink seaweed. We shall make 

 our way to those distant rocks, now uncovered, 

 from whose sides hang a profusion of the dark 

 olive-green seaweed, along the fronds of which 

 are bladders, dear to our boyhood, because cut off 

 and dried they produce prodigious explosions when 

 cast into the fire. Around those rocks there are pools 

 of water, bright and clear as if from a spring, and 

 in those pools, sheltered by the overhanging sear- 

 weeds, or hidden in holes under the rock itself, 

 may be found numerous living beings, marvellous 

 and beautiful in structure in the eyes of those who 

 regard them with true wisdom. 



Here is a pool which probably will repay an in- 

 vestigation. It is a foot or so in depth at the 

 base of the large stone which juts into it as a 

 miniature peninsula. We lift up the green sea- 

 wrack by which the sides of the stone are fes- 

 tooned, and which are still wet, for the tide has 

 but recently receded. Lo ! here are limpets and 

 mussels attached to the stone beneath the algse, 



