244 By Stream and Sea. 



The saint, it should be known, disgusted because the 

 heretics paid no heed to his discourses, went down to the 

 shores of the Adriatic and summoned a finny congregation. 

 Forthwith the fish came swimming around in multitudes, 

 ranged themselves in their tribes and households apart into 

 "a very beautiful congregation," and listened with devout 

 attention to the saint. He, wondering and delighted at the 

 spectacle, found a secret sweetness distilling upon his soul 

 and an inner prompting that made him discourse. 



The legend narrates that the preacher, employing the 

 orthodox mode of beginning, namely, " My dearly beloved 

 fish," went on to point out that fishes have to be thankful for 

 many special mercies. " For," he observed, " notwithstand- 

 ing you are comprehended under the name of reptiles, par- 

 taking of a middle nature between stones and beasts, and 

 imprisoned in the deep abyss of waters; notwithstanding 

 you are tossed among billows, thrown up and down by tem- 

 pests, deaf to hearing, dumb to speech, and terrible to 

 behold ; notwithstanding, I say, these natural disadvantages, 

 the Divine Greatness shows itself in you after a very wonder- 

 ful manner. In you are seen the mighty mysteries of an 

 infinite goodness. The Holy Scripture has also made use of 

 you as the types and shadows of some profound sacrament." 



The preacher next reminded the fishes from Whom they 

 received being, life, motion, and sense, and, in compliance 

 with their own inclinations, the whole world of waters for 

 their habitation, observing of the latter 



"It is He that furnished it with lodgings, chambers, 

 caverns, grottoes, and such magnificent retirements as are 

 not to be met with in the seats of kings or in the palaces of 

 princes. You have the waters for your dwelling, a clear 

 transparent element brighter than crystal ; you can see from 

 its deepest bottom everything that passes on its surface; you 



