xxx THE DELUGE AND AFTER 



J 55 



causes of deluge ; for some waters flow in beneath 

 the earth and others flow round it. Though long 

 restrained they will at last prevail, and will join 

 stream to stream and pool to marsh. The sea will 

 fill up the mouth of every fountain, and will open 

 it out to wider extent. Just as the bowels drain 4 

 the body in the draught, or as the strength goes off 

 into perspiration, so the earth will dissolve, and 

 though other causes are inactive, it will find within 

 itself a flood in which to sink. All the great forces 

 will thus, I should suppose, combine. Nor will de- 

 struction tarry. The harmony is assailed and broken 

 when once the world has relaxed aught of its needed 

 care. At once, from all sides, open and hidden, 

 above and beneath, will rush the influx of waters. 

 There is nothing like the letting loose of the sea's 5 

 full force, for violence and ungovernable fury ; it 

 rises in rebellion and spurns every restraint. It will 

 make full use of its permitted liberty ; as its nature 

 prompts, what it rends and surrounds it will soon fill 

 up. Just as fire that breaks out at different points will 

 speedily unite the flames and make one grand blaze, 

 so the overflowing seas will join forces in an instant. 

 But the waves will not enjoy their unrestrained 6 

 liberty for ever. When the destruction of the human 

 race is consummated, and when wild beasts, whose 

 nature men had come to share, have been consigned 

 together to a like fate, the earth will once more 

 drink up the waters. Nature will force the sea to 

 stay its course, and to expend its rage within its 

 wonted bounds. Ocean will be banished from our 

 abodes into his own secret dwelling-place. The 

 ancient order of things will be recalled. Every 7 

 living creature will be created afresh. The earth 

 will receive a new man ignorant of sin, born under 



