156 THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 



upwards to that Creator who " measured these waters 

 in the hollow of his hand," according to the sublime 

 language of Isaiah. Yes ! The Almighty Spirit it was 

 which first brooded over the chaotic abyss when it was 

 yet without form or void ! His Sovereign word assuredly 

 it was which pronounced the decree, " Let the waters 

 under the heaven be gathered together into one place, 

 and let the dry land appear !" One of the ancients 

 of the Church, St. Basil the Great, has thus beauti- 

 fully referred to this subject in his homilies on the days 

 of creation. '* Have you never reflected when seated on 

 the margin of a spouting fountain, how comes this 

 water from the bosom of the earth ? what impels' ii, 

 forward ? when will it terminate its course ? how is it 

 that it never dries up, and that the sea, into which all 

 other waters empty themselves, never overflows ? A 

 single sentence will serve as a reply to all these ques- 

 tions. Let the waters be gathered into one place. 

 The sea agitated by the temptests that rage over it, <s 

 often raised to a prodigious height, but the moment it 

 touches the shore, all its fury exhausts itself in foam, 

 and it returns into its bed. 



** Oh, how beautiful is the spectacle that the sea pre- 

 sents, when we see it in its calmness shining like 



