THE CHRISTIAN NATURALIST. 167 



appointed fishers of men to make it universal, and to 

 realize the splendid prophecy, '* The earth shall be 

 filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as 

 the waters cover the sea.'* (Hab. ii. 14.) This pro- 

 phecy is one which was no doubt intended to give the 

 most enlarged conceptions of the blessings of universal 

 Christianity. There is nothing which conveys so forci- 

 ble an idea of vastness and depth combined, in other 

 words of fulness as the waters of the ocean. Its 

 waters are not only a covering which hide or invest the 

 bottom of the abyss, but a covering far deeper than 

 ever plummet yet sounded, and may for aught we can 

 tell reach to the very centre of the globe. From this 

 language we are therefore led to draw the inference, 

 that the triumph of Christianity shall at length be no 

 longer partial and superficial, as it has hitherto been, 

 but that it will extend itself throughout the whole 

 extent of humanity ; exercising its mighty influence 

 down from the lowest depths of degraded barbarism, up 

 to the very climax of smooth and civilized refinement ; 

 reaching from the very heart and centre of our social 

 and moral principles, and diffusing the happy effects of 

 this knowledge of God's glory, as the deep blue waves 

 of the boundless ocean are diffused, throughout the ut- 

 most range of the habitable globe. 



