THE CHKISTIAN NATURALIST. 175 



groaneth and travaileth." Its hidden depths, like the 

 world which man inhabits, are tenanted by a race that 

 are far from being at peace one with another. Destruc- 

 tion and death meet not onlv on the visible surface of 

 the great abyss, to track the footsteps of man, but ex- 

 tend their empire to all the tribes that people its 

 waters. It abounds every where with creatures pursuing 

 and devouring each other ; the small and the weak be- 

 coming a prey to the great and powerful, while for both 

 there is a grand destroyer — a Leviathan taking his pas- 

 time and seeking the perdition of all. View the Sea 

 also when agitated by winds, and then how fitly does its 

 commotion represent the restlessness and fury of godless 

 men, impelled hither and thither by the breath of their 

 wild and ungovernable passions. "The wicked are like 

 the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast 

 up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God to 

 the wicked." (Isai. Ivii. 20, 21.) But thus it has 

 ever been. Turbulence and strife are as natural to all 

 the " Children of disobedience," as confusion and uproar 

 are to the ocean. Hence the Psalmist, referring us to 

 the power of him who stilleth the noise of the seas, 

 speaks of " the tumult of the waves and the madness of 

 the people" in one breath, to shew that they are the 



