234 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



voice of the unresting sea is in that strange far-away 

 murmur. And so to the inner ear these gates of pearl, set 

 up where there is no more sea, speak of the far-off 

 vanished seas of earth, through whose dangers the 

 redeemed escaped safe to land. In them is heard, as it 

 were, deep calling unto deep. They tell of days when 

 words like those which Jonah uttered from the depths 

 of the sea come instinctively to the lips " All thy 

 waves and thy billows are gone over me " ; and of 

 stormy winds by which they were driven up and down 

 in Adria, and they had no resource in the dark night 

 and under the starless skies but to cast forth the anchor 

 and wait for the morning. None can gaze upon these 

 gates of pearl without thinking of the resistless, pitiless 

 power, the impassive fixedness of purpose which makes 

 the sea the most appropriate image of the calamities of 

 life ; or of that other aspect of it the profound mono- 

 tony, the absence of feature, the constant yet aimless 

 and formless movement, the expression of deep melan- 

 choly, which so well illustrates the dreary hours of life, 

 less tolerable even than its calamities, when nothing 

 interests, and the whole head is sick and the whole 

 heart faint. None, too, can gaze upon the gates of 

 pearl without being reminded of their wonderful de- 

 liverances, when the Lord " drew them out of great 

 waters " and cheered them with a precious promise 

 like a pearl found in the depth " When thou passest 

 through the waters I will be with thee, and through the 

 rivers they shall not overflow thee." They cannot 

 think of the storm without thinking of Him who came 



