ON THE MANUSCRIPTS OF GOD 



vapors, mists, clouds, rain, and rainbows with 

 it; she distils it into dewdrops, or mixes it 

 with earth for the creation of bogs and 

 swamps, or mixes it with minerals for the 

 healing of human ills ; she makes brine, surf, 

 and whitecaps with it; she freezes it into 

 snow, hail, and ice, and finally petrifies it, 

 after her manner of running the entire 

 gamut of possibilities. She hews the hardest 

 rocks with it; she plays with it, sings with 

 it, chants with it, and roars with it blesses 

 and curses with it, according to the measure 

 of her giving or her withholding. 



Beginning with a raindrop and ever add- 

 ing the little more that finally makes so 

 much, how innumerable is the series of 

 water-wonders she creates till she reaches 

 her climax in the ocean, over which she has 

 so effectively waved her wand that it can 

 be the great communistic bath-tub of the 

 human race and at the same time lose noth- 

 ing of its perennial sublimity. Like a great 

 literary artist, who from the same inkstand 

 and fountain of inspiration conjures a trio- 

 let, a stately sonnet, a lyric, or a mighty epic, 



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