THE WOXDERS OF THE SHORE. 101 



strange microscopic atomies, the Diaiomacece and 

 Infusoria, v/liicli fill every stagnant pool, -nhich 

 fringe ever)- branch of sea-weed, which form 

 banks hundreds of miles long on the Arctic sea- 

 floor, and the strata of whole moorlands, which 

 perv-ade in millions the mass of every iceberg, and 

 float aloft in countless swarms amid the clouds of 

 the volciinic dust, — why are their tiny shells of 

 flint as fantastically various in their quaint mathe- 

 matical symmetry, as they are countless beyond 

 the wildest dreams of the Pantheist ? Mystery 

 inexplicable on all theories of evolution by neces- 

 sary laws, as well as on the conceited notion 

 which, making man forsooth the centre of the 

 universe, dares to believe that variety of forms 

 has existed for countless ages in abysmal sea- 

 depths and untrodden forests, only that some 

 few individuals of the western races might, in 

 these Litter days, at last discover and admire a 

 comer here and there of the boundless realms of 

 beauty. Inexjdieable, truly, if man be the cen- 

 tre and the object of their existence ; exi)licable 

 cnougli to liim who believes that God has created 

 all tilings for Himself, and rejoices in His own 

 haiifliwork, and that the material universe is, as 

 the wise man says, " A platform whereon Ilis 



