THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 121 



plicable on all theories of evolution by necessary 

 laws, as Avell as on the conceited notion which, 

 making man forsooth the centre of the universe, 

 dares to believe that this variety of forms has existed 

 for countless ages in abysmal sea-depths and un- 

 trodden forests, only that some few individuals of the 

 western races might, in these latter days, at last 

 discover and admire a corner here and there of the 

 boundless realms of beauty. Inexplicable, truly, if 

 man be the centre and the object of their existence ; 

 explicable enough to him who believes that God has 

 created all things for Himself, and rejoices in His 

 own handiwork, and that the material universe is, 

 as the wise man says, "A platform whereon His 

 eternal Spirit sports and makes melody." Of all 

 the blessings which the study of nature brings to the 

 patient observer, let none, perhaps, be classed higher 

 than this ; — that the further he enters into those 

 fairy gardens of life and birth, which Spenser saw 

 and described in his great poem, the more he learns 

 the awful and yet most comfortable truth, that they 

 do not belong to him, but to one greater, wiser, 



