32 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



of gold, what stores of gems, there must be scattered in lavish 

 profusion in the ocean's lowest bed ! What spoils from all cli- 

 mates, what works of art from all lands, have been engulfed 

 by the insatiable and reckless waves ! Who shall go down to 

 examine and reclaim this uncounted and idle wealth? Who 

 bears the keys of the deep ? 



" And oh ! yet more affecting to the heart and mysterious to 

 the mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in 

 that wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea ! Where 

 are the bodies of those lost ones over whom the melancholy 

 waves alone have been chanting requiem? What shrouds were 

 wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood, and of 

 placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that 

 secret tomb? Where are the bones, the relics, of the brave and 

 the timid, the good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife, 

 the husband, the brother, the sister, the lover, which have been 

 tossed and scattered and buried by the washing, wasting, 

 wandering sea? The journeying winds may sigh as year after 

 year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain-cloud may 

 weep in darkness over the mingled remains which lie strewed in 

 that unwonted cemetery. But who shall tell the bereaved to 

 what spot their affections may cling? And where shall human 

 tears be shed throughout that solemn sepulchre ? It is mystery 

 all. When shall it be resolved? Who shall find it out? Who 

 but He to whom the wildest waves listen reverently, and to 

 whom all nature bows ; He who shall one day speak, and be 

 heard in ocean's profoundest caves ; to whom the deep, even the 

 lowest deep, shall give up its dead, when the sun shall sicken, 

 and the earth and the isles shall languish, and the heavens be 

 rolled together like a scroll, and there shall be no more sea !" 



It now remains for us to investigate the origin of navigation, 

 as preliminary to our subject, and then to commence the task 

 before us with the history of Noah, the first seaman, and the 

 Ark, the vessel he commanded. 



