THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
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curbed save by the hand of Omnipotence, and 
incomparably grand and beautiful in calm or 
storm. But its shores could be measured and 
bounded, its depths fathomed, its uttermost sur¬ 
face cut with keel and rudder, and all of its 
huge monsters captured by the skill and daring 
of man. It is mighty in space, power, and pur¬ 
pose ; but it is not infinite, and therefore entirely 
within the scope of man’s contemplation. A 
fitting ‘ image of eternity, the throne of the In¬ 
visible,’ yet from the first sight of this 
* Glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form 
Glasses itself in tempest, 
• ‘ I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy 
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy 
I have wantoned with thy breakers; they to me 
Were a delight.’ 
“ How singular that a single drop from the 
unmeasurable waters of the great deep should 
break the spell of sublimity by suggesting the 
infi7iite, when the grandeur of the whole had 
failed to bring this torturing thought to the 
soul! It was not the contrast between the tiny 
drop and the measureless fountain whence it was 
taken, but the marvellous life which that drop 
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