154 the beautiful ladder. 
Highest first moved to bring order and beau¬ 
ty into a world that was until then given up 
to darkness, waste, and desolation; and sure¬ 
ly where that supreme power has been longest 
potent there should be some of the most strik¬ 
ing evidences of its workings. 
“To the careless observer the ocean seems 
to have no special way marks of Jehovah’s skill, 
save the bars and doors which restrain its out- 
breakings. To such its waters are a wild waste, 
and its bottom, cumbered with wrecks and des¬ 
olation, the cemetery of unnumbered millions 
who have sunk there, 
‘With bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, unconfined, and unknown.’ 
The beautiful lessons already deduced from its 
watery records will sufficiently indicate the sad 
mistake of such careless loiterers by the sea¬ 
side, and the additional pages of its life-history 
which are now about to be turned will probably 
make our ocean-study still more impressive. 
“The grand life-mysteries of the deep are, 
indeed, as yet only partially developed, but 
enough have been yielded up to earnest search¬ 
ers after its secrets to excite our wonder and de¬ 
light. Begin where we may, and whether it 
