THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
57 
out, and yet have material enough to cover a 
multitude more of vaster proportions than any 
yet erected by the combined skill of the nations. 
There is no more astonishing result of living 
agencies than that which is furnished by the 
coral formations of the ocean; and what a clear 
and forcible illustration it gives of the assertion 
of the divine word, that ‘ God hath chosen the 
weak things of the world to confound the things 
which are mighty’! There are no monuments 
of persevering labor that can compare in skill 
and extent with the coral formations of the sea. 
They dam up its sweeping tides, fill the ocean 
with islands, and even continents, and re-map 
the surface of the globe. It is as though the 
hand of Jehovah were erecting new ‘ bars and 
doors,’ in order to show his omnipotence to 
the puny nations who have dared to boast of 
the insignificant ocean-barriers which they have 
succeeded in constructing. When, however, we 
search for the mighty hand that so easily does all 
this, we behold only a little insignificant worm, 
in substance little more than an animated clot 
of jelly. In itself how weak, how minute ! but 
when its generations are considered, how past 
comprehension I and their industry how unsur- 
u 
