and strict prohibition, nay, though all the forces of his kingdom oppose, it will never discontinue the advanc ing swell till it has reached the destined point. So may I always abound in communion with God, or in beneficence to men; resigning one religious or charitable employ only to enter upon another, and be thus pressing forward, still pressing forward, to the prize of my high calling in Christ Jesus: differing from those regular vicissitudes of the ocean only in one particular; that my endeavours never ebb, my soul never draws back: since this would be, if temporary, to my griev ous loss; if final, to my aggravated perdition. Consider the sea in another capacity, and it connects the remotest realms of the universe, by facilitating an intercourse between their respective inhabitants. What short-sighted beings are mankind! how extremely superficial their views! how unavoidable, therefore, their frequent mistakes. The ancients looked upon this bottomless deep as an unpassable gulf. If our forefathers were so egregiously mistaken in this instance, let not us too peremptorily pronounce upon any difficult or mysterious point; lest succeeding generations, or a more enlightened state, should cover us Regum timendorum in proprios greges, Some of his abject and designing flatterers had the impious assurance to tell him, his power was more than human. To con vince them of their folly, and rebuke them for their falsehood, he ordered his chair of state to be placed on the extremity of the shore, just as the tide began to flow. Here he took his seat in the presence of the parasites, and many other attendants: then, with all that dignity of air and severity of accent which sovereign authority knows how to assume, he said; Thou sea, the land on which I sit is mine; nor has any one dared to invade my rights, or disobey my commands, without suffering the deserved punishment. I charge thee, therefore, on pain of my highest displeasure, not to enter these territories, nor touch the feet of England's monarch." When the rude waves made bold to enter on the forbidden ground, nay, when those uncourtly things presumed to rush upon the royal seat, and even to dash his majesty's person, he started from his throne, and bid every beholder observe the impotence of earthly kings; bid them remember, that He alone is worthy of the name whom winds and waves and universal nature obey. with the double confusion of childish ignorance and foolish conceit. We have clearly 'demonstrated, and happily experienced, the very reverse of that gray-headed surmise to be true. The ocean, instead of being a bar of sepa. ration, is the great bond of union: for this purpose it is never exhausted, though it supplies the whole firmament with clouds, and the whole earth with rains; nor ever overflows, though all the rivers in the universe are perpetually augmenting its stores, and pouring in their tributary floods. By means of this element, we travel farther than birds of the strongest pinion fly, and discover tracts which the 'vulture's eye has never seen; we make a visit to nations that lie drowned in their midnight slumbers, when every industrious person on this part of the globe is bestirring himself in all the hurry of business; we cultivate an acquaintance with the sun-burnt negro and the shivering Icelander; we cross the flaming line, we penetrate the frozen pole, and wing our way even round the world. This is the great vehicle of commerce. Not to mention the floating castles, which contain whole armies, which bear the thunder, the fiery tempests, and all the dreadful artillery of war, what a multitude of ships of the largest dimensions and most prodigious burden are. continually passing and repassing this universal tho roughfare! Ships that are freighted, not with sacks, but with harvests of corn; that carry not pipes, but vintages of wine; that are laden, not with bars of iron, blocks of marble, or wedges of gold, but with whole quarries of massy stone, and whole mines of ponderous metal all which, lodged in these volatile storehouses, and actuated by the breath of heaven, are wafted to the very ends of the earth; wafted, enormous and unwieldy as they are, more expeditiously than the light berlin bowls along the road, almost as speedily as the nimble. footed roe bounds over the hills. + Job. xxviii. 7. A ship, under a brisk and steady gale, will sail at the rate of two hundred and sixteen miles in twenty-four hours, persevering, if the wind continues favourable, in the same rapid career for several days together; a course which, considering both its swiftness and duration, cannot be equalled by the ablest horse, perhaps not by the nimblest creature that treads the ground. Astonishing ordination of eternal Wisdom! yet most graciously contrived for the benefit of mankind. I can hardly satisfy my view in beholding this rolling chaos; I can never cease my admiration in contemplating its amazing properties. That an element, so unstable and fugitive, should bear up such an immense weight as would bend the firmest floors or burst the strongest beams! That the thin and yielding air should drive on with so much facility and speed, bodies of such excessive bulk as the strength of a legion would be unable to That the air and the water, acting in conjunction, should carry to the distance of many thousand miles, what the united force of men and machines could scarcely drag a single yard. Puny and despicable are our attempts; but great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! If thou wilt work,' says the prophet, who,' or what, shall let it ? Neither the meanness of the instrument nor the greatness of the event. A sling and a stone shall lay the gigantic bravo in the dust;+ an ox-goad shall do more execution than a battery of cannon: even a worm shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and make the hills as chaff.'s God All-sufficient is his name, and out of weakness he maketh his strength perfect. O that we, my dear Aspasio, that I especially, may be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might! then, as the light air is made to act with a more forcible impulse than the most vigorous engines, as the fluid water is made to sustain more ponderous loads than the most substantial works of masonry, so we, who in ourselves are nothing but impotence, shall be enabled to triumph over the legions of hell, and tread down all the temptations of the world. How are the mariners conducted through this fluid common, than which nothing is more wide and nothing more wild? Here is no track to be followed, no posts of direction to be consulted; nor any shepherd's hut, where the wandering traveller may ask his way. Are they guided by a pillar of fire in the night, or a moveable cloud in the day, as the sons of Jacob and Joseph Isa. xliii. 13. t Judg. ii. 31. +1 Sam. xvii. 50. were escorted through the eastern deserts. No, but by a mean, contemptible, and otherwise worthless fossil. The apostle James mentions it as a very observable fact, that the ships, which are so great, and driven of fierce winds, yet are turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.' Is it not equally wonderful that they should be led through such a pathless and unmeasurable waste, by so small an expedient as the intervention of the loadstone + Till this surprising mineral was discovered, and its properties were improved, navigation lay in its cradle; was at best a mere infant, that crept timorously along the coasts, was obliged to keep within sight of the shores, and, if driven out beyond the narrow sphere of her landmarks, could neither ascertain her situation nor pursue her voyage. But this guide, when every beacon on the top of the hills is vanished from the acutest. ken, where nothing but skies are seen above and seas alone appear below, this guide points out the proper passage; this communicates an intelligence which shines clear in the thickest darkness, and remains steady in the most tempestuous agitations; this has given, not indeed birth, but maturity to navigation, and turned her swaddling bands into wings; this has emboldened her to launch into the heart of the ocean, and. enabled her to range from pole to pole. Thus does God, both in the operations of nature and the administration of providence, accomplish the most important ends by the most inconsiderable means. When the formidable Sisera is to be cut off, the blow shall be given, not by some puissant champion, but by the hand of a woman: when Jericho is to be demolished, those impregnable fortifications shall fall, not beneath the stroke of battering engines, but before the sound of rams' horns: when a hundred thousand Midianites are to be routed, the Lord of Hosts will gain this signal Jam. ill. 4. + I am aware that other expedients are used for shaping a proper course on the ocean, such as making observations from the sun by mathematical instruments; but these, I believe, are only subordinate aids to the needle: the grand regulator is the magnet. I have heard an experienced sailor declare, he would rather be without his quadrant than without his compass. § Josh. vi. 3. * Judg. iv. 9. victory, not by numerous legions completely armed, but by a handful of Israelites accoutered only with trumpets, lamps, and pitchers. Who would have thought that from the root of Jesse, a root out of a dry ground, should arise that great tree which stretches her boughs unto the sea, and her height unto the heavens, and her branches unto the ends of the earth!' That the despised Galilean and the carpenter's son should be the Saviour of the world, and the Heir of all things! nay, that a person humbled like the meanest slaves, and executed like the vilest of malefactors, nailed to a cross, and laid prostrate among the dead, that he should restore life and immortality to ruined sinners, should open the gates of grace and glory on lost man. kind? That a few illiterate creatures taken from the barge, the oar, and the net, should confute philosophers and convert kings, should overthrow the strong holds of idolatry, and plant Christianity on its ruins! This is a circumstance which, though a stumbling-block.to some people, has considerably strengthened my faith. It is perfectly agreeable to the Almighty's manner: it is (if I may so speak) the distinguishing turn of his hand, and the peculiar style of his works. Whence does he raise the charmingly beauteous flower? whence the magnificent myriads of the forest oaks? whence the boundless and inestimable stores of the harvest? from principles which bear not the least proportion to their effects. Besides, this most emphatically speaks the God it' shews the lighting down of his glorious arm ;+ and absolutely precludes all the pretensions of human arrogance or finite power: it appropriates the honour to that supreme Agent, before whom the easy and the arduous are both alike. All men that see it must confess, this hath God done." Through this channel are imported to our island the choice productions, and the peculiar treasures, of every nation under heaven; so that we can breakfast upon a dissolution of the American kernel,‡ and see the rich nutrimental liquor froth in our cups, without ever 1 Called the Cacoa, which affords the principal ingredient of chocolate, and grows on a small tree in America. |