to the north-east coast, varies in width from two hundred yards to a mile, extends upwards of a thousand miles in length, and starts up on the exterior side with little inclination from a fathomless abyss-a mound raised by creatures of low organization, in comparison with which the pyramids of Egypt, the great wall of China, and the Plymouth Breakwater shrink into insignificance. But endless illustrations have we of the truth that in accomplishing the will of Providence, both irrational agents and sanctified intelligences "out of weakness" are "made strong," as the effect and evidence of a Divine fitness given for a Divine purpose. "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all."

A museum and a cemetry is the sea. It entombs and enshrines alike the canoe of the savage and the stately vessel of the merchant prince; the monuments of industry and the treasures of opulence; the cargoes of commerce and the artillery of war; the chains of the captive and the ensigns of the noble; the sword of the warrior and the gems which glowed upon the brow of beauty, all mingling in one common grave.

"What hidest thou in thy treasure caves and cells

Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main?
Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-colored shells,
Bright things which gleam unrecked of, and in vain ;
Yet more the depths have more-what wealth untold
Far down, and shining through their stillness lies !
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,

Won from ten thousand royal argosies."

HYMN FOR THE SEA-SHORE.

"From above us and from under,

From the ocean and the thunder,
Thou preludest to the wonder

Of the paradise to be!

For a moment we may guess Thee,
From Thy creatures that confess Thee,
When the morn and even bless Thee,
And Thy smile is on the sea.

"Then from something seen or heard,
Whether forests softly stirred,
Or the speaking of a word,

Or the singing of a bird,

Care and sorrow cease!

For a moment on the soul

Falls the rest that maketh whole
Falls the endless peace!

"Oh, the rest from earth's annoys !
Oh, the heaven! oh, the joys!
Such as priest or singing boys

Cannot sing or say.

;

There is no more pain and crying;
There is no more death or dying;

As for sorrow and for sighing,

They shall flee away."

REV. J. WHYTEHEAD.

CHAPTER V.

The Woodland Aisles.

OFTEN thank God that there are some few spots of forest scenery left in our land, as yet untouched by the hand of man, primeval wildernesses and 'forest glades, where untamed Nature can put forth some of those simple forms of beauty which yield such luxuriant harvests of suggestive thought. To sit in the shadow of the grey old wood, where the golden sunlight can but faintly fall, to listen to the roar of the waterfall, or the soft murmur of the babbling brooklet as it wends its way to the sea, beneath overhanging banks of rock and tangled brushwood, here and there eddying round some gigantic boulder stone brought from its native resting place, thousands of years ago by the waters of Noah's flood, or locked up in the fierce embrace of some gigantic iceberg for centuries before the creation of man, in the "Great Ice Age" of our globe.

What a rich harmony is produced by the combination of the various sounds which fall upon the ear, though the scene itself seems to fill the soul with a delicious sense of

sacred but unutterable repose. The deep bass of the waterfall, the quiet hum of insect life, the plaintive music

of the stream, the gentle rustling of the leaves, scarcely stirred by the sighing breeze, and the intermittent song of birds! The whole scene is resonant with the dreamy music of the wild! It is the ministry of the beautiful, waking within the heart a love of all things bright and fair.

It is the love of birds, and trees, and flowers,

Of wind and wave, whate'er their mood may be ;

In most serene or most tempestuous hours
They are as dear and beautiful to me.

It is the love of more than eye can see,

In evenings still and summerly, of streams,

And rocks, and rivulets, and the mystery

Of twilight, and the calm of moonlight beams,

And all those feelings, then, the world calls idle dreams.

It is the love of loneliness, to stand

Amid the wilderness or on the shore,

And there unfettered feel the heart expand,

In the fond want of something to adore,

Though we be loved and thought upon no more;
To hear each near and distant murmuring wave
Sighing as if our sorrows to deplore ;

And see them sinking in the sand they lave,

As if to show the heart how tranquil were the grave.

It is the love of reverie, among

The unfrequented woods, alone, alone,

Without a smile to mock us; where the tongue

Of man is mute, or seemeth not his own,

In high dilation with his spirit grown ;

To roam and meditate upon the wreck

Of passions, hopes, wrongs, disappointments, strewn
Along the paths we vainly strove to deck,

Heedless of every thorn that sprang to warn or check.

E

Woods and forests and thickly planted groves were held in high veneration by the Jews and other eastern nations, as well as by our own Druidic ancestors, and were too often polluted by the cruel rites of the ancient idolatry. They set up images on every hill, and under every green tree.

Calmet says that pilgrimages were made to the oaks of Mamre from the days of Abraham to those of Constantine. The first inhabitants of Tuscany dedicated their forests to their god Sylvanus, and it was in the shades of these forests that they assembled every year to celebrate his anniversary. The temples of the Japanese are in most cases built among forests. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers would seem to have made trees the object of religious worship, as we find Canute forbidding that form of idolatry.

The fanciful mythology of the ancient Greeks and other oriental nations peopled every wood and forest, field and glen, with creations of beauty and loveliness. Accustomed to view Nature only in her effects, ignorant of the remoter causes by which these were produced, her phenomena excited their imagination, or aroused their fears, till her every aspect had some special deity assigned to it. Oreades were the nymphs of the mountains; the Naiades, the nymphs of the rivers; Auræ, those of the air, and the Nereids of the sea. Dryads were attached to woods; Hamadryads to single trees, with which they were supposed to live and die.

An ancient Babylonian fable relates that Leucothoe, daughter of one of their kings, having sacrificed herself to one of her country's gods, was condemned by her