The Penn's Grove record., 1893-10-06
PENIS GROVE, N. j. FRIDAY. OUTOBER 6. ls9

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~drographers have made US maps and charts
OF the rivers and lakes and seas and shown
US something of the work OF the eternal God
IN the water world.
Thank God that the great Vlrginian. Lieu
tenant Maury, lived to give US '"The Physical
Geography Of the Sea-" and that men OF
genius have gone forth TO study the so-called
weeds that wrapped about Jonah's head and
have found them to be coronals OF beauty,
and when the tide receded these scientists
have waded down and picked up divlnely
pictured leaves ofthe ocean, the naturalists,
Pike and Hooper and Walters, gathering
them from the beach of Long Island Sound,
and DR.. Blodgett preserving them from the
shores OF Key West, and Professors Emerson
and Gray finding them along Boston harbor,
and Professor Gibbs gathering them from
Charleston harbor, and for all the other
triumphs of algology, or the science of sea-
veal.
Why confine ourselves to the old and hack
neyed illustrations of the wonder workings
Of God, when there are at least five great
seas full OF illustrations as yet not m~arshaled,
every root n frond and cell and color and
movement and habit OF oceanic vegetation
crying out "God God! He made US. He
clothed US. He adorned us, He was the
God Of our ancestors clear back to the first
sea growth, when God divided the waters
which were above the armament from the
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shall be the God Of our descendants clear
down to the day when the sea shall give up
its dead. We have heard His command, and
we have obeyed, Praise the Lord, dragons
and all deeps."
There is a great comfort that rolls over
upon us from this study of the so-called sea-
weed, n that Is the demonstrated doctrine
Of a particular providence. When 1 find
that the Lord provides in the so-called sea-
weed the pasturage for the thronged marine
world. so that not a fin or scale In all that
oceanic aquarium suffers need, 1 conclude He
will feed US, and II He suits the alga to the
animal life Of the deep He will provide the
food for our physical and spiritual needs.
And If He clothes the flowers of the deep
with richness of robe that looks bright as
fallen rainbows by day, and at night makes
the underworld look as though the sea were
on fire, surely He will clothe you, so ye Of
title faith !"
And what fills me with unspeakable de
ight Is that this God of depths and heights,
Of ocean and Of continent, may, through
Jesus Christ, the divinely appointed means,
be yours and mine, TO help, to cheer, to
pardon, to save, to tmparadise. What
matters who In earth or hell is against us II
He IS for US? O~mnipotence to defend us,
omnipresence to companion us and infinite
love to enfold and uplift and enrapture us.
And when God does small things so well,
seemingly taking as much care with the coil
of a seaweed as the outbranching of q
Lebanon cedar, and with the color OF a veg
etable growth which Is hidden fathoms out
OF sight as He does with the solferino and
purple of a summer sunset, we will be deter
mined to do well all we are called to do,
though no one see or appreciate US. Mighty
God! Roll In upon our admiration and holy
appreciation more of the wonders of this
submarine world. My joy is that after we
are quit Of all earthly hindrances We may
some back to this world and explore what
we cannot now fully investigate.
If we shall have power to soar into the at
mospherio without fatigue l think we shall
have power to dive into the aqueous without
peril. and that the pictured and tessellated
sea floor will be as accessible as now is o
traveller the floor of the Alhambra, and all
the gardens Of the deep will then swing
open to US their gates as now to the tourist
Chatsworth opens on public days Its cascades
and statuary and Conservatives for our en-
trance. sit doth not yet appear what we
shall be-" You cannot make me believe that
God hath spread out all that garniture OF
the deep merely for the polyps and crustacei
o look at.
And If the unintelligent creatures Of the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic ocean He sur
| rounds with such beautiful grasses OF the
deep, what a heaven We may expect for our
uplifted and ransomed souls when we are
unclaimed Of the flesh and rise to realms
beatifcl OF the fora of that ''sea of glass
| mingled with fire." / have no power to speak,
but I shall always be glad that, when the
prophet of the text, flung over the gunwales
Of the Mediterranean ship, descended into
the boiling sea, that which he supposed to be
weeds wrapped about his head were no
weeds, but flowers.
And am I not right in this glance at the
! botany of the Bible in adding to Luke's mint,
antse and cumin, ard Matthew's tares, and
Johns vine, and Solomon's cluster of cam
phire, and Jeremiah's balm, and Jobs bull
rush, and Isaiah's terebinth. and Hosea's
thistle, and Ezekiel's cedar, and ''the hyssop
that ~springeth out of the wall" and the
''rose OF Sharon and lily of the valley and
| the f~rankincense and myrrh and cassie
which the astrologers brought to the man.
rer at least one stalk Of the aiaga OF thu
Mediterranean.
And now I make the marine doxology Of
David my peroration, for it was written
| about forty or fifty miles from the place
| where the scene of the text was enacted
1.-THE sea is His, and He made 1t, and His
hands formed the dry land. Oh, come, let
US worship and bow down LET us kneel be-
fore the Lord, our Maker. For He is our
God, and we are the people Of His pasture
Amen.