The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-10-13

Easier and easier shall the profounds
Of the ocean become to us, and more
and more its opulence of color and
plant unrol, especially as "Villeroy's
Submarine Boat" has been construct
ed, making it possible to navigate
under the sea almost as well as on
the surface of the sea, and unless
God in His mercy banishes war
from the earth whole fleets of armed
ships will yet far down under the
water move on to blow up the argosies
that float the surface. May such SUBJ
marine ships be used for laying open
the wonders of Gods workings in the
great deep and never for human devas-
tation! Oh, the marvels of the water
world These so-called seaweeds are
the pasture fields and the forage of the
innumerable animals of the deep. Not
one species of them can be spared from
the economy of nature. Valleys and
mountains and plants miles underneath
the waves are all covered with fora
and fauna. Sunken Alps and Apen-
mines and Himalayas of Atlantic and
Pacific oceans. A continent that once
connected Europe and America, so that
in the ages past men came on foot
across from where England is to where
we now stand, all sunken, and now
covered with growths of the sea. as it
once was covered with growths of
the land. England and Ireland
once all one piece of land, but now
much of it is so far sunkep as
to make a channel, and Ireland has be-
come an island. The islands. for the
most part, are only the foreheads of
sunken continents. The sea conquer
ing the land all along the coasts and
crumbling the hemispheres, wider and
wider become the sub-aqueous dOmin-
ions. Thank God tLat skilled hydro
graphers 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-worlds. Thank
God that the great Virginian, Lieut..
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 divinely-pictured
leaves of the ocean. Why confine our
selves to the old and hackneyed illus
trations of the woodworking of God,
when there are at least five great seas
full Of illustrations as yet not mar
shaled, every root and frond and cell
and color and movement and habit of
oceanic vegetation crying out: God!
God! He made us. He clothed u.s. He
us. He was the God of our
clear back to the first sea-
growth, when God divided the waters
which were above the armament from
the waters which were under the firm
ament, and shall be the God of our
clear down to the day
when the sea shall give up its dead"
There is great comfort that rolls
over upon us from this study of the So
called sea-weed, and that is the demon
strated doctrine of a particular provi-
dence. When find that the Lord pro-
vides in the so-called sea-weed the pas
turage for the thronged marine world,
so that not fin or scale in all that
oceanic aquarium suffers need, con-
clude he will feed us, and if he suits
the Alge to the animal life of the deep,
he will provide the food for our physi-
cal and spiritual needs. And if he
clothes the flowers of the deep with
of robe that looks bright as
fallen rainbows by day, and at night
makes the under world look as though
the sea were on fire, surely he will
clothe YOU, 'Oh, We of little faith. And
what fills me with unspeakable
delight 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
What matters who in
earth or hell is against us, if He is for
US? Omnipotence to defend us, omni-
presence 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 sea-weed as the out
of n Lebanon CEDAR and
with the color of a vegetable 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 admira-
ton and holy appreciation more of the
of this submarine world.
My joy is that after we are quit of
all earthly hindrance we may come
back to this world and explore what
we cannot now fully investigate. If
we shall have power to soar into the
we shall have power to dive into the
aqueous without peril. and that the
pictured and tessellated sea-fioor will
be as accessible as now is to the travel
pr the floor of the Alhambra, and all
the gardens of the deep will then swing
open to US their gates as now to tour
ist Chatsworth opens on public days
its cascades and statuary and observa-
tories for our entrance. 1T doth not
yet appear what shall be-" You can
not make me believe that God hath
spread out all that garniture of the
deep merely Cor the polyps and crusta-
cea to look at
And if the unintelligent creatures Of
the Mediterranean and the Atlantic
ocean He surrounds with such beauti-
full grasses of the deep what heaven
we may expect for our uplifted and
souls when we are I'M
chained of the flesh and rise to realms
beatific. OF the fora of that 'sea of
glass mingled with fire" 1 have no
power to speak, but l 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
ne supposed to be weeds wrapped