I do confess thou art divine, and in thy mighty, lonely path, thou hast announced thy beauty. By thy shores thou tenderest thy fashion for the infant's joyance, whilst thy tiny children play in fringed beauty and crested glory. In thy bosom thou hidest the bold mariner, the smile of love, the beam lit up for home, the gold of Ophir and the chains of slaves, the task-master and the weary, the frantic, the timid, and the bold,—all lie in thy humid bowels,—on thy moist dank pillow Death triumphs, where fretted pinnacle and coral reef form the dull sepulchre; whilst all the trance of time shall pass and deafening waves roll on. There on the couch with Death some lie, in mournful beauty clad, so blanch, so still, so full of peace, until the resurrection comes, and the command goes forth: for thou, even thou, mighty spirit of beauty, thou sea, grand and august as thy being has been, must yield and give up all thy treasure. How awful and how beautiful this magnificent array! hark, the mighty spirits rush forth from the tomb of waters, so long pent; here is beauty,—see, they break the gate of Death, and immortality put on! this is beauty! This is one of its apparitions, this also is God! He, the ever mighty one, "moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform;" his paths to take, his declarations, his denunciations, and renunciations to make; his threats, his promises to avow, and still behind a threatening cloud, his beauty clad in mercy is oft to be discerned. Again, in the morning of our days, when the feelings are young, then no listlessness arises, none of the best and tenderest; the most acute and sensitive of our feelings have been seared. Then we look upon treasures of nature, the pallid moon, the glittering stars, and perceive a vision of the beautiful in splendour and grandeur, living and burning on the very lines of beauty. How soothing is this presence to the mind of the virtuous and noble! what holy com-
