e to pray for fair and seasonable weather; we
may dare to pray against blight and tempest--humbly, because we know not
what is altogether good for us,--but boldly and freely, because we know
that there is a living, loving God, governing the weather, who does know
what is good for us; who has given us His only begotten Son, and will
with Him also give us all things.

And so ends my first sermon on the 104th Psalm.

XXI. WONDERS OF THE SEA; OR DAILY MIRACLES.

"Thou coverest the earth with the deep sea as with a garment."--PSALM
civ. 6.

When we look at a map of the world, one of the first things that strikes
us as curious is, how little dry land there is, and how much sea. More
than half the world covered with deep, wild, raging, waste salt water! It
seems very strange. Of what use to man can all that sea be? And yet the
Scripture says that the whole earth has God given to the children of men.
And therefore He has given to us the sea which is part of the earth. But
of what use is the sea to us?

We are ready to say at first sight, "How much better if the world had
been all dry land? There would have been so much more space for men to
spread on--so much more land to grow corn on. What is the use of all
that sea?" But when we look into the matter, we shall find, that every
word of God stands true, in every jot and tittle of it--that we ought to
thank God for the sea as much as for the land--that David spoke truly
when he said, in this Psalm civ., that the great and wide sea also is
full of God's riches.

For in the first place--What should we do without water? Not only to
drink, but to feed all trees, and crops which grow. Those who live in a
dry parish know well the need of water for the crops. In fact, strange
as it may seem, out of water is made wood. You know, perhaps, that
plants are made out of the salts in the soil--but not only out of
salts--they are made also out of water. Every leaf and flower is made up
only of those two things--salts from the soil, and water from the sky.
Most wonderful! But so it is. Water is made up of several very
different things. The leaves and flowers, when they drink up water, keep
certain parts of water, and turn them into wood; and the part of the
water which _they_ do not want, is just the part which _we_ do want,
namely, fresh air, for water is full of fresh air. And therefore the
plants breathe out the fresh air through their leaves, that we may