breathe it into our lungs. More and more wonders, you see, as we go on!

But where does all the rain water and spring water come from? From the
clouds. And where do the clouds come from? From the _Sea_. The sea
water is drawn up by the sun's heat, evaporated, as we call it, into the
air, and makes mist, and that mist grows together into clouds. And these
clouds empty their blessed life-giving treasures on the land--to feed
man, and beast, and herb.

But what is it which governs these clouds, and makes them do their
appointed work? The Psalmist tells us, "At Thy rebuke they flee; at the
voice of Thy thunder they are afraid." He gives the same account of it
which wise men now-a-days give. It is God, he says, and the Providence
of God, which raises the clouds, and makes them water the earth. And the
means which He employs is thunder. Now this is strictly true. We all
know that thunder gathers the clouds together, and brings rain: but we do
not all know that the power which makes the thunder, which we call
electricity, is working all around us everywhere. It is only when it
bursts out, in flame and noise, which we call lightning and thunder, that
we perceive it--but it is still there, this wonderful thing called
electricity, for ever at work--giving the clouds their shape, making them
fly with vast weights of water through the sky, and then making them pour
down that water in rain.

But there is another deep meaning in those words of the Psalmist's about
thunder. He tells us that at the voice of God's thunder the waters are
afraid--that He has set them their bounds which they shall not pass, nor
turn again to cover the earth. And it is true. Also that it is this
same thunder power which makes dry land--for there is thunder beneath us,
and lightning too, in the bowels of the earth. Those who live near
burning mountains know this well. They see not only flames, but _real_
lightning, _real_ thunder playing about the burning mouths of the fiery
mountains--they hear the roaring, the thundering of the fire-kingdom
miles beneath their feet, under the solid crust of the earth. And they
see, too, whole hills, ay, whole counties, sometimes, heaved up many feet
in a single night, by this thunder under ground--and islands thrown up in
the midst of the sea--so that where there was once deep water is now dry
land.

Now, in this very way, strange as it may seem, almost all dry land is
made. This whole country of E