Page:The Wild Goose.djvu/29

4.



Manifold are the impressions inspired by the vast deep, to those who look upon its restless, ever-changing surface. To some it is a source of terror, as, in its fury, it thunders and dashes—now back and sullen, anon white with the foam of rage—against the rock-bound shore. A thing of wonder and awe it is as its mountain billows sweep, with irresistible force, across its watery fields—away, column after column, tossing the strong ship from wave-top to wave-top, like a plaything of a child. To some indeed, it affords a veritable pleasure when, in its calmer moments, its placid face of green sparkles and ripples in the sun-light, and murmuring softly, it kisses the golden sand, or playfuly springs its laughing spray up into the face of the stern old gray rocks; or when calmer still it rests with its scarcely heaving bosom reflecting the heaven’s azure intensified. A thing of wonder, indeed, is the mighty ocean,—as varying as its surface are the impressions received by those who merely look upon its surface; but how much more wonderful it is to gaze down into its fathomless abysses where it presents a fair counterpart to the beauteous earth! What a contrast the stillness of its crystal depths presents to the heartless motion of its surface, fretted by the blustering winds.—Down where diver never dared, lie scenes fair beyond the picturings of the mind.—Mountains covered with impenetrable forests of marine trees, taller than the graceful palm, more knotted than the gnarled oak, where lurks the sea-monster for its prey; dells and fields of delicate sea-ferns and flowers, through which dart and play fish, like beams of green and gold, sapphire and silver light; mossy rocks, with sea-anemones set like beautiful gems; coral caves, where the mermaid decks her wavering tresses, with pearls that seem drops of light, and strings together with a thread of her golden hair shells of tint and glow richer and warmer than our fairest flowers. Holy, pure, calm, and beautiful, with its wondrous beauty and countless treasures, is the awful ocean down in its silent depths.

As with the ocean, so it is with our own ever-changing life, whether it appears to us dark and ruffled by the tempests of adversity, or calm and smiling in the soft winds of prosperity, down below the surface we must look to find depths, holy, pure, calm, and beautiful,—so also with our fellow-man: for below the surface of his troubled, passion-tossed life, if we look into the depths of heart and soul, we shall find things pure, bright, and beautiful—fresh with the impress of the creators hand—the contemplation of which will blot out the memory of all the crosses and roughnesses of superficial worldly life. Be it then our care ever to look below the surface, and we shall thus, in the words of the poet, find—