Islands with its ring of coral reef all around its shore, should begin to sink slowly under the sea. The land, as it sank, would be gone out of sight for good and all; but the coral reef around it would not sink, because the coral polyps would build up and up continually until they reached the surface of the water. And when the island had sunk completely beneath the surface of the sea what would be left ? What could be left but a ring of coral reef around the spot where the last mountain peak sank under the water?"

It is easy to understand this when we know that the bottom of the Pacific Ocean has been very gradually changing through many centuries. Geologists tell us that there was once a great continent in this ocean joined perhaps to Australia, while now nothing is left but coral reefs to mark the mountain peaks of that sunken world.

And in other parts of the world, land which was once covered by the sea has been lifted up above the surface of the water by the power of volcanoes and earthquakes. In many places we find wide sheets of limestone, even mountain ranges of coral formation which were once at the bottom of the sea.

Everywhere

"Great and marvelous are His works." they show forth the wisdom and power and goodness of God, teaching us on land and sea, on the mountain top and far down in the depth of the ocean where precious jewels are hidden, that nothing is impossible with Him and that His love is infinite.

ALICE REBECCA HARVEY

F

OR the sea is His and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land."

"Wonderful are the surges of the sea; wonderful is the Lord on high."

"For in His hands are all the ends of the

earth; and the heights of the mountains are His.”

Whatever the Lord pleased He hath done, in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps. He bringeth up clouds from the end of the earth: He hath made lightnings for the rain. He bringeth forth winds out of His stores."

66

'In the beginning, O Lord, Thou foundedst the earth; and the heavens are the works of Thy hands."

Thine are the heavens and Thine is the earth; the world and the fullness thereof Thou hast founded."

"Thou rulest the power of the sea: and appeasest the motion of the waves thereof."

"The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of His hands. Day to day uttereth speech, and night to night showeth knowledge."

"He loveth mercy and judgment; the earth is full of the mercy of the Lord."

THE CORAL GROVE

EEP in the wave is a coral grove,

DEEP

Where the purple mullet and the goldfish rove,

Where the sea flower spreads its leaves of blue

That never are wet with falling dew,

But in bright and changeful beauty shine
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand like the mountain drift,
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea plants lift

Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow.
The water is calm and still below,

For the waves and winds are absent there;

And the sands are as bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with a light and easy motion,

The fan coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea;

And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea.

And life in rare and beautiful forms

Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

OCTOBER

IT is no joy to me to sit

On dreamy summer eves,

When silently the timid moon

Kisses the sleeping leaves,

And all things through the fair hush'd earth

Love, rest but nothing grieves.

Better I like old Autumn,

With his hair toss'd to and fro,

Firm striding o'er the stubble fields
When the equinoctials blow.

When shrinkingly the sun creeps up
Through misty mornings cold,
And Robin on the orchard hedge
Sings cheerily and bold,

While heavily the frosted plum

Drops downward on the mold;
And, as he passes, Autumn

Into earth's lap does throw

Brown apples gay in a game of play, .

As the equinoctials blow.

When the spent year its carol sinks

Into a humble psalm,

Asks no more for the pleasure draught,

But for the cup of balm;

And all its storms and sunshine-bursts

Controls to one brave calm

Then step by step walks Autumn,

With steady eyes that show

Nor grief nor fear, to the death of the year,

While the equinoctials blow.

DINAH MULOCK CRAIK

WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height and lording it over the surrounding country.

Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives far and near as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the evening sky. But sometimes when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapor about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a cloud of glory.