others are to be seen which burned formerly, and are extinct, or almost extinct, in our day. In 1707, about 500 miles only from this place, an island five miles in circumference and forty feet high above the waves, was seen to rise out of the sea near the island of Santorin. So, too, the island of Sabrino, among the Azores. Then, too, in Mexico, the 29th September 1755, the hill of Jorullo, covering a surface of four square miles, was seen by all the inhabitants rising with a terrific noise of subterranean fires, in the form of a dome or bladder, to a height of 1670 feet, which it still preserves at this day. Flames issued from the earth over a space of several miles about the new hill, and the surface of the plain rose and sunk like a troubled sea. In this manner hundreds and thousands of coral islands have evidently risen from the bottom of the sea, since their coral rocks and mountains have been formed under its surface, as the innumerable animals which constructed them perish when they are out of the water. The coasts of Sweden have been recently raised several feet above the sea, as also those of Chili. You see, then, the crust of our earth bears traces everywhere of the workings of the fire which it covers. And when M. de Saussure reached the top of the highest mountain in Europe, the summit of Mont Blanc, he remarked with astonishment, on looking at the whole of the grandeurs by which he was surrounded, that they were clustered about Mont Blanc as the leaves at the bottom of an artichoke are around its heart. And more lately geologists have discovered, that almost all our great granite hills are more recent than the others, and that, forced aloft by the interior fire piercing and elevating the more ancient mountains, and pushing them away all around, they have swollen up like giants, and raised themselves into the heights of the clouds, having been shot up from beneath by the power of fire. It is also remarked over the whole earth, when the stratified mountains and rocks are pierced and studied, that they are often split, and that their clefts have been filled up either with melted granite, or lavas, or metals of gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, tin, or lead, which, springing up from beneath, have filled these cavities and there have cooled. Well, my dear children, I hope that you have understood these first two prodigies of the third day-the dry land appearing above the waters, and also the waters heaping themselves together, in the places which had been prepared for them by God, and forming on the globe the wonderful collection of seas. But what a wonder that sea is ! I would like to have time to tell you of its extent, of its tides, of its upper and under currents, which make it almost an organic and living being, of its immense depths, which in some parts of the Southern Atlantic and of the Pacific (if we may believe the different soundings of the officers of the American marine), go down 40,000 or 50,000 feet, three times the height of Mont Blanc. I should like you, above all, to observe its great usefulness or rather its necessity for the life of our globe. For you must not imagine that the respective extent of the dry land and of the sea on our globe is the result of chance. God has made all in order and in due measure. Our earth would perish if the seas were taken away or even diminished; their waters, which are raised into the air, are indispensable for supplying our rivers and fertilizing our fields. And that same earth would be flooded by rains and quite uninhabitable if the seas of our globe were more abundant. Besides, as the illustrious Fénélon says: "These vast seas which seem placed so as to form an eternal barrier between different lands, are, on the contrary, the highway of all the nations, who could not otherwise travel from one end of the world to the other without incredible dangers and fatigues. It is by this boundless path over the deep that the old world reaches its hand to the new, and that the new gives to the old so many commodities and riches." But I must, in conclusion, speak of the third and most astonishing of the prodigies of the third day. Look at those plants which cover the earth to the number of 60,000 species, as M. de Candolle has calculated. This is not a mere transformation, it is a creation, it is a miracle, it is 60,000 miracles. A chemist can make rocks and even diamonds with silex, chalk, and charcoal; but is there any chemist who can make a tree, a bush, a moss, a living plant? Look at these plants, these flowers, these trees, these fruits, and all the mysterious riches of vegetation. O what a mass of miracles! but the miracle of miracles is that they bear seed. A watch, the most admirable work of man, is still far inferior to the smallest plant and to all its organism which must be seen with the microscope. But, then, what would you say of a watch which should produce watches, which in their turn should produce other watches, from generation to generation to the end of time? O the power of God! O the wisdom of God! O the riches and faithfulness of God! "And God said, Let the earth bring forth its plants: and the earth brought forth its plants. the evening and the morning were the third day." And Let us adore God in all his works; let us repose on his faithfulness. You will repeat next Lord's day, from the 11th to the 13th verse. LESSON VII. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day."-GEN. i. 11-13. LAST Lord's day we had to interrupt our history of the creation at the moment of the most brilliant work of the third day, I mean the appearance of the miraculous tribes of plants on the earth. That is the subject which will first of all occupy us before we pass to the work of the fourth day, in which God concentrated the light about the sun and the stars, to separate night from day, and to measure time. May God give us hearts to study these glorious works with devout attention! I begin with the first verse which we have for to-day. God said, Let the earth bring forth grass." "And Observe well, I beg of you, these words, "And God said." Do not go and think with some so-called philosophers, that all these wondrous works which are spread with such glory before our eyes, are made solely and by the simple action of the laws of nature once constituted. Do not suppose that the light, atmosphere, plants, fishes, birds, reptiles, and last of all man himself have sprung quite naturally from the earth or from the waters, just as smoke rises to the sky, as a stone falls to the bottom of the water, as a bird comes out of the egg, by the simple working of the elements, and by the simple force of rules established at the beginning of the world. No; GOD SAID ;-that is the true cause of all things. All these changes, all these new creations are accomplished by the omnipotence of His word. God says, and the thing has its being; "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." "God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the earth brought forth grass." Ah! dear children, be ever mindful of the omnipotence of the Word of God, when you read the Bible and when you pray. Repeat to yourselves always that that Word is powerful—all powerful. Yes, let it be so for my soul, O my God, that this soul so diseased and so weak may be truly converted and saved. O Lord Jesus! I would say to thee, as did the centurion in the gospel history: "Lord Jesus, speak the word only, and thy servant shall be healed!" O Lord, I long to be a true Christian; I long to love thee, to follow thee, not to offend against thee any more! O Lord, "speak the word only," command only that I be so, and I shall be so; say, Let the earth bring forth her fruit, and the earth will bring it forth. But I proceed "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth and it was so. And God saw that it was good." "That it was good," that is to say, that it was adequate and glorious, perfect in beauty, perfect in richness, perfect in fruitfulness, perfect in durability, perfect in variety and in immensity. Plants and trees which live, trees which have their seed in themselves, that they may live again from generation to generation, from century to century till the end of the worldhave you thought enough about that? For it was then that Have you thought on what life is ? life appeared for the first time on earth. the tempest, have no life; the sea, the dry land, the mountains, the valleys, the volcanoes, and their flowing lavas, have no life. A gas has no life. But a tree, a plant, has life, although it has not thought. Indeed, look at that plant which |