"Yes; water has always held an important place among nations. Cicero tells us that Thales the Milesian asserted God formed all things from water--Out in Utah, Chester," said the father, turning abruptly to the young man, "you have an illustration of what water can do in the way of making the desert to blossom." "Yes; it is truly wonderful, what it has done out there," agreed Chester. Then being urged by both his father and Lucy, he told of the West and its development. He was adroitly led to talk of Piney Ridge Cottage and the people who lived there, their home and community life, their trials, their hopes, their ideals. Ere he was aware, Chester was again in the canyons, and crags and mountain peaks, whose wildness was akin to the wildness of the ocean. Then when his story was told, Lucy said: "I know where I could get well." "Where?" asked Chester. "At Piney Ridge Cottage." Chester neither agreed nor denied. Just then a steamer came into sight, eastward bound. It proved to be an "ocean grayhound," and Captain Brown coming up, let them look at it through his glass. "She's going some," remarked the captain; "but I'll warrant the passengers are not riding as easy as we." "Somehow," said the father, "a passing steamer always brings to me profound thoughts. Now, there, for example, is a spot on the vast expanse of water. It is but a speck, yet within it is a little world, teeming with life. The ship comes into our view, then passes away. Again, the ship is just a part of a great machine--I use this figure for want of a better one. Every individual on the ship bears a certain relationship to the vessel; the steamer is a part of this world; this world is a cog in the machinery of the solar system; the solar system is but a small group of worlds, which is a part of and depends on, something as much vaster as the world is to this ship. This men call the Universe; but all questions of what or where or when pertaining to this universe are unanswerable. We are lost--we know nothing about it--it is beyond our finite minds." Captain Brown stood listening to this exposition. His eyes were on the speaker, then on the passing steamer, then on the speaker again. "Mr. Strong," said he, "at the last church service I attended in Liverpool, the minister was trying to explain what God is,--and just that which you have said is beyond us, that vast, unknown, unknowable something he called God." "Oh," exclaimed Lucy, involuntarily. "I'll admit the definition is not very plain," continued the captain. "We get no sense of nearness from it. I would not know how to pray to or worship such a God; but what are we to do? I have never heard anything more satisfactory, except--well, only when I read my Bible." "Why not take the plain statement of the Bible, then?" suggested Chester.