I have sometimes thought that the sight of "water, water everywhere," during a voyage of three months, must make one more ready to believe what we are told by those who have done what they can in the way of weighing and measuring--that upon our globe "water is the rule, and dry land the exception"; and also that, although we read in geography books about the five great oceans, yet the ocean is really one, for it "embraces the whole earth with an uninterrupted wave." As we think of this wonderful wave which thus girdles the earth about, constantly breaking against the shore, yet always flowing back again, at its appointed time, into its own place, we may well remember that THIRD DAY of Creation, when "God spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast"; when "He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment." In a Psalm which has been called the "Psalm of Creation," because it speaks of the greatness and glory of God, and of how the Lord shall rejoice in His works, we find a description of what happened at this time. There is a beautiful verse which speaks of God covering the earth "with the deep as with a garment"; and of a time when it was so covered and hidden that "the waters stood above the mountains." [Illustration: "WHEN SPRING-TIDES ARE LOW"] And then we read how, at God's word, that waste of waters went into the place prepared for it, and the dry land appeared. "At Thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of Thy thunder they hasted away. The mountains ascend, the valleys descend, unto the place which Thou hast founded for them" (you will find the verse reads like this in the margin of your Bible). "Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth" (Psalm civ. 7-9). I was very young when I learnt this long Psalm; and though I understood very little of it, and certainly did not know that these verses spoke about what we have been reading of in the Book of Genesis, I was very fond of repeating it, and I especially liked the part which describes the "great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom Thou hast made to play therein." Of course I need not tell you that I did not know what the leviathan was; but I liked the name because it was such a long, difficult word, and I have known other children who were particularly fond of strange and hard names. As we grow older we learn many things; and so--for I told you my home was by the sea--I got, in time, to know the meaning of a very difficult verse; that one which speaks of the "bound" which God has set, beyond which the sea with its proud waves "may not pass." When the tide was coming in I used to watch the long blue waves with their foamy crests coming nearer and nearer, and when I heard them break with a loud noise against the strong rocks I was quite sure that