Yet
this same amount of summer heat will make scarcely any perceptible
difference in the waters of the ocean. Then again, in winter, a few days
severe frost will make the solid earth, and especially the stones and
metals, so cold, that they would blister a delicate skin, if pressed
against them; while they make scarcely any perceptible difference upon
the waters of the ocean. The ocean sits on its low throne like the
monarch of this lower world, controlling the elements, tempering the
heat and the cold, and thus preserving the earth and its living
inhabitants from harm.
Wesley tells us farther, that before the sin of Adam, "The air was
always serene and always friendly to man." Now the air is still always
_friendly to man_. Even when it comes in the form of hurricanes and
tempests, it is so. It is doing work, even then, _good work_, which
gentle breezes are _unable_ to do. It is carrying away dangers which
gentler currents of air would not have the power to carry away. And even
when they cause destruction in their course, they are still performing
friendly offices to man. They are inspiring him with a livelier
consciousness of his absolute dependence upon God, and of the folly of
resisting His will. They are exercising his intellectual powers, by
leading him to devise means for his protection from their fury, and
obliging him also to exert his bodily powers in carrying out the devices
of his intellect.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111