by sea-monsters, against which the knife which they carry is but a poor defence. They distinguish with clearness distant objects through the crystal element, and as soon as they perceive voracious fishes, they shake rapidly the foot of the rope, and in an instant are drawn up to their boat. I learned these particulars from a diver of the country, who complained sadly of his hard lot and of his small profits." * The uses of Sponge have been appreciated from very ancient times. We learn from Aristotle that it was used to line the brazen armour which his countrymen wore in battle. "The kind called Achilleum, fine in texture, and very thick and strong, they put under helmets and greaves, viz., between the armour and the skin, whereby blows are rendered less stunning." The same kind was employed, as with us, for cleansing purposes. Thus Homer says :-"Then with a sponge he drest + His face all over, necke and hands, and all his hairie breast."† And in the Odyssey, the seats and tables after the slaughter of the suitors are cleansed by "well-soaked sponges.' Martial also informs us, § that the tables after meals were carefully scoured with wet sponges; for the Greeks and Romans knew not the comfort of table-cloths, which the Nineveh marbles shew to have been familiar to the Asiatics. Another use was that of conveying liquids to the mouths of persons incapable, from exhaustion or other causes, of drinking; and the Christian remembers with interest that the last office rendered to the Lord Jesus in his humiliation, was the moistening of his lips by means of a sponge. || *Lettres sur la Grèce, 96. + Iliad, lib. xviii. Matt. xxvii. 48. Pliny alludes to the Sponge as one of the articles used by painters of his day it has been conjectured from this that water-colours were employed in ancient art, and the Sponge probably performed a similar office to that which it holds in the hands of a modern artist-washing out lights, &c. In modern surgery, the use of the Sponge is great. The flowing blood in operations is absorbed by it; acrid discharges from wounds and ulcers are thus imbibed; and dangerous hemorrhages are checked and sometimes arrested by its application. The sponge-tent, formerly much used for dilating sinuses and small openings, was made by dipping the sponge into melted wax, and then compressing it until it became cool, between iron plates.* The quality of bibacity in which the value of Sponge chiefly consists, is owing to the multitude of minute channels with which its whole substance is perforated, and is dependent on the law of capillary attraction. By this law fluids ascend, in tubes of small diameter, to a height which increases in proportion to their tenuity, as any one may observe who will plunge the end of a fine glass tube into water. It is not requisite that the tubular form should be perfect or uninterrupted; the interspace between two closely approximated fibres will serve as a capillary tube; and thus the sponge-fibres present a series of canals, through which any fluid, with which a portion of the surface is in contact, will continue to flow until the whole are filled. A very different process is this spontaneous imbibition of water by capillary attraction from that already de*Pereira, Mat. Med. § 1814. scribed, by which a constant stream enters at the pores, and passes out at the oscula. The one is a mechanical, the other a vital operation. The latter is performed only during life and health, and contributes to the nourishment of the animal; the former goes on after death, and is of no benefit to the Sponge, though very useful to its possessor. The one may be compared to that indiscriminate devouring of books, which we sometimes see in great readers—a voracity insatiable indeed, but which leaves the mind as empty as it was before; the other to that guarded selec tive reading which ever watches to extract mental food, separating and rejecting by a secret, but potent alchemy, the useless and the bad. Or we may compare the one to a soul dead in trespasses and sins, incapable (because destitute of spiritual perceptions) of distinguishing truth from error, and therefore carried about by every wind of doctrine of those who lie in wait to deceive, the tools of Satan and his agents, whose purposes they are unconsciously serving. The other may be likened to a living soul, who brings everything to the touchstone of the Word, proving all things, and holding fast only that which is good, by which he is nourished and edified, his spiritual life is developed, and he grows in knowledge, in service, and in grace. Perhaps we may carry this parallel further. The eclectic process in the Sponges is not so simple a thing as might be supposed. From the common water, which bathes all alike, various and dissimilar substances are separated, selected, and appropriated by different species. example, it is very common to find growing on the same rock, or seaweed, a siliceous, a calcareous, and a horny "For sponge; they have all the same exposure, and are all recipients of the same nutriment, yet does each act upon this differently. One extracts from the fluid silica, which it causes to assume a solid crystalline form; another selects in the same manner the calcareous particles, which, obedient to the laws of life, assume figures novel to them in their mineral state; and again, another rejects both the lime and the flint as injurious to its constitution." So, when the minister of the Word, a Scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, bringeth forth out of his treasury things new and old," souls of varying powers, circumstances, and necessities, receive the same truths; and the Spirit of life in their heart, ministering to every one severally as He will, admonishes one, stimulates another, guides a third, comforts a fourth; and thus the Word is found "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness." The manner in which the Sponges increase their race is highly curious, and affords a beautiful example of the care which the All-wise God has exercised over His lowest creatures. According to Professor Grant,† there are found at certain seasons of the year, within the channels of a living Sponge, innumerable yellow granules, imbedded in the gelatinous flesh. These gradually increase in size, and project more and more into the channels, until at length one by one becomes freed, and is immediately hurried along to the nearest outlet by the constant ex-current. On examination, it is now seen to be a little oval gemmule, *Johnston: Brit. Sponges, 16. which one might call an egg, but that it possesses the faculty of spontaneous motion. The larger extremity is covered with excessively minute cilia, by the waving motion of which, as by innumerable oars, it is rowed along through the water, exactly like one of those Infusoria which we described in a former chapter, and for which it might readily be mistaken. It does not, therefore, fall to the bottom of the sea as soon as the ejective impulse of the parental current is exhausted, but continues to shoot along, until, exerting apparently a power of choice, it meets with a suitable locality for its settlement. Here it lodges, spreads out an adhesive film of gelatinous matter, absorbs its now useless cilia, becomes stationary, grows by increase of its circumference, and soon develops all the structure, and exercises the functions, that characterised its parent. "It is curious," observes Professor Jones, "to observe the remarkable exception which Sponges exhibit to the usual phenomena witnessed in the reproduction of animals, the object of which is evident, as the result is admirable. The parent Sponge, deprived of all power of movement, would obviously be incapable of dispersing to a distance the numerous progeny which it furnishes. They must inevitably have accumulated in the immediate vicinity of their place of birth, without the possibility of their distribution to other localities. The seeds of vegetables, sometimes winged and plumed for the purpose, are blown about by the winds, or transported by various agencies to distant places; but in the present instance, the still waters in which Sponges grow would not have served to transport their progeny elsewhere; and germs, so soft and |