Before the winter was over we had learned--how much more of that
awful power that surrounds the habitable earth! By slow degrees the sense
of its might grew upon us, first by the vision of its many aspects and
moods, and then by more awful things that followed; for there are few
coasts upon which the sea rages so wildly as upon this, the whole force of
the Atlantic breaking upon it. Even when there is no storm within perhaps
hundreds of miles, when all is still as a church on the land, the storm
that raves somewhere out upon the vast waste, will drive the waves in
upon the shore with such fury that not even a lifeboat could make its way
through their yawning hollows, and their fierce, shattered, and tumbling
crests.
CHAPTER XVII.
MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH.
In the hope that some of the shipwrecked mariners might be present in the
church the next day, I proceeded to consider my morning's sermon for the
occasion. There was no difficulty in taking care at the same time that it
should be suitable to the congregation, whether those sailors were there or
not. I turned over in my mind several subjects.
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