jelly, and if such text be trite, let it be granted that the sermon is at
least original. Necessarily the sermon will lack commentary and
application, and be very imperfect in many other details. If it possesses
any virtues, you must apply them personally, for the preacher is not
enlightened enough to expound them even to his own, much less to the
satisfaction of others.

In many places on this reef little secrets, well kept throughout the rest
of the year, are boldly proclaimed when the sea retreats. A fairly common
one is a huge anemone of a rich cobalt blue which opens out like a
soup-plate with convoluted edges. Another has a form something resembling
a hyacinth-glass. The more public parts are not unlike a dwarf growth of
that old-fashioned flower the Prince of Wales's feather, save that the
colour is a rich brown. Being an animal, it possesses senses in which the
most highly specialised vegetable is deficient. It has the power of
waving its spikelets, and of the thousand of truncated tentacles which
cover the spikelets each seems to possess independent action. Though all,
no doubt, contribute to the sustenance of the animal, they, at will, rest
from their labours or assume great activity.

It is natural to suppose that the diet of such an animal must be of
microscopic proportions. The other day I happened on one which had seized
a fish about four inches long, and seemed to be greedily sucking it to
death. The fish was still alive, and as it looked up at me with a
pathetic gleam in its watery eyes, I released it. It was very
languid--indeed, so feeble and faint that it could not swim away. Aid had
come too late. The fish was the legitimate prey of the anemone. My
interference had been at variance from the laws of property and right. As
the vestige of life which remained to the fish was all too fragile for
salvation, and as I saw the chance of ascertaining whether the anemone