Life in Ocean Depths
A. Maclaren, D.D. Psalm 104:25 So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.… It used to be an axiom that there was no life in the sea beyond a certain limit of a few hundred feet. It was learnedly and conclusively demonstrated that pressure and absence of light, and I know not what beside, made life at greater depths impossible. It was proved that in such conditions creatures could not live. And then, when that was settled, the "Challenger" put down her dredge five miles, and brought up healthy and good-sized living things with eyes in their heads, from that enormous depth. So, then the savant had to ask, how can there be life? instead of asserting there cannot be; and, no doubt, the answer will be forthcoming some day. We have all been too much accustomed to draw arbitrary limits to the diffusion of the life of Christ among men. Let us rather rejoice when we see forms of beauty, which bear the mark of His hand, drawn from depths that we deemed waste, and thankfully confess that the bounds of our expectation, and the framework of our institutions, do not confine the breadth of His working, nor the sweep of His grace. (A. Maclaren, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. WEB: There is the sea, great and wide, in which are innumerable living things, both small and large animals.