that may be, we have here a wonderful picture which is true for all
ages of the mighty Christ, to whose gentle footfall the unquiet surges
are as a marble pavement; and who draws near in the purposes of His
love, unhindered by antagonism, and using even opposing forces as the
path for His triumphant progress. Two lessons may be drawn from this.
One is that in His marvellous providence Christ uses all the tumults
and unrest, the opposition and tempests which surround the ship that
bears His followers, as the means of achieving His purposes. We stand
before a mystery to which we have no key when we think of these two
certain facts; first, the Omnipotent redeeming will of God in Christ;
and, second, the human antagonism which is able to rear itself against
that. And we stand in the presence of another mystery, most blessed,
and yet which we cannot unthread, when we think, as we most assuredly
may, that in some mysterious fashion He works His purposes by the very
antagonism to His purposes, making even head-winds fill the sails, and
planting His foot on the white crests of the angry and changeful
billows. How often in the world's history has this scene repeated
itself, and by a divine irony the enemies have become the helpers of
Christ's cause, and what they plotted for destruction has turned out
rather to the furtherance of the Gospel! 'He maketh the wrath of man
to praise Him, and with the residue thereof He girdeth Himself.'

Another lesson for our individual lives is this, that Christ, in His
sweetness and His gentle sustaining help, comes near to us all across
the sea of sorrow and trouble. A more tender, a more gracious sense of
His nearness to us is ever granted to us in the time of our darkness
and our grief than is possible to us in the sunny hours of joy. It is
always the stormy sea that Christ comes across, to draw near to us;
and they who have never experienced the tempest have yet to learn the
inmost sweetness of His presence. When it is night, and it is dark, at