ous call, "Why are ye fearful, O
ye of little faith?"

Then He arose; and out through the darkness of that fearsome night, into
the roaring wind, over the storm-lashed sea, went the voice of the Lord
as He "rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the
wind ceased, and there was a great calm." Turning to the disciples, He
asked in tones of gentle yet unmistakable reproof: "Where is your
faith?" and "How is it that ye have no faith?" Gratitude for rescue from
what but a moment before had seemed impending death was superseded by
amazement and fear. "What manner of man is this," they asked one of
another, "that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Among the recorded miracles of Christ, none has elicited greater
diversity in comment and in attempt at elucidation than has this
marvelous instance of control over the forces of nature. Science
ventures no explanation. The Lord of earth, air, and sea spoke and was
obeyed. He it was who, amidst the black chaos of creation's earliest
stages, had commanded with immediate effect--Let there be light; Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters; Let the dry land
appear--and, as He had decreed, so it was. The dominion of the Creator
over the created is real and absolute. A small part of that dominion has
been committed to man[663] as the offspring of God, tabernacled in the
very image of his divine Father. But man exercizes that delegated
control through secondary agencies, and by means of complicated
mechanism. Man's power over the objects of his own devizing is limited.
It is according to the curse evoked by Adam's fall, which came through
transgression, that by the strain of his muscles, by the sweat of his
brow, and by stress of his mind, shall he achieve. His word of command
is but a sound-wave in air, except as it is followed by labor. Through
the Spirit that emanates from the very Person of Deity, and which
pervades all space, the command of God is immediately operative.

Not man alone, but also the earth and all the elemental forces
pertaining thereto came under the Adamic curse[664] and as the soil no
longer brought forth only good and useful fruits, but gave of its
substance to nurture thorns and thistles, so the several forces of
nature ceased to be obedient to man as agents subject to his direct
control. What we call natural forces--heat, light, electricity, chemical
affinity--are but a few of the manifestations of eternal energy through
whic