oldier boy who was found buried in sleep beneath his gun, amid the
cries and carnage of the battle; and the powers of nature in our Lord
seem to be equally exhausted. His strength is spent with toil; and
with wan face and wasted form He lies stretched out on some rude
boards--the picture of one whose candle is burning away all too fast,
and whom excess of zeal is hurrying into premature old age and an
untimely grave. Was the sight such as to suggest the question, Where
is now thy God?--how soon it changed into a scene of magnificence and
omnipotent power! He wakes--as a mother, whom louder sounds would not
stir, to her infant's feeblest wail, He wakes to the cry of His
alarmed disciples; and standing up, with the lightning flash
illumining His calm, divine face, He looks out on the terrific war of
elements. He speaks; and all is hushed. Obedient to His will, the
winds fold their wings, the waves sink to rest; and there is a great
calm. "Glory to God in the highest!" How may His people catch up and
continue the strain which falls from angels' lips? In disciples
plucked from the very jaws of death, and pulling their boat shoreward
with strong hands and happy hearts over a moonlit glassy sea, Jesus
shows us how He will make good these sayings, "Fear not, for I am with
thee; be not afraid, for I am thy God"--"I have given unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish."

The divine glory of that scene is not peculiar to it. For as an eagle,
so soon as she has stooped from her realm to the ground, mounts aloft
again, soaring into the blue skies of her native heavens, our Lord
never descends into the abasement of His meanest circumstances without
some act which bespeaks divinity, and bears Him up before our eyes
into the regions of Godhead. The grave, where He weeps like a woman,
gives up its prisoner at His word. Athirst by Jacob's well, like any
other wayfaring, way-worn traveller, He begs a draught of water from
a woman there, but tells her all she ever did. Houseless and poor, His
banquet hall is the open air, His table the green grass, His feast
five barley loaves and a few fishes from the neighbouring lake, yet
this scanty fare supplies the wants of five thousand guests. His birth
and life and death, His whole history, in fact, resembles one of those
treasure-chests which double locks secure; for as that iron safe
yields its hoards of gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones to none
but Him who brings to each lock