at exactly the right moment when it is best for him, will
say the word before which every billow and every storm sinks to rest,
"Peace be still."

The trial is that Jesus often seems asleep; the trial is that when the
ship of State labours on in the trough of the waves there seems no
steersman in view; the trial is that when the Church seems overwhelmed
by controversy, and about to be buried under its waves, Jesus makes no
sign; the trial is that Lazarus actually dies and lies dead, and Jesus
still stays two days in the same place where He was; but the
magnificent truth which we Christians believe is this--that, though
apparently asleep, He never is asleep; that He rises from time to time
and shows His strength; that He rose once and burst into fragments the
power of death. They thought He was quite asleep in the grave, but He
rose with all His power, and broke for every mourner throughout the
ages that were to come, the power of death for ever. He rises in the
midst of the Church, He brings the Church in His own time into a peace
and calm which seemed at one time impossible; He rises in our own
personal life, and while the world thinks how that poor man or poor
woman is overwhelmed with trouble, we know that we are in a wonderful
and supernatural calm.

And, therefore, the whole question is this: Have we got, or do we
believe we have got, Jesus in the ship with us? Do we hear His voice
saying, "Be of good cheer; it is I, be not afraid?" As we watch, then,
the moral courage produced in our Queen by her simple, but strong
faith, I beg you with me to pray God to grant us a living faith in
Jesus Christ, which is the secret of strength, and we shall find that
it will give us moral courage, not of earth, which the world can
neither give nor take away.

[1] "Memorials: Personal and Political of the Earl of Selborne." Vol.
IV., 161.

III.

THE RAINBOW ROUND ABOUT THE THRONE.

"And there was a rainbow round about the throne."--_Rev. iv. 3._

We are taking, you will remember, one by one--picturing ourselves in
the after-glow which succeeds a great sunset--the qualities which made
the influence of the Queen that we have lost so great, and we have
taken them, not as constituting a prolonged panegyric, but as practical
lessons, and much-needed lessons, for ourselves. And we first
contemplated the truthfulness of one of whom it has been said, that she
was the most truthful being that the speaker--a great