However this may be, they cried unto the LORD, and the LORD heard them. He had slept calmly through the roar of the wind—yea, even while the waves washed over Him; but the cry of distress entered quickly into His ear, and He awoke to answer it. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” were His awakening words. This is not a rebuke for coming to Him; they had done right therein. He would presently prove it by the miracle He would work for them. Neither is it an assertion that there was no real danger, that they had been too easily alarmed: for an inspired Evangelist, St. Luke, writing long afterwards, in the light of what CHRIST now said and did, expressly states that the vessel was filled with water, and that they were in danger. No; it is an acknowledgment of the danger, but it is also a pledge that it should be averted, and it is a tender reproach for not being confident of deliverance. “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” Am not I with you? Do not I know your wants? Have I not power and will to relieve them? Where is your faith, in the prophecies of what I have yet to do, that you suppose I am now to perish? Where is the confidence which becomes my followers?—which others, with less knowledge and encouragement, less ground of hope, have so fully shown. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” Yea, though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him! Thus He reproves, and calms, and assures them in their trouble, and then He proceeds to deliver them out of it. “He arose”—we read—“and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.” It was a wondrous manifestation of His Majesty. It was a gracious condescension to infirmity. It was a proof, too palpable to be resisted, too marvellous to be forgotten, that He is able to keep, and that He will keep, in safety and in peace, those whose minds are staid on Him, who commit themselves to His keeping. Well may the disciples, in the awful stillness of that calm, have been filled as much with reverential fear as with admiration. “They feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” They had witnessed several of His epiphanies: they had tasted of the water made wine; they had seen the leper cleansed; and had, at least, heard on reliable testimony, that the centurion’s servant was restored—yea, in the early evening of this very day, just before they left the shore, JESUS had been casting out evil spirits, with His word, and had healed all the sick that were brought to Him: but in their eyes (whether they were right or wrong concerns us not now) this was a greater miracle, greater in extent, greater in power, greater in the suddenness, the certainty (felt by themselves, remember, as no other had been) and the peace and joy of its effect. Much must it have informed their worship, much must it have increased their faith. Power did it give them