That entry into the ship, and sailing forth into the sea, represents our first journey, and each renewed journey to CHRIST, in Baptism, in Confirmation, in Holy Communion, in every fresh repentance, every vow, every act of worship. Forth we go with Him. All is calm and hopeful. We seem to have to journey over quiet waters. The shore of Heaven is straight before us, and we are making for it. But, as soon as we set out, our envious, deadly enemy, hating our LORD, and hating us, plots our destruction, and assays its accomplishment. Soon trouble takes the place of peace, winds of adversity toss and try us, hope begins to pale, terror to dismay, the waters go even over our soul, and He who should calm us, and sustain and cheer us, seems to have fallen asleep, to help us not, to take no notice of us. It is the hour of GOD’S trial, of the Devil’s temptation! What shall we do? If we are wise sailors, like as I have supposed the disciples to have done, we shall meet the occasion with well-directed energy; we shall keep the vessel away from the quicksands of pleasure, the shallows of pride, the rocks of offence, and the whirlpools of sin. We shall cast out the weight that drags us down, sloth, indifference, besetting sin. We shall bear up against the boisterous winds of adversity. We shall resolutely and perseveringly pursue the straight course through the waters, making for, looking for the shore. Unless we do all this, we have no right to hope. But we must take care, lest in, ay, even by doing it, we lose our hope. Satan destroys many because they make no effort to save themselves; but he destroys quite as many because they rely on their own efforts. It is a fact that we can do nothing by ourselves; that human wisdom, self-reliant, is sure to be confounded, and human effort, independent, to be paralysed. But even if for the time we see what is right, and are successful in doing it, he will enshroud us in such horrible darkness, he will fill our ears with such dismal sounds, he will so toss and bewilder and overwhelm us, that presently weariness, perplexity, and despair will cause us to give up, to consent to our own destruction. The disciples in that storm-tossed ship seem to have been bringing themselves well nigh into this ruin, first to have relied on themselves, and then to have despaired of themselves, all the while forgetting Who was with them, Who should have been their guide, Who was their sure protector, when, all at once, before it was too late, they remembered and aroused Him, and called Him to their aid. It was their bliss to find that “the saint’s extremity is GOD’S opportunity;” that it is never too late, before destruction, to call upon Him and be saved; but they were not allowed to enjoy this bliss unmixed with reproach for self-confidence and for want of confidence in Him. In all the storms and dangers which beset us on the sea of life, let us take example from the disciples to call upon Him who can save us,