It is with him now, as with a sinking disciple in a future age:--when the storm is loudest and the midnight is darkest, the voice and footsteps of his God are heard on the waves: "_And about the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to the disciples, walking on the sea._" "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles!"[72] [72] Psalm xxxiv. 6. And what is the first gleam of comfort which crests these topmost waves? It is _discerning the hand and appointment of God in all his afflictions_! He speaks of "_Thy_ waves and _Thy_ billows." These floods do not riot and revel at the bidding of chance. "_The Lord sitteth upon the water-floods._"[73] While, in one sense, it aggravated his trials to think of them as Divine chastisements--the expressions of the Divine displeasure at sin--yet how unspeakable the consolation that every billow rolled at the summons of Omnipotence. "_The floods_," he can say, "_have lifted up, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea._"[74] "_O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them._"[75] [73] Psalm xxix. 10. [74] Psalm xciii. 3, 4. [75] Psalm lxxxix. 8, 9. But he could go further than this. He could triumph in the assurance of God's returning favour;--that behind these troubled elements there was seated a Being of unchanging faithfulness and love. Already the lowering mist was beginning to clear off the mountains, and the eye of faith to descry sunny patches of golden light gleaming in the hollows. Soon he knew the whole landscape would be flooded with glory. The sailor does not discredit the existence of the beacon or lighthouse, or alter the direction of his vessel, because the fog prevents these being seen. Nay rather, he strains his eyes more keenly through the murky curtain, in hopes of hailing their guidance. When a cloud or clouds are passing over the sun's disc, and hiding it from view, the sunflower does not, on account of the momentary intervention, hang its head, or cease to turn in the direction of the great luminary. It keeps still gazing upwards with wistful eye, as if knowing that the clouds will soon roll past, and that it will ere long again be bathed in the grateful beams! So it was with David. He felt that the countenance of his God, though hidden, was not eclipsed. This pining flower on the mountains of Gilead does not droop in the anguish of unbelief, when "the Sun of his soul" is for the moment obscured. He knew that there would yet arise "light in the darkness." Amid the roll of the billows--the moaning of the blast--he listens to celestial music. Its key-note is "_the loving-kindness_" of his _God_. While the heavens are still black, and the tempest raging, he lifts the voice of