Or take another illustration. Go to one of our graving-docks, where the weather-beaten vessel has been weeks or months in the carpenter's hands. Her started timbers are replaced, her shattered keel renewed, the temporary props and scaffoldings have been removed, and with her gay streamers afloat, and her crew on deck, she stands ready and equipped for sea. What is needed? Nothing but the opening of the sluices, to reunite her to her old watery element. She lies a helpless, decrepit thing, till these dock-gates be opened, and the buoyant waves rush to clasp her anew in their embrace. It is done! But at first all is noise, and wrath, and tumult. These gurgling waters, discoloured with mud and sediment, convert the noble granite basin into an inky, turgid whirlpool. Ere long, however, the strife ceases; the great wooden wall raises itself like a child that has been awoke in its cradle by the voice of the storm--the waters gradually calm and subside;--higher and still higher is the vessel lifted, till, amid the cheers of the crew, she passes by the opened gates, and, with every sail spread to the breeze, is off to new voyages in her ocean-home. Child of trial! "vessel of mercy!" your God sees meet at times to bring you into the graving-dock, that He may put His tools upon you, and refit and prepare you for the great voyage of immortality. When He opens the sluices of trial, you may see no mercy in His dealings. It may be "deep calling to deep"--the roar and heaving of antagonist waters; they may at first, too, stir up nothing but the dregs and sediment of sin,--expose the muddy pools, the deep corruptions of the heart. But be still! He will yet vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of His own procedure. Ere long, these surging waves will settle peacefully around you, the shadows of heaven reflected in their glassy surface; and better still, strengthened and renovated by that season of trial, you will go forth from the Graver's hands more ready to brave the billows, grapple with the tempest, and reach at last the haven where you would be!