Oh! could we think a little more of this scene beyond the flood, and less of the terrible shipwreck, we should assuredly catch glimpses of the light behind the cloud. From the eternal shore the voices of the faithful reach our world, saying, “Men of England, men of Melbourne, weep not for us, for we have all got safe to land; and the land is good, and, behold we were not told the half concerning it. See to it, that ye prepare to follow us in the way our Father sees best.” But through the sea? Yes, for the sea is his, and He made it; and God may use it as He did in the case before us, not as a minister of wrath, but of mercy, to conduct his chosen ones to Himself. But through all the agony which preceded the struggle, and through such a struggle? Yes; if that too be the Divine will, for who was it that for our sakes chose the saddest and most lingering of deaths? and who, in the anguish of a fast breaking heart, cried,“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” But let us say that friends and relations are in danger of making by far too much of the agony, and not enough of the heavenly help that came to the shipwrecked ones, to enable them “to suffer and be strong.” We believe in the superiority of Divine grace to the mere natural feeling of pain and anguish, and that when Divine strength nerves the soul, the keenest physical tortures are all outside things. The martyrs of old could without pretence woo the flames that consumed them, clothe themselves cheerfully as with a garment of fire; and while the chain around him grew red hot, one could talk of his dying thus, as if he were on a bed of roses! And He who for some inscrutable but all-wise and loving purpose permitted the calamity of the shipwreck, may have thus supported his servants, and deprived them of agony as He had previously deprived them of fear--the greater agony of the two. Is there not also a light behind the cloud, when the fact is called to mind how faithfully the gospel was preached, and how fervently most of those on board engaged in acts of devotion? There have been scenes of horror on board shipwrecked vessels which baffle all description, when it has been made known that the ship must go down. Then, shouts of cursing, despair, and drunken revelry have been heard above the fury of the gale, and mocked the very groans of the dying. “Then rose from sea to sea the wild farewell, Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave.”