but in right order, quite natural, and almost of course, that he should perform prodigies of superhuman power, almost as the ordinary course of his action. We never think of him, as rising above himself in these mighty achievements, and then as subsiding down to the level of mortality and humanity, till a mighty power should come on him again, to raise him to meet some great and extraordinary occasion. We never think of him as needing to make his grand performances rare,-to give them an interval to collect the due admiration. Whence is this, but that we have a settled estimate, or, at least, impression of his character, as entirely different from that of any other visitant on earth, and transcendently superior? But here comes a perversity of our minds, namely, that we regard these astonishing works, in their crowded frequency, as so proper for him to do, and so easily and familiarly within his power, that we do not duly feel how marvellous they are. How ill-conditioned is the human spirit! If his mighty works had been but few, the sentiment would have been, that it had become such a being as the Messiah was predicted and professed to be, and come to the world on so awful and sublime a purpose, to have performed many more. But, on the contrary, they crowd upon us in rapid succession, and then,-they are only so appropriate to him and his grand office,-so natural, so much of course for him to perform, that we are the less sensible how wonderful they are in themselves! We want to see the energy of agonizing difficulty, and the pomp of display, to excite our admiration. But we are diverting from our immediate subject.

In the evening, the multitudes went away, and he constrained his disciples to enter into a ship, and to cross the Lake. How totally unaware were all they of what was luminously before his mind as to be transacted a few hours later!

One has often been struck with the idea of the

solitude of our Lord's spirit. How many things incommunicable, of which there could be no mortal participator. What thoughts, what a profound consciousness, that could not be unfolded to any human intelligence. And how many things in his vision of the nearer and the remoter future, on which he chose to be silent. He was mysteriously and internally alone, whoever might be with him. In this instance he chose to be personally alone, and commanded the departure of his disciples.

It may be conceived that the dignity of our Lord's character required that sometimes all mortal society should retire from him; that they should be made to feel, that he belonged not always to them;-that he must sometimes have employments pre-eminently sacred, and withdrawn from all mortal witness or approach. He, therefore, sought the dark veil of deepest solitude, secluded in the loneliness of a desert mountain, and the shades of night. His employment there was prayer. In what strain we can never know, and should vainly conjecture. It is presumable that some of his prayers must have been of a nature infinitely peculiar,-totally different from all other prayer ever offered upon earth. With our belief in his divine nature, we are met by an idea of something mysterious and enigmatical in the fact of his praying.

It is almost inevitable to admit the thought, that some of his communications with the Almighty would be more expressly in that character, than such of his devotional expressions as are recorded to have been uttered in the hearing of his disciples. At all events, the solemnities of intercourse with the Deity formed an admirable conjunction between what he had done and what he was about to do,-a dignified employment of the interval. And on all accounts this worship was the sublimest and the purest that ever ascended from this earth to the Almighty. And it was a worship by One who had a world's eternal interests depending on him,-involved in what he did.

He could have remained all night in such occupation and such a desert. But another scene required his presence. His disciples might have wondered what his design could be, and when, and how, they should meet with him again. Though the Lake of Gennesaret (or "sea of Galilee," or sea of Tiberias") was only five or six miles across, they had been, in their small vessel, labouring against adverse wind and water, many hours; for it was now several hours after midnight. That they had not Him with them in the tempest, would augment their distress and dismay. They probably had not yet attained the faith that he could, absent, preserve them in defiance of the storm and the billows. While they were thus employed and alarmed, their attention was suddenly seized by something else than the storm, and which even made them insensible to the tumult of the raging elements.

Now, how important a faculty to us is Imagination, -and yet at best how feeble and deficient ! We want to place ourselves in the condition of seeing, suddenly, this strange spectacle, which "they all saw." Think of being in this vessel, in the midst of this commotion, and seeing a human figure, positively such, though with the indistinctness of the faint light of night or earliest dawn,-this figure walking over the surges, unaided by any solid support, perfectly at ease, with an entire command of its action !—a being that was on other terms with those elements than any frail mortal man-perfectly absolved from the laws under which all men are subjected to them. Think of such an apparition!

The emotion of the disciples would be heightened by perceiving that the portentous figure had them in view. They would apprehend that a power and an action so mysterious were directed, in some manner, on them. And their terror interpreted, that this form, and this action, came in awful alliance with the tempest. They probably imagined that they saw the very spirit of the storm-a power which actuated these elements to violence. In this object, therefore, they saw concentrated all that was alarming in the tempest, insomuch that the tempest itself became secondary in their apprehension. Their irresistible impression was, that it was "a spirit;" a clear proof that it was the established popular belief that spirits sometimes made themselves visible to mortal eyes; (a persuasion that has prevailed over the whole world, and could not so have prevailed without a foundation in truth.) It is almost always a dreaded

phenomenon; because we have no power over spirits, and they may have a fearful power over us.

The portentous figure, having approached the vessel, proceeded in a direction to go by and pass away. That indication might not give any relief to their fears. For their doom might but have been sealed by this fearful form having approached them, and looked upon them. He might be now passing away to leave them to their inevitable fate. Observe, in all this, what a decided impression there is on human minds that the beings of another world are their superiors. Not only heroes and philosophers have trembled at the apprehension, (and infidels and blasphemers too,) but the holiest men, and the greatest prophets, have felt an awful emotion at the sense of their presence. And it is well there should be this impression of the superiority of spirits, though it may often be mingled with superstition. "He went" (Mark says) "as if he would have passed by them." He would thus give the completed proof that he was independent, and master of the element; he needed not the ship,-was at home on the tempestuous deep.

He still, however, was very near, though not near enough for them to recognize his person. And when the terror of the disciples had reached the last point of human endurance, he kindly spoke to them (in a voice preternaturally strong, but which they knew)— It is I, be not afraid.”

Shall we take this for an emblem, and divert to the observation, that we mortals, that our souls-in this sinful state and world, are involved in far more

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