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I. THAT WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE A VOYAGE OF ANY KIND YOU OUGHT TO HAVE CHRIST IN THE SHIP. These boats would all have gone to the bottom if Christ had not been there. You are about to voyage out into some new enterprise; you are bound to do the best you can for yourself; be sure to take Christ in the ship. Here are men largely prospered. They are not puffed up. They acknowledge God who gives them their prosperity. When disaster comes that destroys others, they are only helped into higher experiences. Christ is in the ship. Here are other men, the prey of uncertainties. In the storm of sickness you will want Christ.

II. THAT PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW CHRIST MUST NOT ALWAYS EXPECT SMOOTH SAILING. If there are any people who you would think ought to have a good time in getting out of this world, the apostles of Jesus Christ ought to have been the men. Have you ever noticed how they got out of the world? St. James lost his head. St. Philip was hung to death against a pillar. Matthew was struck to death by a halberd. Mark was dragged to death through the streets. St. James the Less had his brains dashed out with a fuller's club. St. Matthias was stoned to death. St. Thomas was struck through with a spear. John Huss in the fire, the , the , the Scotch — did they always find smooth sailing? Why go so far? There is a young man in a store in New York who has a hard time to maintain his Christian character. All the clerks laugh at him, the employers in that store laugh at him, and when he loses his patience they say: "You are a pretty Christian." Not so easy is it for that young man to follow Christ. If the Lord did not help him hour by hour he would fail.

III. THAT GOOD PEOPLE SOMETIMES GET VERY MUCH FRIGHTENED. And so it is now that you often find good people wildly agitated. "Oh!" says some Christian man, "the infidel magazines, the bad newspapers, the spiritualistic societies, the importation of so many foreign errors, the Church of God is going to be lost, the ship is going to founder! The ship is going down!" What are you frightened about? An old lion goes into his cavern to take a sleep, and he lies down until his shaggy mane covers his paws. Meanwhile, the spiders outside begin to spin webs over the mouth of his cavern, and say, "That lion cannot break out through this web," and they keep on spinning the gossamer threads until they get the mouth of the cavern covered over. "Now," they say, "the lion's done, the lion's done." After awhile the lion awakes and shakes himself, and he walks out from the cavern, never knowing there were any spiders' webs, and with his voice he shakes the mountain. Let the infidels and the sceptics of this day go on spinning their webs, spinning their infidel gossamer theories, spinning them all over the place where Christ seems to be sleeping. They say: "Christ can never again come out; the work is done; He can never get through this logical web we have been spinning." The day will come when the Lion of Judah's tribe will rouse Himself and come forth and shake mightily the nations. What then all your gossamer threads? What is a spider's web to an aroused lion? Do not fret, then, about the world's going backward. It is going forward.

IV. THAT CHRIST CAN HUSH THE TEMPEST. Christ can hush the tempest of bereavement, loss and death.

(Dr. Talmage.)

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KJV: And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.

WEB: On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let's go over to the other side."