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at death's door, He, who, in his infinite compassion, sends forth the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to console us under all our calamities, will restore to us a better cargo; He will give us bread that nourisheth unto eternal life.

The poor mariners were now not far from safety. The morning light presented before them a creek in the shore of an unknown country. This was to be their place of refuge. They therefore immediately drew up the anchors, loosed the rudder bands, and hoisting up the main sail to the wind, ran the ship aground. In this situation she became presently a wreck. The hinder part, which buffeted the waves, was soon destroyed: but the former part remained fixed in the shore. Tremendous as their condition was, it did not prevent the hardened soldiers from recommending the destruction of the prisoners, however innocent some of them might be; but Julius, with his usual attention to the life of Paul, would not listen to their advice, but gave a general order, that all" who could swim should cast themselves first into the sea," and assist those who could not; " and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship."-" And so it came to pass," adds the Historian, "that they escaped all safe to land."

This narrative, always interesting to the mariner, is not less so to us who stand upon the shore, and behold the rolling of the wave, the bursting of the billow, the escape, or destruction, of our fellow creatures. We are men, and feel as men. But we are Christians, which adds a higher dignity to our

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nature, and teaches us how to improve every varied scene of human life. Under this impression we must be assured, that the greatest calamity that can happen to us is, the shipwreck of our conscience; but the guidance and protection of that kind Redeemer, that heavenly pilot, who once walked upon the sea to preserve his sinking Disciple, will save us from the horrors of the storm, if, like St. Peter, we stretch out our arms towards him.

When we thus look up to Christ for health and salvation, truly sensible of our own danger, and firmly relying on His power and merits to work that salvation for us, then may we hear the winds beat and the waters roar, without sinking into that gulph, from whence, by our own efforts, we could never rise again." Almighty and everlasting God, who of thy great mercy didst save Noah and his family [Paul and his companions] from perishing by water, mercifully look upon us; that we, being stedfast in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may so pass the waves of this troublesome world, that finally, we may come to the land of everlasting life; there to reign with Thee, world without end, through Jesus Christ our Lord'.

1 Office of Baptism.

LECTURE XXVII.

ACTS XXVIII. 1-15.

Transactions on the Island of Melita.-Voyage, and Journey to Rome.-Melita.-Sicily.-Syracuse.-Rhegium.-Appii Forum.-Three Taverns.-Rome.-A.D. 62.

No change in the order of nature is more grateful to the human mind, because none more conducive to general happiness, than that which arises from the improvement and cultivation of the face of the earth. A great moral writer has observed, that he who makes one spire of grass to grow, where none had grown before, ought to be esteemed a public benefactor of his country. If this remark be just in the study of natural history, with what comfort and delight shall we apply the observation to the cultivation and improvement of spiritual husbandry; with what veneration shall we regard him, who plants the knowledge of Christ where his very name was unknown before, who directs refreshing streams of living water into the parched and barren land of ignorance and vice; bringing forth, in the most unkindly soil, the precious fruits of everlasting life!

How justly may this eulogy be applied to those who have jeopardied their lives for Christ, who have traversed the boisterous ocean, and been cast upon the desolate shore! How truly do we attribute it to Paul, in the interesting situation in which we now view him, landing from the wreck on the rocks of Melita!

In the various scenes of personal distress, in which we have seen the Apostle involved, is there any where we find him in a more comfortless, or forlorn condition? The prospect of immediate dissolution I do not consider one of these cases; for to him, to die was always gain. But to find himself a shipwrecked prisoner, without food, perhaps without covering, on an unknown and barbarous coast, was to experience an extremity of suffering. But nothing could happen to him without a valuable motive. Though Rome was the destined end of his voyage, the intermediate passage was to be blessed with incidents propitious to the propagation of the Christian faith. "Howbeit," said the holy vision, ye must be cast upon a certain island." This intimation, doubtless, prepared the Apostle's mind for great events; and he would no sooner behold the rugged rock, dashed, as it was, by a heavy and tempestuous sea, than he would reflect with true compassion, on the deplorable mental blindness of the more rude and uncultivated natives of the country. And thus it was. The discharge of his great duties was the first object of his soul. He would feel his heart warm with evangelic love; it would beat with rapture at the prospect of his yet unconverted friends;

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he would recall to his mind the high promises of the Prophets; he would exclaim in the language of Isaiah: "The wilderness and solitary place shall be glad, and the desart shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the 'desart 1."

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The last Lecture offered to our view a variety of suffering. The present opens with the happy prospect of the escape of the shipwrecked mariners; some, by the assistance of their bodily strength; others, floating on boards, and broken pieces of the ship; all under the protection of a kind and superintending providence." And so it came to pass that," according to the intimation of the Apostle, they escaped all safe to land."

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"And when they were escaped, then they knew that the island was called Melita."-When we look upon the world in a moral light, how forcibly are we struck with the common allusion of human life resembling the perils and dangers of a sea-voyage. Multitudes, in Scripture language, are likened unto waters 2. The sweet and plaintive David, in many instances, adopts the same similitude-" All thy waves and storms are gone over me 3.” We are all of us indeed sensible of the great hazard which our souls experience, both from their external, and internal, enemies. Temporal evil will hardly be brought into the comparison, because the mind, fortified by

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1 Isaiah xxxv. 1.6. 2 Rev. xvii. 15. 3 Psalm xlii. 9.

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