II. Its mists and vapoubb — its clouds and exhalations — they also have their lessons. How common these mists are all who know the sea know well. But in and by them the sea renders up her strength, pays her tribute to the heavens. But how hountifully ihe is recompensed 1 How comes it that the sea abides wholesome, that it is not the soiu'ce of malaria, a deadly mass of waters, in which no plant or fish can live? And part of the leply is in the fact that those mists and vapours which ascend from the sea descend lo the earth in rain and showers, and fill the springs and fountains, which are the sources of the rivers, which are the carriers into the sea-depths of those varied salts and other prmlucts which serve as ministers of health to the innumerable forms of life with which the sea abounds. Thus is the sea repaid for the tribute she renders to the heavens. And so these sea-mists teach the blessedness of rendering up to God all he asks tor. Thy God comn landeth thy strength. The recompense of the sea assures us how abundantly God will recompense all who obey this command. And they suggest the sure way o deliverance from all inward evil. They ascend from the sea, but they leave all its saltness behind ; from the pools and lakes and from stagnant marsh, but they leave all their unhealthful, corrupting properties behind ; and when they come back again in form of rain, they are sweet and wholesome and precious, to quench the thirst of man and beast, and to gladden the whole face of the earth. And so with ourselves. In ascending to God, in spiritual drawing near to him, we leave all our evil behind. God says to the waters, " Come up hither," and they are cleansed in the coming. And so he says to us, " Come up hither," md we, too, are cleansed in the coming. And when we come back our hearts and lives, our whole influence, will be healthfiil and salutary, a blessing to all with whom we have to do.
III. Its tides. They teach tJie power of the unseen. Their mighty movements are all governed by a force imperceptible to our senses. And it is the unseen, the intangible, that which the senses cannot perceive — thought, which governs the world. They teach also the gradualness of the religious life. It is often hard to say, on looking at the sea, whether the tide ebbs or flows. You must compare it after a while with its present position, and then you shall know. And so it is with the religious life. There are no leaps and bounds, no great starts and strides, but gradual, slow, step by step— such is the Divine ordering. Now, hence a lesson : 1. Of consolation. We •re not to write bitter things against ourselves because our advance is slow. 2. ZVianA;- ftdneu. No man can leap into hell any more than he can into fitness for heaven. QtoA holds us very fast, and only very slowly will he let us go. 3. CaiUion. Judge not that all is well because of no sudden great change in you. There may be the gradual ebbing away. Are there now large portions of your life which the fear of God does not gov«ni, though once it controlled them all ? If so the tide has ebbed.
IV. The depths of the sea tell of that complete putting away of our sin which God promises to us (cf. Mioah vii. 19). God will utterly put them away, casting them, not near the shore, in the shallows, or in the tide-way, but in the depths, where they will ba wwak. out of sight and out of reach for ever
OT. XLix. 1— 39.J THE BOOK OP THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, 863
V. Its bands. (Of. oh. v. 22.) They teach how Ood makei our weaknesi itrong. What more feeble than the sand? And yet by it the mighty sea is held in. "To them who have no might God inoreaseth strength." But what are we and the sur- roundings of our lives but weak, shifting, unstable as the sand? But God can so fill them with strength that they shall beat back the fierce waves which would overwhelm us. Then let us fear not. He who makes the weak sand a sure bar aj:ainst the ocean's rage can and will make our weakness strong to triumph over all that would harm us. Such are some of the lessons of the sea. — C.