

THE SERMON. 137 



indeed, claim, for what we have now to advance, the 

 character of an explanation, or interpretation, of the 

 significative circumstances it is at best but an accommo- 

 dation of the parable but when a portion of Scripture 

 has been expounded as if relating rather to others than to 

 ourselves, it is both lawful and useful to search for some 

 personal application, that we may feel our own interest, 

 and find our own profit in the passage reviewed. 



" It is a natural and appropriate simile which likens life 

 to a voyage, a voyage which has a variety of terminations 

 sometimes in calm, sometimes in storm ; the vessel, in one 

 case, casting anchor in placid waters, so that the spirit has 

 but, if we may use the expression, to step gently ashore ; 

 in another, suffering shipwreck, so that there is fearful 

 strife and peril in escaping from the waves. We shall all 

 reach the shore of another world : for though some may be 

 said to be thrown violently on that shore, whilst others are 

 landed on it as by the kind ministry of angels, none can 

 perish as if existence might terminate at death ; of all it 

 will have to be said, as of those with St. Paul in the ship, 

 some by swimming, some on boards, and some on broken 

 pieces of the ship, f it comes to pass that they escaped all 

 safe to land.' 



" And there is something of a delineation of this variety 

 of modes of death, in Peter's 'struggling through the water, 

 whilst the other disciples approach the shore in their boat. 

 Peter's is the violent death, the death of the martyr ; but 



