more than lazy calms or gentle zephyrs. If, realising our own weakness
and impotence, we are made to hang more completely upon Him, then let
us be thankful for whatever has been the means of such a blessed
issue. That was the second good thing that Sennacherib did.

The third good thing that he--not exactly did--but that was done
through him, was that experience of God's delivering power was
enriched. You remember the miracle of the destruction of the army. I
need not dilate upon it. A man who can look back and say, 'Thou hast
been with me in six troubles,' need never be afraid of the seventh;
and he who has hung upon that strong rope when he has been swinging
away down in the darkness and asphyxiating atmosphere of the pit, and
has been drawn up into the sunshine again, will trust it for all
coming time. If there were no other explanation, the enlarged and
deepened experience of the realities of God's Gospel and of God's
grace, which are bought only by sorrow, would be a sufficient
explanation of any sorrow that any of us have ever had to carry.

'Well roars the storm to him who hears
A deeper voice across the storm.'

There are large tracts of Scripture which have no meaning, no
blessedness to us until they have been interpreted to us by losses and
sorrows. We never know the worth of the lighthouse until the November
darkness and the howling winds come down upon us, and then we
appreciate its preciousness.

So, dear friends! the upshot of the whole is just that old teaching,
that if we realised what life is for, we should wonder less at the
sorrows that are in it. For life is meant to make us partakers of His