retributive consequences of our own godlessness, and these have made
danger where else were safety, thirst where else were rivers of water,
and weariness and lassitude where else were strength and bounding hope.

So then, look for a moment at these three points that come out of my
text, in order to lay the foundation for subsequent considerations.

We live a life defenceless and exposed to many a storm and tempest. I
need but remind you of the adverse circumstances--the wild winds that go
sweeping across the flat level, the biting blasts that come down from
the snow-clad mountains of destiny that lie round the low plain upon
which we live. I need but remind you of the dangers that are lodged for
our spiritual life in the temptations to evil that are round us. I need
but remind you of that creeping and clinging consciousness of being
exposed to a divinely commissioned retribution and punishment, which
perverts the Name that ought to be the basis of all our blessedness into
a Name unwelcome and terrible, because threatening judgment. I need but
remind you how men's sins have made it needful that when the mighty God,
even the Lord, appears before them, 'it shall be very tempestuous round
about him.' Men fear and ought to fear 'the blast of the breath of His
nostrils,' which must burn up all that is evil. And I need but remind
you of that last wild wind of Death that whirls the sin-faded leaves
into dark corners where they lie and rot.

My brother, you have not lived thus long without learning how
defenceless you are against the storm of adverse circumstances. You have
not lived thus long without learning that though, blessed be God! there
do come in all our lives long periods of halcyon rest, when 'birds of
calm sit brooding on the charmed wave,' and the heavens above are clear
as sapphire, and the sea around is transparent as opal--yet the little