Finally, It is the duty of all parents, whether professedly Christian or not, to remember that they sustain very important and solemn relations to their children. That their conduct toward them is destined to have a most decisive influence in the formation of their characters, and an equally decisive bearing upon their eternal destinies. God will exact of them all, faithfulness in the parental relation, and he will soon call them to an awfully solemn account for what they have done to fit their children for heaven or hell.

BY THE REV. LYMAN BEECHER, D.D.,

PRESIDENT OF LANE SEMINARY, CINCINNATI, OHIO.

GOD IN THE STORM.*

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

Then are they glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

Oh that men would 'praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men !-PSALM Cvii. 23-31.

I HAVE never before been called to speak in circumstances like these. A few days since, we stood here before God to supplicate deliverance from a threatened speedy death. I have before supposed myself not far from the grave, but it was at home, surrounded by my family and friends, and whatever could cheer the dying hour. But never, till recently, did I realize that probably there might be but a step between me and death; and in full health, amid the war of elements, await in suspense the stroke which at any moment might fall upon us all. But the storm is past, and we are all alive, to praise Him who heard our supplications and preserved us. And what direction of our thoughts can be more proper, than a brief review of the perils we have passed through? The evidence of the Divine interposition in answer to prayer to save us, and the returns which it becomes us to make for our signal and merciful preservation.

In respect to our dangers, I need not say to you, who passed through them, that they were great.

For thirty-six hours the wind raved and the waves rolled with a fury and power unknown, for so long a time, to the most experienced navigators on board. Travelling mountains, with the power of the Iceberg, the Avalanche, or the Niagara, for one day and two nights, as far as eye could reach, covered the surface

*This discourse or address was delivered at the meeting of the passengers, convened on board the Great Western, Sept. 22, 1846, to offer thanksgivings to God for their preservation through the recent protracted storm.

of the deep; thundering loud and unceasingly around us. The onset commenced on Saturday night, and raged increasingly till Sabbath morning, when, instead of mitigation, it gathered new power, and then commenced the work of desolation.

The sails on the fore yards, clewed down, burst from their fastenings, and roared and flapped furiously, defying control. In the mean time the sea rose rapidly, breaking over and against the ship. At 4 A.M. it had risen to a hurricane gale, and veering to the northwest; the ship at the same time broke from her course into the trough of the sea; a condition of imminent peril, during which a sea broke in upon the main deck, and drove a great quantity of water into the engine room; a stroke at the heart of life, our machinery.

At 11 o'clock, A.M., a heavy wave broke over the fore part of the starboard wheel-house, and drove the iron life-boat and the icehouse-of some six or seven tons-furiously against the wheelhouse and side of the ship; and before they could be fastened, the careening of the ship sent them sundry times back and forth, threatening instant destruction. Such, and so rapid were the successions of disaster, that an attempt was made to wear ship, as less perilous than her present condition; but finding her uncontrollable, she was permitted to return to her course; probably our greatest danger escaped.

About noon, a mighty wave struck the starboard wheel-house, and tore up the fastenings of spikes and iron bands and bolts; throwing off the whole top and outside covering, breaking the under half of the spring beam, and shook to their foundation, aud lowered perceptibly, the timbers which sustained the wheel. Thus enfeebling the arm of our power in the climax of our danger. The wave, with portions of the wreck, rolled deep and dark over the quarter-deck; one of which struck the Captain on the head, while the wave drove him insensible to the stern of the ship, where the network did but barely save him from an ocean grave.

About 1 o'clock, while many were seated in the lower cabin, a sea struck the ship. A tremendous crash was heard on deck, and instantly the cabin was darkened, and torrents of water came pouring down through the sky-lights; all sprang to their feet, and a scream of terror rang through the ship. At this time the ship pitched and rolled so fearfully, that with no little difficulty we could maintain our position upon our seats, and not a few received bruises and contusions, notwithstanding their efforts.

In these circumstances, you remember, a proposition was made, and accepted, I believe, by all who could attend, to meet in the

lower cabin for prayer. It was prayer, not in words and forms merely, but the importunity of the heart, crushed by perils from which it could not escape, and pressed by the complex interests of time and eternity, looking up to the only Power in the universe that could save. Subsequently to this meeting, in the evening, Dr. Balch concluded to administer the sacramental communion in his

own room, for his own, and the consolation of a few friends; but his purpose becoming known, the number who desired to unite so increased that the service was administered in the cabin. Having no knowledge of the change of place, myself and some others of my ministerial brethren were not present. In the mean time the storm raged on; but from the time of our public supplications the desolations ceased.

We had hoped, the preceding night, that the morning would bring a change; and in the morning, that noon would witness a favorable crisis; and at noon, that evening would realize our hopes. But the storm travelled on, from morning to noon, and from noon to evening, with augmented power, till it became evident that we must encounter the terrors of another night; and though our hopes of deliverance were not utterly extinguished, my own, and the general opinion was, that the ship would not ride out the storm of another night. Not that she would founder intact, amid any winds or waves the Atlantic would bring upon her; but that, smitten by their relentless powers, she would be torn, and crushed, and sunk. And now, And now, while prayer unceasing went up to God, I have cause to know that, on the part of numbers, immediate preparations for eternity commenced, in the rapid retrospect of the past, the circumspection of the present, and the anticipations of the future and not a few, I trust, with calm resignation and peace thatsseth knowledge, and joy unspeakable, were prepared to meet their God.

And now the dreaded night came on, in darkness visible and terrible convulsions. It was long and dreadful. On my pillow, without sleep, as I had done the night preceding, I watched it, and learned thoroughly the chart of the ship's and winds' and waves'

motion.

It commenced with a long, slow roll of the ship to and fro, almost from beams' end to beams' end, thrice repeated. Then ensued a momentary quiet and onward motion of the ship, and then suddenly the thunder of winds and waves began, louder and louder, and more powerful and rending, as if every portion of our ship would be torn in fragments and scattered upon the deep. Then gradually the thunderings ceased, as if the elements, wearied and breathless by their joint efforts, had paused to rest and gain breath for another assault. This dreadful rotation continued till between three and four o'clock, when all at once the one thunder seemed to burst into many thunders of equal power, and without intermission roared and tossed and tore, as if the conspiracy of winds and waves were rallying all their forces, and making their last effort to destroy us. But gradually it subsided, only to give place, about five o'clock, to a squall more terrible. more terrible. In the language of an intelligent passenger, It struck the ship suddenly, a perfect tornado. She careened over, and buried her gunwales in the ocean; her wheel-house covered by the waves that helped the wind to lay her on her side. There she lay for a few moments, stricken power

less, at the mercy of the waves. At this critical moment, when another wave might have finished her, the engine was true to her duty, and round and round thundered her iron wings; when gradually recovering her upright position, the good ship, quartering to the sea, came up to her course. This condition of the ship in the deep gulf, on her beams' ends almost, and covered with waves, was seen by another, who, witnessing her hesitation and trembling for so long a time in her deplorable condition, concluded that she would never rise. And the same deep careening was felt by another, who started up, thinking that all was over and the ship sinking in the waves of the sea.

And now, at last, when the wind veered to the north, and the clouds were lifted up, and the morning light shone brighter upon us, and we thought all danger past, the real danger of the ship, in the lulling of the wind, travelling over such mountains and valleys of water, was scarcely diminished, perhaps even augmented. I stood at this time upon the quarter-deck, and beheld the expanse to the horizon around, filled with mountains of water with crested top, tossing and raging in all directions. On one of these waves our noble ship rose gracefully to the top, whence I looked down to the deep gulf of waters below; and another wave, tall as the one I rose upon, rushing onward to meet the ship as she descended; and the ship, like an arrow, dropping down to meet the wave. They met she paused, trembled, and rose, and passed over. Three such waves, in rapid succession, our captain saw approach the ship, in such direction as extinguished hope, and made him think her escape impossible; each of which unexpectedly broke near the ship and passed harmlessly away.

Such are the evidences of our peril. Let us now survey the evidence that God, in answer to prayer, interposed to protect and deliver us.

By God, I mean not eternal, material, unthinking nature, of complex causations and indications of design, without a Designer; nor the mechanism of nature's laws; the offspring of a Divine intelligence, and the sole executors of all the eternal counsels of his will, in his natural and in his glorious mediatorial moral government; a stupendous complex machine; one on whose movements depend the physical events and moral histories of time; whose pendulum, six thousand years ago, with cold heart and icy hand, he swung and turned his back upon our world, and has not entered it, and will not, till it has prepared, by its own motions, his work for the Day of Judgment.

There are no laws of nature whose unwatched onward movement could administer the rewards and punishments, and discipline and promised protections, in answer to prayer, of the remedial government of God. Left to themselves, they move on without reference to the character and deeds of men, and the exigencies of a reforming government in the hand of the Mediator. They are uniform in all their attributes and results, and must be, to answer the per