Remembering gratefully, as all students should do, the immense literary value of the Bible, it is not without a of regret that we are obliged to confess that its pages are so meagre of to the grandest of all the Almighty’s works—the encircling sea. Of course we cannot be surprised at this, seeing how was the acquaintance with the sea enjoyed by ancient civilised peoples, to whom that exaggerated lake, the , was the “Great Sea,” and for whom the River Oceanus was the of a outer darkness. Yet in spite of this drawback, Old allusions to the sea then known, few as they are, remain unsurpassable in literature, needing not to withdraw their claims to pre-eminence before such as “Ocean’s many-dimpled smile” or the “Wine-dark main” of the pagan poets. In number, too, though sprinkled, they far surpass those of the New Testament, which, were it not for one splendid exception, might almost be neglected as non-existent.  
Our Lord’s connection with the sea and its toilers was confined to those petty Syrian lakes which to-day excite the traveller’s wonder as he recalls the historical accounts of hundreds of Roman floating thereupon; and all his childish dreams of[269] the great sea upon which the Lord was sailing and sleeping when that storm arose which He stilled with a word suffer much by being brought face to face with the realities of little lake and tiny boat. St. John and St. James show by their almost terror-stricken words about the sea what they felt, and from want of a due consideration of proportion their allusions have been much misunderstood. No man who knew the sea could have written as one of the blissful conditions of the renewed heaven and earth that there should “be no more sea,” any more than he could have spoken of the ocean wave as casting up “mire and dirt.”
 
But by one incomparable piece of writing Paul, the Apostle born out of due time, has rescued the New Testament from this reproach of neglect, and at the same time has placed himself easily in the front rank of those who have essayed to the awful of wind and wave as well as the feebleness, to almost daring, of those who do business in great waters. Wonder and must also be greatly heightened if we do but remember the circumstances under which this description was written. The writer had, by the sheer force of his , by his daring to await the precise moment in which to assert his , escaped what might at any moment have become martyrdom. Weary with a terrible journey, faint from many privations, he was hurried on board a ship of Adramyttium bound to the coast of Asia (places not specified). What sort of accommodation[270] and treatment awaited him there under even the most circumstances we know very well. For on the East African coast even to this day we find the same kind of , the same ideas of navigation, the same absence of even the most elementary notions of comfort, the same faith in its being always fine weather as evinced by the absence of any precautions against a storm.
 
Such a as this carried one huge sail to a yard resembling a gigantic fishing-rod whose when the sail was set came nearly down to the deck, while the end soared many feet above the masthead. As it was the work of all hands to it, and the operation took a long time, when once it was it was kept so if possible, and the nimble sailors with their almost toes climbed up the scanty rigging, and clinging to the yard gave the sail a furl. The was just that of an exaggerated boat, sometimes undecked altogether, and sometimes covered in with loose , excepting a hut-like erection aft which was of a little more permanent character. Large were used in weather that admitted of this mode of propulsion, and the anchors were usually made of heavy forked pieces of wood, whereto big stones were . There was a rudder, but no compass, so that the crossing of even so narrow a piece of water as separated Syria from Cyprus was quite a voyage. was unknown or almost so, and once the got hold of the land they were so reluctant to lose[271] sight of it that they not how much time the voyage took or what distances they travelled.
 
The nameless ship of Adramyttium then at last ventured from Sidon and fetched Cyprus, sailing under its lee. How salt that word tastes, and what visions it opens up of these infant navigators creeping cautiously from point to point along that coast, not at all the unnecessary distance so long as they were sheltered from the stormy autumn weather. Another voyage across “the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia” (another term) and the harbour of Myra was gained. Great were the rejoicings of the voyagers, but , for every day that passed brought them nearer to the time of tempest, and consequently of utmost danger. In fact the memorable voyage of St. Paul may be said to begin here. The crossing of the Great Sea had been without incident, although doubtless occupying so many days that the landsmen were by this time somewhat accustomed to the of life at sea in those days, when in coarse weather sea-sickness was one of the least of their .
 
The shipment by the of his prisoners on board of the Alexandrian wheat-ship marked the commencement of a series of troubles. In the first place, for such a ship and such a voyage the number of people on board was far too great, even if we accept the lower estimate—seventy-six—which is placed on her by some ancient authorities. If she carried two hundred and seventy-six sh............