"'when God wills that one or many be saved, water is the medicine'"

"'It pleased the goodness of God to conduct them out of the same peril to safety and deliverance, for the [outgoing] fresh water prevailing over the [incoming] salt, imperceptibly carried the ships out, and thus they were placed in safety; because when God wills that one or many be saved, water is the medicine.'"

     Bartolomé de Las Casas (?) on Columbus’ third fleet in Boca Grande, “westernmost of the Bocas del Dragón” between northern Venezuela and Trinidad, this one between Venezuela and Chacachacare Island, as quoted by Samuel Eliot Morison in Admiral of the Ocean Sea:  a life of Christopher Columbus, vol. 2 (Boston:  Little, Brown and Company, 1942), p. 550 (chap. 40, Terrestrial paradise, August 11-31, 1498).  But, as is well-recognized in the theology of baptism, water can, as here, be death-dealing too.