There was a little boy living in a fishing village on the south coast of England, who loved his Bible more than his breakfast or dinner, and every morning he would steal away with it to the sea shore. One afternoon he was reading it as usual, when a number of boys found him out and began to annoy him. So to avoid them he got into a little boat that was anchored near. Some of them cut the rope. The boy, being intent on reading his Bible, did not notice this until he found himself drifting out to sea on the ebbing tide. Darkness and mist soon came on and the poor little fellow was alone with his Bible on the wide ocean.
Two days later a large Norwegian vessel was passing up the channel, when the man at the lookout spied a black speck on the water. The captain’s telescope soon made out that it was a small boat, so the ship sailed up to it, and then they saw a little boy fast asleep clasping a Bible. They lifted him out and he awoke, but fainted away directly through weakness from lack of food.
However, kind care soon restored him, and then he told his story. What a comfort his loved Bible had been to him in those lonely hours on the water, until he had become too weak to read! Indeed, nothing else could have sustained him in his terrifying experience.
ML 07/02/1961