THE voice that first told roe of my need of a Saviour, that first bade me look to Jesus, is silent now. It was a young cabin-boy on board the ship I first sailed in from England. We had a rough voyage, and out in the Atlantic met with such a storm, as made my coward heart quail.
I remembered how, in days gone by, as a little child, my mother had taught me of God, and told me I need not fear in the dark, because He would be near and take care of me; but now this thought did not quiet my heart. I felt that God was near, and that it was His voice speaking in the storm; but I could not look up to Him as a friend, and the thought of His being near only made me tremble with fear.
I had lived so long in sin and without God in the world, that surely He would not listen to me now, or take care of me in the storm. All my past life seemed in a moment to stand out before me, and the thought of what a dark picture it was, filled me well-nigh with despair. As I heard the wind and waves roaring, and looked out into the thick darkness, I felt there was not a glimmer of hope for me. Just then, this young cabin-boy who had often spoken to me of the Saviour, but whom I and another man on hoard, had never lost an opportunity of jeering at, came past me. As he passed me in the dark, I thought I caught sound of the words, “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” At any other time I should probably have laughed at him; but I was in no mood for jesting now and something forced me to call out, as he went by, “Aren’t you afraid, Charlie?” for was trembling from head to foot. The boy stopped and said “No, master, I’m not afraid. When the storm in the heart’s once been stilled, the outside storms can’t alarm one; if one’s heart is only in the harbor, there’s no room for fear.”
“Amid the howling, wintry sea,
We are in port, if we have Thee.”
Ah! I would have given the world at that moment to have felt as that young lad did; though many a time when he had spoken to me before of the sure haven for storm-tossed souls, I had told him there would be time enough to seek the harbor when the storm came. How well I remember the sad look which came over his face when I spoke so, and how gravely he would say, “Ah! Master Smith, you should put into that port in bright weather, if you’d know how to find it in the storm.”
He had hardly passed by when a tremendous wave broke over the ship, and it was hard work for the men to stand at the pumps. In the roar of the wind and sea, I heard the young boy’s voice “Call upon God, Master Smith, call upon God! He says, ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee.’” And then and there in the darkest night I have ever spent in my life; and yet not quite the darkest, for before it ended a gleam of light had shot across my heart. I did call upon God, as I clung for my life to the side of the ship, and prayed to Him to have mercy on my poor benighted soul. But the lad’s voice I have never heard again; the wave that washed over the ship had borne away with it the soul that was most ready of all on board to meet death. Those words, “Call upon God, Master Smith, call upon God!” must have been well-nigh his last on earth. The storm that was my call to the Saviour was his to go home, and he was ready. I never knew a lad so fearless in danger, so ready to witness for the Lord, so little afraid of man. There wasn’t a man on board that didn’t respect him, even if he did not think with him. I found his jacket the next morning. He had taken it off to help at the pumps, and there in the pocket was the little Bible I had so often seen him reading. I couldn’t help a tear or two when I opened it, and saw how well-worn and used it was. I have kept that Bible ever since; and blessed be God, through reading that Book, I have found pardon and peace, and I know that I shall one day reach the home that dear lad has gone to, through the love of the Saviour who came into the world to seek and to save sinners such as I, and I can sing a hymn which I have often heard little Charlie sing:
One who has known in storms to sail
I have on board;
Above the raging of the gale
I hear my Lord.
One has come by and said unto my soul all tossed with sin and misery “Peace be still and now there is a great calm.”
“I came to Jesus as I was
Weary and worn and sad:
I found in Him a resting place,
And He has made me glad.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In Him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I’ll walk
Till traveling days are done.
ML 05/16/1909