A ship at sea was suddenly overtaken by a terrible storm and severely injured. All hands were at the pumps, but the water gained on them. The captain bade all prepare for the worst, which must soon come, and the mate uneasily walked the deck. The ship rolled fearfully, and the rigging became entangled, so it was necessary for someone to set it to rights, which was a perilous undertaking; but who would dare do it?
“We are lost,” said the captain; “the ship cannot possible live it out, and it’s worth one’s life to adjust the sails.”
On board was a frail boy of twelve years of age, just entering a sailor’s life, this being his first trial before the mast. Little Davy stepped forward to the mate, and, lifting his cap, glanced at the swinging mast, boiling sea, and anxious faces. Soon he laid hold of the rat lines, and crept up, hand over hand, with a will. He was light and active, and, though his cheek blanched with fear, his bearing was as if something higher had mastered it.
The eyes of all dimmed with tears as they followed the brave boy, while the ship pitched so badly they expected him to be thrown into the boiling sea. The captain, often hard and brutal, remonstrated with the mate for allowing so young a boy to go on such a perilous errand.
“He will never come down alive,” said the captain; but the lad was in the keeping of One “able to deliver,” and he knew it too.
“I did not oppose it,” the mate replied, “for I believe he will save us yet. We carry a secret between us which you shall know in time. It is drawing near the hour we have watched for, Davy and I, and if we can only stem the gale till that, Davy says he knows we shall be saved. See how he holds on, captain, like a squirrel, only more careful. He’ll come down safe, I’m sure. Some One has him in His keeping, he says.”
And, sure enough, in less than fifteen minutes Davy appeared on deck, though so frail, he looked as though a breath would have blown him away.
Amid a round of cheers, and even the stern captain’s commendation, he walked off with a smiling face, as if the very light of heaven were in it. With a peace such as one who in the midst of danger trusts in God alone knows, he approached the captain, who questioned him as to why he went up so readily.
“Captain, I went to pray!”
“Do you pray, my boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Davy, you put your captain to shame. Where did you learn it?”
“I’ve a praying mother, and she always tells me Jesus is the Friend to go to in trouble. I’ve tried it, and I’ve never found it fail. But I haven’t told you all, sir. Now you’ve asked me, I will. I knew when I went into the rigging it was very near my mother’s hour of prayer, too, and I had told Jack, the mate, all about it, and asked him to tell me when it came. I knew she was praying for me, and when Jack gave the signal to me, I just dropped one hand, and Jesus held the other all the tighter, while I waved my hat and shouted, “We are safe! We cannot be lost now! The wind was so high you could not hear me, but One aloft did.”
As he ceased an old tar, with furrowed face, whispered in his ear, “Pray for me; do; I’m so awfully wicked. You just mind me of my old mother, Davy,” brushing his eyes as he spoke.
Were not these simple prayers answered? They were, in more ways than one.
Little Davy never sailed again; sea life was too rough for him; but the day of parting was blessed to many on board. Often they had seen him get away with God and his Bible. And now he was gone, showing the force of example, even in a boy.
Many a Bible—the gift of mothers and sisters—stowed away in the bottoms of trunks, was brought to light, and it was not long before the love that passeth knowledge began to be known by some of the hardest of that crew—among them old Jim.
With one accord they hung their colors to the mast head and steered for Davy’s port. Many a year they had been steering wrong, but now they would make the harbor of peace.
The captain became a man of prayer and faith, with a word to say for the Master, often adding, “Little Davy first taught me. Ever since that terrible hour, when he mounted the rigging, have his words rung in my ears, ‘Jesus is the Friend to go to; I’ve tried it, and never knew it to fail.’ And I, too, have tried, thanks be to God, in many a trying hour since then, and now ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’ keeps my heart.”
ML 11/24/1918