WE were boys together—David and I—living in the same seaport town. My father was a merchant, his was a doctor—a fine handsome man, who rode one of the best horses I had ever seen. Everyone used to admire him and his horse as he rode about visiting his patients.
A dangerous epidemic broke out, and the doctor had more than enough to do. After he had cared for a number of patient’s, he took infection, and although his young wife and their servant—a faithful girl—nursed him, he succumbed and died.
So terrified were the folks of the town that no one was found equal to the task of measuring his body for the coffin, or of placing it there; but laying the coffin down at the door, they left the wife and nurse to attend to these sad duties. The doctor’s house for a time was dreaded as a plague spot—few daring even to approach the door.
David was left fatherless, and his mother poor. He and I, like boys at a seaport, were fond of boats and ships, a great amusement being to climb the masts, and our best friends being the captains of some of the traders and whalers.
David knew that it would go hard with his mother, and that the education he had hoped for was now impossible, so bracing himself up, he declared that he would go to sea, and be able to help his mother with the education of his brothers and sisters. His uncle’s ship was chosen as the one in which he should sail, and we parted.
At the end of long voyages he came to visit us. Once the vessel came into a port where I was living, when I had several pleasant hours on board with him, and he spent the evenings when ashore with me. I had found the Lord then, and felt it to be my duty to speak to David of my decision for Christ, and he, with tears of joy, told me how that he too had sought and found the Saviour. His experience seemed very interesting to me. I could never forget it. It was one terrible night at sea, he said, the ship rolling amidst waves that every few minutes threatened to swallow it up; occasionally the deck was swept by a breaker, and it was with considerable difficulty that even the best sailors could save themselves from being washed overboard.
The captain in a commanding tone, ordered David below to stow away some things that would be rolling about. Down into the darkness, through a hatch below the level of the wild waves, he went, and as he did so, he imagined that his uncle believed the ship would founder, and that he had better be below when it went down. A heavy lurch just then rolled him over in the darkness, and he felt as if the ship would never right herself. A terrible feeling that he would be drowned like a rat, along with the rats about him, came over him; he thought of his mother, left without husband or son, to fight the battle of life alone; then there came the thought of his father in heaven, and a fear that he would not see him or be with him; and the fear brought before his mind’s vision all his sins. They seemed hopelessly many and great. Then his mother’s teaching and her many entreaties to seek the Lord, came to his help. Falling on his knees in that dark chamber, with a broken, contrite spirit, and a strange sense that, even there, God would hear him, he cried for mercy.
“O God, forgive me for Christ’s sake,” was whispered amid the din of waves, and cracking, creaking timber and sails, and rolling cargo—unheard by any living soul, but heard by the Lord of glory, and speedily answered, for scarcely had the words been uttered, or rather muttered, than the dear fellow felt as if the light and joy of heaven had flooded that darkness, and it seemed that the Lord was there. His work done, he went again on deck, and felt a new boy. The flood of light was within his soul—the joy of heaven was in his own bosom, and he knew now what it was to be a saved, forgiven, redeemed soul.
The waves had not the same terror to him as he felt that God loved him, and that He had the sea in the hollow of His hand; and what if he were to be drowned? He would be in glary with the Lord Jesus Christ, who had died for him, and who had now saved him, washed him from his sins in His blood, and accepted him. The storm passed away, but the sweetness of a new life remained, and the first opportunity was taken to write home to his mother, to tell that her fondest wish was gratified, and her earnest prayers answered, for that her boy was now saved by Jesus.
ML 04/09/1916