ROBERT MAXTED was a sailor. He was of a melancholy disposition, and “never looked at the bright side of things.” He did not know Christ as his Saviour and Friend, but he had a sister who had been led early to feel her sinfulness, and to “behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Anne was very anxious for her brother. She prayed earnestly for him, and when he was at home tried to induce him to accompany her to hear the Word of God; but Robert always refused, with this selfish reply, “Don’t ask me to go, Anne; I should not enjoy it; I tell you I should be out of my element there, and I don’t mean to be a Christian yet awhile; I am young, and I intend to enjoy life, but when I come to die I’ll give my heart to God then.”
In the course of time young Maxted married. After a long voyage, with plenty of money in his pockets, there was nothing he liked better than gathering his companions together to spend his pay as fast as he could. His wife, who was a Christian, tried to persuade him to think about his soul, and one Sunday morning begged him to hear a preacher with her. “It may be the last opportunity given to you, Robert; don’t throw it away.”
“I can’t go with you, Mary,” he answered. “I have promised to spend the day with a friend in M—, and I must go soon, for the train won’t wait.” So saying, he hurriedly left the house and went to the station. But every step he took he seemed as if drawn back. The words of his wife kept ringing in his ears, “It may be your last opportunity, Robert; don’t throw it away.” “My last opportunity,” he thought, “my last opportunity! I can’t go to M—, something stops me; I’ll go with Mary.”
He turned back, and, with his wife, heard the solemn words of the preacher pressing upon the congregation the importance of salvation. He thought of his unsaved soul, and the tears fell from his eyes. Mary saw this and quietly thanked God.
But pleasures came temptingly before him, and once more his salvation was postponed till he “Come to die.”
It was a wild stormy night in the winter of 18—, and Robert’s vessel was homeward bound. The snow was falling fast, and the blinding storm threw the helmsman out of his reckonings.
On, on, nearer and nearer to the sunken rocks which skirt the coast came the ship. All efforts to save her were in vain. She struck! Signals of distress were sent up, but no boat could face the terrible waves. The ship went to pieces, and the crew were engulphed in the seething waters. Robert lost consciousness. But God remembered him still. With eight others he was cast upon a rock. The snow ceased, and a keen frost was setting in, and those nine men felt that their last hour had come.
Then, for the first time in his life, Robert prayed. Earth was fading from his view, and the dread realities of death and judgment were very near. “Lord, save me,” he cried. It was not for life that he cried—that he knew was ebbing away, as the blood was freezing in his veins. Long years spent in neglect of God made him shudder. “I am going straight to perdition; Lord, save me!” was his prayer, and then, numbed with cold, once more he lost his consciousness.
Morning dawned. The storm had subsided. Frozen to the rocks, those lost men still lay helpless and dying, and the darkness of night set in. A coastguardsman was pacing up and down the cliff. Looking in the direction whence the signals of distress had arisen during the late storm he could see no remains of the shipwreck, but his eye fell upon the rocks beneath, where the inanimate figures still lay. He hurried to the village, and a boat went out to pick them up. The heavy swell against the sharp rocks made it almost impossible to approach. But the boat succeeded.
The men were believed to be dead, but when restoratives were applied they began to show signs of life. They were tended with great care and kindness by the villagers, but within a week some of them died. When Robert was fit to be removed, he was taken home, and his sorrowing wife watched by his side, praying that even then he might be saved. “His left lung is entirely gone,” the doctor had said, “and in his exhausted state he cannot get over it.”
Mary prayed that before he died he might know the forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus. Hearing of Robert’s illness, a servant of God went to see him, and, bending down, he said, “Your days are numbered, Maxted; very soon your spirit will return to the God who gave it. Often has God delivered you from the dangers of the sea, and given you warning after warning, and you have lived without Him: you have refused His love. You put off salvation to a dying hour; but, late as it is, you can still come by faith to Jesus, and though you have long refused to listen to His voice He will receive you, for He says, ‘Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.’” (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37).) Then Mr. D. read the 107th Psalm, while Robert listened with a softened heart. When he came to the verses, “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses,” Robert cried out, “That’s me that’s me!” and in the 34th Psalm, which Mr. D. also read, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles,” Robert again exclaimed, “Oh! sir, that’s me.”
And it was then that his eyes were opened; he saw how wonderfully God had preserved him during twenty-eight dreadful hours upon the rocks. He was a terrible sinner. He knew that well. He had sinned so long that he felt almost too bad to come to Christ, but when, in spite of all, he heard that God loved him, that quite melted his heart. Jesus had died, and was willing to save him, poor Robert Maxted. Jesus had done all the blessed work, and there was nothing for him to do but to accept the gift of eternal life. Oh! the peace of God which passeth all understanding, how it filled the heart of Maxted. His face was a witness of the joy he possessed, for, instead of the gloom and despondency it habitually wore, it was always bright, and his saying was, “Oh, how good the Lord has been to me. He might have allowed me to die on those rocks, and then I should have gone straight to hell, but He preserved me, blessed be His name; He has shipwrecked my body to save my soul.”
His great desire was that he might be restored to health, in order that he might live for God and testify of Christ to all around, especially to those who had known his former godless life. His prayer was heard, for he did not die, as the doctor had said he surely would, but remained upon his bed for thirteen months.
At last he was strong enough to rise. His first thought was to seek out all his old friends, and to tell them of his happiness in being saved.
Many summer visitors to his native village have seen a seafaring man, sadly paralyzed in one side, strolling on the sands. He would often say “Will you accept a little paper from a shipwrecked sailor?” and in the conversations that followed he would dwell with peculiar joy on the way the Lord had led him to Himself, and point out the way of salvation to his listeners. That man was Robert Maxted, and many souls have been blessed through his humble efforts to spread abroad the wonderful way of God’s grace to hardhearted sinners. G. A. A.