“MY NIGHT WATCH IS OVER.”
A SAILOR’S CONVERSION.
Sitting upon the capstan in the centre of the fo’c’s’le-head of a huge four-masted ship rushing swiftly along the wide, wild stretch of the Southern Ocean, bound to England round Cape Horn, a young able seaman in the prime of life was engaged in the unusual mental exercise for seamen of meditating upon God. His name does not matter; it must be sufficient to say that he was brought up in a respectable middle-class home in the north of England, one of a family of seven,—four boys and three girls. He had been christened at the parish church, attended Sunday-school and family prayers with the utmost regularity, and had been confirmed at an early age. In spite of occasional outbreaks of wildness, he had won prizes for exemplary conduct at Sunday-school, and had felt, with the mistaken idea of so many, when he received them, as if somebody were trying to bribe him to give up all the fun in life and become a strait-laced, long-visaged humbug. But he also felt, thank God! that in his life there were two solid facts that could never be explained away, standing up like bastions of native rock in his life,—the love of his mother and the kindness of his father.
All that he heard in church and Sunday-school was readily relegated by him to the category of things that ought to be done, even if you couldn’t see the use of them; but as to trying to understand them, well, that was the merest nonsense. Not that he ever put these thoughts and feelings into words, but they were none the less real to him.
Then, suddenly, without any previous preparation discernible by him, a foreign element came into his life. Coming home from the village school one afternoon (he was then thirteen years old), he met a bronzed, weather-beaten man who inquired of him the way to a neighboring town; and as that way for some little distance happened to be his own, they walked together. Within ten minutes the boy had imbibed from the wayfarer an intense desire to go a-roving. For the weather-beaten stranger was a sailor returning home after an absence of many years; and the plain recital of his adventures, without any attempt to enhance their interest, fired the country boy’s blood to such an extent that his breath came in short gasps, and he gazed at the seamed and sunburnt face beside him as if he could see in it some reflection of the wondrous scenes through which it had passed apparently unheeding. They parted; but the boy, his brain all in a ferment with wonder and desire, returned to his home as one that treads the clouds. And that night he waylaid his father, saying stammeringly: “Dad, I want to go to sea.”
Now the father, although a home-keeping man, had long faced the probability of losing his nestlings as soon as they felt their wings growing, the more since he knew well that opportunities for their attaining any position worth considering in the small town of their birth would almost certainly be wanting. Moreover, he had a severe struggle to keep them in comfort on his very small though constant earnings, and any lightening of his burden, even though in the process his heart-strings were strained, was to be welcomed. But as each child had been born to him he had commended it unreservedly to the care of his Heavenly Father, whose love to him had been the pivot of his own life ever since he was sixteen years old. And so it came about that, after a touching scene with his mother, the boy was helped to his desire, and by the most heroic efforts on the part of his father he found himself, six months after giving utterance to his wish, a member of the apprentice portion of the crew of a huge four-masted ship, bound from Liverpool to San Francisco.
His first month at sea was a revelation to the country-bred lad. In place of the home hedged in by love, into which the foulnesses so prevalent in great cities never penetrated, he found himself met at every point by profanity and worse. In place of having all his bodily needs cared for, all the decencies of life made easy for him, he was left to his own ignorant devices, and all the dreadful consequences of being his own master in his own time descended upon him without warning. The captain was a careless, callous man, who only looked upon the apprentices as an inefficient supplement to a scanty crew. And while he worked them mercilessly in consequence, he found it no part of his duty to look after the welfare of either their bodies or their souls.
Under this treatment the boy soon became a finished young blackguard in thought, and so soon as the opportunity arrived to put the evil theories he had so readily absorbed into practice, he flung himself into all forms of evil within his reach with a recklessness and zest that were horrible to contemplate. Finally, he ran away from his ship in company with an older apprentice, breaking his indentures, and cutting off definitely the last hold his home had upon him.
A wild time of sin, suffering, and sorrow followed. Yes, sorrow; although, in the same Spartan fashion practised by so many thousands of wanderers like himself, he concealed it under an assumption of utter indifference, utter godlessness. At last, when in the throes of a prolonged debauch he was staggering along one of the lowest streets in Callao, he was seized by a gang of predatory ruffians, beaten out of what little sense he had left, and conveyed on board an American ship bound thence to England. This is the process called by seamen “Shanghai-ing.”
It would be impossible to convey to people living sheltered lives on shore how terrible were the physical sufferings of the poor lad now, bruised from head to heel, shaking from illness brought on by his excesses, yet compelled to toil in superhuman fashion under pain of being savagely beaten again. But he felt no repentance, he only cursed his “luck,” and dumbly endured, as seamen do. Then one night, during the keeping of his lookout, one of his watchmates whom he had hitherto despised as a mild, say-nothing-to-nobody sort of a duffer, came quietly up on to the forecastle head, and, standing near him, gazed steadfastly out upon the loneliness of the midnight ocean, for some time saying not a word. The full moon had just emerged from a dense black cloud, driving before her, apparently, the darkness that had so recently reigned, and paling the lustrous stars with her glorious radiance, while every tiny wavelet rippling the peaceful sea became instantly edged with molten silver. And the influence of the hour, amid all the eternal immensity of the environment, made for breathless awe, silent involuntary worship of the unseen yet palpably present God.
Suddenly the new-comer spoke quietly, yet with a certain force, as if unable to hold his peace any longer. “Jemmy, lad, don’t ye feel as if we was a-sailing inter the very presence of Almighty God—as if He wanted t’ show men ’at won’t think, how glorious He is, an’ how great is His peace?”
There was no reply, but as the speaker paused to look for the effect of his words, he saw glittering in the moon-ray two big drops stealing down Jemmy’s sorrow-seamed young face.
Immediately the Christian, following his Master’s example, took a quick stride to the youth, and laying his hand upon the trembling shoulder, said softly: “Dear boy, let ’em run. They’re a sign that your heart ain’t got too hard yet to feel the sweet influence that God puts out to win His wandering ones back. But if there’s anything I can do to help you, do let me, won’t you?”
He came nearer as he spoke, until his arm was round Jemmy’s neck. And then he waited patiently until the broken words came: “I—I—feel so miserable. I’ve forgotten my mother and father, my home and my God. But p’raps I never knew Him.”
“No, dear boy, I don’t suppose you ever did; but now is your time to know Him. He’s been waiting for your proud heart to bend down and own that it wants Him—can’t do without Him. Oh, Jemmy, how He loves you! Your mother and father love you, and are heartbroken over you, no doubt, but He, your Father God, loves you from everlasting to everlasting, and spared not His own Son, that you might be made welcome to His peace, that you might know how happy a child of God can be who has found out from God Himself how much He is longed and waited for.”
The speaker paused for breath, for his energetic outburst had so carried him away that he was like a man who had been running a race, and as he did so Jemmy said shyly, and in a low voice: “How did you know that I was wishing with all my heart that in some way, somehow, I might get my soul put right, that I was longin’ for a message from God, without any idea how it was to come?”
There was a happy ring in the Christian’s voice as he answered: “Me know? I don’t know anything, except that God the Father is my Father, that God the Son is my Saviour, who died that I might live, and that God the Holy Ghost, whose work it is to impress these wonderful matters on men’s hearts, is always at hand arranging the time, the messenger, and the message. He found me as He finds you—hopeless, heart-sick, hungry for peace and love; and as soon as He made me feel my need of Him He had some one there to tell me the glad story.”
Then and there Jemmy slid down to his knees, and lifting his streaming face to heaven he murmured, “O God my Father, forgive me my sins, and make me what I ought to be. Dear Jesus, put your own precious life into me and drive the unclean life out. I do believe in you, my Saviour, because you compel me to by your love. Teach me your way—I’ll make it mine. Bless my poor father and mother at home, and let me get back and comfort them; and bless this dear brother here who you’ve made use of to tell me, for Christ’s sake. Amen.”
Deep and solemn was the response from his new-found friend kneeling beside him. As they rose from their knees Jemmy reached for his hand, and clasping it in both of his own, said brokenly, “How real and true all comes back to me now, what I heard when I was a little chap at home and at Sunday-school! How can I ever thank God enough for sending you to me? But how silly I must have been not to see it before! Oh, thank God, thank God I see it now! God my Father waiting for me, Christ my Saviour knocking at my heart, and the Comforter sending you into this place, on to this fo’c’s’le-head at the right minute to give me the right word.”
“Eight bells” rang out clearly from the tiny bell aft, and as Jemmy hastened to strike the big bell responsively he murmured: “Thank God my night watch is over—the morning has come.”
Thenceforward he and his brother in the Lord were inseparable, whenever it was possible for them to enjoy the communion they both needed. Their heavy tasks on board remained really the same, but they did not feel them. They worked cheerfully as unto God, upheld by His wonderful sustaining power, and everything around and about them seemed changed for the better.
So it is when, after long buffeting the gale that is blowing fair for home, because the captain is uncertain of his position and dares not run before it, the pilot comes on board, orders the helm to be put up, and the good ship fleeing homeward with a fair wind seems to have suddenly sprung into fine weather. Jesus, the Heavenly Pilot, comes on board of a man and takes charge, bringing light for darkness, joy for misery, and, embracing all these, the peace of God which passeth all understanding.
Night after night found Jemmy as we found him at the beginning of this story, day after day saw him sturdily and more deeply digging into the treasure of the Word, until that blessed day when with his beloved chum at his side he burst into the old home, to receive that welcome that only a loving mother and father can give to a son restored to them by God’s mercy in answer to many prayers.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.