THE CAPTAIN’S CLOSING ADDRESS.
Feb. 6. This evening the captain invited the sailors to a valedictory religious service. He spoke to them from the words, “God is love,” which he judiciously explained in consistency with the other attributes. He told the men that he never sailed with a crew with whom he was more pleased. He would be willing to have them all sail with him again, which he had never before been able to say to a crew. Of the various groups of laboring men with which I have been connected, I have never seen among them a greater proportion of faithful men, of good dispositions, civil behavior, pleasant manners, intelligent, and fully deserving the encomium of the captain. Some of them were from Northern European nations, and proverbially there are no better sailors than they, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians. Some of them were from highly respectable family circles; for all of them I formed a strong personal attachment. It is with sorrow that I think of their leaving us, as of course they will soon after reaching port; for after the manner of these citizens of the world, they will, the most of them, ship at once for sea again. Some of them came with us for the round voyage; these will remain with us; the rest will soon be like the gulf weed which falls into the many ocean currents. It was gratifying to think that for nearly four months they have been under christian influences, have listened to the word of salvation, have joined in christian worship, have had abundant opportunities to read the Bible, listen to moral advice and religious instruction. I will record the names of the whole company.[4]
Feb. 10. The captain called all hands into the forward cabin, and gave them a Temperance address, warning against the evil men who drug sailors, ship them on board a vessel just sailing, securing to themselves the sailor’s advance wages, and thrusting him on board stupefied, leaving him to come to himself at sea, perhaps bound on a long voyage, with but a pittance coming to him at the close. It was a capital lecture, full of anecdotes; it put the sailors in good spirits, affected them with its kindness, while it impressed them with its good sense.[5]
As I must be much absorbed on arriving at anchorage, and shall wish to get my journal and letters into the mail at once, I will finish the journal now.
In one sense God has kept my eyes from tears; but as it regards tears of joy, I have never felt like shedding so many. My principal reading, (I will say again,) for the pleasure to my taste, if I were to mention no other reason, has been in the Old Testament. I know not why I should specify the book of Deuteronomy, only it is noticeable in the account in Matthew of the Saviour’s temptation in the wilderness, it appears that of his four quotations from the Old Testament prefaced by “It is written,” thereby foiling the suggestions of Satan, three of them are in the Book of Deuteronomy. In the Old Testament I have seen and heard God talking with men, which I have felt more at sea than on land. Whenever they prayed, there was sure to be an answer, excepting to the ungrateful, godless Saul. It has deeply moved me to think of God as always at hand when one prays. This has comforted me on the ocean. When I have heard the gale at night, or have seen the ocean lashed to fury, I could not resist the feeling: It is God, not nature; God is doing something. This has kept down every feeling of fear, for I knew that the wind could not blow longer nor stronger than he should let it out. Nor was the ocean more than a little water in the hollow of his hand. The voyage has made permanent impressions, I trust, upon me, concerning the personality of God, his intimate knowledge, his personal love, all having their most perfect expression and seal in the life, and, above all, in the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
Of course I have had thoughts of home which but for this would have agitated me. But why should I fear future events, with such experience as this voyage has given me? How little I had to do about this voyage; how manifestly it has been the work of God. Not according to my works, but of his mercy he saves me. Had I done some great service for God, He could not make me feel his goodness more. Now it is all of grace, not earned, but for nothing. Far better this than though I felt that it was of works; for his grace is a better foundation than our deserts. If he has done so much for me for nothing, I may confidently ask Him for all that I need. As I told the sailors one Sabbath, God never sells anything; He never lets a man give him an equivalent; He will receive as much grateful love as we will give, but nothing in the light of payment.
Let me never feel on shore that if I were at sea I could have more vivid impressions of God’s presence. The following lines I wrote to rebuke this feeling:
PRIVATE WORSHIP IN THE CAMP OF ISRAEL.
My God, how good to be
In the wilderness with Thee
When Israel’s tribes pursued their desert way.
Leaving the Red Sea strand
To find the Promised Land,
Thou shepherdest thy flock by night and day.
So great a change in that one night!
Pharaoh no more, the God of gods was then their risen light.
Treading the deep sea floor,
Dry shod from shore to shore,
The wall of waters piled on either hand;
Hearing the rushing waves
Fill up the Egyptians’ graves,
The foremost vainly struggling for the land,
Thee would I love with all my soul,
My heart should rove no more; God should possess the whole.
Encamped where Elim spread
Her palm-trees overhead,
With wells of water springing all around,
Not the new-found fruit
Would so my longings suit,
Nor the cold water from the pebbly ground
Could so revive my spirit there,
As when in some still place I sought my God in prayer.
Now moves the ransomed host
Far from the sea-washed coast,
And plunges deep where foot hath seldom trod;
And see that cloud by day
Marking out their way,
Guiding them safe as by a royal road.
My God, I could not see that sign,
And not with rapture cry, My soul, this God is thine!
And when the night came on,
The fading twilight gone,
Or whether storms or stars should fill the sphere,
That pillared cloud grew bright
With more than earthly light;
No need of words to whisper, God is here.
Finding some place beneath the sky,
My God, my very present God! nightly I’d cry.
When manna strews the ground,
And quails the camp surround,
And when the rock breaks forth in living streams,
And cities walled to heaven
To them are freely given,
Wonders of grace, exceeding all their dreams,
My God! each day and hour I’d be,
With heart and soul, a living sacrifice to thee.
To see the words in stone
Graven by God alone,
To hear the voice which from the darkness spake,
To see the man of God
Trail his princely rod,
And cry, “Forbear! my soul doth fear and quake.”
Oh, could I ever sin again!
Would not my soul become thy living temple then?
Behold the priest-borne ark
Resting in Jordan; mark!
It tarries till the host are all passed o’er,
Then slowly leaves the stream;
The friendly waters seem
Listing till every foot has reached the shore.
How sweet to live, how safe to die,
That wondrous ark of God before me passing by!
But pause, my soul! and see
If Israel’s God to thee
Hath not approached in loving-kindness nigher;
What place like Bethlehem!
The Saviour’s footprints deem
Steps leading up to God, ascending higher.
Hast thou forgot Gethsemane?
The world’s four thousand years had not a Calvary.
How hast thou loved and prayed?
How feared, adored, obeyed?
Is God in Christ less than a pillared cloud?
Are words he wrote in stone
More than the Word, his Son?
Is not “the living way” the better road?
Surely, whate’er thine eyes can see
In Israel’s favored lot, falls far this side of thee.
Awake! awake! my powers,
And Israel’s God and ours
Love, serve, and worship with a double flame;
God’s ancient methods learn;
The elder Scripture turn,
Tracing therein the great Immanuel’s name.
So shall thy worship perfect be,
And both the Testaments shall shine full orbed o’er thee.
III.
CALIFORNIA. THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. HONG KONG.
Long have they voyaged o’er the distant seas;
And what a heart-delight they feel at last,
So many toils, so many dangers past,
To view the port desired, he only knows
Who on the stormy deck for many a day
Hath tossed, a weary of his ocean way,
And watched, all anxious, every wind that blows.
Southey.
One day at sundown the captain said as he looked at his watch, “At five minutes past nine this evening we shall see Farralone light.” We had altered our course several times that day; the current was strong, the wind was aft, so that only one course of sails drew; therefore we paid little attention to the remark, supposing it to be a guess, or at best a hope, rather than an opinion.
At nine o’clock P. M. Feb. 11, a man was sent aloft to see if there was a lighthouse visible. At twenty minutes after nine he called out, “Light, ho! three points on the port bow.” In five or ten minutes we saw it from the deck. We felt that this part of the voyage was over. We had been to 59° S., being five degrees south of Cape Horn, and had sailed back to 37° N. and were also now far west of Boston.
We dropped anchor at San Francisco Feb. 12th, making the voyage in 111 days, one day less than the good ship had logged before. We took pleasure in reading on shore the record which I give below.[6]