A few days later in the afternoon, Alice sitting quite alone in the saloon saw smoke coming from a place where smoke had no business. She instantly found an officer, and he ran for the captain. For a few hours there was an unusual commotion, but 367 the subject was not named, and I understood from the captain’s reticence, that danger was over, and that silence was wise, and even imperative. For our long detention at sea, had made both water and provisions very scarce, and there was actual mutiny among the emigrant passengers, whose number was unusually large. It happened, however, that there was a big consignment of nuts on board, and they were given to the angry crowd, who were thus pacified. Two days afterwards we reached our pier in New York harbor, so grateful and happy, that we hardly felt the blustering wind, and snow and cold. We had been threatened with fire, and shipwreck, and mutiny, but all had failed to really injure. Nothing of us had suffered; for He had given His angels charge concerning us.
My readers, I hope, remember what I wrote about charms. They were not my words, but I endorsed them from my experience. Well I confess that this wonderful verse, 1st Samuel, 17:37, has assumed something of the character of a sacred amulet. When I first read it, I wrote the words of the covenant God had given me on a piece of paper, folded the paper with a prayer, and put it into a little pocket of my purse. It remained there for many, many years. Other documents placed beside it became invalid, useless, or outworn, and were destroyed. But the golden promise of God’s constant care remained. On certain occasions, I took it out and reminded God, that it read He would be with me. Finally the writing became so nearly illegible, and the paper so frail I solemnly renewed both, putting this renewal in the same purse pocket, where it remains unto this moment. It will go to the grave with me, for I will never give up that promise. God made it. God will keep it. Whether I deserve it, or not, He will keep it. Yea, if I did not deserve one letter of it, all the more I would plead,
“Because I seek Thee not, Oh, seek Thou me,
Because my lips are dumb, oh, hear the cry
I do not utter as Thou passest by!
Because content I perish far from Thee,
Oh, seize and snatch me from my fate; draw nigh,
And let me blinded, Thy Salvation see.
“If I were pouring at thy feet my tears,