“Yet, John, my theology was part of my very life. Nothing to me was once more certain than that men and women were in God’s hand as clay in the potter’s. And as some vessels are made to honor, and some to dishonor, so some men were made for salvation and honor, and others for rejection and dishonor.”
“Clay in the potter’s hand! And some for honor, and some for dishonor! We will even grant that much; but tell me, David, does the potter ever make his vessels for the express purpose of breaking them? No, no, David! He is not willing that any should perish. Christ is not going to lose what he has bought with his blood. The righteous are planted as trees by the watercourses, but God does not plant any tree for fuel.”
“He is a good God, and his name is Love.”
“So, then, thee is going back to Shetland with glad tidings for many a soul. What will thy hands find to do for thy daily bread?”
“I shall go back to the boats and the nets and lines.”
“Would thee like to have a less dangerous way of earning thy bread? My father has a great business in the city, and thee could drive one of the big drays that go to the docks.”
“I could not. I can carry a ship through any sea a ship can live in; I could not drive a Shetland shelty down an empty street. I am only a simple sea-dog. I love the sea. Men say for sure it is in my heart and my blood. I must live on the sea. When my hour comes to die, I hope the sea will keep my body in one of her clean, cool graves. If God gives me Nanna, and we have sons and daughters, they shall have a happy childhood and a good schooling. Then I will put all the boys in the boats, and the girls shall learn to grow like their mother, and, if it please God, they shall marry good men and good fishers.”
“It seems to me that the life of a fisher is a very hard one, and withal that it hath but small returns.”
“Fishers have their good and their bad seasons. They take their food direct from the hand of God; so, then, good or bad, it is all right. Fishers have their loves and joys and sorrows; birth and marriage and death come to them as to others. They have the same share of God’s love, the same Bible, the same hope of eternal life, that the richest men and women have. It is enough.”
“And hard lives have their compensations, David. Doubtless the fisherman’s life has its peculiar blessings?”