Wreck of the "London."

by Anonymous

That those who now most need the light of this truth to guide them will see even the faintest glimmering of it, we cannot say; but when the blindness occasioned by the smart of tears has cleared away, we are sure, that if they will look up there will be the truth mildly shining behind the calamity, dark though it be. The mystery, appalling though it be, can, in this world, receive no truer solution, but a lifetime may pass away without our even having learnt the letters by which the truth is to be slowly spelt out.

But while the mystery remains, the calamity loses much of its horror, if we lay to heart the truth of the over-ruling providence of God. “It is appointed unto man once to die,” and the Omnipotent one has ordained the place, the time, the circumstances. Good and faithful servants were in the ship, and the summons that told them their way unto the Lord’s presence was through the deep, brooked no delay; but the road was not half so strange to them as it seems to us. Before their eyes a light was shining which is hidden from our view, and by it they were conducted to their Father’s house as serenely as if they had breathed their last on downy pillows. Down into the great deep they plunged, and then?

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they had left their sea-soaked raiment behind them, and they were at rest amid the blessed calm on which no tempest shall ever, ever, ever break. A rich feast was awaiting their arrival; bright and happy faces were around the board to welcome the guests who had come through the flood and tempest; and God Himself wiped away all tears from off all faces, and the voice of eternal love thrilled their hearts as it whispered, “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.”

Oh! could we think a little more of this scene beyond the flood, and less of the terrible shipwreck, we should assuredly catch glimpses of the light behind the cloud. From the eternal shore the voices of the faithful reach our world, saying, “Men of England, men of Melbourne, weep not for us, for we have all got safe to land; and the land is good, and, behold we were not told the half concerning it. See to it, that ye prepare to follow us in the way our Father sees best.”

But through the sea? Yes, for the sea is his, and He made it; and God may use it as He did in the case before us, not as a minister of wrath, but of mercy, to conduct his chosen ones to Himself.

But through all the agony which preceded the struggle, and through such a struggle?

Yes; if that too be the Divine will, for who was it that for our sakes chose the saddest and most lingering of deaths? and who, in the anguish of a fast breaking heart, cried,“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!”

But let us say that friends and relations are in danger of making by far too much of the agony, and not enough of the heavenly help that came to the shipwrecked ones, to enable them “to suffer and be strong.”

We believe in the superiority of Divine grace to the mere natural feeling of pain and anguish, and that when Divine strength nerves the soul, the keenest physical tortures are all outside things. The martyrs of old could without pretence woo the flames that consumed them, clothe themselves cheerfully as with a garment of fire; and while the chain around him grew red hot, one could talk of his dying thus, as if he were on a bed of roses! And He who for some inscrutable but all-wise and loving purpose permitted the calamity of the shipwreck, may have thus supported his servants, and deprived them of agony as He had previously deprived them of fear—the greater agony of the two.

Is there not also a light behind the cloud, when the fact is called to mind how faithfully the gospel was preached, and how fervently most of those on board engaged in acts of devotion? There have been scenes of horror on board shipwrecked vessels which baffle all description, when it has been made known that the ship must go down. Then, shouts of cursing, despair, and drunken revelry have been heard above the fury of the gale, and mocked the very groans of the dying.