EVERY SIN I HAD COMMITTED CAME BEFORE ME LIKE ACCUSING GHOSTS.
It was far from pleasant, and it is fortunate that such displays last but a little while. In less than a second from its beginning every sin I had ever committed, namely, the stealing of a watermelon in my boyhood, and the voting of a split ticket in my manhood, came vividly before me like accusing ghosts. I did remember also, once, that when a ticket-seller in a railroad station in Troy, who was very insolent and unobliging, made a mistake in my favor to the amount of thirty cents, in my anger I did not rectify it, and I debated as to whether that was a sin or not; but when I thought it over I came to the conclusion that, inasmuch as the recording angel knew how brutal the fellow was, he would blot out the record if he had to drop upon it a tear of oxalic acid.
But the good ship endured it all. The great body of iron, with its soul of steam, and muscles of steel, defied the elements and rode it out safely.
The storm hurried away to pursue and fright other vessels, and the waste of waters was once more in a sort of a light that was not lurid. Though the greatest terror was passed, the long swell which kept the ship either climbing a mountain of water or descending into its depths was anything but pleasant.
A ship at dock looks strong enough to defy all the elements, but out at sea when those elements become angry it is wonderful how frail she seems. It is man against Omnipotence.
I don’t care how many times a man has been to sea, the first sight of land after a voyage is an unmixed delight. I know that, for I have crossed the Great Lakes repeatedly, and when a boy I used to “go home” via the Erie Canal, I always got up early in the morning to look at the land on either shore. A man is not a fish, and no man takes to water naturally. It is a necessity that drives him to it, the same as to labor.
Therefore the decks were crowded on the ninth morning of the voyage when the shores of Ireland were sighted. Not because it was Ireland—nobody thrilled over that—but because it was land, because it was something that did not roll and pitch, and toss and swing, but was substantial and permanent. The Mississippi Ethiopian, when discussing the difference between traveling by rail and water remarked: “Ef de cahs run off de track dah ye is—ef de boat goes to pieces, wha is ye?”
“LAND!”