Now the father, although a home-keeping man, had long faced the probability of losing his nestlings as soon as they felt their wings growing, the more since he knew well that opportunities for their attaining any position worth considering in the small town of their birth would almost certainly be wanting. Moreover, he had a severe struggle to keep them in comfort on his very small though constant earnings, and any lightening of his burden, even though in the process his heart-strings were strained, was to be welcomed. But as each child had been born to him he had commended it unreservedly to the care of his Heavenly Father, whose love to him had been the pivot of his own life ever since he was sixteen years old. And so it came about that, after a touching scene with his mother, the boy was helped to his desire, and by the most heroic efforts on the part of his father he found himself, six months after giving utterance to his wish, a member of the apprentice portion of the crew of a huge four-masted ship, bound from Liverpool to San Francisco.
His first month at sea was a revelation to the country-bred lad. In place of the home hedged in by love, into which the foulnesses so prevalent in great cities never penetrated, he found himself met at every point by profanity and worse. In place of having all his bodily needs cared for, all the decencies of life made easy for him, he was left to his own ignorant devices, and all the dreadful consequences of being his own master in his own time descended upon him without warning. The captain was a careless, callous man, who only looked upon the apprentices as an inefficient supplement to a scanty crew. And while he worked them mercilessly in consequence, he found it no part of his duty to look after the welfare of either their bodies or their souls.
Under this treatment the boy soon became a finished young blackguard in thought, and so soon as the opportunity arrived to put the evil theories he had so readily absorbed into practice, he flung himself into all forms of evil within his reach with a recklessness and zest that were horrible to contemplate. Finally, he ran away from his ship in company with an older apprentice, breaking his indentures, and cutting off definitely the last hold his home had upon him.
A wild time of sin, suffering, and sorrow followed. Yes, sorrow; although, in the same Spartan fashion practised by so many thousands of wanderers like himself, he concealed it under an assumption of utter indifference, utter godlessness. At last, when in the throes of a prolonged debauch he was staggering along one of the lowest streets in Callao, he was seized by a gang of predatory ruffians, beaten out of what little sense he had left, and conveyed on board an American ship bound thence to England. This is the process called by seamen “Shanghai-ing.”
It would be impossible to convey to people living sheltered lives on shore how terrible were the physical sufferings of the poor lad now, bruised from head to heel, shaking from illness brought on by his excesses, yet compelled to toil in superhuman fashion under pain of being savagely beaten again. But he felt no repentance, he only cursed his “luck,” and dumbly endured, as seamen do. Then one night, during the keeping of his lookout, one of his watchmates whom he had hitherto despised as a mild, say-nothing-to-nobody sort of a duffer, came quietly up on to the forecastle head, and, standing near him, gazed steadfastly out upon the loneliness of the midnight ocean, for some time saying not a word. The full moon had just emerged from a dense black cloud, driving before her, apparently, the darkness that had so recently reigned, and paling the lustrous stars with her glorious radiance, while every tiny wavelet rippling the peaceful sea became instantly edged with molten silver. And the influence of the hour, amid all the eternal immensity of the environment, made for breathless awe, silent involuntary worship of the unseen yet palpably present God.
Suddenly the new-comer spoke quietly, yet with a certain force, as if unable to hold his peace any longer. “Jemmy, lad, don’t ye feel as if we was a-sailing inter the very presence of Almighty God—as if He wanted t’ show men ’at won’t think, how glorious He is, an’ how great is His peace?”
There was no reply, but as the speaker paused to look for the effect of his words, he saw glittering in the moon-ray two big drops stealing down Jemmy’s sorrow-seamed young face.
Immediately the Christian, following his Master’s example, took a quick stride to the youth, and laying his hand upon the trembling shoulder, said softly: “Dear boy, let ’em run. They’re a sign that your heart ain’t got too hard yet to feel the sweet influence that God puts out to win His wandering ones back. But if there’s anything I can do to help you, do let me, won’t you?”
He came nearer as he spoke, until his arm was round Jemmy’s neck. And then he waited patiently until the broken words came: “I—I—feel so miserable. I’ve forgotten my mother and father, my home and my God. But p’raps I never knew Him.”
“No, dear boy, I don’t suppose you ever did; but now is your time to know Him. He’s been waiting for your proud heart to bend down and own that it wants Him—can’t do without Him. Oh, Jemmy, how He loves you! Your mother and father love you, and are heartbroken over you, no doubt, but He, your Father God, loves you from everlasting to everlasting, and spared not His own Son, that you might be made welcome to His peace, that you might know how happy a child of God can be who has found out from God Himself how much He is longed and waited for.”