The gist of it is that they mean to say, whether they are right or wrong (like us, as we would say, whether we were right or wrong), they mean to say that they have a right to live.
In other words, the gist of it is that we are like them, and that they are like us.
I, too, in my hour of deepest trial, with no silk hat, with no gloves, with no gilt prayer-book, as I should, have flashed out my will upon my God. I, too, have cried with Paul, with Job, across my sin—my sin that very moment heaped up upon my lips—have broken wildly in upon that still, white floor of Heaven!
And when the dockers break up through, fling themselves upon their God, what is it, after all, but another way of saying, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God...."
It may have been wicked in the dockers to address God in this way, but it would have been more wicked in them not to think He could understand.
I believe, for one, that when Jacob wrestled with the angel, God looked on and liked it.
The angel was a mere representative at best, and Jacob was really wrestling with God.
And God knew it and liked it.
Praying to strike Lord Devonport dead was the dockers' way of saying to God that there was something on their minds that simply could not be said.
I can imagine that this would interest a God, a prayer like the dockers' prayer, so spent, so desperate, so unreasonable, breaking through to that still, white floor of Heaven!