Sailor like Mr. Ellerthorpe was earnest, impulsive, enthusiastic, carrying a warm ardour and a brisk life into all his duties. He did not love a continual calm, rather he preferred the storm. He did not believe that because he was on board a good ship, had shaped his course aright, and had a compass never losing its polarity, that he would reach port whether he made sail or not, whether he minded his helm or not. He knew he couldn't drift into port. With waterlogged and becalmed Christians or those who heaved to crafts expecting to drift to the celestial heaven, he had but little fellowship. Such he would cause to shake out reefs and have yards well trimmed to catch every breeze from the millenial trade winds.
CHAPTER III.
HIS CHRISTIAN LABOURS.
Having become a subject of saving grace, Mr. Ellerthorpe felt an earnest desire that others should participate in the same benefit. Nor was there any object so dear to his heart, and upon which he was at all times so ready to speak, as the conversion of sinners. He knew he did not possess the requisite ability for preaching the gospel, and therefore he sought out a humbler sphere in which his new-born zeal might spend its fires, and in that sphere he laboured, with remarkable success, during a quarter of a century. I now refer to the sick chamber.
During all that time he took a deep interest in the sick and the dying; and for several years after his conversion, having much time at his disposal, he would often visit as many as twenty families per day, for weeks together. When Cholera, that mysterious disease, with its sudden attacks, its racking cramps, its icy cold touch, and its almost resistless progress, swept through the town of Hull, in the year 1849, leaving one thousand eight hundred and sixty,—or one in forty of the entire population,—dead, our friend was at any one's call, and never refused a single application; indeed, he was known as a great visitor of the sick and dying, and was often called in extreme cases to visit those from whom others shrank lest they should catch the contagion of the disorder. The scenes of suffering and distress which he witnessed baffled description. On one occasion he entered a room where a whole family were smitten with cholera. The wife lay cold and dead in one corner of the room, a child had just expired in another corner, and the husband and father was dying, amidst excruciating pain, in the middle of the room. John knelt down and spoke words of Christian comfort to the man, who died in a few moments.
HE VISITS THE SICK.
For years, he was in the habit of accompanying Mr. Jones, when visiting the miserable garrets, obscure yards, and wretched alleys in Hull, and was considered his 'right hand man,' in helping to hold open-air services. They often went in company to such wretched localities as 'Leadenhall Square,' then the greatest cesspool of vice in the Port, and, well supplied with tracts, visited every house. During the intervals of public worship, on the Sabbath day, when he might have been enjoying himself in the circle of his family, on a clean hearth, before a bright fire, he was pointing perishing sinners to the Lamb of God. When our new and beautiful chapel in Great Thornton Street was discovered to be on fire, at noon,—March, 1856, he was at the bedside of an afflicted woman, Mrs. Wright, speaking to her of her past sins and of a precious Saviour. He had spent some time with her daily for months, but just at this time he became Foreman of the Victoria Dock and could no longer pay his daily visits to the sick, which greatly distressed Mrs. Wright and others; but duty called him elsewhere and he obeyed its voice. He says, 'I durst not make any fresh engagements to visit the sick, and up to the present time (1867) I have rarely been able to visit, except on the Sabbath day, all my time being required at the dock gates. But on the Sabbath I love to get to the bedside of the sick; nothing does me more good; there my soul is often refreshed and my zeal invigorated.'
Those who are most averse to religion in life, generally desire to share its benefits in death. Their religion is very much like the great coats which persons of delicate health wear in this changeable climate, and which they use in foul weather, but lay aside when it is fair. 'Lord,' says David, 'in trouble they visited thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them.'