“No, but I feared you would not, perhaps, tell me the worst, thinking that I could not bear it: and I suspected to-night, that you spoke more cheerfully than you felt on my account. But I am not afraid, dear Arthur, to know the truth; and do not hide it from me! I will try to bear patiently, with you, and with the rest whatever comes upon us.”
“I would not deceive you about such a matter, Johnny. I should not think it right, though you are so young. But I can know nothing certainly. We are in the hands of God. I have told you all the reasons we have to hope; we have the same reasons still. Only a few hours ago, the sea supplied us with food, and the clouds with drink: why may we not hope for future supplies according to our need? I think we yet have more reason to hope than to despair.”
“Did you ever know, or hear of such a thing,” inquired Johnny, after a pause, “as a company of boys, like us, starving at sea?”
“I do not remember that I have, under circumstances at all similar to ours,” answered Arthur.
“It is too dreadful to believe! Is not God, our Father in heaven? He will not surely let us perish so miserably.”
“Yes, Johnny,” said Arthur gently, but earnestly, “God is our heavenly Father; but we must not make our belief in his love and goodness, a ground of confidence that any suffering, however terrible, shall not befall us. The young suffer and die, as well as the old; the good, as well as the bad. Not only the strong martyrs, who triumphed while they were tortured, but feeble old men, and little children, have been torn in pieces by wild beasts, or burned alive, or cast down precipices. And these things, that seemed so very hard to us, God has permitted. Yet he is good, and loves and cares for us as a father. This we must believe, and hold fast to, in spite of every thing that in our ignorance may seem to contradict it. If we feel as we ought, and as by his grace we may, we shall be able to trust all to him, with sweet resignation.”
“But is it not very hard, dear Arthur, to be left to die so!—and God can save us so easily, if he will.”
Arthur was deeply affected: the tears filled his eyes as he took Johnny upon his knee, and tried to explain to him how wrong and selfish it would be, to make our belief in the goodness of God, depend upon our rescue and preservation. It was a difficult task, perhaps an untimely one, as Max hinted. But Johnny gradually sobbed away his excitement, and became soothed and calm.
“Well,” said he, after a while, drawing a long breath, and wiping away his tears, “I know one thing: whatever may happen, we will be kind and true to one another to the last, and never think of such inhuman things as I have read of shipwrecked people doing, when nearly dead with hunger, though we all starve together.”
“Come to me, Johnny,” cried Browne, with a faltering voice, “I must kiss you for those words. Yes, we will perish, if we must, like brothers, not sullenly, as if none had ever suffered evil before us. Weak and gentle spirits have borne without repining, sufferings as great as threaten us. Often has my mother told me the story of sweet Marjory Wilson, drowned in the Solway water, in the days of Claverhouse, because she met with her friends and kindred to worship God after their manner—and never could I listen to it without tears. Ah, what a spirit was there! She was but eighteen, and she could have saved her life by saying a few words. Life was as sweet to her as it is to us: she too had a home and friends and kindred, whom it must have been hard for the poor young thing to leave so suddenly and awfully. And yet she refused to speak those words—she chose to die rather. They took her out upon the sand where the tide was rising fast, and bound her to a stake. Soon the water came up to her face. She saw it go over the head of a poor old woman, whom they had tied farther out than herself. She saw her death struggles; she heard her gasp for breath, as she choked and strangled in the yellow waves. Ah! she must have had courage from the Lord, or that sight would have made her young heart fail. Once more, and for the last time, the king’s officer asked her to make the promise never to attend a conventicle again. He urged it, for he pitied her youth and innocence. Her friends and neighbours begged her to save her life. ‘O speak, dear Marjory!’ they cried, ‘and make the promise; it can’t be wrong. Do it for our sakes, dear Marjory, and they will let you go!’ But she would not save her life by doing what she had been taught to think was wrong; and while the swirling waves of the Solway were rising fast around her, she prayed to God, and kept singing fragments of psalms, till the water choked her voice—and so she perished. But, O friends! to know that such things have been; that spirits gentle and brave as this have lived, makes it easier to suffer courageously.”