Nick waited to hear no more. He slipped out quickly, and said to the cook in the kitchen, "Please tell mama I didn't wait; I've gone to grandma's."
He was so quiet and gentle all day that Grandma Hammond worried a great deal, saying: "I never saw the like of it. The boy is either sick or something is going to happen to him."
That something had already happened to him, but grandma was not aware of it. For the first time in his life, Nick felt ashamed of himself. During that long, long day he made a strong resolution, which he never purposely broke, never to do anything to make himself or anybody else ashamed.—Atwood Miller, in Youth's Evangelist.
* * * * *
"O! There are many actors who can play
Greatly great parts, but rare indeed the soul
Who can be great when cast for some small role;
Yet that is what the world most needs,—big hearts
That will shine forth and glorify poor parts
In this strange drama, Life."
WITHOUT BALLAST
Not many years ago the "Escambia," a British iron steamer, loaded with wheat, weighed anchor and started down the bay of San Francisco. The pilot left her about five miles outside the Golden Gate. Looking back from his pilot-boat a short time after, he saw the vessel stop, drift into the trough of the sea, careen to port, both bulwarks going under water, then suddenly capsize and sink. What was the cause of this sad catastrophe?—A want of ballast.
She came into port from China, a few weeks previous, with a thousand emigrants on board. But she had in her hold immense tanks for what is called water ballast. The captain, wishing to carry all the wheat he could between decks, neglected to fill those tanks. He thought the cargo would steady the ship. But it made it top-heavy, and the first rough sea capsized it.
Here, then, was a vessel, tight and strong, with powerful engines, with a cargo worth one hundred thousand dollars, floundering as soon as she left the harbor, taken down with her crew of forty-five men, because the captain failed to have her properly ballasted. The moment she began to lurch, all the wheat tumbled over to the lower side, and down into the sea she went.
How this wreck of the "Escambia" repeats the trite lesson that so many have tried to teach, and that they who need it most are so slow to learn! Young men starting out in life want to carry as little ballast as possible. They are enterprising, ambitious. They are anxious to go fast, and take as much cargo as they can. Old-fashioned principles are regarded as dead weight. It does not pay to heed them, and they thrown overboard. Good home habits are abandoned in order to be popular with the gay and worldly. The Bible is not read, the Sabbath is not kept holy, prayer is neglected, and lo! some day, when all the sails are spread, a sudden temptation comes that wrecks the character and life.