“I don’t think that God can care for one who has cared so little for Him,” answered the captain. “I don’t mean to say that I call myself a bad man, or that I have many great sins on my conscience, and so, I suppose, if I died He would hot shut me out of heaven altogether.”
“Captain,” said Paul, fixing his eyes steadily on him, “the debil told you dat; he a liar from the beginning. God says, ‘There is none that doeth good, no not one,’ ‘The soul that sinneth shall surely die.’ What does dat mean? Not, surely, that if you sinner He let you get into heaven. I ask you, captain, whether you are a sinner, or whether you pure and holy, and trust to Christ, and love Christ, and fit to go and live for ever and ever in the pure and holy heaven with Him? Understand, I do not ask whether you are a great sinner in your own sight, but whether you have ever committed any sins; and remember, God says, ‘the soul that sinneth,’ not only the soul that is a great sinner.”
The captain looked much annoyed. “Yes, of course, I have committed some sins; but I don’t see why God has any right to charge them against me.”
“God made this world, and all things that are therein. God rules this world, and God made His laws, and He says they are just and right, and God says, ‘The soul that sinneth shall surely die,’” answered Paul, solemnly. “Captain understand, it is not I who say that. God says it. But though God is a God of justice He is full of love and mercy, and He has therefore formed a plan for the benefit of sinning men, by which man’s sins can be washed away, by which His justice will be satisfied, His love and mercy shown. He has allowed another to be punished instead of the sinner,” Paul continued, explaining to the captain God’s plan of salvation much in the same terms as he had already explained it to me.
“I never understood that matter before,” said the captain. “But still I do not see how God can expect us to be as good as you say.”
“Massa Captain, I do not say dat God expect us to be good; but still He has a right to demand that we should be good. He made man pure and holy and upright, and He gave him free will to act as he chose; but man disobeyed God and went away from Him, and forgot Him, and so God has the right to punish man. But den God is full of love and mercy, and He does not want to punish him, but wants him to come back to Him, and so He has sent His message to man to tell him how he may do that. Now as man cannot be good and pure and holy and do nothing but good, but, on the contrary, does much harm, he must either accept God’s plan of salvation, or be punished. You have heard, captain, about the thief on the cross, even when he was dying he put faith in Jesus, and Jesus told him that he should be that night with Him in paradise. So you see, captain, there is hope for the sinner, even at the last, and this shows that God does not expect us to do anything good in order to be saved, but only just to put faith in the sacrifice of His dear Son—that is to say, to believe that He was punished instead of us. But then remember, captain, that only one thief was saved; and that shows to us that we must not put off turning to Jesus to the last, and, therefore, I pray you, captain, go to Him at once; trust to Him now, and you will not feel unhappy; and if this fever takes you away, as it has taken away so many people on board this ship, you will hab no fear of death, for you will go to live with Jesus, and be happy with Him for ever and ever.”
Captain Willis groaned. “I’ll pray wid you, captain,” said Paul, and he knelt down by the side of the bed, and lifted up his voice in prayer, and earnestly besought God to send His Holy Spirit to soften the captain’s heart, and to enlighten his mind.
I had listened attentively to all that Paul had said, and I prayed that the blessing which he asked for the captain might descend on me also; for I had begun to discover that my heart was very hard, and prone to evil, and that I had no love for Jesus, no desire to obey His law. Thus the truths of the gospel, as they fell from the lips of the black sailor, first came home to my heart.
Several days passed by—the “Chieftain” was got ready for sea, and the captain considered himself well enough to take the command.