Time for reflection is found on an ocean voyage, and, as the writer and many others can testify, lasting impressions are often made. Such an experience came to one who was making a trip around the world in the days between two world wars. “The sea,” said he, “was not a friend of mine as we rode the mountainous waves for nearly three weeks without a port of call.” Much of the time, indeed, he lay in his cabin simply watching the rising and the falling of the waves through the porthole.
A Sunday morning, however, dawned fair and bright; and he found himself “able to make his way to the top deck for divine worship.” Never, he confessed, was he more deeply touched by a hymn than when the company of passengers, and some members of the crew, united in singing as their opening hymn:
“New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life and power and thought.”
The memory of that hymn proved to be cheering and invigorating. He later wrote: “How beautiful this sunny Sunday morning with no land, or fish, or bird in sight. Just the sun, the sky, and the sea. How sacred the upper deck seemed that morning! Can you not believe that I never hear this hymn sung without again feeling the waves lifting me, the scene crowding my brain with its poignancy—sea, sky, sun, and God’s care through another night on the ocean waves.”
A brilliant scholar was John Keble, author of “The Christian Year,” from which this hymn comes. It is regarded as one “of the greatest religious classics in the English language.” This tribute has been paid to this work by Nutter and Tillett: “What the Prayer Book is in prose for public worship, ‘The Christian Year’ is in poetry for private devotion.” Mentally suggestive are the lines which have such a direct relation to daily living:
“New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;