Storms At Sea

Storms At Sea

Those who frequent the dangerous main,

In quest of pleasure, health, or gain,

Should deeply on their minds record,

The wondrous blessings of the Lord.

He oft commands the furious winds,

To scourge them for repeated sins;

The obedient winds his will perform,

Unite, and swell the gathering storm.

The shattered vessel, to the blast,

Resigns her rigging, sails, and mast,

And 'fore the unbridled gale is borne,

With squalls and billows scathed and torn.

Sometimes she caps the stormy scene;

Sometimes she, hopeless, sinks between

Enormous seas, which wildly spread

Their foaming horrors o'er her head.

And now, the deeply-chastened crew,

Their guilty course with sorrow view,

And fainting at the threat'ning roar,

They languish for the distant shore;

While on their humbled, staggering knees,

To heaven they send their noisy pleas;

And loud, from every rocking wave,

They cry, "O, Lord, in mercy save!"

The Lord, in pity, hears them plead,

And bids the frightful gale recede

Sends milder breezes to escort,

And waft them to their destined port.

O, that the safely-landed crew,

To God, would render praises due;

Still fear and serve him on the shore,

And wander from their Lord no more!

"Heaven and earth shall pass away . . . "

The instability of all mundane things is suggested by the following account, which may also remind us of the utterance of Jesus: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away."

"When, in 1890, Germany bartered away Zanzibar in exchange for Heligoland, great was the rejoicing," says Shipping Illustrated (New York). "Much concern is now being manifested in Germany owing to the relentless attack of the sea, which has already reduced the island's area nearly twenty-five percent since it came under the German flag. At this rate the little island will, in another half-century, have melted entirely away. The North Sea has been from time immemorial an avaricious land-grabber. The Dogger Bank once reared its head above the surface, a fact proved by the bones of animals occasionally brought up in the fishermen's nets. The eastern coast of England has suffered severely from its insatiable appetite. Dunwick, an important seaport during the Middle Ages, is now a part of the sea-bottom, and fishes and other marine denizens occupy the one-time habitation of men. Visitors to Felixstowe, once a Roman colony and now a modern seaside resort, opposite Harwich, have pointed out to them a rock a mile out to sea, on which the old church formerly stood. The Kaiser may yet live to see his cherished possession torn from his grasp."

Listening For Signals

A news item, referring to the wreck of the Republic, and the hearing of the first wireless news of the disaster by the operator at the station on Nantucket Island, says:   

       Imagine a lonely island in the middle of winter, thereon a lonely Marconi station, therein a lonely Marconi operator, with his telephones glued to his head watching the break of day, thinking of his past and future, listening for any sign of life in his telephones. Imagine that man suddenly startled with a faint, very faint, call from a ship using the recognized distress signal, giving her position and calling for help. Slowly,
all too slowly, came the cry for urgent aid, each call seemingly taking an hour's valuable time, yet in truth but a fraction of a second. Will he never sign? Who can it be? At last came the recognized code letters of the White Star Republic, and again the call for aid. With this information Operator Irwin, of the Marconi force at the station here, who was on duty at the time, immediately got the wires hot, knowing the revenue cutter Acushnet to be lying at Wood's Hole, and within one minute the captain was informed that his calls had been heard and aid was being rushed to him.
       The soul attent to hear the world's signals that call for help should be ready to serve and save the lost and needy. 

"Incline your ear and draw near to me. Listen, and your soul will live. And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, by the faithful mercies of David." Isaiah 55:3

An Anchor

        Every ship has an anchor, and there are times when the safety of the ship depends on its right use of its anchors. When I was a boy in Constantinople, an American captain visited our house. He told us that his ship was anchored in an exposed harbor in one of the islands of the Agean Sea, when a violent storm broke upon them. Both of the anchors which they had down began to drag, and it was only a question of time when they would be cast ashore. They had one little anchor still unused, and tho they did not hope much good could come from dropping it they took the chance. To their great surprise and equal delight, tho the two larger anchors would not hold, the smaller one held, and they rode out the storm in safety. When they came to weigh the anchors, the two large ones came up easily, but the smaller one came with great difficulty. When at last it appeared above the surface of the water, lo and behold, the fluke of the anchor had caught in the ring of a large man-of-war's anchor that had been lost there long before! The man-of-war's anchor had been embedded in the soil, and this accounted for the fact that the little anchor held.

       Every man voyaging on the ocean of life ought to have an anchor. The apostle speaks about a good hope, which he says we have as an anchor sure and stedfast entering into the unseen, which is within the veil. - A. F. Schauffler. The Christian Herald.

Life-Saving

 Every man should try to be as alert and well prepared for helping and saving men as the steamers here described:

       All Pacific mail-steamers are carefully protected by a rigid practise in fire and life-saving drills. At the tap of the bell, the crew spring to their places by boat and raft; each officer, with a pistol hung by his side, takes his station; and the precision and quickness with which it is all accompanied inspire the beholder with very comfortable feelings.
       The life-drill is practiced in case some one should fall overboard. Certain members of the crew are assigned to this duty, ready at any moment to throw out life-lines, buoys that strike a light when they hit the water, or man the emergency life-boat that is kept in position to be lowered instantly. Marshall P. Wilder, "Smiling 'Round the World."

"Mercy" is a powerful thing, more powerful than 

you can possibly imagine. This is God's way.

Low Vitality

       Just as the body when at a low vitality is susceptible to colds, so it may as truly be said of the soul, when impoverished it falls prey to temptation and sin.

       The common theory that all colds are the result of exposure is a great mistake, inasmuch as exposure is not the direct cause of the trouble. Colds are caused by hostile microbes, or bacteria, which gain a foothold at a time when our vitality has been lowered by exposure. But there are many quarters of the globe where one finds it impossible to catch cold, simply by reason of the fact that there is no cold to catch.

        ''Peary and his men during the months they spent in the arctic regions were immune from cold, tho they were constantly enduring exposure of every kind. They passed day after day in clothes so saturated with perspiration that by day they froze into a solid mass, so to speak, and the clothes cut into their flesh. And at night, in their sleeping-bags, the first hour was spent in thawing out. They returned to civilization none the worse in health, but soon contracted severe colds upon reaching there. People were much amused by the press accounts of how Commander Peary had taken cold while proceeding to dine with a friend in a suburb of Washington, the taxicab which was conveying him and his wife having broken down during a snow flurry in December.'' Harper's Weekly.

He went on: ''What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly." Mark 7: 20:23

Ahead of Circumstance

       In life there are those who keep just ahead of the breaking wave, and others who halt and it engulfs them. Marshall P. Wilder describes in the extract below the skill of the Hawaiian natives with their canoes:

       We donned bathing-suits and took a surf ride. This is the national sport and, being at all times sufficiently thrilling, must be taken in a high surf, a tremendous experience. The boats are long, deep and very narrow canoes, with an outrigger at one side to keep them from tipping.
       Two natives, and they must be skilled, usually operate these canoes. Three or four passengers at a time are taken out, the natives rowing with broad paddles a quarter or half mile from the shore, where they wait for a large wave. With the nicest precision they keep ahead of it, just as it breaks, and are carried smoothly in, poised on its crest. I sat facing the stern, and the experience was something to remember, the swift bird-like swoop of the canoe, with the white, seething wall of water behind it, apparently just about to engulf us. After we were safely on shore again they told us stories of how the wave, if the rowers miscalculate, will break over the canoe, driving it to the bottom.