It was a bright, clear night in December, and the good ship “Harriet,” under reeled top-sails, was coming up the channel before a stiff breeze. Every heart on board was glad, for, after a long and perilous voyage, she was “homeward bound.” On the quarter-deck, Captain Harrison and Edward Locksley, his first mate, were standing talking together.
“We shall be in dock before Christmas if this wind holds,” Locksley said. “It is not well for a sailor to set his mind too much on anything, but I have set mine on being in the dear old home at Christmas this year. It is four years since we all met at home, and father and mother say it hasn’t been half a Christmas without me.”
Captain Harrison listened to the young sailor’s eager words; then laying his hand kindly on his shoulder, said gravely, “I do not wonder at your wish, Edward. It is a great pleasure to get home, especially to such a happy home as yours is at Christmas time. But there is something I should like you to wish for still more than that. I want you to be sure that when the voyage of life is past, there remaineth for you a rest in the glorious home above―
“ ‘There all the ship’s company meet,
Who sailed with the Saviour below.’”
Locksley was silent for a moment. At length he turned and grasped the captain’s hand in his. “Captain Harrison, you have been a kind friend to me ever since. I can remember. If all Christians were like you, I can only say I wish there were more of them. And more than that, what you have so often said to me about Christ has made me think very seriously, and I really intend to serve Him, too, but not just yet.”
“And why not now, Locksley?” asked his friend.
“I am afraid you will think me cowardly if I tell you, Captain. The truth is that our people always give a ball at Christmas, and it would be a terrible disappointment to them all if I were to hold aloof. They would say I had turned Puritan and lost all my spirits, and I don’t know what else; and it would seem hard to give them pain just on first going home. So I have made up my mind to keep on as usual till after that. Besides,” he added, with the frankness of a true British sailor, “I expect it will be a right down jolly time, and I’m not inclined to give it up on my own account. But after Christmas, Captain, I will turn over a new leaf—see if I don’t.”
The Captain feared that human pleading would have little power to overturn the young man’s purpose. Standing with uncovered head on the heaving deck, he prayed earnestly though silently to his Father in heaven, Who could convince his young friend that now was the only certain “day of salvation.” Locksley understood and felt the unspoken prayer, the words of which he could not hear. His head was bowed, too, and his spirit deeply moved; but the tempter was at hand with the deadly suggestion that it was quite as safe, and far better, to wait awhile. As Captain Harrison bade him “good-night,” before turning in, he said, gaily, “Now don’t get anxious about me, Captain, Christmas will soon be here, and you have my promise after that.”
The Captain went below and left the brave young fellow on deck bright and mirthful, and ready to quench every feeling of misgiving that the Captain’s prayer had caused by lively anticipations of his return home.
Not ten minutes had passed when the Captain heard hurried footsteps on the deck; then the sharp, clear cry, “Man overboard!” and in another instant he had dashed up the companion ladder and looking round, he scarcely needed to ask, “Who is it?” for had it not been Locksley he would have seen him at once, foremost among the gallant fellows who were lowering the boats, ready to peril their own lives to rescue the man in danger. Yes, it was Locksley! Reaching over the quarter to clear an entangled log-line he lost his foothold and fell overboard, and the ship went on her rapid way without him. Everything was done which stout arms and brave hearts could do. But all was vain. The men strained at the oars only to see him throw up his arms and sink.
Christmas, with its mirth and festivity, came to others but not to him; and as he went down in the cold waters, leaving hope and life behind him forever, it would add a terrible keenness to his agony to remember that not many minutes before, eternal life had been offered to him through Jesus, and he had refused it.
And Edward Locksley’s is far from a solitary case. “Oh!” said a poor woman, whose death-bed was made miserable by the memory of lost opportunities, “when God says, ‘Today,’ it is awful madness to say tomorrow!” And yet how many are saying it. Dear reader, are you? Have you not often been invited to accept salvation through the quiet voice of a tract, or the earnest words of a Christian; or it may be, by the lips of a mother, whose last words on earth were a prayer for you? Oh, in how many ways does a loving God beseech you to be reconciled! And you have never yet trusted in Him, but are quite intending to do so, but just like Edward Locksley, “not just yet.” You have some plan of pleasure or gain in the future, and it shall be “after that,” that you will serve Him Whose ways are all pleasantness, and whose service is “profitable unto all things.”
Ah! my reader, perhaps you think to gain the world, and then afterward to get your soul saved, but such speculations very often turn out a dead loss in both respects. I cannot tell what “more convenient season” you are looking forward to, but I can tell you that it is a soul-ruining delusion to think that it will ever come. Procrastination is the recruiting officer of hell. “Now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation.” “Today” is what God says; “tomorrow” is what the devil says.
“He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.”— Prov. 29:1.