He was converted to Christ at the age of sixteen, and within six months shipped on board a vessel with a crew of twelve. He was the only Christian on board, and had previously promised his mother that in prayer he would meet her three times a day at the throne of grace.
To do this, he would go below, and feeling that he was not making satisfactory prayer unless it was audible, he made it a point always to pray aloud. This brought terrible persecution upon him from the sailors. They tried to get him to desist praying, but he would not. They sang and danced around him while he was engaged in his devotions, but he would pray.
They threw things at him, and bruised him, and poured buckets of water on him, but could not put out the fire in his soul. Then they tied him to the mast and laid thirty-nine stripes upon his back, the marks of which he carries today, but he still prayed. Finally, they tied a rope around his body under his arms, and threw him overboard. He struggled and swam as best he could, and when he would take hold of the side of the ship to climb up, they would push him off with a long pole. At last his strength gave way, and supposing they really meant to kill him, he made a final effort, prayed that God would forgive them, and called to the sailors: “Send my body to my mother and tell her I died for Jesus.”
He then sank into the deep and the water closed over him, but he was pulled out and up on the deck, and after being worked with for some time he came to. Conviction then began to seize hold upon those sailors. Before night two of them were gloriously converted to Christ, and while they were praying down below with the young martyr, the others thought they were up to their persecutions again and called to them to desist, saying they had persecuted the boy enough. Inside of a week everyone on board the vessel including the caain was blessedly saved.
In a little while the ship put into Provincetown Harbor, near Cape Cod, on account of an approaching storm. Other ships gathered in to the amount of nearly three hundred. The boy had been conducting meetings every Sunday on board the ship. Unknown to him, when the ships were lying at anchor, the captain sent word around that at ten o’clock Sunday there would be meetings on his ship and a boy would give his experience of how he was persecuted and nearly killed for Jesus’ sake. While the boy was down below preparing something to say in the meeting as usual, the people began to gather in. They filled the ship’s deck, climbed into the rigging, filled every available space, and also sat in boats all around the ship. When the young man came on deck this was the sight that met him. The crew formed a ring around him and they sang and he prayed and then took for his text, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” There was a remarkable work of the Spirit of God, and with it a great wave of blessing. After the message many came together for prayer, and that day a great number made the young man’s Saviour their Saviour too.
It did not stop there, for after that, while the ships lay in the harbor and out on the ocean, boats would come to us and those on board tell us of someone being saved. Other ships soon began having little gospel meetings, and for the few weeks we remained in that haor word continued coming in of those who had come to know the Lord Jesus Christ who is mighty and able to save.
ML 08/23/1959