THE steamship―was on her return voyage from the Mediterranean, and had reached the Bay of Biscay, when she was overtaken by a terrific gale. The raging tempest continued until, to use a common expression, the waves rolled “mountains high.” Heavy seas broke upon and swept over her, causing her to shiver from stem to stern, and with their fierce violence carried from her deck everything that was movable. At last came one mighty billow, which so deluged her that the boiler fires were extinguished. As a matter of course, the engines stopped working. This serious accident left the ship pretty much to the mercy of the raging storm. The little sail they were able to set in such weather seemed as nothing, while the launching of a small boat under such circumstances was altogether out of the question. In short, to all appearance, it looked as though every fresh sea which she shipped would send her, with all hands, to the bottom.
What a solemn crisis it must have been! And all on board, from the captain to the youngest of his crew, were made to feel it.
What was worldly gain, and what were earthly pleasures worth then? Eternity, with all its realities, and the lost opportunities of a misspent life, must doubtless have risen before them―as terrible and as overwhelming to the soul as the angry billows were to the disabled ship. Men who just before had been foully blaspheming were now upon their knees wringing their hands and crying to the Lord for mercy. Others sat with their faces buried in their hands, trembling in the fear of death.
Only one in that vessel was known as a truly converted soul. This was the third engineer, a young man who had only been brought to the Lord a few months before. Hitherto he had been scoffed at and persecuted by the godless crew; but God was going to give him the opportunity of proving, in a practical way, the reality of his faith in Christ.
When matters were nearly at their worst, and when he, like the rest, was at his wit’s end, a verse of a hymn flashed into his mind, and, in the presence of that awestricken company, he commenced singing aloud―
“What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!”
The eyes of most there were wonderingly directed toward this happy young convert, and all were awed into silence. There was no scoffing, no persecution now. They needed no one to tell them then who had the best of it. The joy of the Lord, with happy confidence in His loving care, filled this young man’s heart even to overflowing while the despairing countenances of the rest made it only too manifest that the terrors of death filled theirs.
To cut short our story, that Christian’s prayer was heard; for in the mercy of God the storm was weathered and their destination reached. But who knows how much that Christless crew owed to the fact that the third engineer had found a Friend in Jesus?
No wonder that the strongest and hardest of men have trembled with fear in the presence of death; for it is a solemn thing to have to meet a holy God, especially where there has been a willful slighting of His offers of mercy, determined disregard of the warnings of His gracious Spirit, with even cold contempt for the very name of His beloved Son.
Dear reader, you are ready to meet God or you are not. If unsaved, your ship will surely sink someday―even now it may be disabled. I mean that your body, the vessel in which you have sailed through life’s little voyage, will surely go down―down to a Christless grave, down to a hopeless hell! Oh, beware of trifling! While your soul is out of hell, and the Spirit is here to strive, let your cry of need enter His holy ear. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But “how then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?” (Rom. 10:13, 1413For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 14How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? (Romans 10:13‑14)).
Thrice happy is he who, in the day of God’s long-suffering, finds a “Friend in Jesus”; and friendless will he be―friendless for eternity―who misses the opportunity.