CAPTAIN JOHN DAVIS commanded a vessel running to the Cape of Good Hope. On one of his voyages the vessel left the English station in good order, and all went well with the ship for some days. One morning, however, the captain, did not make his appearance on deck at the time expected. After about an hour the first mate went to the captain’s cabin, and knocking gently at the door, said, “All hands are on deck, sir, waiting for orders.”
“Come in,” a voice faintly replied.
The mate entered. A marvelously sudden change had taken place in the captain. He was very ill; his face wore a pallid hue, and he was evidently very weak. To the mate’s inquiry he answered by saying: “I am very ill; I believe I am dying. You will have to take the command of the ship, for I shall never go up on deck again. But oh, can you—can you help me now that I shall have to appear before God?”
“Well, captain,” said the mate, “I’m afraid I can’t help you in that matter. As you know, I have never had a bad mark during my entire record; but I’ve never thought much about God and the next world; and I can’t tell what to say to you, for I have had no time to think about these things.”
“Well, then, call the second mate,” said the captain.
The second mate came, and like questions were put to him, and similar answers returned. He knew nothing about real religion, and had never given any serious attention to it.
Others of the officers and crew were called, until, one after another, the whole ship’s company had stood before the captain, who, telling them of his fast-approaching end, begged of them, if any of them knew how, to tell him what he wanted to know, how to find peace with God and to be prepared to meet Him.
Alas! they were all alike in the dark as to the way of salvation.
A sad picture is presented here—a scene all too common.
These men were nominally Christians, but with the name their religion began and ended; not one had been enlightened and taught by the Holy Spirit to see his guilty and condemned state as a sinner, no one knew anything of the way of salvation through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
In his great distress the captain inquired if all the men had been called down.
“Yes, every one; all the ship’s company, excepting the cabin-boy.”
“Then send him to me,” said the captain eagerly. The cabin-boy, whose name was William Smith, was a young hand, and this was his first voyage. The unexpected summons made the little fellow tremble, for he feared lest he something wrong.
“Did you go to Sunday-school when you were on shore?” asked Captain Davis.
“Yes, sir.”
“Boy, can you tell me anything that may help me as a dying man soon to appear before my God?”
The astonished boy replied, “I don’t know that I can tell you anything, captain; but I’ve got a Bible in my chest, which my mother gave me; shall I fetch that?”
“Yes; go and get it.”
The boy returned with the Bible, and asked,
“What shall I read, captain?”
“Read where you used to read to your mother,” said he.
The boy opened the Bible, and began to read Isaiah 53: “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men: a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
When the boy came to the fifth verse, “But he was wounded for our transgressions,” he paused and asked―
“Shall I read this as my mother taught me to read it?”
“Yes, by all means,” said the captain.
The boy proceeded―
“But he was wounded for William Smith’s transgressions, he was bruised for William Smith’s iniquities; the chastisement of William Smith’s peace was upon him; and with his stripes William Smith is healed.”
“Stop,” said the captain;” read that over again, and put my name instead of yours; John Davis instead of William Smith. Read it slowly.”
The boy read as he was directed. “But he was wounded for John Davis’s transgressions, he was bruised for John Davis’s iniquities; the chastisement of John Davis’s peace was upon him; and with his stripes John Davis is healed.”
“Ah! that will do,” said the captain; “that is what I want, that gives me hope.”
Thus the anxiety, the gloom, the fear, and the crushing sense of guilt, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, gave place to hope, to firm reliance, and to peace.
This awakening of the captain was a late awakening, and though death-bed repentances are seldom real, we may hope it was a true one. For as far as can be judged he accepted Christ as his substitute, as having been bruised for his iniquities, and as having procured healing for him by His stripes.
Let the reader pause and ask himself what is the foundation of his hope of acceptance with God and entrance into heaven. Can you read in your name as did John Davis? Are you resting on Jesus as having died for you―the just for the unjust―to bring you to God? It is this alone that can give true peace. If your hope has any other foundation, it is utterly worthless; nay, worse, it is a delusion and a snare.
Alas! there are hundreds of thousands of people who attend church, and live an outwardly moral life, who have never realized the fact that they are lost and perishing sinners, and that they need a gracious and almighty Saviour to deliver them from the doom of the impenitent and the unbelieving.
Oh for a trumpet voice to awaken these sleeping and self-secure sinners, lest they perish in their sins!
Now, now, ye that read and hear, awake, awake! Let Peter’s cry be your cry, “Lord, save me.” Then shall Peter’s confession be your confession, Peter’s Rock your Rock, and Peter’s God your God.
ANON.