Joe was a soft-hearted fellow, but easily led into bad company. Thus he was often found in the saloon, although next day he would hear to his shame that his wife with his little child had waited outside the door to lead him safely home.
Joe's home was in a fishing village, and he often joined his friends and neighbors on their fishing trips. At one time a large number of the boats belonging to the place where Joe lived, with their crews, had arranged to go for three months' fishing. Several of the fishermen were earnest Christians; and immediately when they arrived at their destination they began to read the Word of God, and to commend themselves and their comrades to His care in prayer in their lodgings—which were all under the same roof—ere they went out to their night's work on the deep sea.
Joe had never been with such a group before. At first he was rather taken aback, and would have absented himself; but before long he was just as anxious lest he should miss the "reading," as they called it.
It was a pleasant sight to see these crews of converted fishermen, their bronzed faces all beaming with a joy the world knows not, leave the harbor on a summer evening. The setting sun gleamed in golden splendor on their sails as they put forth to sea, singing in chorus:—
"Shall we meet in that blest harbor,
When the stormy voyage is o'er?
Shall we meet and cast the anchor
On the fair celestial shore?”
Joe soon saw that these men possessed true happiness. They had something infinitely better than he had for TIME, and they continually sang and spoke about their "happy home" in ETERNITY. No doubt the Spirit of God uses the testimony of the lives of genuine Christians to arouse sinners and draw them to Christ, as well as the words spoken by their lips. When both are combined their influence is great among the unconverted.
Joe lost his desire for the saloon. He now preferred the company of these godly fishermen. Although he certainly was not yet converted, he was being silently convicted of sin, and made to see his need of Christ as his Savior.
It was on a midsummer night at sea that the great crisis in Joe's life came. He was in the boat with four comrades, three of whom were Christians. Another boat was alongside them, whose crew were all on the Lord's side. They were telling, one after another, the story of their conversions. Joe at the boat's helm sat listening attentively. Then one told how far gone he had been in sin, a drunkard and a wife-beater; but, said he: "Christ took me as I was.”
Joe's interest was thoroughly aroused, and unconsciously he said aloud: "Would He take me too, Jim?”
"Aye, Joe; just as you are, sitting there at the helm," said Jim.
A number of voices chimed in: "Yes! Trust Him just as you are, Joe.”
Unhesitatingly Joe stood up. Lifting his cap from his head as if he realized that he stood in the presence of God, he said aloud: "Here I am, Lord Jesus, a poor sinner, deserving nothing but hell fire. But I come just as I am to Thee, and to Thy blood that cleanses from all sin.”
A song of praise on the deep at that midnight hour burst from these happy sailors. Joe joined in though he sang through fast falling tears. A week later they returned home; and Joe's first word to his wife, who met him on the shore with little Mary in her arms, was: "God has sent you a new man, Jess, saved on the deep by the grace of God.”
For years Joe lived to testify to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus, and many a weary soul was led to Christ by his words, and his Christian life.
Reader, will you come to Jesus, just as you are, and now?