The captain of a coasting vessel had promised to take his little son a voyage to Ireland during his holidays. When the vessel left the harbor of Ayr, the weather was fine, the sea calm as a pond, and everything beautiful. Patty sat on deck, asking an old sailor the names of all the places as they sailed along. As they passed “Ailsa Craig,” darkness began to fall, and a strong breeze arose, caung the ship to pitch, which Patty did not like. The wind increased until it blew a gale, causing the, sea to roar, and the waves to sweep the vessel’s deck. A terrible blast broke the ship’s mast and brought it crashing on the deck. Patty sprang from his berth, thinking the ship was wrecked, and in a few minutes he was on deck. His father seized him in his arms, hurriedly dressed him, and clasping him to his bosom, said,
“Trust yourself to me, Patty, my boy; we shall live or die together.”
Then the captain bound his darling boy to himself, and, girding a life-belt around him, stood amid the howling tempest, expecting, at any moment, to be engulfed in the sea.
“Tell Jesus,” whispered the boy—and that word went to the father’s heart. Alas! he knew not how to pray, for he was a stranger to God. But Patty was not; for though only a child, his mother’s Saviour and God was his. A sweet, short prayer was wafted from the converted child to his God, and in an hour they were safely through the storm. Patty’s father believes the prayer of his boy saved the ship. It was the means of his personal salvation, too, for he is now a Christian man, saved and on the way to glory.
There is a reality in prayer, to which the unconverted are strangers. Nothing convinces a man of the world of genuineness of God’s Christianity more than when he sees one who presses to know God really trusting Him in trying circumstances; it is so different from a mere profession of religion.
Can you, do you trust in a living God? If you do not in little things, there is room for doubt whether you know Him at all, or trust Him for your own salvation. The Book of God declares,
I am trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
Trusting only in Thee,
For Thy great and full salvation
Unto me.
I am trusting Thee to cleanse me
In Thy precious blood,
Trusting Thee to guide me safely
Home to God.
ML 01/02/1944