The good ship "Alice" had weathered the storm and had brought her crew safely to port. They were now the center of an interested group who listened eagerly to this, another wild saga of the sea.
“You see, mates, the captain was constantly drunk and such swearing you never heard! He used to take too much of that stuff you have there.”
The speaker pointed to a flask from which one of the men was helping himself. "When the storm came on, he was so drunk he hardly knew what he was about. The only thing he was up to was to stagger about the deck and swear. I had heard plenty of rough language in my day, but this beat all that ever I had heard. It was so horrible that it frightened me.
“Well, that storm was so bad that he got a bit sobered up and took a turn at the helm. The men were engaged in throwing some of the deck-load overboard, and I was at the wheel with the captain. Ah, mates, if a man's curses could ever hurt anyone, I don't know where I would have been that day. He swore at me nearly every minute we were at the wheel together.
“Presently, we saw a tremendous sea coming right aft. It came on like a wall of water, without a break as far as I could see. I thought it was all up with us, and I sent up a prayer to God to have mercy on my poor soul. The captain only swore at it, just as if he expected God's great sea was going to be frightened by him!
“Well, on it came, and in a moment it swept the decks. I shut my eyes and held on to the wheel with all my might. When that wave was passed, I looked up, not knowing what to expect. To my surprise, the Alice was holding on; but—the captain was gone. He had been carried right away, mates. Yes, the captain's last word was a terrible oath.”
“And how about the crew?" asked one of the sailors who had listened intently to the story.
“They were every one safe, lads. They had all held on to something, and not one of them was lost. Only the captain, poor fellow. He was gone. It wasn't long before the weather abated; and although the Alice was pretty much knocked about, she made it into port all right.
“Well, mates, I had had enough of cursing, and of drinking too, for that matter; and I made up my mind that day never to let anything unpleasing to God ever pass my lips again.”
“Then I suppose you expect to go to heaven when you die, because you don't swear nor drink?”
“No, I don't expect anything of the sort, for it is only by turning in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and taking Him as our Savior, that anyone can be saved.”
“Do you mean to say," asked one of them, "if a man doesn't swear, and never gets drunk, and is honest, and does his duty by his ship, and all the rest of it, he isn't safer than a drunken lazy thief?”
“I mean to say,—leastways it isn't me that says it, but the Bible—that no one is safe unless he trusts only in the Lord Jesus. If you could leave off every wicked thing and never commit another sin from this very minute, that couldn't save your soul! There would be all your past sins hanging to you still, and unless they were forgiven they would sink you into hell. The only way to be clear of evil—past, present, and future —is to be washed in Jesus' blood. For the Bible says: `The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.'" 1 John 1:7.