“DON’T tempt me,” Father Gynn would say, grasping his staff and bundle. “So long as the Master gives me strength, I must bear His message. I am the one to preach the Glad Tidings; I have no family, and am welcome to any craft. I can sit with the sailors in the forecastle and tell them about Him Who holds the waters in His hand. And on shore there’s many a house that will never have the Bible, except I go there. I’m grateful to you, friend, but I must be moving on. When my work is done, the good Lord will give this body rest till the bright morning!”
Everybody on the coast knew Father Gynn, who for long years traveled on foot from house to house, a self-appointed missionary. He was quite old before his step faltered or his energy abated. But still he refused a home, although more than one fisher’s hut on the coast offered him a shelter for his declining years. In the burning heat of summer, as well as in the bleak winter, the pilgrim was ever seeking to give the word of cheer to those who lived remote from other laborers. He met the fisherfolk by the fireside, or on the seashore as they mended their nets; his self-sacrificing life and cordial interest in their welfare giving wonderful power to his words. To many a rude son of the sea he had been indeed a father, often helping them in sudden poverty and distress from his own scanty pittance.
On one occasion the good man felt impelled to make an excursion farther inland, and, continuing his journey in the early dawn, found himself on the bank of a river. It could be crossed only by a ferry. The boat was moored on the opposite bank, near the ferryman’s hut. Father Gynn, familiar with the customs of the region, summoned him with a horn which he found suspended from a tree. At last the man of the ferry came, and gazed listlessly across the stream as if he cared not for a passenger, gruffly asking:
“What’s wanted at this early hour?”
“A friend to take me over,” said Father Gynn.
The tiny craft came slowly over. Then, as the rower scanned the stately figure of the preacher, he said, apologetically:
“It isn’t often I’m roused up at daybreak.”
Father Gynn made no reply until he had entered the boat, when he said gently:
“Friend, I’m sorry to trouble you at this unreasonable hour, but I had urgent business.”
The boatman, who had scarcely taken his troubled eyes off this striking passenger, made no remark; yet it did not seem as if his close scrutiny was prompted by that idle curiosity that Father Gynn often found among those who are isolated from large centers. To the practiced eye of the evangelist he seemed no ordinary man, despite his abrupt way. Father Gynn opened the conversation in his quaint manner: “I bear a message, and must not rest until it be delivered.”
“Not bad news?” said the other, with a touch of interest.
“That depends upon the way it is received,” was the grave reply. “My word is from a good Father to a wayward child. If that child will return, he shall be as a prince before a king. If he refuses, he will be an outcast; the inheritance will go to another. It all lies with the child,” added Father Gynn, searching the face of the ferryman, who evidently had not comprehended; for he said:
“You may be after Ike Stevens. He hasn’t written or spoken to his father since he moved into these parts, and that’s near fifteen years.”
Father Gynn bent upon him a still more intense look, as if he would know whether he was feigning ignorance.
“You’re old to travel on such an errand,” added the man; “and if it’s Ike Stevens, we might as well turn about, for he’s a hard case”; but seeing that his passenger was watching him with an expression of painful interest, “It is none of my concern,” he added.
“Indeed, it is,” said the evangelist, with sudden earnestness. “I know not the man of whom you speak, but if he be such as you describe, you can present the message as well as I, if you love the Father.”
His meaning flashed upon the mind of the ferryman.
“So you’ve been preaching to me on the sly!” he cried, his voice thick with emotion. “I warn ye, it won’t do any good. Your talk about the Father and the message won’t move me. Look here,” he asked abruptly, “if He were my Father, would He rob me of my wife and children in one hour? They were drowned before my eyes; I could not lift a finger to save them.” The veins of his forehead knotted with the agony of that hour. “The water closed over them; they were lost to me Forever.” He bent to his oars in silence a moment till they had passed the swift current, then burst forth again; “I vowed then that I’d done with churches and religion — my wife was great in those things — and came here that I might be let alone!”
“God sent me this way, then,” said the Evangelist, “for till this moment I knew not your urgent need. It was for you I was compelled to come into this region. Don’t fret against it, my friend, for the Spirit of God is striving with you.” For in Father Gynn’s experience this depth of despair was often the prelude to peace in believing.
“I want to be let alone,” repeated the man, avoiding the keen glance that seemed to read his thoughts. “Why should you care what I believe?”
Father Gynn leaned on his staff in silence till they reached the shore, then said, with touching humility:
“Friend, I had no wish to offend you. Be patient with an old man whose time is short. Very soon I shall cross another river, deep and wide. I shall not have to summon the boatman as I did you this morning; the boatman of that river will summon me.”
His melodious voice alone broke the silence of the early morning; as he finished, the east became radiant with the dawn. Father Gynn gazed into the glory-crowned clouds for an instant as if he beheld a beatific vision. The ferryman regarded him in silence, a curious blending of emotion on his face.
On reaching the shore the good man was distressed to find, after searching his pockets, that he had not a penny to pay the fare. He had emptied his purse for the relief of a poor wanderer the day before, and with his usual preoccupation had forgotten that he was moneyless.
“Never mind,” said the ferryman, with grim humor, “we’ll call it square, since you brought me a message for nothing!”
“It was poorly delivered, or you would not trifle with me,” said Father Gynn, sorrowfully, adding with the simplicity of a child; “But I have a little change in my other coat pocket. I will get it and return and pay what I owe.”
And so, feeling that to discharge his debt was the first duty, he recrossed the river and started for the coast. Several weeks had elapsed when he again summoned the ferryman.
“I did not forget,” said Father Gynn. “Here is what I owe you. Now let me rest awhile before I return. The days that were given me to bear the message are numbered.”
He seated himself on the gnarled roots of a tree, leaning his head upon his staff in a weary way unusual to him. He did not note the new light on the ferryman’s face, that softened his sombre features like the rift in a cloud.
“I’m glad you came,” was the broken response. “The message was for me! I was that child, and He was my Father! It was right for Him to take my family; they are at rest.” He knelt beside the aged saint overcome with joy. His heart of stone had been softened, but with what a struggle!
“It was what you said about being summoned by the boatman,” he added, “that was in my mind whenever they blew the signal for me. I could not rest for thinking, ‘Was I fit to cross the dark, fearful river?’ I knew that though the Boatman came sudden to my wife and children, they were ready. “They,” he paused to control himself, “they went over the riving smiling; I saw the peace on their faces when they were buried. He took them, and left me because I wasn’t ready.”
Father Gynn could find no words to express his joy. When he did speak, he placed his trembling hand upon the head of the man at the ferry.
“ ‘The Lord bless thee, and cause His face to shine upon thee’; the Lord comfort thee, and make thee ‘mighty in the Scriptures,’ and one to draw many to Him! Let us pray.”
So, on the bank beside the murmuring water, Father Gynn consecrated the young disciple to the work which he was soon to lay aside.
“Don’t leave me,” whispered the young ferryman, as they rose; “live with me and teach me more about Him!”
This came to Father Gynn as a call to duty.
“If the Lord permit, I will shortly return to you. There are men on the seashore, and women and children in their homes, waiting for my last words to them. Then, if strength be given, I will come to you.”
After that last visit to the fishermen of the coast, the man of God went to dwell beside the river. Many who crossed the ferry will remember him who sat daily in the door of the cottage, like a prophet of old, with his long, silvery beard, and heaven’s peace upon his face. And the ferryman, in daily converse with him, and study of the Scriptures, somehow grew wondrously like him in spirit. And when, soon after the change, Father Gynn was summoned by the Boatman, he trustingly crossed the river, and “his mantle fell from him,” and the spirit of the pilgrim preacher “rested on” the ferryman!
O Comforter of God’s redeemed,
Whom the world does not see,
What hand should pluck me from the love
That stays my soul on Thee?
Who would not suffer grief like mine,
To be consoled like me?
— A. L. Waring.