Old Martha Brown stood at the door of her tiny cottage, looking anxiously up and down the long white road. The sun was burning hot, with all the fierceness of a July noonday. How her head ached with the heat of it! Her tired eyes swam with gazing at the hard white glare of the road in front of her.
Suddenly she saw a blue clad figure slouching down the road towards her. She ran down the flagged path, and flinging open the little green gate, called in loving, thankful tones: "Jimmie! Jimmie! You've come at last!"
But her eyes were dim with age and the glare of the noonday; it was not until the man got closer that she saw that she had made a mistake. Although he was dressed in sailor's clothes, yet his face was to her the face of a stranger.
"Are you Mrs. Brown?" he inquired.
"Yes, but what do you want of me?" she asked. "My name is Peter Stone; I—I was—" he stammered, "I am a shipmate of your son, Jim."
The old woman's face lit up at the name.
"Ah, I've heard tell of you," she said, "but where's my son, my Jimmie?"
"He— he— the ship struck a rock— an— " Peter Stone could go no further, his face worked, and he turned from her.
"Ah!" A bitter little cry burst from her lips, but clenching her hands she controlled herself. Drawing Peter inside the cottage, she made him tell her all. He told how the ship, caught in a terrible storm, was hurled on to a cruel reef of rocks in the Pacific Ocean; that of a crew of a hundred men only twenty were saved. Jim Brown, the only son of his widowed mother, had drowned with the other eighty.
For some moments neither could speak. Then stifling her sobs Mrs. Brown asked: "Did you see my son die?"
"Yes," he faltered.
"Tell me, how did he die?" she urged.
"Mrs. Brown, I can't tell you."
"Oh, but you must," she replied. "You must tell me. I know he died at peace with God, for I have prayed so much for him."
Again he refused, but she persisted, until at last in a broken voice Peter Stone said: "He went down under the waves, cursing and swearing against God."
Martha Brown shrank back as if she had been struck. Then looking up she saw her favorite text over the fireplace, "WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE." Pointing to it, she said, "Even after what you have told me, I believe that God has saved my boy."
The old lady's voice shook a little and tears stood in her blue eyes. She brushed them away and turning to Peter said with such faith in her voice that he never forgot the words: "Then the Lord met him under the wave!"
Over six months had passed since Peter Stone brought to Martha the news of her son's death. She lived on alone in her little cottage, tending her garden and communing with her Lord. Her life was as sweet and fragrant as her flowers, and though there were lines of pain about her mouth and eyes, yet she never passed anyone in the village without a smile, and her very presence seemed to bless and gladden all with whom she came in contact. Still she prayed, and believed that God in His love and mercy had come to her son in his last moments and taken him to Himself.
For many years Jim had been a grief to his old mother. Though he had loved her in his own rough way, yet he had been a hard drinker and brawler and openly scoffed at all religion. But all the time that faithful old saint of God prayed and trusted that Jim would someday be saved. Even now, though she was told that he had been heard cursing and swearing as he slipped under the waves, she refused to give up hope.
On Christmas Eve she had a letter. She looked at the writing on the envelope but it was blotted and smeared. She tore it open, and scanned the half sheet of paper in it. The writing seemed to dance before her eyes, but with an effort she managed to read: "Dear Mother, I am alive, and I am coming home today. Praise God! He has saved both my body and my soul. Your loving son, JIMMIE."
Martha Brown laid the letter down on the table.
"Praise God!" she said, "for WITH HIM ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!"
That evening, while old Mrs. Brown sat alone in her cottage before the cozy fire, there came a knock on the door. Trembling, she rose to open it, and there stood her sailor-son. "Oh, Jimmie! At last, my boy, my boy," was her cry.
She saw a changed man, thinner and paler, but with a new look on his face, and a new light in his eyes. When the first glad greetings were over, Jim Brown told his mother how he was still alive. When almost drowned, he had clutched at a floating spar, and clinging to it, had, after many hours, managed to swim to land. He had been found by a fisherman, who carried him to his cottage. For weeks he had lain at the point of death, and when he finally recovered, he was too weak to attempt the long journey home. Finally, after earning some money by fishing, he managed to work his way back.
Martha Brown hung on his words, and when he had finished his story, she asked with eager voice: "But, Jimmie, how was it that you came to know Christ as your Savior?"
"Mother," he replied, "The Lord met me under the wave."
She started as she heard the very words that she herself had used.
He continued: "I seemed to see all my sinful life, and so I just cried, 'Lord, save me!' and He did."