THE SAILOR PILGRIM

(Continued)

Reader! is my history singular? Can you trace nothing of a correspondence in it to your own? —What, is it possible for you to have counted many a moon from the days of childhood, and yet can discover nothing to mark down of divine mercy manifested towards you in a personal and particular manner. Have there been no deliverances from danger; no escapes from death; no recoveries from sickness; no rescues from the many shipwrecks of life; nothing, to put down to the account of distinguishing mercy, when in the storms of the world you have risen above the tempest, while the carcases of others in the wreck have been floating every where around you!

Alas! how insensible to the sweetest enjoyment of every blessing must that mind be, which in the multitude that are passing and repassing continually before him, sees nothing of the divine hand in the appointment, and never remarks the special nature of the mercy wherein he is made to differ from others, neither feels a proper sense of it; nor sends forth the grateful acknowledgements of the heart in the tribute of praise to the kind author of all.

Nay, what is yet more. When in such decided evidences of distinguishing favor a man is left the living monument of sparing mercy in the midst of a dying world, it never strikes his unthinking breast, that while God hath been so gracious, he hath been most undeserving; and that transcending goodness hath only been recompensed with transcending evil.

Are those lines in the view of any Reader of reflection?—Will he suffer the appeal from them to be personal?—Shall I ask you what is the answer of your mind concerning special mercies, and the return you have made to them?—Depend upon it my brother! in the embarkations of the thousands of mankind into the world, the voyage of life hath proceeded but a little way in every man’s history, without furnishing many proofs, that divine mercy riseth in continual tides above high water mark, and overflows the shore of human undeservings; or to use the more beautiful language of the apostle: Where sin aboundeth, grace doth much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans v. 20, 21.

PUTTING OFF THE BOAT

I mark even the smallest incidents which occurred at my first entrance into the Navy, because everything was then new to me, and could not fail to engage my attention.—This of the boat’s putting off from the shore was peculiarly so.

The first object which caught my eye as soon as I had sat down in the stern, and as we were rowing from the quay, was the situation of several of the ship’s company who were in a state of drunkenness.

I found upon enquiry, that they had been forcibly dragged from the neighboring public houses by the officers and boats crew, who were sent on shore for that purpose.

My heart smote me at the sight. For it brought to my recollection, the very different situation in which I had parted from the best and most affectionate of mothers.

Dear name! the very mention of it awakens remembrance in my mind to a thousand images of tenderness, which marked her character towards me in the boyish days of my life. Then indeed but coolly considered: and I fear but as unthankfully acknowledged. But now she is no more, they rise to my recollection in all the warmth of affectionate remembrance, and tell me how much she loved by what she did.

Might I be permitted to indulge yet further this pleasing looking back to days which are now no more, to a period always interesting in the review, and which riper years delight to dwell upon, I would connect with the recollection of the childhood of my existence, her kindness which made those days chiefly pleasurable: for to her I owed every thing in my enjoyments. Concerning her I might well borrow the words of the poet, and say with equal propriety to the memory of my mother, what he hath recorded of his:

Short-liv’d possession, but the record fair,
That mem’ry keeps, of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm, that hath effac’d,
A thousand other themes, less deeply trac’d.
Thy nightly visits, to my chamber made,
That thou might’st see me safe, and warmly laid,
Thy morning bounties, ere I left my home,
The biscuit, or confectionary plum.
The fragrant waters, on my cheeks bestow’d
By thine own hand, till fresh they shone and glow’d.
All these, and more endearing still, than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne’er roughened, by those cataracts, and breaks,
That humour interpos’d too often makes.
All these still legible, in mem’ry’s page,
And still to be so, to my latest age.
Add joy to duty, makes me glad to pay,
Such honors to thee, as my numbers may.
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,
Not scorn’d in Heav’n—tho’ little notic’d here.

Cowper.

I did not tell the reader, (for how indeed should I), that part of my history which had passed before my entrance into the Navy. Neither perhaps should I now have introduced it, but from relating the circumstance which crossed my mind in the view of my drunken companions in the boat. But the striking contrast which marked their situations to mine at our embarkation, bringing to my mind the image of the tenderest of mothers; and that again awakening with it a train of other thoughts leading to my history, it hath been thus far insensibly introduced. And if I thought the Reader would not be offended with a further digression from the main object of my journal, I would add a page or two more in the humble volume of my life, concerning that part of it which I had spent before the chapter which opened with my entrance into the Navy.

It was not without many an earnest request, accompanied at times with the most affectionate remonstrances, on the part of my dear mother, against the dangers of the sea, that the plan was at length determined upon. Long, very long and painful struggles took place in her anxious mind before that her consent could be obtained. Neither indeed after all, was that consent any more than a silent acquiescence. Like the reluctant Patriarch yielding to necessity, when giving up, as he thought, his beloved Benjamin, he cried out: If I be bereaved of my children, I am bereaved. (Gen. 43:14.)

It is possible that some Reader may be in the list of parents; and if so, it is more than possible a similarity of feelings respecting the disposal of children into life, may render this part of my history more particularly striking. Such will readily pardon the relation of little incidents. How uninteresting soever they may be to others, the parental mind will enter into a warmth of participation, and abundantly outrun, in the relation, a thousand other events connected with it, which I stay not to enumerate.

As I was a child of many prayers, my mother’s anxiety for my future and eternal welfare, led her continually to a mercy seat. Where shall the afflicted go for consolation in their hours of trial and sorrow, but to the God of all consolation? Sometimes every other door of hope is shut. And the heart like the pelican in the wilderness, is sent forth to roam alone, when earthly friends either will not, or can not, attend to our complaints. But never is the throne of grace inaccessible. There is One there who makes all the concerns of his people his own, and whom the Father heareth alway. Here therefore the afflicted in mind and heart not only may, but are commanded to come; and with the fullest assurances that they shall not come in vain. Here it was my poor mother lodged all her complaints, and poured forth, from the fulness of her heart, all her desires concerning me.

When the day of my departure arrived, she called me to her closet, that she might close her parting blessing with prayer. Having taken an affectionate, (and as she feared, and so it proved, a final) farewell; she put a Bible into my hand as her last and best gift, accompanied with an earnest request, that as I loved her, or hoped for the divine blessing, I would make it my constant custom to read a portion of it, if but a verse or two, when time would admit of no more, every day. (I beg the Reader to pardon me in the insertion of this short note, which is just to observe, the vast importance of following this advice. It is impossible fully to describe the preciousness and invaluable nature of such a practice. I am so much convinced of its usefulness, that I hesitate not to say, if a man consults his Bible in the first dawn of the morning, for some sweet portion to meditate upon through the day, he will find cause to bless the Lord for the happy effects of it before night. See my Diary and Pocket Companion.)

(To be continued)

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