THE SAILOR PILGRIM
(Continued from last issue)
I take for granted, that my Reader can be no stranger to many of the beneficial uses to which our sun is appointed to minister. He is indeed, to our frail bodies, in the dark and cold regions which we inhabit, the very source and centre of all that is essential to the several purposes of life. And not to our nature only, but to almost every thing of animation around us. Now what the sun is in the world of nature, such, but in an infinitely higher degree, is Jesus the Sun of Righteousness, in the world of grace. And if you have ever known what it is to be warmed by the beams, or enlightened with the rays of the sun in some dark wintery day, think what kind of comfort that must be which is poured in upon the soul, when at any time Jesus ariseth on our cold and benighted affections! How sweet and pleasant, after a season of spiritual darkness! How reviving on our frozen affections! How cheering to the deadened frames of his people! And how inexpressibly precious, when, after long wanderings over the mountains of sin and sorrow, Jesus hath again appeared as from behind the cloud to guide our feet unto the way of peace!
But though in many points, the sun of this lower world becomes a lively emblem of Him who is the Sun of Righteousness, yet, the resemblance is lost in numberless instances.
The sun of this world, which ministers to the health and comfort of our bodies, when the rays of his glory are proportionate to our necessities, sometimes, by his overpowering warmth, becomes the minister of sickness and of death. But with Jesus, the larger and fuller his manifestations, the more he promotes the healing of the nations. Among the souls in that happy climate, where he shines most full and gloriously, none of the inhabitants shall any longer say I am sick. (Isa. 33:24.)
The great luminary of the earth hath his seasons of change, of rising and setting. Sometimes he is nearer our world, at others more remote. Even now, in the wintery hour in which I am writing, how short his visit! He hath but just peeped in at my window, and is hastening down the western heaven. And indeed, when in the summer he makes a longer stay, yet how often are his bright influences intercepted by a rainy or cloudy atmosphere.
But no atmosphere, no cloudy day, no wintry dispensation, can intervene to eclipse His brightness, when Jesus is pleased to shine in upon his people. For even in the midnight hour, as if to manifest a miracle of grace, he sometimes comes, with inexpressible sweetness, and proves thereby the fulfilment of that promise: at even-time it shall be light. (Zech. 14:6.) Precious Redeemer! What a lustre is added to all thy loveliness of character in this one consideration of it, that with thee, there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (James 1:17.) It is thy peculiar property to shine with unceasing light and glory! Thine to illumine all the darkness of thy people. To thee it belongs to dispel all the clouds of ignorance and sin; and not only to enlighten, but to cheer, and warm, and animate the soul, when the a:ections would otherwise be frozen. Without thee, ordinances are nothing, means of grace are nothing, ministers are nothing. Thou art the alone fountain of life and light, to all created intelligence; to angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, which are above, and to all orders of thy people here below. Oh! that it may be my portion to enjoy a part in these glorious privileges of thy church, to whom it is said: Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself. The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. (Isaiah 60: 1-19.
Catching the Sun At the Mast-Head
I must not dismiss these reflections on the great luminary of the day without adding one observation more.
If My Reader be in the sea-faring life, he will know without my telling him, that among some of the first things taught at sea, the custom of sending boys to the mast-head in the moment of sun-set by way of catching another glimpse of his orb of glory, is a very common thing in order to make them expert in running up the rigging. And they who are clever in going aloft, will not unfrequently by this means raise to their view again, the hasty traveller above the horizon, which before appeared to have fallen into the lap of the ocean.
May not gracious minds derive a lesson from hence? If, as our Lord taught his disciples, the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light; surely we ought to make improvement from their maxims whenever their conduct is safely imitable. And therefore, when at any time in the experience of the faithful, it seems to them as if their sun was setting and a night of darkness coming on; may they not by faith and prayer ascend those heights which rise above the world, and get a renewed view of Jesus?
The History of the Sailor Pilgrim Renewed
But whither am I wandering?—Though I have introduced those observations because they have now in the moment of writing my journal struck my mind; the Reader will not, I hope, be prompted therefrom to conclude, that such reflections occupied my thoughts at the period when I first entered the navy.
I think it is hardly possible that he should so soon have forgotten what I before told him. Never perhaps did a more thoughtless and inconsiderate youth than myself cross the quarterdeck of a ship. And if the Reader be at all acquainted with the navy, he will not be inclined to suppose, that the atmosphere of a man of war became favorable to induce such sentiments. Alas! at that time I had never once seriously considered the solemn subject of religion. I had never once communed with my own heart upon it. Neither the importance of existence as relating to the present world, and more especially as involving in its consequences the grand events of the world to come, had ever called up my attention. And for many a year after my entrance into the navy, my mind remained totally indifferent even to the common principles of religion.
If the reader feels more interested that I should prosecute my history, simply as an history, from that part of it, where I left off, when first losing sight of land, then attend to the reflections I have made upon it, he will, I fear, consider all that I have been observing as unimportant, and as so many interruptions to the tale; and as such, would have been glad if every thing intermediate had been brought within a parenthesis. But if so, how shall I prevail upon him to indulge me with a longer parenthesis?
I cannot venture to enumerate the numberless scenes of sin and folly, through which I passed during the early days of my being in the navy: much less to relate an account of the many precipices which in the heat of youth I ran over. I tremble even in the recollection, and like the shipwrecked sailor, who having escaped the horrors of the storm, and gained the mountain top, dares not look down the dreadful ascent which he hath climbed: so I, having weathered the many tempestuous dangers which threatened every moment to overwhelm me during the mad career of youth, cannot venture to raise afresh those images of terror, which a retrospect would awaken to the imagination.
I pass over therefore a long period in my history. If it makes a chasm in the tale, the Reader may console himself in the thought, that to fill it in would form no pleasing subject. Perhaps however he will hardly credit me when I say, that during the first fifteen years of my being in the Navy, I do not recollect that a single thought of seriousness, either of God or of eternity, once occupied my mind, so as to call up even a momentary regard. To such a degree of ripeness in iniquity was I arrived. (How strange soever this relation may appear, the fact is literally as it is here stated. This history is not a fiction but the memoir of a real character.
The general corruption of manners around me added to the evil propensities of my own depraved heart, soon tended to efface every serious impression which a religious education had been directed to form. Even the entreaty of the most affectionate of mothers was lost to my unthinking and ungrateful mind. The request which she had made at parting, that I would daily accustom myself to the perusal of a portion of God’s word, was totally disregarded. Both the Bible and the form of Prayer she had given me were wholly thrown aside. And I blush to add, the very recollection of her tenderness seemed to have been lost, unless now and then when a transient thought passed over me.
Dear shade! now thou art no more, and now a train of events hath brought these things afresh to my remembrance, how doth thy image seem to rise to my view, and to chide with all the just reproaches of a rebuking aspect.
(To be continued)
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Bekijk de hele uitgave van maandag 1 mei 1939
The Banner of Truth | 6 Pagina's