Warnings Unheeded by J. Wilbur Chapman

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 28, 1912

Warnings Unheeded

By J. Wilbur Chapman

THE steamer “Portland” left Boston harbor in the storm of November, 1898. She left when all the signals for danger were flying; she left when the government agent at the signal office had advised outgoing vessels to remain in port; she left when the owners of the vessel had commanded her to stay at her dock. Why she left no one has ever been able to say. Her captain must have been apprehensive, for he said to the lighthouse-keeper: “Keep your light burning bright to-night; for we may come back.” But she never came back.

Once outside the harbor the mighty storm caught the vessel in her embrace, and tore her to pieces; and not one on board ever again saw home or friends.

A quill was picked up from the coast, which may have been from some of her passengers. The little piece of paper read: “We are on a raft; we have given up all hope; we are going down. O God, if I could only see my wife and little boy again!”

It is the saddest story of a wreck written for many a day. And the saddest part of it is that the vessel was wrecked because the captain disobeyed the orders of his superior.

“How many lives have been shipwrecked for the same reason! God has a plan for every life, and his orders must be obeyed. He knows the best for us all. On the highway of the seas there are drifting about more than fifty ships known as derelicts.

These derelicts have been abandoned by owners and crews, and now, with no compass by means of which they may be guided, with no pilot at the wheel to carry them into the harbor, with no captain to issue orders, and with no crew to obey them, they drift about, only a menace to other vessels that sail the seas. God forbid that any of us should become derelicts or wrecks because we have disobeyed our great Commander. “Whatever he saith unto you, do it.”—J. Wilbur Chapman, D. D.