CAPSIZED IN SMOOTH WATERS
CAPSIZED IN SMOOTH WATERS.
JONATHAN WELLS and Stephen Moore were seafaring men, whose lot it was, in the early part of this century, to spend a few days of rest and recreation at a seaport on the north-east coast of England. One of these days being unusually bright, and the sea calm, a number of their friends less accustomed to the sea, had gone out in a pleasure boat for a few hours’ enjoyment on the water, and Wells and Moore were now awaiting their return. As the two friends sat on a cliff overlooking the sea, the beautiful serenity of the weather led to some conversation about scenes of an opposite kind which each of them had witnessed. “It has often struck me,” said Wells, “that when the worst has been said about the ravages of the sea, the percentage of really unavoidable calamities is comparatively small. Among my own tars, and among those whom I can recollect from the time when I went to sea as a boy, for every one who has lost his life through wild seas, I could tell of ten that have been ruined by drunkenness or some kindred vice. The greatest dangers of life, say what we will, don’t come from the elements, nor from fidelity to duty in times of peril, but very often from the enemy men pour down their throats, or from some other foe which that has let in.” As the friends sat there chatting in the rich sunlight of that glorious evening, they little thought in how short a time a fearful illustration of the truth of what Wells had said would come before them. Every one of the party which had gone out in the boat was supposed to be at least steady, and some of them were known to be of decidedly religious character. One of them, however, had been ill-advised enough to take with him a bottle of whisky, of which in the course of the afternoon he and two or three others had drunk, not, as they thought, excessively, but certainly too freely. This was evident from the somewhat uproarious mirth which followed the first glasses, and still more painfully evident from the unseemliness of the jests that soon succeeded the pleasant conversation which had been enjoyed. It was not long before two of the party who had drunk more than the others began to jump about the boat in such a way as to endanger its safety. In vain the more cautious and steady of the party offered their remonstrances. In vain the ladies screamed and begged their excited friends to sit down. “What’s the use of coming out for a holiday if we can’t have a bit of fun?” said they. Instead of becoming quieter they became more turbulent, until at last the boat gave a fearful lurch, and in another moment capsized. They were more than two miles from the shore, and no help was at hand. What pen could describe the heart-rending cries that burst from those agonized men and maidens in that terrible moment? In another instant all was over. The merry occupants of the boat were buried beneath the waves, only one escaping, who, being a powerful swimmer, overtook a distant boat. “All was over,” did we say? Alas! all was not over. The crushing grief of bereaved parents and brothers and sisters was not over. The sorrow of dear friends was not over. The responsibility of those to whom the calamity had been due was not over. The awful judgment which awaited every one who had thus been hurried into eternity, prepared or unprepared, was not over. Oh, the terrible position of those on whom the guilt of that disaster rested! Better, ten thousand times better, would it have been for them had they never been born. Let no reader say that the fate of those hapless pleasure-seekers has no word of warning for him. The case was by no means an isolated one. It was but a type of thousands more. The coast of life is strewn with wrecks which have become such through intemperance. Jonathan Wells was right. The ravages of the sea are as nothing when compared with the countless cases of moral and spiritual ruin caused by the drinking customs of society. Happy are they who from love to God and man have resolved that, for their part, they will have nothing to do with that which thus frustrates the purposes of God, and swells the ranks of the prince of darkness.—Christian Herald.