A Wonderful Deliverance
By L. D. Avery-Stuttle
By Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle HEATHEN tho these mariners are, they shrink from the awful deed. But the sense of self-preservation is strong in every breast. They hesitate no longer, and with a cry of mortal terror, the outcast drops from the vessel’s rail into the boiling sea. But before this, in answer to the hurried and anxious questions of the seamen, the recreant son of Amittai had spoken to them about the true God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is therein, and had borne a ringing testimony to the truth; so that, before this last awful step is taken, these heathens bow themselves and ask forgiveness of the God of heaven, whose divine law they fear to break. Instantly there is a hush. The boiling sea becomes calm. The fierce winds die away. The tempest ceases. But hardly has the body of the prophet touched the sea, when the awe-struck mariners notice a mighty leviathan of the deep, headed directly toward them. The horrified face of the prophet is seen for a moment above the wave, and in the next, the terrified watchers behold him disappear within the horrid maw of the monster! The vessel keeps on her course, the seamen believing that the wretched man has received the punishment of death for his wickedness. Not so; there is no height too sublime, no depth too awful to be pierced by the humble cry of faith, or the earnest prayer for mercy and deliverance. From the belly of the monster, the penitent voice of the prophet is heard by a loving and long-suffering God, tho, as it seemed to the despairing man, “the bars of the pit were around about” him forever. Three days of horror, of prayers, of searching of heart, and of deep contrition pass away. It is enough. “And the Lord spake to the fish.” Away toward the East, in the heathen city of Nineveh, there is great alarm and consternation. A man in the simple garb of a prophet of the one true God, has entered her gates, and is delivering his thrilling and awful message: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Up and down the crowded streets of the great city he passes, his mournful cry echoing through her palaces and temples. Before him, every face reflects the shadow of a terrible fear, and every heart beats with alarm. At once the news reaches the palace of the king. “Hear, O king!” cries a messenger, hurrying into the royal presence. “The herald of the God of Israel, the mighty One, has this day entered the gates of our city, and the doom thereof is sure.” “What is his message?” demands the startled king. “Ah, his message is as brief as it is terrible ,” responds the courier: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” The king turns an ashen face toward his courtiers. He had heard the fame of Israel’s God, and a deadly fear overtakes him. Even while with trembling voice he questions the first messenger, another stands before him, spent with running and eager with haste: “Hear, O king! many days ago I had a call to journey westward, even to the great sea. The last morning of my tarry, I walked on the shore, conversing with the fishermen who were spreading their nets. Suddenly, as we looked afar to the westward, where the blue waves of the Mediterranean were dancing in the morning sun, we saw a mighty monster of the deep, hurrying toward the shore. Nearer and nearer he came, his tremendous body dashing the white spray in feathery flakes about him. We watched him with fascinated eyes. As he drew nearer and nearer, the fishermen turned to flee. But tho I was struck with an awful fear, my trembling limbs refused to bear me from the spot. At last, borne on the crest of a mighty wave which seemed to rise before him, the monster gained the shore, his great, gaping jaws wide stretched. Then, O king, my eyes saw a vision which almost stopped the wild beating of my heart. Out from the open jaws of the monster, leaped a man,—a man seeming to be clothed in mortal flesh like unto us. I marked well his features, tho he paid no heed to me. Meanwhile the leviathan headed for the deep once more, on the receding wave. Then, O king, a faintness came over my flesh, and I fell with my face to the ground. When I awoke, the man was gone, and I thought never to behold him again, for I said, Surely it is one of the gods, whose dwelling is not with man. But hear me, O king. This day mine eyes have again seen him,—the mysterious man of the sea,—and it is none other than he, O king, who crieth against this city; which, as soon as I had heard and seen, I hasted to tell thee.” The face of the king is livid with fear, and a trembling seizes him. Turning to one of his chief officers, he cries hoarsely: “It is the God of Israel, fighting against the Assyrian. Up, every man of you! proclaim a fast. Let not man or beast eat or drink, and let every man’s flesh be clothed with sackcloth, and let him make his bed in ashes. It may be God will turn from His fierce anger, that we perish not; for mine ears have heard before, of the fame of this so great a God.” Forty days thereafter, during which time the cry of the prophet had ceased not, some who were passing in and out of the Eastern gate of the city, noticed a small booth, covered with boughs, in the shade of which sat a lonely man with eyes fixed intently upon the city. As day after day passed, and the sun still rose and shone with friendly beams over the great city, the face of the strange man grew dark with anger. Had he not for many days foretold the utter destruction of Nineveh? Had not her wickedness been great, until her sins reached unto heaven? The pride of the son of Amittai is touched. Why should he, a prophet of the Most High, be thus humiliated before the idolatrous enemies of his people? Fiercely the East wind blew great gusts of heated air as from an oven, upon the head of the disconsolate man. Already the gourd which had promised him some comfort and protection by its cooling shade, was withered and dead at his feet,—fit emblem of a ruined and blasted life, as his had been. It was as he had feared while yet in his own country. He must bear the dreaded stigma and reproach of the false prophet as long as he lived. Already he imagines that the eyes of the people who pass in and out of the city gate are turned askance at him, and that he hears the mocking laugh and the bitter sneer. In his self-love, he ponders and grieves over his humiliation, until it has led him to prefer the total destruction of the repentant city rather than that his own good name should suffer, or his foolish pride become humbled. Finally, in an outburst of reckless anger, the rebellious man even dares to lift up his eyes to heaven and reproach the Almighty. “Doest thou well to be angry?” mildly inquires the voice from heaven. “I do well to be angry even unto death!” We wonder at the daring and reckless reply of the unreasonable and cruel prophet; but most we wonder at the infinite loving-kindness of the Lord, and the vast mercy which made possible such a reply as this,—a reply which must forever stop the mouths of those who would defame the Almighty by representing Him as a God who could take pleasure in condemning to eternal torture and endless suffering a portion of the creatures of His hand. Listen: “And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that can not discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”