ARE THE CHILDREN SAFE?
By Mrs. J. F. Willing
There were some people living on the shore of the bay near Boston. Just back of the garden gate was a stake driven into the ground, to which a boat was fastened by a rope. When the tide was out the boat was on dry ground; but when the tide came in it would come up around the boat, and the children would get in and let the little waves teeter them this way and that. One day they stayed out at their play longer than usual. Their mother missed them, and began to look for them. She went to her neighbor’s house and asked, “Have you seen anything of my children?” “Yes,” said the neighbor; “I saw them playing in the boat after the tide came up around it.” Then the mother ran down to the garden walk and looked for the boat, but it was gone. Then she knew that the children, playing in the boat, loosed the rope from the stake, and when the tide went out it carried them out upon the bay. She looked over the water, but could see nothing of them. Then she began to cry and wring her hands, and all the neighbors came running together, and everybody was in great excitement about those three little children who had been carried out to sea by the tide. They telegraphed to Boston, and men with rowboats came and pulled out upon the water as far as they could go, and looked in every direction; and the tugboats came steaming down, going out this way and that, but nobody could find the children. At last it began to grow dark, and the people built a great fire on the beach and stayed there all night. The mother was on her knees, with her hands clasped and her pale face lifted toward the skies, while her heart prayed in agony that God would take care of her little children in that boat away out upon the lone, dark sea. Early in the morning the people were looking off over the water, when an old sailor, whose eyes were sharper than those of the other people, saw a large ship coming in. He thought perhaps the crew had seen the little boat floating on the water in the night and had picked it up, so he waited till the ship came near. It was weather-beaten, and looked as if it had met storms in coming all the way from India. He put his hands together and made a speaking-trumpet of them, so that his voice would go farther; then he sang out to the sailors on board the great ship, “Any children on board?” Every one was as still as death, and the old sailor himself could almost hear his own heart beat while he waited for an answer. It came presently over the water, faint but clear, “Children all safe!”11Sure enough, in the night the great ship had picked up the little boat, and the children were all safe. You can hardly think how glad everybody was when they were brought home after their dangerous night out upon the sea. God means the old ship, His church, to have all the little children safe on board. And I think our Saviour, as He sees the ship come in, will call to us to know if we have the children safe on board; and we should then be able to say, “Yes, dear Lord, the children are all safe!”