A BOY'S RESOLVE | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 14.

A BOY'S RESOLVE.

ADMIRAL FARRAGUT, one of the naval heroes in our Civil War, tells the following anecdote of his boyhood:—

When I was ten years old I was with my father on board of a man-of-war. I had some qualities that, I thought, made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards, and fond of gaming in every shape. At the close of dinner one day my father turned everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me, "David, what do you mean to be?"

"I mean to follow the sea."

"Follow the sea! Yes, to be a poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast; be kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital in a foreign land. No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with such principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. You'll have to change your whole course of life if you ever become a man."

My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke, and overwhelmed with mortification.

"A poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast. Be kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital. That is to be my fate," thought I. "I'll change my life, and change it at once. I'll never utter another oath; I will never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor; I will never gamble." I have kept these three vows ever since. Shortly after I had made them I became a Christian. That act was the turning-point in my destiny.