REMARKABLE CASE OF CAPTAIN JOHN.
By Rev. J. H. Ecob
[By Rev. J. H. Ecob, D.D., in The Christian Life.] "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit." He was a river pirate. His father and father's father were river pirates before him. Heredity had had its way with him. He never read his Bible, for the adequate reason that he had no Bible, and for the still profounder reason that he could not read. He never went to church for the same reason that the fox kept clear of the trap—he might get caught. His hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him. He belonged to "the Jinks tribe." Every one who knew that tribe would instantly exclaim, "Enough said!" A little13hovel under the river bank, a dingy old boat, armed with ax and pike pole, and possibly more questionable implements, were his possessions; the open river and any man's property, the field of his operations. He had a wife after his own heart, and children—well, they were in the Jinks line. The least said the soonest mended. Here Captain John lived and labored at river piracy until he was sixty. Every year he grew more weather-beaten, dark and tough without and within. Ignorance, superstition, whisky, tobacco, blasphemy, vices of all shapes and lines, had united their diabolic forces in begetting a man and molding his life for sixty years. One day I was called down from my study to see a man. When I entered the room this is what I saw: A man whom I would have pronounced an Indian chief except for his iron gray hair and clothes. He looked from head to foot as if he had been hewn out of a huge log of ancient tawny wood with a broadax, and left in the rough. He fixed his small, keen, gray eyes upon me with the steady glare and fascination of a wild animal, and in just such a voice as must come from such a throat began: "Well sumthin's happened to me, and I've come to tell ye." "Yis, ye kin. I'm Captain John, John Jinks. I belong down the river. Sumthin' queer's happened to me. It was yisterday arternoon, and I hain't slept sence, and I hain't e't nothin' neither. I feel so bad. It seems as if eatin' and drinkin' 'ud spile it all till I telled it to some one, that is, to some one as knowed. You're the minister, hain't ye?" "Yes, captain, what is it?" "Waal, yisterday arternoon I went out to cut my old woman some wood; I cut a spell, and then I begun to feel kinder bad. I didn't know what ailed me, but I felt bad. I said to myself, I hain't sick. I e't my dinner all right. I hain't got no aiks nor pains. I sot down on a log and looked up and down the river. Thought I'd rest a spell. But the longer I sot the worse I felt. Well, I said to myself, Sumthin's the matter with ye, ole man. Ye hain't never felt like this afore as I re'lect. I guess ye'd better go and lay down. So I went up in my chamber and laid down on the bed. I wasn't sleepy, and I didn't go to sleep neither. But whilst I lay there lookin' up at the rofters, if ye'll believe me, all tu wunst they begun to look shiny. I lay there starin' at 'em till they got as shiny as gold. I remember I sort o' chuckled to myself, sayin', Well, ole man, ye never expected to hev' a chamber with gold rofters, did ye? Then I sot up and looked round, and the hull room was jist as shiny as the rofters. Everythin' in it was so bright it kinder dazzled me like. And the chamber looked bigger. Suddenly, I didn't see 'em come, nor hear 'em, but all tu wunst there was some nice ole men sittin' all round the room. They had white hair and long white clo'es. They was nice-lookin' ole fellers, I tell ye; I never seed none like 'em nowhere. An' they all jest ris right up outen the floor and sot there; jest as I've seen the white mist rise up outen the river. They didn't say nothin' to me, nor I didn't say nothin' to them. We jest sot there and looked at each other. But they looked at me mighty kind and good. And they was all so clean and white, and they looked so kinder soft and nice outen their eyes, that, arter a while, I began to feel shamed. Seemed 's if they were lookin' right into me and all through me; and none on 'em said a wor' till it seemed 's if I'd hev' to holler. Then, if ye'll believe it, all tu wunst there cum flutterin' right down from the gold rofters the pootiest leetle white dove ye ever seed. It seemed 's if its wings was all silver they was so white, an' it hovered down and lit right in the middle of the shiny floor. [So lost was the old man in his vision that he intimated with his great, leathery, square hands the hovering of the dove, bending his body to the floor as if he still saw it.] And when the ole men saw it, they all smiled, an' I smiled too, and when they seed me smilin' at the leetle dove, they smiled ag'in more'n afore. Then all at once my eyes begun to get kinder hazy, and when I looked up at the rofters, I seed they was turning back into wood ag'in, an' the walls they kinder cumed together ag'in, and putty soon there I was in my ole chamber ag'in just as 'twas afore. But I kin tell ye, minister, somehow or other that light oit'n them roffers and clabboards hes got right in here. [He struck his chest a resounding blow that would have felled an ordinary man.] An' that leetle white dove seem 's if I can jest feel it right in here a fluttering them leetle shiny wings all covered with silver, an', I tell ye, I never felt nothin' like it afore." Here the old man's voice failed, and the tears streamed down his seamed, weather-beaten face. "An' what's strange, minister, I don't want to go on the river no more; an' I can't swear no more; it scares me, for them nice ole men seem to be jest lookin' right into me. An' then I feel jest like prayin', but I'm kinder feared to do that, 'cause I've done nothin' but swear ever sence I can remember. An' I don't know what ye ought to say, so jest look up into the sky an' say, 'O Lord, don't let that shiny feelin' and that leetle dove git outen my heart.'" "My ole woman says I'm sick; but I hain't sick; never felt so well in my life. I hain't e't nor slept any for nigh onto a day and night. But how kin ye eat and sleep when ye feel jest lik' shoutin' and singin' and runnin' and jumpin' all the time. I tell her if this is bein' sick, I wish I'd never been well, nor ever 'ad git well ag'in. I want to be sick all the rest of my life if this is bein' sick. And now, minister, I've cum to ask ye what to do, for it seems 's if sumthin' ought to be done; an' sumthin' kept a sayin' inside here, 'Go'n see that minister, go'n see that minister, and he'll tell ye what to do.'" The old man paused and turned to me with the simple, eager expectation of a child. My heart sank within me, for it flashed upon me that there was a mind utterly vacant of the regulation biblical and church lore. There was no starting-point. So, putting up a little prayer for help (such a prayer is sometimes like a flash light to the soul), I determined to follow my impulses. I went to the old man with outstretched hands, putting one in his hand and one on his shoulder, for I felt strangely drawn to him, and said: "Captain John, my dear brother, the Lord has been with you. For your life, don't you do, or say, or think anything to darken that light in your heart, or to soil the wings of that little dove. Now let us get down on our knees here and pray." We poured out our hearts in thanksgiving and prayer. I knew he was praying with me by the deep sighs and groans and hearty: "Yes, yes." The rest of Captain John's story is soon told. From that time on he was a new being. He soon found reputable work. Blasphemy and vulgarity passed as by magic from his speech. He was a constant and most devout worshiper at church and prayer-meeting. Often when I came down from the pulpit, Captain John would be waiting for me, his face aglow; he would seize my hands in a vice-like grip, saying: "Ye got it right, minister, ye got it right this morning; I knew it, I knew it; glory be to His name!" We never failed of a good prayer-meeting when Captain John was present. A few fresh and startling words from him would instantly dissipate the air of reality which too often broods over such assemblies, and bring us to a consciousness of His presence who speaks to His children heart to heart. If we were in a leaden mood, the brethren solemnly and perfunctorily occupying the time, a deep groan from Captain John, or a suppressed, "Hallelujah!" would startle us from our drowsiness like a call from heaven. A sense of shame would steal upon us that we could be so slow and dull of heart when there was one in our midst filled with glory and triumph. So he lived in the joy of the Lord, growing in grace and in favor with God and man. That first light, caught from the gold roffers and clapboards of his poor little garret, never seemed to fade. The white dove in his heart had never taken its flight. Captain John died in the vision and victory of the light which came down out of God from heaven and fell in transfiguration upon the poor little pirate hut under the river bank. What, then, did happen to Captain John?—No ministers, no churches, no means of grace, had any connection with him. He seemed to be excluded from all our conditions of salvation. None of our carefully-prepared definitions of conversion fit his case. I wonder if this is a sample copy of the conversion of a heathen? Captain John was a heathen. Will some one give us an adequate account of this conversion, and then name the orthodox denomination whose creed covers this case? "It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."