Watch and Pray

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 26, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 33.

OUR illustration on this page is from life. It is a scene from the French Atlantic liner the Caroline, one of the great, typical, floating cities which are continually crossing the Atlantic. Beyond the ship looms one of the mighty menaces to navigation in the North Atlantic from spring to mid-summer,—a gigantic iceberg.

The officials of the ship measured it by means of a sextant, that useful instrument used to determine latitude at sea, or the angular distances between objects, for finding the position of a vessel, and other things.

The huge monster is determined to be 910 feet long, 520 feet thick or wide, and 227 feet high above the water line. It is from eight to ten times that depth below the water, and it may have ten or a score of feet sticking out in every direction, hidden by the water. It is a veritable mountain of ice, constantly changing its place. It was met in north latitude 47° 44', in west longitude 50° 41', at 5:55 A.M., May 27, near the very place where the ill-fated Titanic went to her untimely grave a little more than one year before.

The importance of care and watchfulness on the part of the Titanic crew seems not to have been emphasized or properly weighed. We may be sure that every precaution was exercised by the men in charge of the Caroline. The memory of the great disaster of thirteen months before had not yet become dim, and the growing chilliness of the atmosphere in the proximity of such a mountain of ice was doubtless apprehended.

About twenty-eight years ago, an Atlantic liner eastward bound found itself one night enveloped in a cold fog. The ship was slowed down, and scarcely felt her way, so slowly did she move the remainder of the night. When the fog lifted in the morning, she was in an open space, with five mighty sentinels surrounding her as if jealous of each other. Caught between any two, she would have been crushed as an eggshell. Her officers knew she was near the great bergs; but the fog hid them, nor had we wireless telegraphy then. It was with devout thanksgiving to God that the ship was slowly navigated through a narrow strait between two of the huge monsters. And we may be sure that the passengers were grateful that the shipmaster did not rush recklessly on in the fog with a vain, confident feeling that his good ship was sufficient.

We recall such an instance when crossing on the state line steamer Nebraska, New York to Glasgow, in 1884. The atmosphere one day began to grow cooler. The officers began to lift up buckets of water from the ocean and take their temperature. This was continued at intervals, with the water growing colder, and our cautious Scotch captain knew we were nearing an ice-field. More slowly moved the ship, and in the morning the mighty monster that could cool cubic miles of air and water appeared. Our captain characterized it as a great ice-field broken from some mighty glacier. One mile long, its width indeterminate, and rising from the water one hundred feet, which meant that the whole depth was nearly one thousand feet! We wished the captain to go nearer, but he refused. He would risk neither the projecting hidden feet nor the sudden fog which might arise.

We are all sailors on life's uncertain sea. There are mighty menaces on that sea. There are foes to meet stronger than we. There are temptations as much greater than our unaided power to resist as the iceberg was greater than the Titanic. These menaces to navigation in the Atlantic are dull, insensate things; they mean nothing. The ships simply are crushed by accident, and not because of any intelligent force directed against them. But the Christian has foes with intelligence, malevolent intelligence, directed against him with an intensity and objectivity that he can not escape. Meet them he must; it is their object to destroy him.

Have we a safe master on board? Do we

feel sufficient ourselves? Do we think we have sufficient strength in our ship, sufficient lifting power in her separate chambers, that we could endure the wreck? So the officers of the Titanic felt. Are we so wise in our own estimation that we are willing to run without watch? Such a course is folly in the extreme. The captain of the forces that are against us is Satan. He has practised on the human family the six thousand years of its history. Mightier than we have gone down before him, utter wrecks on life's sea. Some of the men who have won the mightiest battles of the world have yielded to him. We are not stronger than they. Our hope is in having the master of our ship yielded to a mightier Master.

God has given us a chart for the sea of life. It may seem to us all uncharted, looking at it from our human reason; but with God it is charted from end to end. And that chart which points out the sure and safe route, which reveals the hidden dangers, which has within it that power and potency and discernment that will enable us to know that we are meeting these subtle means of destruction,—that chart, that guide, is His word.

But that Word will not guide us unless we desire to know it. We shall not be guided by its marvelous teaching unless we are willing to study it. The Master of that word will not give us the power that lies within it unless we seek His counsel. It is a time to watch; it is a time to pray. Never before in the history of God's church was watchfulness and prayerfulness demanded as it is to-day, and never was there a time in the history of this world when there was so much recklessness and disregard of divine counsels, especially among those who profess His name. The heathen will use all of his various superstitions to insure success. The infidel who has been reared under the influence of Christianity has swung to the other extreme, and feels himself sufficient. The wise man will recognize his own utter weakness and inefficiency. He will learn of the nothingness of humanity from its history in the past, and he will also recognize the great God who leads and guides as He has led and guided those who have sought Him through all the ages. Therefore watch, lest you enter into temptation; and pray that His power may be given you to meet every foe.