“LIGHT HO, SIR!”




  “LIGHT HO, SIR!”

  BY
  FRANK T. BULLEN
  AUTHOR OF “CRUISE OF THE CACHALOT”

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
  PUBLISHERS




  Copyright, 1901,
  By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.




CONTENTS


                            PAGE

  LIGHT HO, SIR!               7

  MY NIGHT WATCH IS OVER      21




“LIGHT HO, SIR!”


Those people who are always striving to trace back to a man’s early
training or surroundings the real reason for any startling change in
his life after he has long grown up, and do not believe in what the
Bible calls the New Birth, must often be sorely puzzled. They seek
for that which they wish to find, and often ignore any evidence which
militates against their preconceived theories. Yet the majority of
them would be horrified were they told that this method of research is
dishonest and misleading.

But in spite of what people may feel about the matter, it is of no
use blinking the fact that very much of the so-called scientific
investigation (which is not commercial) that is pursued to-day is
tainted with this radical defect. Especially is this so in matters of
inquiry into religious experience. There are many exceedingly clever
and well-educated persons who would have their readers believe that in
all cases where a man or woman has become a Christian, and from serving
the devil has turned and consistently served God, the change has been
due to early impressions, which, accidentally encrusted over for a
term, have been suddenly revived in all their pristine force, and have
compelled the mind back into the channels in which it was originally
taught to move.

Now, if this were all that these reasoners said, one might remind
them, or inform them gently, that they were only partially right--that
while it is undoubtedly blessedly true that early influences for good
do exert themselves most forcefully and unexpectedly in after years
in a large number of cases, yet it is most untrue and God-dishonoring
to suggest that Christianity is purely a matter of education, of
environment, of a long acquaintance with religious persons and matters.
So far from this being the case, it is a truism with Christian workers
that very frequently their most hopeful converts have been those who
never heard the Gospel before, or at least had never listened to it
with the slightest attention, even though they may have actually caught
the tones of the preacher’s voice. To such simple ones the Water of the
Word of Grace comes like the monsoon rains upon the burnt-up breadths
of India, causing the apparently dead soil to put on at once a glorious
garment of living green, life-giving, life-sustaining, beautifying and
blessing all around it.

One of the most striking instances of this wonderful work of God in
the soul that has ever come under my notice is that of a sailor who,
strange as it may seem to-day, had never, until the time of which I
speak, received the remotest idea of the relations of God to man, and
had not the faintest conception of religion of any kind. Born in the
squalid slums of a Lancashire town nearly sixty years ago, he became
at a very early age a waif of the streets, losing all recollection of
who were his parents, as they had forgotten all about him. It is hardly
possible to conceive of a mind more perfectly desert than was John
Wilson’s. Reading and writing were of course out of the question, and
it is probable that any mental operations that went on in his dark mind
were more nearly related to brute instincts than to any of the ordinary
processes of human reasoning.

Now it is no part of my present plan, even if I had the necessary
material, to trace Johnny’s career from the gutters of ---- until he
found himself in the position of boy on board a North Country collier
brig, being then, as he supposed, about thirteen years of age. By some
inherited tenacity of constitution he had survived those years of
starvation, cold, and brutality, and was, upon going to sea, like a
well-seasoned rattan, without an ounce of superfluous flesh upon him,
and with a capacity for stolid endurance almost equalling a Seminole
Indian.

Of kindness he knew nothing, and had any one shown him any
disinterested attention, he would have been as alarmed as are the birds
in a London garden when a lover of them goes out to scatter crumbs.
He would have suspected designs upon his liberty, or something worse.
Of the treatment he endured on board those East Coast colliers I do
not dare to speak at present. The recital would, I know, arouse an
almost frantic feeling of resentment that such things should have been
possible such a handful of years ago, and readers would forget that,
by the blessing of God, men’s hearts to-day, even in the lowest strata
of our society, have been marvellously softened towards children. He
learned many things on board those ships, he told me, but, so far
as he knew, not one that was good. Blasphemy, drunkenness, cruelty,
debauchery--all these he became an adept in as he grew up, and besides
he knew every conceivable trick by means of which he could shirk duty
and shift it on to the shoulders of others.

At last he reached the dignity of able seaman, but I can bear witness
that a less useful able seaman than he never darkened the door of a
shipping office. And why? Because he had devoted all his low animal
cunning to the avoidance of learning anything, lest he should be
compelled to put it into practice, at the cost of some trouble to
himself; and what he was compelled to know he purposely practised as
badly as possible, so that he should seldom be called upon to do it.
Briefly, and in order to put the finishing touches to this unattractive
picture, he was almost as perfect a specimen of unmoral animal as any
course of training for the purpose of producing such an undesirable
human being could have resulted in.

In this manner he passed the years of his life up to the age of thirty,
drifting, like a derelict log, from ship to ship, and from shore to
shore, all round the world. He was conversant with the interiors of
most of the seaport jails in the world, for when under the influence
of drink he was a madman, only to be restrained from doing deeds of
violence by force, and utterly careless of the consequences of any
of his actions. At last, in the course of his wanderings, he came to
Calcutta, and was enticed by a shipmate up to the Sailors’ Rest in the
Radha Bazaar one Sunday evening, when he had neither money nor credit
wherewith to get drink. His shipmate was a Christian of very brief
experience, but he had the root of the matter in him, and knew that
the next best thing to preaching the Gospel one’s self was to bring
one’s friends in contact with some one who could. So it came about that
Harry Carter, finding Johnny wandering about the bazaars aimlessly and
hungrily, proposed a feed to him, and by that means got him into the
Rest, where, after his hunger was appeased, Harry succeeded in keeping
him until the evening meeting.

At that time the meetings were conducted by two American missionaries
to whom it was a perfect delight to listen, as they told in quaint
language, loved and comprehended by sailors, the wonderful story of
the coming of Jesus to save poor fallen man. Theirs was not preaching
in a general way--every man in their presence felt that he was being
individually conversed with, felt that the story of the Cross was a
simple narration of absolute fact, no mere theory of mysterious import,
which only men and women who were specially selected and educated for
the purpose could ever hope to understand. They told the wonderful tale
in manly fashion, letting the God-given message just flow through them
on its way from their Father to their brethren.

And Johnny sat with eyes astare and mouth agape, as the straight,
brave, certain words sank into his awakening mind. Wonder, incredulity,
shame--all struggled within him, all newly born, for it could hardly be
said with truth that he had ever realized any of these emotions before.

At last the speaker said: “Oh, my dear boys, some of you here have
never known what it is to have a friend, yet there has been a Friend by
your side always, only begging you to be a friend of His. Some of you
have never had a home, yet this Friend has been for nearly two thousand
years preparing a home for you that is beyond all your hopes, beyond
everything that you can imagine. Some of you have never in your lives
had any real joy; this Friend has in His right hand for you pleasures
for evermore, and in His presence there is fulness of joy. He can and
will do for you exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think.
All these wonderful privileges may be yours for the taking; you haven’t
even to ask for them--only say that you will accept them.”

Other sweet words followed, but Johnny hardly heard them. In his
dark soul there was such a turmoil as he had never before known.
New needs, new desires were struggling for expression, and when the
preacher dismissed his congregation with the earnest invitation for
any to remain behind who felt they would like to know more about this
wonderful gift, Johnny sat still in his place with wide, starting eyes
following every movement of the preacher.

At last that good man, passing from bench to bench, came to Johnny, and
at once saw that here was no ordinary seeker after peace. Laying one
arm tenderly across Johnny’s bowed shoulders, and with the other hand
taking one of the seaman’s gnarled and knotted hands, the missionary
said, “Brother, let Him have you. He wants you to be happy, He does
want your love. Jesus, gentle Jesus, died for you that you might be
happy with Him for all eternity.”

With a vehemence that was startling Johnny turned and said, “Does He
know me?”

“Yes, better than you do,” said the preacher.

“And He’s got all these things for me? I’ll work all the rest o’ th’
voy’ge but what I’ll have this--I don’t care what it costs me, I’ll
have it. You see if I don’t. I know now it’s what I been wantin’ all my
life.”

“Gently, my dear brother,” said the preacher, “you can’t buy it. He
bought it with His blood to give it to you, and you can’t pay anything
for it.”

“Why, I never had anythink give me in my life,” said Johnny. “’T ain’t
right. Everythink’s got ter be paid for, and I’m going ter pay for
this. I’m no beggar, if I am a bit of a thief when I gets the chance.”

Now, strange as it may seem, the hardest task that man of God had on
that occasion was to convince this poor white savage that the gift of
God _was_ a gift. Gladly, joyfully, would he have sold himself into a
long slavery to have purchased what he felt he must have, yet for a
long time he would not, could not, believe that it was “without money
and without price.” At last despairingly he said: “Oh! won’t He take a
shillin’ for it? I got one in my chest, a lucky shillin’ with a hole in
it I’ve had for years. Let me go aboard an’ get it.”

At last, with great difficulty, he was convinced that buying salvation
was impossible, but impressed with the fact that he himself was from
henceforth bought with a price, even the precious blood of the Son of
God. And while the weary evangelist was still toiling to explain, the
Lord took the matter in His own hands. And presently a joyful shout
burst from Johnny’s lips:

“Light ho, sir! I sees it all. He’s got me, an’ He’ll never let me go.
Oh! why didn’t I know of this afore?”

He was a saved man. Let those argue who will, dispute who can, Johnny
Wilson was a standing proof of the power of God to save the most
ignorant, the most callous of the sons of men. From that day forward,
without any more teaching, save what he could get from any one who
would read the Gospels to him, he grew in grace. He was no more trouble
aboard. His work was always done to the best of his ability, and you
could safely trust him to work by himself, for, as he said: “My Jesus
is alonger me alwus.”

Oh, but he was a real saint! Nothing could move him. He used to be
hated by everybody--now he became the spoiled child of the fo’c’stle,
at least in intent, for really he was unspoilable; but all hands, no
matter what they thought, conspired to love Johnny. And when on the
subsequent voyage he died of a blow received in falling from aloft,
all hands gathered round his bunk, to hear from him the story that had
transformed his life. He gushed it out with his latest breath:

“Jesus Christ, God’s Son, come down from heaven to look for me an’ make
me happy. I wasn’t worth a rope-yarn to anybody, but He come and found
me, an’ made me so glad. An’ now I’m a-goin’ ter see Him. Dear Jesus
Christ, the friend of pore devils like me.”




“MY NIGHT WATCH IS OVER”




“MY NIGHT WATCH IS OVER.”

A SAILOR’S CONVERSION.


Sitting upon the capstan in the centre of the fo’c’s’le-head of a huge
four-masted ship rushing swiftly along the wide, wild stretch of the
Southern Ocean, bound to England round Cape Horn, a young able seaman
in the prime of life was engaged in the unusual mental exercise for
seamen of meditating upon God. His name does not matter; it must be
sufficient to say that he was brought up in a respectable middle-class
home in the north of England, one of a family of seven,--four boys and
three girls. He had been christened at the parish church, attended
Sunday-school and family prayers with the utmost regularity, and had
been confirmed at an early age. In spite of occasional outbreaks of
wildness, he had won prizes for exemplary conduct at Sunday-school,
and had felt, with the mistaken idea of so many, when he received them,
as if somebody were trying to bribe him to give up all the fun in life
and become a strait-laced, long-visaged humbug. But he also felt, thank
God! that in his life there were two solid facts that could never
be explained away, standing up like bastions of native rock in his
life,--the love of his mother and the kindness of his father.

All that he heard in church and Sunday-school was readily relegated
by him to the category of things that ought to be done, even if you
couldn’t see the use of them; but as to trying to understand them,
well, that was the merest nonsense. Not that he ever put these thoughts
and feelings into words, but they were none the less real to him.

Then, suddenly, without any previous preparation discernible by him, a
foreign element came into his life. Coming home from the village school
one afternoon (he was then thirteen years old), he met a bronzed,
weather-beaten man who inquired of him the way to a neighboring town;
and as that way for some little distance happened to be his own, they
walked together. Within ten minutes the boy had imbibed from the
wayfarer an intense desire to go a-roving. For the weather-beaten
stranger was a sailor returning home after an absence of many years;
and the plain recital of his adventures, without any attempt to enhance
their interest, fired the country boy’s blood to such an extent that
his breath came in short gasps, and he gazed at the seamed and sunburnt
face beside him as if he could see in it some reflection of the
wondrous scenes through which it had passed apparently unheeding. They
parted; but the boy, his brain all in a ferment with wonder and desire,
returned to his home as one that treads the clouds. And that night he
waylaid his father, saying stammeringly: “Dad, I want to go to sea.”

Now the father, although a home-keeping man, had long faced the
probability of losing his nestlings as soon as they felt their wings
growing, the more since he knew well that opportunities for their
attaining any position worth considering in the small town of their
birth would almost certainly be wanting. Moreover, he had a severe
struggle to keep them in comfort on his very small though constant
earnings, and any lightening of his burden, even though in the process
his heart-strings were strained, was to be welcomed. But as each child
had been born to him he had commended it unreservedly to the care of
his Heavenly Father, whose love to him had been the pivot of his own
life ever since he was sixteen years old. And so it came about that,
after a touching scene with his mother, the boy was helped to his
desire, and by the most heroic efforts on the part of his father he
found himself, six months after giving utterance to his wish, a member
of the apprentice portion of the crew of a huge four-masted ship, bound
from Liverpool to San Francisco.

His first month at sea was a revelation to the country-bred lad. In
place of the home hedged in by love, into which the foulnesses so
prevalent in great cities never penetrated, he found himself met at
every point by profanity and worse. In place of having all his bodily
needs cared for, all the decencies of life made easy for him, he was
left to his own ignorant devices, and all the dreadful consequences
of being his own master in his own time descended upon him without
warning. The captain was a careless, callous man, who only looked upon
the apprentices as an inefficient supplement to a scanty crew. And
while he worked them mercilessly in consequence, he found it no part
of his duty to look after the welfare of either their bodies or their
souls.

Under this treatment the boy soon became a finished young blackguard
in thought, and so soon as the opportunity arrived to put the evil
theories he had so readily absorbed into practice, he flung himself
into all forms of evil within his reach with a recklessness and zest
that were horrible to contemplate. Finally, he ran away from his ship
in company with an older apprentice, breaking his indentures, and
cutting off definitely the last hold his home had upon him.

A wild time of sin, suffering, and sorrow followed. Yes, sorrow;
although, in the same Spartan fashion practised by so many thousands
of wanderers like himself, he concealed it under an assumption of
utter indifference, utter godlessness. At last, when in the throes of
a prolonged debauch he was staggering along one of the lowest streets
in Callao, he was seized by a gang of predatory ruffians, beaten out
of what little sense he had left, and conveyed on board an American
ship bound thence to England. This is the process called by seamen
“Shanghai-ing.”

It would be impossible to convey to people living sheltered lives on
shore how terrible were the physical sufferings of the poor lad now,
bruised from head to heel, shaking from illness brought on by his
excesses, yet compelled to toil in superhuman fashion under pain of
being savagely beaten again. But he felt no repentance, he only cursed
his “luck,” and dumbly endured, as seamen do. Then one night, during
the keeping of his lookout, one of his watchmates whom he had hitherto
despised as a mild, say-nothing-to-nobody sort of a duffer, came
quietly up on to the forecastle head, and, standing near him, gazed
steadfastly out upon the loneliness of the midnight ocean, for some
time saying not a word. The full moon had just emerged from a dense
black cloud, driving before her, apparently, the darkness that had
so recently reigned, and paling the lustrous stars with her glorious
radiance, while every tiny wavelet rippling the peaceful sea became
instantly edged with molten silver. And the influence of the hour, amid
all the eternal immensity of the environment, made for breathless awe,
silent involuntary worship of the unseen yet palpably present God.

Suddenly the new-comer spoke quietly, yet with a certain force, as if
unable to hold his peace any longer. “Jemmy, lad, don’t ye feel as if
we was a-sailing inter the very presence of Almighty God--as if He
wanted t’ show men ’at won’t think, how glorious He is, an’ how great
is His peace?”

There was no reply, but as the speaker paused to look for the effect
of his words, he saw glittering in the moon-ray two big drops stealing
down Jemmy’s sorrow-seamed young face.

Immediately the Christian, following his Master’s example, took a quick
stride to the youth, and laying his hand upon the trembling shoulder,
said softly: “Dear boy, let ’em run. They’re a sign that your heart
ain’t got too hard yet to feel the sweet influence that God puts out to
win His wandering ones back. But if there’s anything I can do to help
you, do let me, won’t you?”

He came nearer as he spoke, until his arm was round Jemmy’s neck. And
then he waited patiently until the broken words came: “I--I--feel so
miserable. I’ve forgotten my mother and father, my home and my God. But
p’raps I never knew Him.”

“No, dear boy, I don’t suppose you ever did; but now is your time to
know Him. He’s been waiting for your proud heart to bend down and
own that it wants Him--can’t do without Him. Oh, Jemmy, how He loves
you! Your mother and father love you, and are heartbroken over you,
no doubt, but He, your Father God, loves you from everlasting to
everlasting, and spared not His own Son, that you might be made welcome
to His peace, that you might know how happy a child of God can be who
has found out from God Himself how much He is longed and waited for.”

The speaker paused for breath, for his energetic outburst had so
carried him away that he was like a man who had been running a race,
and as he did so Jemmy said shyly, and in a low voice: “How did you
know that I was wishing with all my heart that in some way, somehow, I
might get my soul put right, that I was longin’ for a message from God,
without any idea how it was to come?”

There was a happy ring in the Christian’s voice as he answered: “Me
know? I don’t know anything, except that God the Father is my Father,
that God the Son is my Saviour, who died that I might live, and that
God the Holy Ghost, whose work it is to impress these wonderful matters
on men’s hearts, is always at hand arranging the time, the messenger,
and the message. He found me as He finds you--hopeless, heart-sick,
hungry for peace and love; and as soon as He made me feel my need of
Him He had some one there to tell me the glad story.”

Then and there Jemmy slid down to his knees, and lifting his streaming
face to heaven he murmured, “O God my Father, forgive me my sins, and
make me what I ought to be. Dear Jesus, put your own precious life into
me and drive the unclean life out. I do believe in you, my Saviour,
because you compel me to by your love. Teach me your way--I’ll make it
mine. Bless my poor father and mother at home, and let me get back and
comfort them; and bless this dear brother here who you’ve made use of
to tell me, for Christ’s sake. Amen.”

Deep and solemn was the response from his new-found friend kneeling
beside him. As they rose from their knees Jemmy reached for his hand,
and clasping it in both of his own, said brokenly, “How real and true
all comes back to me now, what I heard when I was a little chap at home
and at Sunday-school! How can I ever thank God enough for sending you
to me? But how silly I must have been not to see it before! Oh, thank
God, thank God I see it now! God my Father waiting for me, Christ my
Saviour knocking at my heart, and the Comforter sending you into this
place, on to this fo’c’s’le-head at the right minute to give me the
right word.”

“Eight bells” rang out clearly from the tiny bell aft, and as Jemmy
hastened to strike the big bell responsively he murmured: “Thank God my
night watch is over--the morning has come.”

Thenceforward he and his brother in the Lord were inseparable, whenever
it was possible for them to enjoy the communion they both needed.
Their heavy tasks on board remained really the same, but they did not
feel them. They worked cheerfully as unto God, upheld by His wonderful
sustaining power, and everything around and about them seemed changed
for the better.

So it is when, after long buffeting the gale that is blowing fair for
home, because the captain is uncertain of his position and dares not
run before it, the pilot comes on board, orders the helm to be put
up, and the good ship fleeing homeward with a fair wind seems to have
suddenly sprung into fine weather. Jesus, the Heavenly Pilot, comes on
board of a man and takes charge, bringing light for darkness, joy for
misery, and, embracing all these, the peace of God which passeth all
understanding.

Night after night found Jemmy as we found him at the beginning of this
story, day after day saw him sturdily and more deeply digging into the
treasure of the Word, until that blessed day when with his beloved chum
at his side he burst into the old home, to receive that welcome that
only a loving mother and father can give to a son restored to them by
God’s mercy in answer to many prayers.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.