|
I had a
singular experience, which is very vivid to my mind. The precise year I cannot
say, and I may be mistaken in the name of the vessel. But somewhere about the
year 1860, the bark Benjamin Burgess sailed from Boston for
Cienfugos. The crew were mostly from the house of which I had charge. There
had been, and there still was, a powerful religious influence pervading our
house. I said to the men as they were going on board: “Remember, I shall pray
for you every day.” I made it a practice, directly after 12 M., to retire,
and pray, and commune with God. One day, after the bark had been gone about
six weeks, while bringing up before the Lord the different cases, this crew
was presented with unusual interest. I was thrown into an agony of feeling
before God, and I cried to him to have mercy on that crew. Such were my
feelings. I noted the time. After the terrible struggle in prayer for God to
save that crew, with strong cries and tears, there came into my feeling a
great peace, as though prayer were’ answered, and that crew made safe.
Unbeknown to me, the bark was chartered to go to Antwerp, and
thence to Boston.
On their arrival back, I said “Boys, did you have a hard time in either
passage?“ “Yes,” said they, “a fearful time on the voyage from Cienfugos to Antwerp. We were
being driven upon the rocks in a terrible gale and storm. Captain Snow said
to us: “Boys, there is no hope and no deliverance, unless God helps us; “and
sure enough, to our great astonishment, there came a wind from off the shore,
and we were saved.” The day of my agony of prayer before the Lord for that
crew, that they might be saved, was the day they were having that terrible
experience on the bark. I have no comments to make on that experience. I
simply give the facts in the case. — N.
Hamilton, in Christian Witness.
|
