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"D'ye mind the old Swan, boys?" asked an elderly man a former friend of David Bright who had dropped in with his mite of genuine sympathy. "What, the first gospel-ship as was sent afloat some thirty years ago? It would be hard to remember what existed before I was born!" "Well, you've heard of her, anyhow.
Besides these, there were the skipper and crew of the gospel-ship which was also in port at that time; and other fishermen guests there were, known by such names as Mann, White, Snow, Johnston, Goodchild, Brown, Bowers, Tooke, Rogers, Snell, Moore, Roberts, and many more all good men and true who formed part of that great population of 12,000 which is always afloat on the North Sea.
"They're a rough lot, sir," said the mate as he leant on the rail of the bridge, gazing down on the animated scene, "but they were a rougher lot before the gospel-ship came out to stay among them, and some of the brightest Christians now in the fleet were as bad as the worst you see down there." "Ay, Jesus came to save the lost, and the worst," said the captain in a low tone "praise to His name!"
One morning, I remember, I preached an impromptu sermon in the Castle of Heidelberg before a large gathering; and a little later, in Genoa, I preached a very different sermon to a wholly different congregation. There was a gospel-ship in the harbor, and one Saturday the pastor of it came ashore to ask if some American clergyman in our party would preach on his ship the next morning.
"There's the admiral," said the captain, "two points off the port bow." "An' the gospel-ship close alongside," said the mate. "Don't you see the M.D.S.F. flag? Trust Joe for bein' near to her when he can manage it. Here they come, fast an' thick. There's the Fern, I'd know her a mile off, an' the Martin, an' Rover, Coquette, Truant! What cheer, boys!"
He was an old-time, orthodox Presbyterian, and from the tips of his broad-soled shoes to the severe part in the hair above his sanctimonious brow he looked the type. I was not present when he called at our hotel, and my absence gave my fellow-clergymen an opportunity to play a joke on the gentleman from the gospel-ship. They assured him that "Dr.
but he takes our sins on himself, and while he drives them out of us with a whip of scorpions he will yet make them work his ends. He defeats our sins, makes them prisoners, forces them into the service of good, chains them like galley-slaves to the rowing-benches of the gospel-ship, or sets them like ugly gurgoyles or corbels or brackets in the walls of his temples.
It was the turning-point of his life; and, while his mind was busy with the great issues that must be faced sooner or later by all mankind, he listened with mingled surprise, hope, fear, and pleasure, to the free and hearty converse of the godly crew of the gospel-ship, as they discoursed pleasantly, now of the homes in Yarmouth or Gorleston, now of the home above; or sang, with stentorian voices, some of the lively hymns that are happily current in the present day, or prayed in the ungrammatical language, and with the intense fervour, of untutored but thoroughly earnest men.
Among them was the new admiral Joe of the Evening Star. His vessel was pointed out, of course, to the captain as she approached. We need scarcely say that he looked at her with unusual interest, and was glad when her boat was lowered to row part of her crew to the service about to be held in the hold of the gospel-ship.
"That's true, Luke; I forgot that when I spoke, an' there's more gospel-smacks comin', I'm told, presented in the same way by lib'ral folk." "It's my belief," said Luke, with emphasis, at the same time striking his right knee with his hand, "it's my belief that afore long we'll have a gospel-ship for every fleet on the North Sea." "Right you are, boy," said Joe, "an' the sooner the better.