During a heavy storm off the Coast of Spain, a dismasted merchantman was observed by a British frigate drifting before the gale. Every eye and glass were on her. With all his faults, no man is more alive to humanity than the rough and hardy mariner; and so the order sounds to put the ship about, and presently a boat is sent out to bear down upon the wreck.
Through the swell of a roaring sea, they reach it; they shout; and now a strange object rolls out of a canvas screen against the lee shroud of a broken mast.
Hauled into the boat, it proves to be the trunk of a man, bent head and knees together, so dried and shriveled as to be hardly felt within the ample clothes, and so light that a mere boy lifted it on board. It is laid on the deck; in horror and pity the crew gather round it; it shows signs of life; they draw nearer, it moves, and then mutters—mutters in a deep, sepulchral voice—“There is another man” Saved himself, the first use the saved one made of speech was to save another.
Oh! learn that precious lesson. Be daily practicing it. So long as in our homes, among our friends, in this wreck of a world which is drifting down to ruin, there lives an unconverted one, there is “(mother man” let us for God’s sake, and for duty’s, go to him and plead for Christ; go to Christ and plead for that man; the cry, “Lord save me, I perish,” changed into one as welcome to a Savior’s ear, “Lord save them, they perish.”—GUTHRIE.
