The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 13, 1904, Page 8

that th you up its prey ) repeat-that to the the ks of ets somethins u They v er y i Sam Harland, the hmar f the railway dock ame € years ago on the B. ¥ You would then a humorc k old hard EWa but ing true save His d quite a d t cording to gen the “tru Henry B May wit Fran the Horn North Pacific in " ar, just wher E e brewin bout five hun a k f Ha when r nck her der lower vaii n doesn’t quite in those regions, r, means. Sailing he ship that simply ainst those giant mid- well. Sh r ree or four to give her the e ay to keep her nos iside on hove h foam- d toss of ing her nose ending pon- ng down flooding the aft, . Some- an iron house ely submerged, of the watch below, on upper bunks, could behold rough the plate glass port- n aquarium, cast- light over th aaggar giving them a leath-like With a gurgling drop and spread poop were gathered the men of the watch on oilskinned ' figures lines rigged from rail o rai Thus th stood, four hours time, drenched, gazing stolidly at he whirl of spray and scud about hem, with nothing to do, only ‘to by. The man at the wheel was to his post; his duty it was'to eep the heim jammed hard - over. such is the sailor’s school of physical ndurance One bell struck—on the poop. Even hat old martinet, the skipper, would xpect no man to strike it for'd, for he bell on the forecastle head’ clangs ullenly at intervals in low throaty wotes, as the roaring torrents pour Bad enough it is for the man for'd in the first lull to the door of the forecastle, to jerk drowsy fellows of the other vatch out of their few hours of slum- ver. “Ho-0-0, ho-0-00, ho-000, all hands thoy! Awake, ye sleepers! One belf!” With sleepy yawns and drawling :urses, the men drop out of their bunks © their chests, and slowly, reluctantly, wer it o dodge ee hose f in sullen silence, climb’ into” their ofl- skins, while the seas badg the weather wall of the forcastle like shells from heavy gun . bellst—relieve the watch!” Ay t bells; but the watch has yet ait awhile, for no mortal man se flooded decks Sea after sea, gree the bulwarks like the of a big dam. ® over comes another lull. The ship though to rest, while the wate on deck shot out tr and scupper. Once me isible, covered only by ed sheets of rippling > Jee door of the forecastle fiies open, and one by one the men shoot out, like bees from a hive, and scurry aft, fairly throwing themselves u op ladder. / ands are aft—all but one. Old Harland, able seaman, lingers to his pipe, as he invariably does, in weather or foul. ( ing Sam call him. At last he crawls out, the forecastle door and starts denly all hands shout and ges- ticulate to him. He sees, but the shouts are lost in the roar of the gale. Slowly he waddles aft, unconscious of his danger. Were he to look behind him he would see coming up on the weather bow a distant but fast approaching wall of greenish gray, its white top apparently licking the low hanging clouds. He does e at but too late. The ship gi a quick lurch, a heave, attempts to rise to the oncoming bil- fails. High up, level with rard, towers the white crest breathless moment to those ms to hesitate, lifts, leans for- hen falls, crashing down on the for'd part of the ship. From 1 top to rail top the main deck it; each m the cen- whirlpool of yeasty foam. s the ridge of the wave passes ship, she lurches, rolls over ard into the hollow beyond, but to windy mping her deckload of seething wa- over her weather bulwarks into If you were to put a dry pea into an em saucepan and then souse a bucket of water over if you would understz W happened to Sam Harland, able seaman. His shipmates saw him struggling in the foam, saw him slowly sucked toward the bul- wa then shot across their top into the reflux of the sea outside. What they felt is not part of the story; such accidents occur often, and seamen are not prone to describe their emotions. “Man - overboard. Sam Harland, able seaman, lost at sea, Oc- tober 5 Such notes are common in lagbooks. There were few of Sam's shipmates who had not seen this trag- edy enacted before. It was what fol- lowed that was unusual. Suddenly the mate-gave a yell, audi- ble even above the roar of the tem- pest. “There he is, boys; away to wind- wara!” They crowded together to the weather ral Sure enough, there he was, a black speck far out in the white froth, his face turned toward them. Then he rose on the crest of a wave, and sank out of their sight into the holiow beyond, only to reappear again, mounting another oncoming billow. Already he had thrown off his sou’- wester and oilskin coat and was swimming. Hopelessly beyond all hu- man aid he struggled still, while his shipmates could only stand helplessly breathless, watching him fight his fight and then be swallowed. The ship drifting, and having, 80 much surface expo to the wind she naturally sagged to leeward faster than the man, leaving him to wind- ward. The ship was being blown away - 5 from him. They tried to heave him a lifebelt, but the wind blew it"'back against the rail,. - Still Sam fought manfully. With beating hearts they saw him rid him- self of his gum boots and even his oilskin trousers—he ripped them off ~ = with his sheathknife. Impulsively they cheered. He was dying game. But the odds were against him. Farther and farther they drifted away from him, catching only an occasional glimpse of his naked shoulders as he mounted the seas and toppled over | APROPOS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS T takes a large-sized man to pro- duce much enthusiazm in the breasts of other men after, he has been dead a century and. a half. Mention the name Jonathan Edwards to the average man to-day and he will either say, “never heard of him,” or “wasn’t he that narrow stiff old Puri- tan who used to gloat over the. suf- ferings of the damned in hell?” In all honesty you would be obliged to confess that your friend’s notion of Edwards was partly correct. He did preach one or two sermons picturing God as an angry being suspending sinners over a pit of torment, but he did not exult and glory in that kind of doctrine. It grew out of a hard and fast sys- tem of belief that left him no alterna- tive but to declare what he thought ‘was to be the doom of the impenitent, but such terrible portrayals of the wrath of God were not the staple of his preaching at Northampton for twenty- three years and at Stockbridge for six years. He usually dispensed a much gentler gospel, and though we wonder how he could ever consign so great: a portion of his fellow-men to endless perdition, and though we marvel that such a mistaken view of the purpose of God in ‘creation could have existed in his mind alongside ‘6f ‘the noble views of his Creator which he undoubtedly cherished, we ought to remember him not for these distorted ideas, but: for “what he did for the religious life of America in his time and subsequently. No one man sees all sides of truth. The -disclosures of modern science had not found their way- into the mind of Edwards. ' He was subject to the influ- ences of the rigid Puritanism in the midst of whi<) he yas reared. Suffice it, then, for us to take chief account of the fact, that as minister of one of the most important churches of New England, as missionary to the Indians, as president of Princeton, as author of such famous treatises as an inquiry into the freedom of the will and the religious affections, he exerted a tre- mendous influence upon his time, and is still regarded even by those who re- pudiate his theology with the highest esteem and reverence. s His greatest service was his personal | | | | | - embodiment. of pure and undefiled re- ligion.. He was the'saint par excel- lence of his time. He knew God at first hand. He lived on the heights of spiritual experience. . And yet this vir- tue was not an affair of purely celes- tial origin. His diary shows how he toiled and struggled to achieve right- eousness of life, how vigilantly he watched himself, his tongue, his tem- per, to aveid the slightest transgres- sion. In his relation to others he was scrupulous in the extreme to carry him- self .as a Christian and a gentleman. At the time that he was suffering most from the estrangement and opposition of his people he was a model of pa- tience, fcrbearance and charity. No man ever worked harder to be good and no man ever succeeded better. We are glad that in due time Bush- nell and Beecher and Brooks and oth- er great liberal thinkers came along to make good the deficlencies in Ed- wards’ . theology, but we ought to be glad and grateful, too, for the massive and noble character of Jonathan Ed- wards and the incentive and inspira-’ tion that still flow forth from it. THE PARSON. AUTFIOR: 2D their crests. The skipper had brought up the log line and tried to heave the metal fan with its coil of thin cord, but, strong of arm as he w it went not even one-third the distance. He threw it down on the deck and turned awa Again rellers. came one of those booming They saw the drowning man mount its slope until he as strug- gling in the hollow curve under th combing ton. On it came, he in it. With a heave the big ship shot up- ward and they saw him in the hollow beyond. He seemed to have been hurled nearer, and this caused intense excitement. “Swim, Sam, swi they yelled. “Keép it u», Sam! Hang on, Sam!" They howled and gesticulated, and once more the skipper tried to heave the log line. They might as well have spared their efforts, as he heard nething from them. Still, they saw him plainly now saw his white face, his clenched jav his powerful arms beating the waves. By this time he had freed himself of all his clothes. But except that he kept himself up he was helpless; like a block of wood he was whirled about and tossed up and down—ground by the waves as though they were indeed chewing well before swallowing. Then_ he suddenly disappeared. five minutes the men stood, still clutching the rail. Instinctively they, bowed their heads, as men do in the presence of death. For OF SEA VA There came a lul decks were clear. “Come b nd mate, “get for N The watch j relieved 1 with iculty down to leeward and - pared to skur there to snatc But before they ter of the r'd reared on i climb that came that The green wall swept alongside, ready to topy sive ery burst from their danger forgotten in th fore them. Almost over their rese that glascy, foam-streaked green mountain, and on its very top lifted the naked f of a man, his arms outstretched, mouth agape, eyes star- ing, legs ou like some spirit of the storm, wrap wther of froth and spray y caught just that one glimpse—then came the crash —again the decks wer roded, Fortunately all had gained some hold, and when the waters subsided none was missing. In the pumphole, by the mainmast, they found the naked, unconscious, but gtill living bedy of their lost shipmate, washed aboard by the reflux. The sea had given up its prey. £Copyright, 1903, by Albert Sonnichsen.)