The Captain'S Clerk
A tract found on a ship led a young man to salvation and eventually ministry.
The Rev. J. C. Smith gives the interesting history of a young man who was a friend of the captain of the United States ship Hornet; and had engaged to sail with him, from the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, as clerk on the voyage in which the Hornet was lost—probably in a hurricane in the West Indies. At the hour of sailing Providence prevented his embarking—but he had already, when alone in the cabin, discovered in the sideboard drawer a tract, (Heaven Lost, by Baxter,) having on the titlepage a cut, with the words, "If thou art lost say not that thou hast not been faithfully warned." "I was amazed," he says; "I trembled; I opened the book and read its few but powerful pages. The life, the energy, the reality I found in every paragraph are fresh in my memory. I began to pray, I searched the Scriptures. I had received a wound which nothing could heal but atoning blood." It was while in this state of mind that the cruise was abandoned. On his way home to Maryland, he found in a steamboat, and read with profit, another tract—on the authenticity of the Scriptures. The insignia of the navy were laid aside. A desire to make known the love of God to sinners was awakened in his heart; he began to prepare for, and in due time entered the ministry. God has owned his labors and blessed many souls through his instrumentality; and few ministers have a stronger hold on the affections of their people than Rev. A. W—, "the captain's clerk."