A sailor’s daughter attending Sunday school influenced his eventual interest in religion.
In conversation with a respectable middle-aged seaman, at one of the prayer-meetings of the Liverpool Seamen's Friend Society, a friend asked, what first induced him to attend to religion. After a pause of some moments, he related the following narrative:—
I have been a sailor from a very early age, and never thought about religion, or the concerns of my soul, until my return from my last voyage. My home, where I have resided eighteen years, is at a village near Workington, in a small cottage, the next to a neat chapel; but the people who go to this chapel being called by the neighbors, methodists, I never would venture inside the door, nor suffer my family to do so, if I could prevent it. I usually sail out of Liverpool. During the winter the vessel is laid up. At those times I return home for a few weeks to my family. Having a small family, and the times pressing rather hard upon us, during my absence last summer, my wife, endeavoring to save a little, sent my eldest girl, about six years of age, to the Sunday school established at the chapel. My stay, when at home, being generally of short duration, my wife might suppose it would be no difficult matter to keep me in ignorance of the circumstance.
I came from my last voyage before Christmas, and went home. Being late when I arrived, I had not the opportunity of seeing my eldest girl until the following day. At dinner time, when we had sat down, I began to eat what was before me, without ever thinking of my heavenly Father, who provided my daily bread; but, glancing my eye towards this girl, of whom I was dotingly fond, I observed her to look at me with astonishment. After a moment's pause, she asked me, in a solemn and serious manner, "Father, do you never ask a blessing before eating?" Her mother observed me to look hard at her, and hold my knife and fork motionless (it was not anger—it was a rush of conviction which struck me like lightning); apprehending some reproof from me, and wishing to pass it by in a trifling way, she said, "Do you say grace, Nanny." My eyes were still riveted upon the child, for I felt conscious. I had never instructed her to pray, nor even set an example, by praying with my family. The child, seeing me waiting for her to begin, put her hands together, and lifting her eyes up to heaven, breathed the sweetest prayer I ever heard. This was too much for me; the knife and fork dropped from my hands, and I gave vent to my feelings in tears. [Here a pause ensued, and he appeared much affected; on recovering himself, he continued.] I inquired who had thus instructed the child. The mother informed me the good people at the chapel next door; and the child never would go to bed, nor rise in the morning, without kneeling down to pray for herself, and her dear father and mother.
Ah! thought I, and I never prayed for myself or my children. I entered the chapel in the evening, for the first time, and continued to attend the means of grace there. The Lord having wakened me to a sense of my danger through the instrumentality of a dear child, I am now seeking him with all my heart, and truly can I say, I am happy in the thought, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save poor sinners, of whom I am chief.
