The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific

William Henry Giles Kingston

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• Publié par: susaz
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's The Cruise of the Mary Rose, by William H. G. Kingston
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Title: The Cruise of the Mary Rose
Here and There in the Pacific
Author: William H. G. Kingston
Illustrator: Alfred Pearse
Release Date: May 15, 2007 [EBook #21457]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUISE OF THE MARY ROSE ***
Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
William H G Kingston
"The Cruise of the Mary Rose"
Chapter One.
Uncle John’s Journal.
My family had for centuries owned the same estate, handed down from father to
son undiminished in size, and much increased in value. I believe there had been
among them in past generations those who feared the Lord. I know that my
father was a man of true piety. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth
for you,” was his favourite motto. What a world of doubt and anxiety, of plotting,
and contriving, and scheming, does this trust in God save those who possess it.
On this blessed assurance my father took his stand in all the difficulties of life. It
never failed him, and so we his sons had a good training and a godly example.
The younger members of each generation followed various honourable
professions, but they failed to rise to high rank in them, owing, I fancy, to a want
of worldly ambition—the general characteristic of our race. Altogether, however,
I believe them to have been a simple-minded, upright, clear sighted set of
people, who did whatever their hands found to do honestly and with all their
might. Such people ought to rise, it may be said. So they do,—but not to what theworld calls the summit. They generally rise to a position of independence, where
they may enjoy fair scope for the exercise of their mental and spiritual faculties.
There they are content to remain, for a time. This world is not their rest. Another
world opens to their view. In that they see the goal at which they aim. There is
the golden crown. Why then be distracted by the glittering baubles which are
held up to draw their attention from the real jewel—the gem without price? I am
happy in the belief that such was the reason that my ancestors did not become
men of much worldly note.
The occupant of the family estate had always attended to its cultivation, and was
properly called a gentleman farmer. Unostentatious and frugal, he never lacked
means, in spite of bad harvests or unexpected losses, to assist the younger
members of the family in starting in life, or to help forward any good cause
which required aid.
My father, Paul Harvey, was a perfect type of the family—so was my elder
brother, his namesake. John came next; a daughter followed; I was his fourth
child. He kept up a good old custom—never broken through from any excuse. An
hour before bed-time his children and the whole household assembled in the
sitting-room, when he read and explained a chapter in the Bible. A hymn was
sung, and prayers full of fervour were offered up to the throne of grace. After
this a simple supper was placed on the table, and we were encouraged to speak
on the events of the day, or on what we had read or thought of. That hour was
generally the pleasantest of the twenty-four. Our father guided, if he did not lead
the conversation, and generally managed to infuse his spirit into it. Although
many of the subjects discussed even now rise up to my memory, I will mention
but one, which had a powerful influence on the career of some of those present.
I had been reading an account of the Crusades, and my enthusiasm had been
unusually stirred up on the subject. “I wish that I could have lived in those days!”
I exclaimed (I was but a lad it must be remembered.) “What a glorious work
those warriors of old undertook, who with sword and lance, under the banner of
the cross, they went forth to conquer infidels, to establish the true faith, to
recover the blessed land, hallowed by the Redeemer’s footsteps, from the power
of the cruel followers of the false prophet of Mecca. How degenerate are we
Christians of the present generation! Who among us dreams of expelling the
Turks from Syria? On the contrary, our statesmen devote their energies to keep
them there. I really believe that were Peter the Hermit to rise from his grave, he
would not find a dozen true men to follow him.”
“Possibly not,” said my father, quietly; “though he might find two dozen fully as
wise, and as honest, too, as those he led to destruction. But has it not struck you,
David, that there are other conquests to be achieved in the present age more
important than winning Palestine from the Moslem; that there is more real
fighting to be done than all the true soldiers of the cross, even were they to be
united in one firm phalanx, could accomplish? Sword and spear surely are not
the weapons our loving Saviour desires His followers to employ when striving to
bring fresh subjects under His kingdom. That they were to be used was indeed
the idea of our ignorant ancestors, when the teaching of a corrupt Church had
thrown a dark veil over their understandings. Christians only in name, the truth
was so disfigured and transformed among them, that it exercised no influence
over their hearts; and though they believed the Bible to be of value, they
regarded it rather in the light of a mystic charm than the word of God. Thus all
the great truths of our most holy faith were so travestied and changed as to
produce alone a degrading superstition. They believed that the Bible had the
power of exorcising spirits of evil. So it has; but it is not the closed Bible, which
they in their ignorance employed—not the mere printed paper bound into a
volume—unread, or if read, misunderstood, at which the devil and his angels
tremble. No; it is the open Bible—the Bible in many tongues—read andunderstood through God’s gracious teaching, sought for by prayer earnestly. It is
the blessed gospel of peace which alone can put to flight debasing superstition,
gross customs, murderous propensities, cruel dispositions, barbarism in its varied
forms, and all the works of darkness instigated by Satan and his angels. Again, I
say that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the true crusader’s weapon; armed with
that sword of the Spirit, with the shield of faith on his arm, and under the
guidance (never to be withdrawn while he seeks it) of God’s Holy Spirit, he may
go boldly forth conquering and to conquer the numberless hosts of heathenism
arrayed for battle against the truth. These weapons are dreaded by the spirit of
evil more than all those iron implements of warfare on which man in his folly and
blindness relies. The victories won by the Bible are lasting in this world, and not
only in this world, but through eternity.
“To drop metaphor, what is, and what long has been the condition of those lands
the crusaders vainly boasted they had won from the followers of Mohammed? In
what state do we find those vast territories of the New World conquered by
Spain? both gained by sword and spear, under a banner falsely called the
‘banner of the cross.’ Compare these and similar conquests over heathenism
with those victories won in pagan lands by the Bible—the sword of the Spirit. How
great the contrast!”
Our father spoke with far more animation than was his wont. I listened
respectfully, though I confess that at first I did not comprehend the full meaning
of his remarks. Still, they considerably dimmed the bright halo with which my
imagination had surrounded the crusades. My second brother, John, however,
fixing his eyes attentively on our father, drank in every word he uttered. “Yes,
glorious indeed are the victories gained by the gospel of peace in heathen lands,
and happy are those permitted to fight them,” he whispered, with a sigh, after a
few minutes’ silence. John was less robust in health than were most of us, and it
was intended that he should devote himself to mercantile pursuits, for which I
had long suspected that he had no great taste; still, at the call, as he believed, of
duty, he had begun the task of acquiring the necessary knowledge.
“I suppose, father, that you are alluding to the labours of missionaries in foreign
lands?” I observed. “But I have heard it said, that in spite of all the money
expended, their preaching produces but meagre results. In India, for instance,
the Company will not admit them. In Africa, the climate destroys them. The
fanatical Turks and other Mohammedan nations will not listen to their message;
and it would be but time lost and energies wasted were they to attempt to
preach to the cannibals of New Zealand and the other islands of the Pacific, or to
the almost baboons of Australia and New Guinea.”
“You have not, I see, given much thought to the subject, David,” observed my
father, mildly; “God’s grace is sufficient for al