The experiences were as varied as possible; some were awe-striking, some
were pitiful, some verged on comedy. The comfortable thing--the
beautiful thing--about the confessions, was that each man seemed tacitly
to imply a piteous prayer, "My brothers help me to keep near my Saviour.
I may fall unless you keep by me;" while the steady-going, earnest men
took no praise to themselves for keeping straight, but generally ended
with some such phrase as, "Praise the blessed Lord; it's all along o'
His grace as I've been walkin' alongside o' Him."
One fine man, with stolid, hard face, rose and steadied himself against
a beam. His full bass tones were sad, and he showed no sign of that
self-satisfied smirk which sometimes makes the mind revolt against a
convert.
"My friends, I'm no great speaker, but I can tell you plain how I come
to be where I am. I was a strongish, rough young chap, and thought about
nothing but games. I would fight, play cards, and a lot of more things
that we don't want to talk about here. When I married, I drank and
thought of nothing but my own self. Once I took every penny I had off a
voyage to the public-house, and I stopped there and never had my boots
off till I went to sea again. Every duty was neglected, my wife went
cold in the bad weather, and my children were barefooted. When you're
drinking and fooling you can see nothing at all, and you think you're
a-doing all right, and everybody else is wrong when they try to help
you.
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