For two days and two nights the
living man rested on a glacier--tied to the dead. "Oh! wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" My subject
knows all about this; he has gazed on the Unutterable, and he has never
mentioned his soul-piercing experience to any creature. There are more
things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
* * * * *
The worst of the ordeal was over; the snow ceased, the hurricane fined
off, and only the turbulent water rushing in discoloured mountains under
the last impetus of the wind--only that cruel water persisted in
violence. It seemed as if for days the sea were sentient, and could not
forget its long torture. Then came a griping frost and a hard sky, with
slight breeze and a quiet sea.
Oh, the marks of ruin and annihilation! The sea was strewn with
wreckage; masses of timber swung around in loose rafts; vessels, bottom
up, passed the smack from day to day; the fleet was dispersed, and only
a few battered and ragged vessels could be seen rolling here and there
in disorganized isolation. "Goodness knows when we shall ever see our
people again, sir. We can't do nothin'; I'll keep a sharp look-out all
through daylight, and we'll pick them up if we can, but I fancy most of
them have run for home or the Humber. Before we settle to work again I
was thinking of a little thanksgiving service. We're saved for some good
purpose, sir, and it's only fit we should say a word humbly to our
blessed Father in heaven.
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