On the 15th day of August, 1852, I was a passenger on a sailing ship
nearly in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. On that night we had a storm
of a pretty good size, and the way our old ship was rocking us, it
seemed to me that I would never see daylight again. Well, that condition
of things will learn a poor sinner to pray, and learned me to pray at
least for that night, and in my prayer of that awful night I promised
the Lord, that if he would deliver me from the _Perils_ and _Dangers_ of
that night, I would always keep the 15th day of August as a day to offer
especial thanks to Him as my Deliverer. _Well the Lord seems to_ have
heard my prayer and that storm passed off and now—forty years after that
time, I am able to record it in the pages of this book. I feel as though
I cannot close this work unless I give at least one page of it to the
praise of Him from whom all blessings flow, and who is able to deliver us
from all dangers.
But I must acknowledge that I have not fulfilled the promise of the
night of the 15th of August, 1852, at least not in that sense in which I
made it, though I have remembered it every year but one, when it slipped
my mind until a few days after. Some of my readers may say that it is
silly to write the above in this book, but I think any place is good
enough to give thanks and praise to the Lord.
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