Every ship has a captain. Some captains are good, some bad.
Years ago, I went by steamer from Quebec through the lower St.
Lawrence and around the Dominion coast. Our captain was under
the influence of liquor the whole way, and you can easily
imagine that I was glad to get ashore safely. One of the ocean
steamship lines once dismissed a captain who, tho thoroughly
capable when he was sober, was given to drink. Another ocean
line took him up, hoping that he had reformed. Unfortunately,
this was not the case. Bringing his steamer across the Atlantic,
and being under the influence of drink, he ran her too far north
and on a winter’s night rushed his steamer on to the rocks. That
night 532 people found a watery grave. Surely that is not the
kind of captain with whom we would ever care to sail. On the
other hand, there was in my earlier days a captain of the Cunard
Steamship Company--Captain Cook by name--careful, capable,
endlessly vigilant. The passengers felt safe while he was on the
bridge.
Some one has charge of us in all our life’s voyage, and either we
are under the command of Jesus Christ as Captain of our salvation,
or under the command of Satan, the captain of ruin and death and
despair.--A. F. SCHAUFFLER in _The Christian Herald_.
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