The Youth's Companion/July 19, 1860/Saved from Drowning
The Family.
Saved from Drowning.
The 15th of August, 1848, was as lovely a day as ever blessed our sin-ruined world. The sky was blue, the sun was bright, the sea-breeze came balmly to the fevered brow, and the waves of the Atlantic played gently upon the sandy beach of Cape May.
Have my young readers ever visited Cape May? If not, turn to the map of New Jersey, and you will see that the State tapers down to a point at the southern extremity. This point, separating Delaware bay from the ocean, is Cape May. The village built upon it is called Cape Island. The beach is long, level, sandy, and dotted here and there with small frame-houses, which a western boy would call shanties, but which are really dressing-rooms for the bathers. For you must know that during the summer thousands of people from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and elsewhere, go thither to bathe, and almost every fine day during the season, hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, old folks and young folks wade, swim, plash about, dive, float, or frolic generally in the sea-water. To see the old ladies with their bloomer dresses, and pantalets puckered about the ankles, the young ladies with their coarse straw hats bound with red flannel scolloped into the shape of immense saw-teeth, and their red, or yellow flannel suits, racing about or ducking their heads down when a breaker came in, and the gentlemen also, in all manner of fancy garments, was indeed, an amusing spectacle.
Among the visitors was a young man, a colporteur of the American Tract Society, selling religious books to the visitors, who, as the intervals of time hang on their hands, are often willing to purchase and read attractive books.
About eleven o’clock in the morning, everybody who could, went in bathing, the hotels were deserted, and so in went the colporteur with the rest. His habit was, while going across the beach to enter the water, to lift up his heart for a moment in silent prayer to God for his preserving care. As this was the last day he intended to spend at Cape May, the thought flashed across his mind, “Why should I thus particularly entreat the Divine protection? Thousands have bathed during the fortnight I have been here, and not one has been in danger, even of those who cannot swim.” But in a moment this thought was repelled, and once more the prayer went up to the merciful Preserver of life—and that prayer was heard.
It was nearly the time of low tide. The young man was enjoying himself. He bounded up with the swelling billows out beyond the foaming crest of the breakers; he dived, he swam, and at last found himself north of all the bathers except one gentleman, who called out to him:
“You are venturing out too far.”
“No, I think not,” was the reply.
“Yes, but you are; don’t go there. You are in danger.”
The warning was not regarded; the young man swam out a little farther, intending to return in a minute. So when tempted to wander in forbidden paths, we are all apt to think, “I will go only a very little way, and then return.”
He turned his face to the shore. It seemed far off. He let down his feet to stand upon the bottom, and thus resist the current. What was his dismay, on finding that he was already out of his depth, and was thus wafting out on the broad waters of the Atlantic. In this strait he threw up one of his hands into the air, and cried, “Help, help.” He was heard by the one gentleman who had warned him of his danger. No other indeed was near. That one, however, seemed to give the alarm; the other bathers ceased from their sports, and stood gazing out at the floating speck that went riding up and down on the waves. To him the shore appeared to recede farther and yet farther. The people, the houses, the boats, all grew smaller and smaller, while he battled with the briny waters. “Oh,” thought he, “will they never man one of those boats, and come to my rescue? What delays them?”
While in this struggle he heard a voice behind him:
“Hold up a little longer.”
He turned and saw a boat with several hearty fellows pulling away for him, and one standing in the prow.
“Hold up,” he cried again.
In a minute they were alongside.
“Now give a little jump,” he continued, holding out his hand.
The young man complied with all his heart, and was lifted into the boat, and saved. God had heard his prayer. This boat had been plying all the time out beyond the bathing-grounds, and came like an arrow to his assistance; but it was not there every day, and only six weeks before a gentleman had been drowned for want of it.
The young man became a minister of the Gospel, and the hand that was lifted out of the water to appeal for help, is the hand that has penned these lines.—Am. Messenger.
