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YOUNG PEOPLE'S PAGE.

AN OLD SAILOR'S STORY.


Many years ago I shipped in a little topsail schooner, bound from Liverpool to Rio Grande do Sul, in South America. There were seven hands all told on board—the captain, mate, cook, and four sailors.

We had a fair run till we reached the region known as the “Doldrums.” This is a district on each side of the line where dead calms prevail.

During one of these calm spells 1 was sitting one evening on the forehatch, when along came the cook and sat down on the hatch beside me. Having got settled down at bit, he remarked—

“I was fairly caught to-day; as clean as ever I was in all my life.”

“Oh,” I asked, “how did-that happen?”

“Well,” he said, “we had salmon for dinner in the cabin to-day, and there was some left, so the captain told me to give it to you fellows for'ard. Well, you were at the wheel, the other fellow was aloft, and the watch below was asleep, and I didn't want to keep the dish dirty, so I slung the salmon that was left overboard.

“When I had washed up the dishes, I had a few things I wanted to wash, so I made a ropes-end fast to them, dropped them overboard and dabbed them up and down in the water, when up came a little shark about four feet long. The captain was sitting aft, so I told him. He got a line, baited the hoop, passed it overboard and hooked the shark. Having landed it on the deck, he told me to get the knife and rip it open. I did so, when out on the deck rolled the salmon which I had been told to given to you men.

“The captain looked at me. 'I thought I told you to give that salmon to the men,” he said. 'So I did,' sir, 1 answered. Of course he knew I was telling a lie, for there was the proof of my deceit staring him in the face, but I didn't say any more.”

Now who would have thought, with miles of water under the ship's keel, that anything thrown overboard would ever have come up again from the depths of the ocean? What a picture this is of that day which is coming when the guilty sinner stands before the presence of God, and the proof of his guilt is laid before him. It will be useless telling Mm a lie, nor will the sinner try to. He will be dumb before the Holy Judge, who will by no means clear the guilty. And the sinner who during his lifetime turned a deaf ear to the story of the Lamb of God, and the merits of His precious Blood, can hope for no mercy, for it is written, “Behold, now is the acceptcd lime; behold, now is the day of salvation,” and “after death the judgment.”—Life Line.