SORROW ON THE SEA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 90

SORROW ON THE SEA.

By a. Banker.

Although the great ocean is ever sublime, ever stately and majestic—whether she be_ m ano-ry mood, her scattering waters raging in 'spasms of convulsive fury, and her rolling billows, lashed by the tempest in wivd orgasms of infuriate turmoil, threatening co engulf any vessel exposed to their tierce onslaughts, or whether oalm and placid, her rippling wavelets -glittering diamonds, or later, in the shimmer of the gloaming, reflecting the many-husd glory of the sunken orb of day,—yet there ever has been, there ever will be, sorrow on- the Aye, the heaving bosom of the rolling main has been the scene of many a heart-breaking! parting, of many a piteous tragedy, of the fateful doom of many a gallant ship which with every soul on board has sunk prone into the dark chambers of the deep. A full-rigged vessel, every sail is observed in the offing, one of those fairies of the sea now so seldom seen, which on a nearer approach is seen to be in a strange state of disorder; for her skysails and her to’gallant-rcyals are torn to ribbons, and many of her other sails are rent and torn. She appears to be sailing a most erratic course, aimlessly tacking from time to time, her wheel unattended, while signals offering; help are not answered. But she is hut a charnal house, a floating sepulchre, a’ funereal ship of death. For the livid angel of Death had been hovering over the doomed ship ever since her departure from a plaguestricken port, striking down with his venomtipped spear on® after the other of her crew; the survivors throwing their corpses to the sharks, which are still hungrily swimming round the vessel in the hope of more prey. And at length the destroying angel has claimed them all, and the graceful ship is but a hopeless, plague-infected derelict. And what untold myriads of seafarers and voyagers have all down the .ages found their Last resting-place in the placid depths of the great ocean; mostly uncoffined and unkn.elled, mostly cut off in the prime, without time to consider their - latter end, without opportunity to prepare to meet their God. And there will their blanching bones lie until, at the blast of the Archangel’s trump, the sea shall give up. her head, and they shall all appear before the judgment seat of God. Happy they who in their ©axtjr-life h a d lived the life of the righteous, and who, having laid their sins upon the Saviour of the world, who on the cross of shame had made expiation for them, found that the Accuser could lay no charge against them.