A Vortex of Destruction.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XVII, Issue 2946, 17 April 1899, Page 2

A Vortex of Destruction.

[by a banker] . All through the classic ages the frowning rock of Scilla, and the boiling whirlpool of Charybdis furnished a fertile subject for the pen of the poet, or for the declamation of the orator who wished to point out the via media, the safest course, which the ship of state should steer, between the points which threatened her on either hand. The former was described by Yirgil, in the forcible language of the time, as a " Tremendous pest, which bellows from her dire abode." Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar The whelps of lions in the midnight hour ; while Charybdis is described by Homer as a monster who "holds her boistei-oos reign Midst rearms whirlpools, aud absorbs iho main ; Thrice in her gulfs the boiling seas cub-. side Thrice in dire thunder she refunds the tide." And although doubtless the dangers of Scilla and Charybobis were exaggerated, and i:M allowance must be made for poetic license, yet at the present time it is stated that a number of the strongest and boldest j sailors are stationed on the shore to render help to any unfortunate coaster which has been caught in the toils of the two " monsters/' On the west coast of Scotland is a whirlpool called Corrieveehan, the (modernised) Gaelic for " The Caldron of the Seas." which at certain states of the tide is in stormy weather sufficiently alarming, the roaring of I the opposing waves being audible far away. The writer was once caught in a fog between this whirlpool and the rocky coast, and the noise of the unseen breakers dashing against the rocky precipitous cliff on the one I hand, and the whirl of the eddying currents upon the other, was not calculated to enhance in any great degree the pleasure of the expedition. The most notable and dangerous of all the whirlpools appears to bo the dreaded Maelstrcom, off the coast of Norway. The influence of the concentric current is said to extend as far as nine utiles, while the [ l-pai'ul'the contending waves can at times be heard for perhaps an equal distance. The heedless fisherman who in his small frail baric approaches too near the centre of this swirling destroyer, and is suddenly becalmed, j soon iinds himself in most perilous straits. Insensibly he finds himself j

carried round in. a wide, though Mbstantly narrowing circle, evwApproaching nearer and near* the roaring tumult, around which i;he eddying encircling currents are pressing forward with c-vcr augmenting nnpetuosky. He has now altogether lost control of Lis vessel, which now st'i-ii forwird, now beara on, is twirled round and round like a cork in the eddies (if a milistrearn. Ani now, as the. intervening space between himself and the central poiut of the whirling waters continues to lessen, the horrible gyrating abyss, an apparently bottomless, yawning gulf, opens to his terrified view, whose walls are but the furiously raging waters, madly circling, with aggravated roar, round and round the funnel-shaped pit, and sucking into its depths all that, comes within its lethal influence. At Seugth he is on the brink, and to hia horror the wretched lost one finds that his agom.es are n >t yet over, for instead of plunging at once into the vortex of destruction he is carried round the awful rotating chasm, almost suspended over the gaping abysmal depth, until with a shriek of despair he is engulfed in the spiral column of revolving waters, aud is whirled down to the depths. Fit simile all this of the life of many of us here below ! Although we are fully aware of the danger of leaving the safe course of God-fearing rectitude and faith, we heedlessly get within the deadly influence of ungodliness and doubt, which, if we voluntarily allow it, will at length drag ng down into the bottomless vortex of ruin and dispair. Bat, unlike the unfortunate ones who perish in the whirlpool, help is at hand for those who will but accept it. For He who atoned for sin on the bitter cross is ever ready to rescue them from the impending perdition, and to waft them on safely to the haven of eternal rest and never-ending pleasure.