The life and work of St. Paul

THE VOYAGE AND SHIPWRECK. 569
commonly befell ancient vessels that of foundering at sea was obviously
imminent. On the third day, therefore, it became necessary to take some still
more decisive step. This, in a modern vessel, would have been to cut down
the masts by the board ; in ancient vessels, of which the masts were of a less
towering height, it consisted in heaving overboard the huge mainyard, which,
as we see, was an act requiring the united assistance of all the active hands. 1
It fell over with a great splash, and the ship was indefinitely lightened. But
now her violent rolling all the more sensible from the loose nature of her
cargo was only counteracted by a trivial storm-sail. The typhoon, indeed,
had become an ordinary gale, but the ship had now been reduced to the con-
dition of a leaky and dismantled hulk, swept from stem to stern by the dashing
spray, and drifting, no one knew whither, under leaden and moonless heavens.
A gloomy apathy began to settle more and more upon those helpless three
hundred souls. There were no means of cooking ; no fire could be lighted ;
the caboose and utensils must long ago have been washed overboard ;
the pro
visions had probably been spoiled and sodden by the waves that broke over the
ship ; indeed, with death staring them in the face, no one cared to eat. They
were famishing wretches in a fast-sinking ship, drifting, with hopes that
diminished day by day, to what they regarded as an awful and a certain
death.
But in that desperate crisis one man retained his calm and courage. It
was Paul the prisoner, probably in physical health the weakest and the greatest
sufferer of them all. But it is in such moments that the courage of the noblest
souls shines with the purest lustre, and the soul of Paul was inwardly enlightened.
As he prayed in all the peacefulness of a blameless conscience, it was
revealed to him that God would fulfil the promised destiny which was to lead
him to Rome, and that, with the preservation of his own life, God would also
grant to him the lives of those unhappy sufferers, for whom, all unworthy as some
of them soon proved to be, his human heart yearned with pity. While the rest
were abandoning themselves to despair, Paul stood forth on the deck, and after
gently reproaching them with having rejected the advice which would have
saved them from all that buffeting and loss, he bade them cheer up, for
though the ship should be lost, and they should be wrecked on some island,
not one of them should lose his life. For they knew that he was a prisoner
who had appealed to Caesar; and that night an angel of the God, whose child
and servant he was, had stood by him. and not only assured him that he should
stand before Caesar, but also that God had, as a sign of His grace, granted him
1 Yer. 19, iV