Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1855-03-06
A BEAUTIFUL STORY.

Abeautful and affecting incident connected
with shipwreck, is the following:
The Governor, an East Indiaman, homeward
bound, goes ashore on the coast of Caffaria. 1t
is resolved that the officers, Passengers and crew,
in number one hundred and thirty-fve souls,
shall endeavOr to penetrate on foot across track
less deserts, invested by wild beasts and cruel
savages, to the Dutch settlements at the Cape of
Good Hope. With this forlOrn object before them,
they finally separated into two parties, never
more to meet ON earth.
There is solitary child among the passengers,
little boy of seven years old, who has no rela-
tion there, and when the first party is moving away
he cries after some member of it who has been
kind to him.-Thc crying of little child might
be supposed to be little thing to men in such
great extremty but it touched them, and he is
imme liately taken into the detachment, for which
time forth this child is sublimely made sacred
charge. He is pushed on little raft across broad
rivers by the swimming sailors; they carry him by
turns through the deep sand and long grass, he
patiently walking at all other times. They share
with him putrid fish, as they find to eat they
lie down and wait for him when the rough car
penter, who becomes his special friend, lags be-
hind. Beset by lions and tigers, by savages, by
thirst, by hunger, by death in a crowd of CHASTITY
shapes, they never-O Father of all mankind,
thy name be blessed for it!-forgot this child.
The captain stops exhausted, and his faithful cox
swain goes DdCk, uuu Is seen 10 SlL uOWQ Dy MS
side, and neither of the two shall be any more be-
held until the last great day but as the rest 60
on for their lives, they take the child with them.
The carpenter dies of poisonous berries eaten in
starvation, and the steward, succeeding to the
command of the party, succeeds to the sacred
guardianship of the prescious child.
God knows all he does for the poor baby. How
he cheerfully carries him in his arms, when he
himself is griped with want, how he folds his rag
ged jacket around him, lays his warm face, with
woman's tenderness, upon his sunburnt breast,
soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as he
limps along, unmindful of his own parched and
bleeding feet. Divided from the rest for few
days, they dig grave in the sand and bury their
good friend, the cooper--these two companions
alone in the wilderness-and the time comes when
they are both i'll, and beg their wretched part
ners in despair, reduced and few in number now,
to wait by them one day they wait by them two
days. On the morning of the third day they move
very softly about in making their preparations for
the resumption of their journey, for the child is
sleeping by the fire. and it is agreed with one con-
sent that he shall not be disturbed until the last
moment. The moment comes-the fire is dying
the child is dead.
His faithful friend, the steward, fingers but a
while behind him. His grief is great.-He stag
gers on for a few days, lies down in the wilder
ness, and dies. But he shall be reunited in his
immortal spirit-who can doubt it2-with the
child, where he and the poor carpenter shall
be raised up with these words-ssInasmuch as ye
have done it unto the least of these ye have done
it unto me-" .aLF 80.