Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-03-28

bound they are coasting the shores of
the Indian Ocean; when in sight of
land the vessel springs leak and the
unhappy father sees, before he is him
self engulfed, his beloved wife, manly
son and beauteous daughter go down
to the beds of coral. Why did they
take this fatal voyage? Because this
was to be the manner of their death,
marked out long before they were born.
Why does this mother gaze upon the
babe upon her knee with such strange
horror in her look? Upon its face
dwells the innocence of Eden's morn
before the advent of it's dread eventide.
Now she looks out upon the blue Med
iterranean, and her eyes are fired with
an almost maniacal wildness. 1t is
midnight; yet, with her fearful fore
knowledge, she sees it all. A vessel
cleaving the waters with fearful speed;
it has approached too near the shore
and another puts out from the offng
in pursuit. It is a corsair, as the o.
minous black flag, now run up to the
masthead, proves it to be. The cap
tain, a villain with fierce eye and blood
stained hand, is giving his dreadful
orders to his men, as wretched as him
self, miscreants of the sea: "Cut them
down! No quarters! Sink them,"
are his mildest commands. And as
the wretched woman sees him, when
the conflict Is past, plunge his knife
again, and again into the bodies of the
slain, she screams: ooh, my son! my
wicked son!" and, as both ships go
down he is lost, body and soul. She
compares thepure face of her babe up
on her knee with the dark browed ruff
fan, gone to his account, and shudders
that the tender bones and sinews must
become hardened to such a work as
this. She looks on through his will
full, disobedient childhood and reckless
youth, to the infamous fruition of his
manhood; then, in anguish, covers up
the sweet face, and dashes away the
baby hand, which she well knows will
plunge the knife into human hearts,
and with life-blood crimson its pure
white. She cannot, if she would, take
its life; neither can she take her own
there are no friends now-nor can
she go mad-God's eternal DEGREES
forbid it.
Butts therein this vast burial ground
in which God has placed us, no remem-
brance of the expiation upon Calvary !?
Is there no thrice blessed ''Bible," the
life chart to guide, the lamp to illu-
mine our pathway through these green
hillocks, these dusty beds, cherished
by ourselves and given to the young as
we sit upon our grave sides? No plain
tive songs of Zion heard in this land
OF doom? No one to tell us of the di-
vine eloquence of the Manger and the
Gross? No sinner born to God?
Thanks be to God the channel is not
dark; unlike tn eigaais fiatstus which a.
rises from the corruption of the grave,
and which, ftful and treacherous, mis-
leads the traveller and then vanishes.
The halo which envelopes it is bright
and constant. It is the hope of rising
again. Wherever there is sin and death
Christianity will assert itself. And
we believe that in those worlds which
are so distant that baf1ed science can
not wrest from them their sublime Sc
crets, there exists human intelligence,
human souls, like ourselves imperiled
by sin, and prone to death. That God
created them, that the son of God died
for them, and that if this is so, hallelu-
Ijahs resound to His name.
If such circumstances as we have
merely supposed, could exist in this
world, namely, knowledge of the
time and manner of our death, the re-
ligion of the Bible, the foundations of
which were laid before the centuries
began, deep as eternity, would triumph
over its crimes-eyen death and the
grave.
Here is young maiden, the rose of
innocence and health blooms upon her
cheek, yet she knows that in one short
week they will prepare her for the "nar-
row house," but she is not dismayed /;
she has not bedecked her body of dust
with diamonds, to be left cleaning at
the portals of the tomb. She clasps to
her heart the blessed Word of God, and
looks, undaunted, beyond this life of
probation and trial to the rest beyond.