Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-08-28
Nenr q Watery Grave.


his teeth
Near a Watery Grave.
The ship Emma, bound from Gotten
burg to Harwich, was sailing on when
the man OIL the lookout saw something
that he pronounced vessel bottom up.
There was something Oh it that looked
like a SEA gull, but was afterward found
to be waving handkerchief. In the
small boat the crew pushed out to the
wreck and found that it was capslzed
vessel, and that three men had been
digging their way cut through the bot
tom of the ship. When the vessel cap
sized, they had no means of escape. The
captain took his penknife and dug away
through the planks until his knife broke.
Then an old nail was found, with which
they attempted to scrape their way up
out of the darkness, each che working
until his hand was well nigh paralyzed,
and he sank back faint and sick After
long and tedious work the light broke
through the bottom of the ship. A hand
kerchief was hoisted Help came They
were taken Oh board the vessel and
saved. Did ever men come so near a
watery grave without dropping into it!
How narrowly they escaped-escaped
only with the skin Of their teeth "
There are men who have been capsized
of evil passions and capsized midocean,
and they are a thousand miles away
from any shore of help. They have for
years been trying to dig their way out.
They have been digging away and dig
ging away, but they can never be deliv-
cred unless now they will hoist some sig
nal of distress However weak and feeble
it may be, Christ will see it and bear
down upon the helpless craft and take
them cn board, and it will be known on
earth and in heaven how narrowly they
escaped" escaped as with the skin of
their teeth. y
There are others who III attempting
to come to God must run between
great many business perplexitics. If
, man go over to business at 10 o'clock III
the morning and come away at 3 O'Clock
in the afternoon, he has some time for
religion, but how shall you find time
for religious contemplation when you
are driven from sunrise to sunset and
have been fer five years going behind
i'll business and are frequently dunned
by creditors whom you cannot pay, and
when from Monday morning until Sat
urday night you are lodging bills that
You canIot meet? You walk day by
day III uncertainties that have kept
your brain Gu fire for the past three
years. Some with less business troubles
than you have gone crazy. The clerk
has heard noise in the back counting
room and gone in and found the chief
man OF the firm Il raving maniac, or the
wife Eay heard the bang of pistol in
the bacl: rarlor ard gone in, stumbling
over The dead body of her husband-a
suicide. There are men pursued, har-
assed, trcdGen down and scalped of
business perplexitics, and which way
to turn next they do not know. Now
God will not be hard Oh you. He knows
what obstacles are in the way of your
being Christian, and your first effort
in the right direction he will crown
with success Do not let satan, with
cotton bales, and kegs, and hogsheads,
and counters, and stocks of unstable
goods, block up your way to heaven.
Gather up all your energies. Tighten
the girdle about your loins. Take an
agonizing look into the face of God,
and then say, Here goes one grand
effort for life eternal" and then bound
away for heaven, escaping "as with
the skin of your teeth. :"
In the last day it will be found that
Hugh Latimer, and John Knox, and
Huss, and Ridley were net the greatest
martyrs, but Christian men who went
I'D incorrupt from the concentrations
and perplexities of Pennsylvania ave-
nue., Broad street, State street and
Third street. On earth they were called
brokers, or stock jobbers, or retailers,
or importers, but in heaven Christian
heroes. No fagots were heaped about
their feet; no inquisition demanded
from them recantation; no soldier
aimed pike at their heart, but they
had mental tortures compared with
which all physical consuming is as the
breath Of spring morning.
Shaken Faith.
I find in the communitya large class
of men who have been so cheated, so
lied about, so outrageously wronged,
that they have lost their faith in every
thing. In world where everything
| rno,nr 60 torcr turuv thnE do not see how