Davidson College - Quips and Cranks Yearbook (Davidson, NC)

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mother, sits at a window and looks out upon the sea, and sees a shining path over the waters, and thinks he sees his mother coming to him upon it from heaven. But with all these moonlight nights, and sun-rising dud sun-settings, the seas had little attraction for me, and its usual impression was one of profound melancholy. As I sat on deck and looked out on the gray and melancholy waste, or lay in my berth and heard the waves rushing past, I had a feeling more dreary than in the most desolate wilderness. That sound haunted me ; it was the last I heard at night, and the first in the morning ; it mingled with my dreams. I was indeed floating among shadows. But I found no sympathy in the sea. On the land nature soothed and comforted me ; she spoke in gentler terms, as if she had a heart of tenderness, a motherly sympathy with the sorrow of her children. There was something in the deep silence of the woods that seemed to say, peace be still ! The brooks murmured softly as they flowed between their mossy banks, as if they would not disturb our musings, but ' glide into them and steal away their sharpness ere we were aware. The robins sang in notes not too gay, but that spoke of returning spring, after a long dark winter ; and the soft airs that touched the feverish brow seemed to lift gently the grief that rested there, and carry it away on the evening wind. But in the ocean, there was no such touch of human feeling, no sympathy with the human woe. All was cold and pitiless. Some find in many of nature ' s forces proofs of God ' s moral governments over the world. But none of these do they find in the sea. That speaks only of wrath and terror. Its power is to destroy. It is a treacherous element. Smooth and smiling it may be, even when it lures us to destruc- tion. We are sailing over it in perfect security, but let there be a fire or collision, and it would swallow us up in an instant, as it has swallowed a thousand wrecks before. Knowing no mercy, cruel as the grave, it sacrifices without pity, youth and age, gray hairs and childish innocence and 24

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one may escape, as far as possible, the discomforts of the sea, and enjoy in some degree even the luxuries of civiliza- tion. Captain Kennedy is an admirable seaman with a quick eye for everything, always on deck or on the bridge watch- ing with unsleeping vigilance over the safety of all on board. The order and discipline of the ship is perfect. There is no noise or confusion. All moves on quietly. Not a sound is heard, save the occasional cry of the men working on the forward deck, and the steady throb, day and night, of the engine, which keeps this huge mass moving on her ocean track. But what a vast machine is such a ship, and how com- plicated the construction which makes possible such a triumph over the sea I Come upon the upper deck, and look down through this iron grating. You can see to a depth of fifty or sixty feet. It is like looking down into a mining shaft. And what makes it the more fearful, is that the bottom of the ship is a mass of fire. Thirty-six furnaces are in full blast to keep up steam, and at night, as the red-hot coals that are raked out of the furnaces like melted lava, flash in the faces of the brawny and swelter- ing firemen, one might fancy himself looking into some Vulcan ' s cave, or subterranean region, glowing with infer- nal heat. As we were near the banks of Newfoundland, a dense fog hung over the sea, through which the ship went, making fifteen miles an hour, its fog horns screaming nearly all day. About four o ' clock the fog lifted and the sun came out in all its splendor; and the next night, as we sat on deck, the full moon rose out of the waves. Instantly the hum of voices ceased; conversation was hushed; and all grew silent before the sublime beauty of the scene. Such an hour suggests not only poetical but spiritual thoughts — thoughts of the dead as well as thoughts of God. It recalled a passage in David Copperfield, where little David, after the death of his

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tender womanhood — all alike are eng-ulfed in the drowninof sea. The sea, therefore, is not a symbol of divine mercy. It is the very emblem of tremendous and remorseless power. Indeed, if nature had no other face but this, we could hardly believe in God, or at least, that He had gentle attributes ; we could only stand on the shore of existence, and shake with terror at the presence of a being of infinite power, but cold and pitiless as the waves that roll from the Arctic pole. Our Saviour walked on the waves, but left thereon no impress of his feet ; nor can we find there a trace of the love of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. We were eight days out of sight of land. Water, water everywhere ! Ocean to the right of us, ocean to the left of us, ocean in front of us, and ocean behind us, with two or three miles of ocean under us. But our good ship, the Lucania bore us over the sea like a conqueror, and we landed safe, at last. U U U