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Chapter 9 -
The Lost Saying Found -
From There Go the Ships
by George Shirley

Page 132 - 133
other than the Port Logan lifeboat, with the well-known name of Ballantyne painted in the stern sheets; and so the captain of the Strathlevin came safe to his home instead of his corpse drifting out in the rolling North Sea, with all his ship's company. He had to tell his glad and happy wife, and that "tiny public," his children, who had heard "mother's little lecture on lifeboats," that on the same day of the month, but a year later on, that they gave their money for love and charity to the boat, that selfsame boat

 
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had saved him from death, and sent him alive and grateful to their arms.

Some may call this "chance" or coincidence. Do we not catch the Divine administration of good for good and evil for evil? Cannot we imagine the angel with the golden scales weighing all our deeds and thoughts, and paying for them? What did the Scotch captain's wife's silver pay for? What connected the first shining link of pity and womanly feeling with the last link of manly gallantry and timely service at the other end of the chain of events? If we knew, as the angels know, that the very coin dropped in paid for a halliard, or a tow-line that had to do with the rescue, or a spare rowlock that saved a minute in starting, or some other cause that led to the beautiful issue, we should see that the human love and pity which prompted the gift of the mother are indeed potent forces, infinite in power and result. No good action ever dies. Although we do not see the middle links of the great chain, we do the two ends, and our faith in the good shows us the connecting centre part.

"We see through a glass darkly," but God the end from the beginning.

There is a Jewish tradition that when Moses was in the Mount God permitted him to ask some questions about His government of the world. Moses was told to look down into a valley, and he saw a fountain of water. A soldier came riding up, and after he and his horse had drank, he sat down to rest, and pulling out his purse, looked into it, and put it down by his side. After a short rest he arose, attended to his horse, mounted, and rode off, forgetting all about his purse. Shortly after a little child came, and seeing the purse, took it away. A few minutes after, an old man, tired and weary, with difficulty tottered up to the fountain and sat down to rest. The soldier, having missed his purse, rode back, and finding the old man sitting at the fountain, accused him of taking the purse. He protested his innocence, but the soldier did not believe him, and drew his sword and killed him on the spot.

Moses shuddered at the sight, and wondered the Almighty should permit such injustice. The reply was, "Stop, Moses. Did you see that child take the purse? Know that the old man was the murderer of that child's father."

There is a chain of events that brings the wrongdoer to punishment in some singular way. Strange was the way Jacob received punishment for deceiving his father. All through his life he was the victim of deception. His father-in-law, Laban, cheated him out of seven years' service for his daughter

© Peter Smith 2009