Story of the sailor boy,

The captain's want of sympathy.

-namely, power and sympathy, and consider how seldom they are united. I will give one or two examples which may help to illustrate the subject.

A mother with a large family, and with but slender means to provide for their wants, concluded to send her eldest son to sea. She knew that though the toils and labors of a seafaring life were extreme, they could be borne, and that they brought with them many pleasures and many useful results. She agreed, therefore, with a sea captain, a distant relative of hers, to admit her boy on board his ship. The captain became really interested in his new friend-said that he would take good care of him, teach him his duty on shipboard, and help him on in the world, if he was diligent and faithful.

The boy looked with some dread upon the prospect of bidding farewell to his mother, to his brothers and sisters, and his quiet home, to explore unknown and untried scenes, and to encounter the dangers of a stormy ocean. He however bade all farewell, and was soon tossing upon the waters, feeling safe under his new protector. He soon found, however, that the captain, as a protecting friend, had power, but that he had not sympathy. He would sometimes, in a stormy night, when the masts were reeling to and fro, and the bleak wind was whistling through the frozen rigging, compel him to go aloft, though the poor boy, unaccustomed to the giddy height, was in an agony of terror, and in real danger of falling headlong to the deck. The captain had forgotten what were his own feelings when he was himself a boy, or he would probably have taught this necessary part of seamanship in a more gentle and gradual manner. thought that the boy ought to learn to go aloft, and his want of sympathy with the feelings of one so young, led him to a course which was severe, and in fact cruel, though not intentionally so.

He

The little ship.

The captain a real friend.

The captain never spoke to his young charge, excepting to command him. He took no interest in his boyish thoughts and feelings. Once the boy spent all his leisure time industriously in rigging out a little ship complete. "This," thought he, "will please the captain. He wants me to learn, and this will show him that I have been learning." As he went on, however, from day to day, the captain took no notice of his work. A word or a look of satisfaction from his protector would have gratified him exceedingly. But no;

the stern, weather-beaten officer could not sympathize with a child or appreciate his feelings at all; and one day when the boy had been sent away from his work on some brief errand, the captain came upon deck, and after looking around a moment, he said to a rough-looking man standing there, “I say, Jack, I wish you would clear away a little here: coil those lines—and that boy's bauble there,-you may as well throw it overboard; he never will make any thing of it."

Commands on board ship must be obeyed; and the poor cabin-boy came up from below just in time to catch the captain's words, and to see his little ship fly from the sailor's hands into the waves. It fell upon its side-its sails were drenched with the water, and it fast receded from view. The boy went to his hammock and wept bitterly. His heart was wounded deeply, but the stern captain did not know it. How could he sympathize with the feelings of a child?

And yet this captain was the real friend of the boy. He protected him in all great dangers, and took good care of him when in foreign ports, that he should not be exposed to sickness or to temptation. When they returned home he recommended him to another ship, where, through the captain's influence, he had a better situation and higher wages,-and he assisted him in various ways for many years. This boy had thus a protector who possessed power, but not sympathy.

The Savior.

His thirty years of life.

This boy however might have had a friend who would have sympathized with him fully, but who would have had no power. I might illustrate this case also, by supposing in the next ship which he should enter, that the captain should feel no interest in him at all, but that he should have with him there a brother, or another boy of his own age, who would be his constant companion and friend,—— entering into all his feelings, sympathizing with him in his enjoyments and in his troubles,—but yet having no power to protect him from real evils, or to avert any dangers which might threaten. I might suppose such a case, and following the boy in imagination into the new scene, I might show that sympathy alone is not sufficient. But it is not necessary to do this. All my readers, doubtless, already fully understand the distinction between these two, and the necessity that they should be united in such a protector as we all need.

The great Friend of sinners unites these two essential qualifications. He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God through him, and he can fully sympathize with us in all our trials and cares; for he has been upon the earth,-suffering all that we have to suffer, and drinking of every cup which is presented to our lips. He became flesh, that is, he became a man, and dwelt among us; so that, as the Bible most forcibly and beautifully expresses it, we have not an high-priest which can not be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

It must be borne in mind that our Savior did not commence his public ministrations till he was thirty years of age. Thirty years he spent-in what? Why, in learning, by slow and painful experience, what it is to be a human being in this world of trial. Have I a reader who is only ten or twelve years of age?

Remember, the Savior was

Story of Howard, the philanthropist.

once as young as you,-exposed to such little difficulties and trials as you are. He has gone through the whole, from infancy upward, and he does not forget. You may be sure, then, that he is ready to sympathize with you. If any thing is great enough to interest you, you may be sure it is great enough to interest him in your behalf. He remembers his own childhood, and will sympathize with the feelings of yours.

This plan of coming into our world and becoming one of us, and remaining in obscurity so long, that he might learn by experiment what the human condition is, in all its details, was certainly a very extraordinary one. It is spoken of as

very extraordinary everywhere in the Bible.

They were

Their food

You have all heard of Howard, the philanthropist. When he was thirty or forty years of age, there were, everywhere in Europe, jails and dungeons filled with wretched prisoners, some of whom were guilty and some innocent. crowded together in small, cold, damp rooms. was scanty and bad,—dreadful diseases broke out among them; and when this was the case, they were, in a vast multitude of cases, left to suffer and to die in unmitigated agony. Very few knew their condition, and there were none to pity or relieve them, until Howard undertook the task. He left his home in England and went forth, encountering every difficulty and every discouragement, until he had explored thoroughly this mass of misery and brought it to public view, and had done every thing he could to mitigate its severity.

This was extraordinary enough, and it attracted universal attention. All Europe was surprised that a man should devote years of his life to a most arduous and hazardous labor, thus exposing himself to the most loathsome influences and to the worst diseases, without any prospect of remuneration, and all for the sole purpose of relieving the sufferings

Imaginary scene.

The Savior.

of criminals,—of men whom the world has cast off as unfit for human society. It was, I acknowledge, extraordinary; -but what would have been the sensation produced, if Howard could not have gained admission to these scenes, so as effectually to accomplish his object, without becoming himself a prisoner, and thus sharing for a time the fate of those whom he was endeavoring to save? Suppose he should consent to this. Imagine him approaching for this purpose some dreary prison. He passes its dismal threshold, and the bolts and bars of the gloomiest dungeon are turned upon him. He lays aside the comfortable dress of the citizen for the party-colored garb of confinement and disgrace. He holds out his arm for the manacles, and lies down at night upon his bed of straw, and lingers away months, or perhaps years of wretchedness, for no other purpose than that he may fully know what the wretchedness of imprisonment is. He thus looks misery in the face, and takes it by the hand, and he emerges at last from his cell, emaciated by disease, and worn out by the gloom of perpetual night,—and his heart sickened by the atmosphere of sin and shame. Suppose he had done this, how strongly could he, after it, sympathize with the sufferings of a prisoner, and how cordially and with what confidence can the inmates of those abodes come to him with their story of woe.

Now, we have such a Savior as "this. He has been among us. He has himself experienced every kind of trial and suffering which we have to endure. So that if we choose him for our friend, we may come to him on every occasion, sure of finding in him not only sympathy to feel for us, but power to relieve us. No matter what may be the source of our trial, whether great or small: if it is great enough to interest us, it is great enough to interest him for Perhaps some young child who reads this has been pained to the heart by the unkindness of some one in whom

us.