At a meeting of the Seamen's Friend's Society held in Boston, a gentleman related the following story of a young lad at sea:--

"The ship was rolling fearfully. Some of the rigging got foul at the mainmast head, and it was necessary that someone should go up and rectify it. It was a perilous job. I was standing near the mate, and heard him order that boy to do it. He lifted his cap, and glanced at the swinging mast, the boiling wrathful seas, and at the steady determined countenance of the mate. He hesitated in silence a moment; then, rushing across the deck, he pitched down into the forecastle. Perhaps he was gone two minutes, when he returned, laid his hands on the ratlines and went up with a will. My eyes followed him till my head was dizzy, when I turned and remonstrated with the mate for sending the boy aloft.

"He could not come down alive! Why did you send him?"

"I did it," replied the mate, "to save life. We've sometimes lost men overboard, but never a boy. See how he holds like a squirrel. He is more careful: he'll come down safe, I hope."

Again I looked, till tears dimmed my eyes, and I was compelled to turn away, expecting every moment to catch a glimpse of his last fall. In about fifteen or twenty minutes he came down, and straightening himself up with the conscious satisfaction of having performed a manly act, he walked aft with a smile on his countenance.

In the course of the day I took occasion to speak to him, and asked him why he hesitated when ordered aloft.

"I went, sir," said the boy, "to pray."

"Did you pray?"

"Yes, sir; I thought that I might not come down alive, and I went to commit my soul to God."

"Where did you learn to pray?"

"At home; my mother wanted me to go to the Sunday school, and my teacher urged me to pray to God to keep me; and I do."

"What was that you had in your jacket?"

"My Testament, which my teacher gave me. I thought if I did perish I would have the Word of God close to my heart." Mid-1800s