The Torn Bible

Excerpt: ...his cabin, so as to be as comfortable as possible on the voyage; but this, of course, had an end, and a consciousness came over him that he was friendless on the wide world amongst strangers. At first he thought it would be better to keep so, and not leave his cabin at all, for, if he went on deck, the remarks or sympathy of the other passengers would be very annoying. They might pity him, and be kind and attentive to him in his weakness, but it would only make him feel more keenly the calamity which had fallen on him in the full vigour of his manhood; and then, as his thoughts rushed back, and he saw himself but a few months before so full of health and activity, he forgot the great blessing that had accompanied his illness, and his heart murmured and rebelled. A dark cloud seemed to have fallen over Hubert: for three days he maintained a gloomy Pg 94 silence in his cabin; and the sailor that waited upon him told his shipmates that it was a pity his honour had chosen the sea for a grave, for unless he changed he would, in his honest opinion, die before they were far out of the bay. "Tell him so, Ben, for you know it ain't lucky to have a death on board," said one of the sailors. However, Ben said nothing to Hubert, for in his own mind he began to think that the soldier had a sorrow, which would perhaps wear away in time; and the sailor was not wrong. It was a dark hour in Hubert's life-a weak yielding of the flesh; and who can wonder? In the short time that had passed since he had given up his evil ways, how much instruction and counsel he had received from the kind friend who had brought him to the vessel; and the kind nurse, so full of sympathy towards him, knowing all about him, had helped to buoy up his spirits when they were sinking, and by them the struggle between his old and his new nature had been lightened. How Hubert missed those two friends now! He never thought he could have cared for them half so much. In the gloomy thoughts...