It was about an hour before low water that Newton walked into the sea, and, commending himself to Providence, struck out for the islet, keeping his course well to windward, to allow for the tide sweeping him down.  To use a nautical phrase, he “held his own” extremely well, until he reached the centre of the channel, where the water ran with great velocity, and bore him down rapidly with the stream.  Newton struggled hard; for he was aware that the strength of the current once passed, his labour would be comparatively easy; and so it proved:  as he neared the shore of the islet, he made good way; but he had been carried down so far when in the centre of the stream that it became a nice point, even to the calculation of hope, whether he would fetch the extreme point of the islet.  Newton redoubled his exertions, when, within thirty yards of the shore, an eddy assisted him, and he made sure of success; but when within ten yards, a counter current again caught him, and swept him down.  He was now abreast of the very extreme point of the islet; a bush that hung over the water was his only hope; with three or four desperate strokes he exhausted his remaining strength, at the same time that he seized hold of a small bough.  It was decayed—­snapped asunder, and Newton was whirled away by the current into the broad ocean.

How constantly do we find people running into real danger to avoid imaginary evil!  A mother will not permit her child to go to sea, lest it should be drowned, and a few days afterwards it is kicked to death by a horse.  Had the child been permitted to go afloat, he might have lived and run through the usual term of existence.  Wherever we are, or wherever we may go, there is death awaiting us in some shape or another, sooner or later; and there is as much danger in walking through the streets of London as in ploughing the foaming ocean.  Every tile over our heads contains a death within it as certain, if it were to fall upon us, as that occasioned by the angry surge which swallows us up in its wrath.  I believe, after all, that as many sailors, in proportion, run out their allotted span as the rest of the world that are engaged in other apparently less dangerous professions; although it must be acknowledged that occasionally we do become food for fishes.  “There is a tide in the affairs of men,” says Shakespeare; but, certainly, of all the tides that ever interfered in a man’s prospects, that which swept away Newton Forster appeared to be the least likely to “lead to fortune.”  Such, however, was the case.  Had Newton gained the islet which he coveted, he would have perished miserably; whereas it will soon appear that, although his sufferings are not yet ended, his being carried away was the most fortunate circumstance which could have occurred, and proved the means of his ultimate preservation.