The captain sat down and drew him to his knee.

“My dear son,” he said, “I have no doubt that you are sorry for every act of disobedience toward me, and I fully and freely forgive them all; but what I want you to consider now is your sinfulness toward God, and your need of forgiveness from him.  You are old enough to be a Christian now, Max, and it is what I desire for you more than anything else.  Think what blessedness to be made a child of God, an heir of glory! to have Jesus, the sinner’s Friend, for your own Saviour, your sins all washed away in his precious blood, his righteousness put upon you.”

“Papa, I don’t know how.”

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ the Bible says.  It tells us that we have all broken God’s holy law, that we all deserve his wrath and curse forever, and cannot be saved by anything that we can do or Buffer; but that ’God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.’  He offers this salvation to us as his free gift, and so we are to take it, for we can have it in no other way.  Go to God, my son, just as you have come to me, with confession of your sins and acknowledging that you deserve only punishment; but pleading for pardon through the blood and merits of Jesus Christ.  Accept the salvation offered you by the Lord Jesus, giving yourself to him to be his, his only forever.  ’Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins,’ and he will give them to you if you ask for them with all your heart.  He says, ’Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.’  My son, my dear son, will not you come now?  God’s time is always now, and only the present is ours.”

“Papa, I will try; I am sorry for my sins against God, and I do want to belong to him.  Papa, won’t you pray for me?”

They knelt down together, and with his son’s hand in his the captain poured out a fervent prayer on the boy’s behalf, of confession and entreaty for pardon and acceptance in the name and for the sake of Him “who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

Then, with a silent, tender embrace he left him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

    “Home again, home again, from a foreign shore,
     And oh it fills my soul with Joy to see my friends once more.”

The rest of the summer and early fall passed delightfully to our sojourners by the sea; though the happiness of the captain and Violet was somewhat marred by the knowledge that soon they must part for a season of greater or less duration, he to be exposed to all the dangers of the treacherous deep.

But they did not indulge in repining or lose the enjoyment of the present in vexing thoughts concerning the probable trials of the future.