After a Gospel meeting in Fogo, Fogo Island, Newfoundland, an old man asked me to visit him at home because he had something he wanted to tell me. We walked to his house, lit with kerosene lamps, and sat in the kitchen warmed by a wood stove, settling in to hear what he had to say while his wife got a cup of tea ready. He was a bit emotional even before he began.
He said, “Quite a few years ago, when all the traveling was done in these parts by boat, a schooner came down the coast one night under full sail. It wasn’t a bad night, but there was a good draft from the southeast, and she was making good time. The only trouble was the skipper didn’t keep the vessel far enough offshore, and she struck a “sunker” right out there, and he pointed right out through the harbor.
“We could hear the ship’s bell ring as they were abandoning ship, so we right quick like gathered wood and browse and set a fire at the water’s edge on the beach. By-n-bye, people started coming ashore on life rings and boards; on barrels and anything that would float. It wasn’t a bad night, and so they weren’t having a real bad time of it. All hands around here had them into the houses, dried them off, gave ’em a cup of tea to warm them up, and then served lunches to all hands. One young man over by the stove looked up whenever another person was brought in, and then he’d put his head down and try to keep from crying. By and by he did start to cry, and we thought maybe he was getting a bit mental from the cold or something, so I went over.
‘Nothing to worry about, my son,’ I told him. ‘You can stay right here, and you’re safe and sound until you get a passage home.’
“Oh, I know I’m okay,” he replied, “but when I came off the deck of that boat into the water, I didn’t have anything to hold on to. When my head broke water, I found I was beside a young man holding on to a rum barrel. I put my hands out to catch hold of the rum barrel too, but it wouldn’t hold up the two of us.”
(A rum barrel is a small, oval-shaped barrel about a foot to sixteen inches long and six inches through at the widest point.)
The man by the stove continued, ‘When we found the barrel wouldn’t hold both of us up even though we kicked and struggled, the young man who had the barrel first said to me, “Are you a married man?” ‘Yes, I have a wife and children.’ “You keep the barrel,” he said, “I’m not married,” and he let go of the barrel.
‘He hasn’t come into the house here,’ he stated, looking around at all the other people in the kitchen. We both fell silent as we awaited the arrival of others. Soon, no one else entered the room, and we waited the entire night until dawn, hoping and praying that the young man found shelter somewhere. In the morning, as the light broke, we went down to the land wash, and there lay the body of the young man. The only one who died from the crowd that had been on the schooner was the one who gave the barrel to the married man with a family.
The old man stopped talking, and I could hardly speak. I thought about what a good illustration that was of the Lord Jesus Christ giving Himself as our substitute on the cross. He, who had eternal life, gave His life that we might have eternal life.