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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Out of the Fog, by C. K. Ober
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+Title: Out of the Fog
+
+Author: C. K. Ober
+
+Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7957]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 5, 2003]
+[Date last updated: November 14, 2004]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT OF THE FOG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Tonya Allen, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+OUT OF THE FOG
+
+A Story of the Sea
+
+C. K. OBER
+
+Introduction By Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+Since I am permitted to consider myself in some way responsible for this
+narrative's being put on record, it is with the very heartiest good will
+that I accept the publishers' kind invitation to write a brief foreword
+to it.
+
+I have, during twenty years, been working against a problem that I
+recognized called for all--yes, and more, than--I had to give it. For I
+have been endeavoring, through my own imperfect attainments, to
+translate into undeniable language on the Labrador Coast, the message of
+God's personal fatherhood over and love for the humblest of His
+creatures. During these years, often of overwork, I have considered it
+worth while to lay aside time and energy and strength to improve the
+charting and pilot directions of our devious and sometimes dangerous
+waterways.
+
+How much more gladly shall I naturally avail myself of any chance by
+which to contribute to the knowledge of that seemingly ever evasive
+pathway leading to that which to me is the supreme motive power of human
+life--faith in the divine Redeemer and Master. The best helps to reach
+the haven we are in search of, over the unblazed trails of Labrador, are
+ever the tracks of those who have found the way before us. Just such to
+me is this simple and delightful story of Mr. Ober's. It has my most
+hearty prayers for its unprecedented circulation.
+
+WILFRED T. GRENFELL.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+OLD SALTS
+
+
+The lure of the sea prevailed, and at nineteen I shipped for a
+four-months' fishing trip on the Newfoundland Banks. These banks are not
+the kind that slope toward some gentle stream where the weary fisherman
+can rest between bites, protected from the sun by the shade of an
+overhanging tree; they are thirty to forty fathoms beneath the surface
+of the Atlantic Ocean, a thousand miles out from the Massachusetts
+coast.
+
+The life that had long appealed to my imagination now came in with a
+shock and a realism that was in part a disillusionment and in part an
+intense satisfaction of some of my primal instincts and cravings. Old
+salts are more picturesque and companionable spinning yarns about the
+stove in a shoemaker's shop than they are when one is obliged to live,
+eat and sleep with them for four months in the crowded forecastle of a
+fishing schooner. An ocean storm is a sublime spectacle, witnessed from
+a position of safety on the land; but a storm on the ocean, experienced
+in its very vortex from the deck of a tiny fishing boat, is thrilling
+beyond description. "Ships that pass in the night" make interesting
+reading; but if they pass near you, in a foggy night, on the Banks, they
+are better than the muezzin of the Moslem in reminding a man that it is
+time to pray. I recall with vividness the scene on such a night, and
+still feel the compelling power of the panic in the voice of the
+mild-mannered old sea dog on anchor watch, as he yelled down the
+companionway, "All hands on deck." In six seconds we were all there; and
+there was the great hulk of a two-thousand-ton ship looming up out of
+the night. She had evidently sighted our little craft just in time to
+change her course, and was passing us with not more than a hundred and
+fifty feet to spare. I can see them tonight, as they vanished into the
+fog--three men and a big Newfoundland dog, looking over the rail and
+down on us who, a moment before, were about to die.
+
+Storm, fog, icebergs, cold, exposure, the alert and strenuous life, with
+his own life the forfeit of failure, are a part of the normal experience
+of a deep sea fisherman. Two members of our crew were father and son,
+Uncle Ike Patch and his son, Frank. The old man had been a fisherman in
+his youth, but had been on shore for thirty years. When we were making
+up our crew, Frank caught the fishing fever and wanted to go, and his
+father decided to go along with him. They were out in their dory, one
+foggy day, and when the boats came back to the vessel from hauling their
+trawls, Uncle Ike and Frank were missing. We rang the bell, fired our
+small cannon, shouted and sent boats out after them. As night came on,
+we were huddled together in the forecastle, wondering about their fate,
+while the old fishermen told stories of the fog and its fearful toll of
+human life. It seemed a terrible thing for the old man and his boy to be
+out there, drifting no one knew where; and though we were accustomed to
+danger, there was a gloomy crew and little sleep on our schooner that
+night. In the morning the weather cleared and soon our missing boat came
+alongside; we received them as men alive from the dead. They had found
+shelter on another fishing vessel that happened to be lying at anchor
+not more than two or three miles away.
+
+There was reason for our solicitude, for we knew very well that a large
+proportion of the men who get adrift in the fog are never found alive.
+Shortly before this experience we had spoken a Gloucester vessel and
+learned that her crew had picked up, a short time before, one of the
+boats of a Provincetown schooner that had been adrift four days. One of
+the two men was dead and the other insane. Each day brought its own
+dangers, which the fishermen met as part of the day's work, thinking
+little of them when they were past, and ready for whatever another day
+might bring.
+
+But four months is a long time to be out of sight of land, on a fresh
+fish and "salt hoss" diet, with molasses instead of sugar in your tea,
+and fresh water too much needed for drinking purposes to waste in
+personal ablutions. We all swore that we would never go to sea again;
+and when, after gliding into harbor in the night, we looked, one clear
+September morning, on the seemingly unnatural green of the grass and
+trees of the old North Shore, I said to myself, "This is God's country,
+if there ever was one, and I, for one, will never get out of sight of it
+again."
+
+But I had tasted fog and brine, and the "landlubber's" lot was too
+monotonously tame for me. The next spring saw me on the deck of the same
+schooner headed for the Newfoundland Banks, the home of the codfish and
+the fog.
+
+A seafaring ancestry and a boyhood spent within sound of the surf
+doubtless had much to do with my love of the salt water. My grandfather
+was one of six brothers who were sea captains, and our family had clung
+to the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay almost since the first white
+settler had moored his bark in that vicinity, more than two hundred
+years before.
+
+My boyhood home was originally a fishing town, since changed to
+manufacturing, and was fragrant with traditions of the sea. Many of the
+neighborhood homes in which I visited as a boy had souvenirs of the
+ocean displayed on the mantelpiece or on the everlasting solitude of the
+parlor table. There were great conch shells that a boy could put to his
+ear and hear the surf roaring on the beaches from which they had been
+taken; articles made of sandalwood; curiously wrought things under
+glass; miniature pagodas; silk scarfs; bow-legged idols; and a wonderful
+model of the good ship Dolphin, or of some other equally staunch craft,
+in which the breadwinner, father or son, had sailed on some eventful
+voyage. These had all been "brought from over sea," I was told, and this
+gave me the impression that "over sea" must be a very rich and
+interesting place.
+
+But the souvenirs of the sea were not as interesting to me as its
+survivors. We had in our town, and especially in our end of it, which
+was called "the Cove," a choice assortment of old sea dogs who had
+sailed every sea, in every clime--had seen the world, in fact, and were
+not averse, under the stimulus of good listeners, to telling all they
+knew about it and sometimes a little more.
+
+Scattered through the Cove were many little shoemakers' shops, into
+which, especially in the long winter evenings, these old salts would
+drift. There around the little cylinder stove, with its leather-chip
+fire, leaking a fragrance the memory of which makes me homesick as I
+write about it, they would swap their stories of the sea, many of which
+had originally been based on fact.
+
+These old derelicts--and some of the younger seafaring men--were better
+than dime novels to us boys, for we could always question them and draw
+out another story. Some of them were unconscious heroes who had often
+risked their lives for their comrades and the vessel owners; and for the
+support and comfort of their families no dangers or hardships had seemed
+too great to be undertaken or endured. We boys held these old salts in
+high esteem, and never forgot to give to each his appropriate title of
+"Captain" or "Skipper," as the case might be. We also occasionally had
+some fun with them.
+
+We never thought of any of them as bad men, though some of them, by
+their own testimony, had lived wild and reckless lives. One or two,
+according to persistent rumor, had carried out cargoes of New England
+rum and brought back shiploads of "black ivory" from the West coast of
+Africa. Not a few of them were picturesquely profane. Old Skipper Tom
+Bowman had a very original oath, "tender-eyed Satan!" which he must have
+had copyrighted, as he was the only one that I ever heard use it. We
+boys would sometimes bait him, provoking him to exasperation, that we
+might hear it in all its original force and fervor.
+
+[Illustration: Old Salts Are More Picturesque and Companionable Spinning
+Yarns about the Stove in a Shoemaker's Shop than when One Is Obliged to
+Live, Eat and Sleep with Them]
+
+We knew his habits well. He eked out a scanty sustenance by fishing off
+the shore and would frequently come in on the ebb tide and leave his
+boat half way up the beach, going home to dinner and returning when the
+flood tide had about reached his boat, to bring it up to its moorings.
+
+So one day we dug a "honey pot" by the side of his boat, at the very
+spot where we knew he would approach it, covered it over with dry
+seaweed and about the time he was due we were lying out of sight, but
+within earshot, behind the rocks. He drifted down, at peace with all the
+world, went in over the tops of his rubber boots, and then, for one
+blissful moment, we had our reward.
+
+Some of these old salts were so thoroughly salted, being drenched with
+the brine of many stormy voyages, that they kept in good condition well
+beyond their allotted time of three score years and ten. Some were of
+uncertain age, but were evidently well beyond the century mark, as
+proved by the aggregate time consumed on their many voyages, the stories
+of which they had reiterated with such convincing detail.
+
+One of these, Captain Sam Morris, was patiently stalked by the boys
+through a long season of yarn spinning, careful tally being kept. When
+the tale was complete, the boys closed in on him.
+
+"How old are you, Captain Sam?"
+
+"Oh, I dunno, I ain't kep' count."
+
+"Are you seventy?"
+
+"I swan! I dunno."
+
+"Well, you were on the Old Dove with Skipper Jimmie Stone, weren't you?"
+
+"Sartin."
+
+"You were on the Constitution, when she fought the Guerriere, weren't
+you?"
+
+How could he deny it?
+
+"Well, weren't you with Captain Lovett on four of his three-year trading
+voyages to Australia and China?"
+
+"Course I was."
+
+"How about those trips 'round the Horn, on the clipper ship 'Mary Jane'
+from '49 to '55?"
+
+"I was thar." They kept relentlessly on down the list, and then showed
+him the tally. Allowing for infancy, an abbreviated boyhood on land, and
+the time they had known him since he had quit the sea, he was one
+hundred and thirty-five years old. The showing did not disconcert him,
+however. He was interested, but he had told those stories so often and
+had come to believe each of them so implicitly that he could not doubt
+them in the aggregate. He simply exclaimed: "Well, I'll be darned! I
+feel like a young chap o' sixty."
+
+But while some of these old sailors liked to "spin yarns" and some had
+their frailties, they were, as a rule, strong characters, rugged,
+honest, courageous, unselfish--real men, in fact, whose sterling
+qualities stood out in strong contrast against the unreality of many
+timid and non-effective lives about them. It was not their romancing,
+but their reality, and the achieving power of their lives that appealed
+to me as a boy, and I was drawn to the kind of life that had helped to
+produce such men.
+
+Then, too, the ocean itself, with its immensity, its mystery, its moods,
+the danger in it, and the man's work in mastering it, was almost
+irresistibly attractive to me.
+
+On graduating from high school I declined my father's offer to send me
+to college, thinking that the life I had in view did not require a
+college education. Then he made me a very attractive business
+proposition, but it looked to me like slavery, and what I wanted most
+was freedom. My father and mother were both Christians, but I had become
+skeptical, profane and reckless of public opinion. I had left home for a
+boarding house in the same town at eighteen, and at nineteen I had
+slipped the moorings and was heading out to sea.
+
+
+
+
+ADRIFT
+
+
+My second trip to the Banks was made in response to the same kind of
+impulse as that which drives the nomad out of his winter quarters in the
+springtime or brings the wild geese back to their summer feeding
+grounds. To one who really loves the ocean, the return to it after a
+period of exile on the land, is an indescribable satisfaction. There was
+at least one of our crew who experienced this emotion as our staunch
+little craft turned her nose to the blue water, and with all sail set
+and lee rail almost under water, leaped away from the petty restrictions
+of the shore into the practically limitless expanse of the Atlantic. In
+a week we were on the fishing ground and sentiment gave way to business.
+
+Our schooner was a trawler, equipped with six dories and a crew of
+fifteen, including the skipper, the cook, the boy and two men for each
+boat. Each trawl had a thousand hooks, a strong ground line six thousand
+feet long, with a smaller line two and a half feet in length, with hook
+attached, at every fathom. These hooks were baited and the trawl was set
+each night. The six trawls stretched away from the vessel like the
+spokes from the hub of a wheel, the buoy marking the outer anchor of
+each trawl being over a mile away. I was captain of a dory this year,
+passing as a seasoned fisherman with my experience of the year before.
+My helper or "bow-man" was John Hogan, a young Irishman about my own
+age, red-headed, but green at the fishing business. John's mother kept a
+little oasis for thirsty neighbors, in a city adjacent to my home town,
+and his father was a man of unsteady habits. But John was a good fellow,
+active and willing, and, though he had not inherited a rugged
+constitution, he could pull a good steady stroke.
+
+Soon after we reached the Banks, a storm swept our decks and nearly
+carried away our boats. As a result, the dories, particularly my own,
+were severely strained and leaked badly. For two weeks, however, we had
+no fog, but on the morning of the second of June, just as we went over
+the schooner's side and shaped our course for our outer buoy, a bank of
+fog with an edge as perpendicular as the side of a house moved down on
+us like a great glacier, though much more rapidly, shutting us in and
+everything else out from sight. It was ugly and thick, as if all the fog
+factories from Grand Manan to Labrador had been working overtime for the
+two weeks before and had sent their whole output in one consignment. We
+had just passed our inner buoy when the fog struck us, but we kept on
+for the outer buoy, as was customary in foggy weather, since it was
+safer to get that and pull in toward the vessel, rather than take the
+inner buoy, pull out, and find ourselves with a boatload of fish and
+ugly weather over a mile from the vessel. We had our bearings, I had
+often found the buoy in the fog and believed that we could do it again.
+We kept on rowing and knew when we had rowed far enough, though we had
+not counted the strokes; but we found nothing.
+
+"Guess we have drifted too far to leeward; pull up to windward a little.
+That's strange, we must have passed it, this blamed fog is so thick.
+What's that over there?" We zigzagged back and forth for some time and
+then realized that we had missed it and must go back to the vessel and
+get our inner buoy. This seemed easy, but we found that it is as
+important to have a point of departure as it is to have a destination,
+and not knowing just where we were we could not head our boat to where
+the vessel was. We shouted, and listened, rowed this way and that way
+but not a sound came to us through the fog, although we knew that the
+boy must be at his post ringing the bell, so that the boats could hark
+their way back to the vessel. I learned afterward that the tide that
+morning was exceptionally strong. I had noted its direction and made
+allowance for it, before leaving the schooner, but we were where the
+Gulf Stream and the Arctic Current are not very far apart and the
+resulting tides are strong and changeable. We were in the grip of two
+great elemental and relentless forces, the impenetrable fog, cutting off
+all our communications, and the strong ocean current sweeping us away
+into the uninhabited waste of waters. From my experience of the year
+before, I knew what it meant to be lost in the fog on the Banks,
+practically in mid-ocean; I understood that if the fog lasted for a week
+or ten days as it sometimes did, especially at that season of the year,
+it was a fight for our lives. I soon realized that we were lost and that
+the fight was on.
+
+We were certainly stripped for it, without impedimenta, no anchor,
+compass, provisions, water, no means of catching fish or fowl, and with
+rather light clothing, as we were dressed for work and not for
+protection against cold. But youth is optimistic and claims what is
+coming to it, with a margin for luck, and we started on our new voyage
+of discovery with good courage and a cheerful disregard of the
+hardships, dangers and possible death in the fog, with which and into
+which we were drifting.
+
+It would not be strictly accurate to say that we saw nothing during all
+the time we were adrift, but the things we saw were of the same stuff
+that the fog was made of. Early in the first day I saw a sail dimly
+outlined in the misty air. I called John's attention to it with a shout,
+and he saw it too, but, as we rowed toward it, the sail retreated and
+then disappeared. We thought that this was strange, for the wind was not
+strong enough to take a vessel away from us faster than we could row,
+and we were near enough to make ourselves heard. Soon, the sail appeared
+again, and again we shouted and rowed toward it, and again it glided
+away from us and disappeared, and again, and again, through the
+seemingly endless procession of the slow-moving hours of that first day,
+we chased the phantom ship.
+
+When night came on, there came with it a deepening sense of loneliness
+and isolation. The night was also very cold, the chill penetrated our
+thin clothing, and we were compelled to row the boat to keep ourselves,
+not warm, but a little less cold. The icebergs coming down on the Arctic
+Current hold the season back, and early June on the Banks is much like
+April on the Massachusetts coast. We tried to sleep lying down in the
+bottom of the boat with our heads in a trawl tub, but we were stiff with
+cold, the boat leaked badly, and it was necessary to get up frequently
+and bail out the water. The thought also that we might drift within
+sight or sound of a vessel, or within sight of a trawl buoy, made us
+afraid to sleep.
+
+The night finally wore away, the second day and night were like the
+first, the third like the first and second and the fourth day like
+another "cycle of Cathay." These four days and nights were like solitary
+confinement to the prisoner, the grim monotony and lack of incident
+contributing to the cumulative effect and accentuating the sense of
+helplessness and isolation. There was nothing to relieve the situation.
+We were like an army lying in trenches in the face of the enemy, waiting
+for the enemy's move.
+
+The fourth night we were startled by the sound of the fog horn of a
+sailing vessel. The wind was blowing almost a gale. We listened to get
+the direction, then sprang to the oars and rowed hard to intercept her,
+shouting, listening, rowing with all our strength, and willing, if need
+be, to be run down, in the chance of being seen and rescued. The horn
+finally sounded so near that it seemed that we could almost see the
+vessel, and we felt sure that they could hear our call. But our hearts
+sank as the sounds grew fainter and soon we were alone again with the
+wind and fog. The fifth day we heard the whistle of an ocean steamship.
+"We can surely head this one off," we thought, but she quickly passed
+us, too far away to see or hear. It was a bitter disappointment as this
+floating hotel, full of warmth, food, water, shelter and companionship,
+for the lack of each and all of which we were perishing, rushed by, so
+near, yet unconscious and unheeding, in too great a hurry to stop and
+listen to our cry for help. I have thought of this since, as I have
+hurried along with the crowd in the street of a great city and wondered,
+if we stopped to listen, what cry might come to us out of the deep.
+
+The fifth night the sea was running high. We were drifting with a trawl
+tub fastened to the "painter" as a drag to keep the boat headed to the
+wind, when it began to rain. I spread my oil jacket to catch the water,
+and we waited until we could collect enough for a drink, watching the
+drops eagerly, as we had tasted neither food nor water since leaving the
+vessel five days before. Just as we were about to drink, however, our
+boat shipped a sea, filling the oil jacket with salt water, and there
+was no more rain.
+
+Every day we passed great flocks of sea fowl floating on the water,
+coming frequently almost within an oar's length, but always just out of
+reach. We were in worse condition than the Ancient Mariner, with food as
+well as water everywhere about us, and not a morsel or a drop to eat or
+drink. Thirst is harder to endure than hunger, and yet hunger finally
+wakes up the wolf; and the time comes when even the thought of
+cannibalism can be entertained without horror. About this time John
+asked me, "Well, what do you think?"
+
+"Oh," I said, "I think that one of us will come out of it all right."
+
+He started, as if he thought that I had premature designs on him.
+
+"You need not be afraid," I said, "I'll not take advantage of you."
+
+He knew that I was the stronger and perhaps thought that if I felt as he
+did, his chances were very small.
+
+The sixth day, John seemed like a man overwhelmed with the horror of a
+situation that had gotten beyond his control. He cowered at the opposite
+end of the boat and had said nothing for a long time. Finally he opened
+a conversation with a person of whose presence I had not been conscious.
+
+"Jim," he said, "come, give me a piece."
+
+"Jim who?" I asked. "Piece of what? Where is he?"
+
+"Jim Woodbury," he answered, "don't you see him? There he is, hiding
+under that oil jacket. He's been there over half an hour, eating pie,
+and he won't give me any."
+
+I tried to laugh him out of his delusion, but the thing was real to him.
+Soon he jumped up and said: "I'm going on board; I'm tired of staying
+out here."
+
+"How will you get there?" I asked.
+
+"Walk," he answered, "the water ain't deep," and he started to get
+overboard.
+
+I caught him and pulled him back into the boat, not any too soon, for if
+he had gone overboard, the sharks would probably have gotten him, for
+they were not very far away. Every now and then I had seen their fins
+cutting the surface of the water, as they patrolled back and forth,
+waiting their time, or ours, as if they knew that it was only a question
+of time. Soon John started again to get overboard. This time I punished
+him so severely that he did not try it again. After that, I had to keep
+my eye on him constantly. His ravings about food were not particularly
+soothing to my feelings, for I was as hungry as he, only not so
+demonstrative about it.
+
+The seventh day drifted slowly by and the fog still held us captive. For
+a week we had had no food, no water, and scarcely any sleep; having our
+boots on continuously stopped the circulation in our feet with the same
+effect as if they had been frozen; we were chilled to the bone; my boat
+mate was insane. Since the whistle of the steamship had died away in the
+distance, two days before, no sound had come to us out of the fog but
+the voices of the wind and the swash of the waves. I knew the chart of
+the Banks and had a general idea as to where we were. There is a great
+barren tract on the Banks where few fish are found and fishermen seldom
+go, and we had drifted into this man-forsaken place. I had almost said
+"God-forsaken" too, but something began to shape itself in my mind about
+that time, that makes it difficult for me now to say this. Rather, as I
+look back on our experience, I feel more like claiming fellowship with
+the "wanderer" who called the place of his hardship "Bethel" because it
+was there, at the end of self and of favoring conditions, that he found
+God.
+
+
+
+
+THE PILOT
+
+
+I was near "the end of my rope"--I was not frightened, or discouraged;
+my mind was perfectly clear; I was not stampeded. Of course, I had
+thought of God and of prayer, but I was a skeptic, as I supposed, and
+considered both not proven. But the steady contemplation of the
+probability of death, for seven successive days, under conditions that
+compelled candor, raised questions that skepticism could not answer, and
+gave to my questions answers that skepticism could not refute. There
+comes a time, under such conditions, when common sense asserts itself
+and sophistry fails to satisfy. Since I made this discovery in my
+personal experience, I have learned that my case was not peculiar, but
+in keeping with a general law in human experience, long understood and
+admirably stated in the 107th Psalm. Such words as these have come "out
+of the depths" and it is sometimes necessary to go down into the depths
+to prove them to be true.
+
+"They wandered.... in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
+Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the
+Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses,
+and he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of
+habitation.... Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being
+bound in affliction and iron; because they rebelled against the words of
+God, and contemned the counsel of the Most High: therefore he brought
+down their heart with labor; they fell down and there was none to help.
+Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of
+their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of
+death, and brake their bands in sunder..... They that go down to the sea
+in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the
+Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the
+stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the
+heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because
+of trouble... they are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the Lord
+in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He
+maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are
+they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired
+haven."
+
+I had drifted into the "secret place," the door was shut, and it was the
+right time and place for me to pray. I saw that my life had been a
+failure, that I was absolutely worthless, and that, if death came then,
+there was not one good thing that I had ever done that would survive. In
+fact, I could think of nothing in my life that was worth remembering. I
+was not so much concerned about my own salvation as for another chance
+to live and to do an unselfish work in the world. And so I did what I
+thought then (and think still) was the only sane thing to do, I signaled
+for the Pilot.
+
+That night the rain came. I spread my oil jacket and caught an abundance
+of water of which we drank deeply. With this refreshment came new hope
+and new courage for the final struggle, if safety could be gained that
+way. I reviewed the situation and considered one by one the possible
+courses we might take. We seemed to be shut in to three things. The
+first possibility was to row to land; but the nearest land, the
+Newfoundland coast, was nearly three hundred miles away, and I decided
+that we did not have the time or the strength to reach it. The second
+possibility was to be picked up by a passing vessel; but this did not
+look encouraging, for two had already passed us. The third and last hope
+was to find a fishing vessel at anchor, and within a reasonable
+distance. This last possibility seemed almost probable. But _how_
+probable? Possibly within ten miles, probably within twenty-five,
+certainly within _fifty_, some fishermen were plying their trade,
+but _where_? There are thirty-two points of the compass, and by
+deviating one point at the center, a distance of fifty miles would bring
+us ten miles out of the way at the circumference. We could row fifty
+miles, but we cannot take chances. Yet there is a snug little fishing
+craft out there on the rim of the circle, waiting for us to find her!
+But _which way_ shall we go? I finally decided that this was a
+problem for the Pilot, and I left it with Him, satisfied that He
+understood His business and that if He had any orders for me, He knew
+how to communicate them.
+
+The eighth day came, and with it came an impulse to row the boat in a
+certain direction. This impulse was not unlike the thousands that had
+come to me before. There was nothing about it to indicate that its
+source was any higher than my own imagination. If this was a voice from
+above the fog, it was certainly a still, small one. It was unheeded at
+first, not unrecognized. Reason said that to conserve our strength we
+should sit still and wait for the lifting of the fog. Fear whispered
+that if I obeyed the impulse, we might be rowing directly away from
+safety. But the impulse persisted and prevailed.
+
+"Get up, John," I said, "we have a day's work ahead of us. We are going
+to row off in this direction."
+
+John responded automatically, fear acting in place of reason, but he was
+soon exhausted and lay down again. I kept on, however, resting now and
+then, and returning to the oars with the thought that fifty miles was a
+long distance and that we had a very small margin of time to our credit.
+Our course was with the wind, and nature worked with us all that eighth
+day and on into the night, as the pressure on me drove us toward our
+goal.
+
+About the middle of the eighth night I realized that I had reached the
+limit of my fighting strength. John was in worse condition than I, for I
+still had hope, but my hope was not in myself. Then I talked the
+situation over with the Pilot. We had nowhere else to go; we had come as
+far as we could; our time was nearly up--what of the night? and what of
+the morning? John was asleep; the world was a long way off: the sea and
+the mist seemed to have rolled over us and to have buried us ten
+thousand fathoms deep. But "out of the depths I cried," and I found the
+communication open.
+
+Between midnight and dawn the fog lifted and from the overhanging clouds
+the rain fell gently through the remainder of the night. John lay in his
+end of the boat, but I sat watching. Finally, as if in response to some
+secret signal, the darkness began its inevitable retreat and, as the
+night horizon receded, out of the gray of the morning, growing more and
+more distinct as the shadows fell away, appeared a dark object less than
+two miles distant, nebulous at first, then unmistakable in its
+character. It was a solitary fishing vessel lying at anchor, toward
+which we had been rowing and drifting unerringly all through the night
+and the day before.
+
+There it was! only a clumsy old fisherman, but it was the best thing in
+all the world to us, and it was anchored and could not get away!
+
+I do not recall the experience of any tumultuous emotion as this
+messenger of hope appeared on our horizon, but we knew that we were
+safe. How easy it is to write this simple word of four letters! but, to
+realize it, one must have a background of despair. Since that morning,
+the words "safe," "safety," "salvation," have always come to me
+freighted with reality.
+
+It is doubtful if any of the vessel's crew had seen our boat, as it was
+scarcely daylight and such a small object lying close to the water would
+not be readily discernible. I had thought, a few hours before, that my
+strength was entirely exhausted, but the sight of the vessel called out
+a reserve sufficient for the final effort.
+
+As I slowly brought our boat alongside, some of the crew were in
+evidence, getting ready for their day's work, and they seemed perplexed
+to account for our early morning call. But, when we came close to the
+vessel, our emaciated appearance evidently told the main outlines of our
+story. They called to the others in a foreign tongue and the whole crew
+crowded to the rail. One strong fellow jumped into our boat and lifted
+John up while others reached down to help. Then, with their assistance,
+I tumbled on board, stiff with cold and with feet like stone. They gave
+us brandy and took us to the warm cabin where breakfast was being
+prepared and it is difficult to say which was more grateful, the smell
+of food or the warmth of the fire. John was put into the captain's bunk.
+It was a good exchange for he was not far from "Davy Jones' locker." We
+had been on board only a few hours when the fog rolled back again and
+continued for some time afterward.
+
+The vessel was a French fishing brig from the island of St. Malo in the
+English Channel. None of the crew understood English and neither of us
+could speak French, but they understood the language of distress and
+kindness needs no interpreter. The captain showed me a calendar and
+pointed to the tenth of June, and when I pointed to the second he
+evidently found it hard to believe me, but John's condition helped to
+corroborate my statement. They let us eat as much as we wished, but
+nature protected us, for the process of eating was so painful at first
+that I felt like a sword swallower who had partaken too freely of his
+favorite dish. Fortunately, also, our hosts were living the simple life.
+Their menu consisted chiefly of sliced bread over which had been poured
+the broth of fish cooked in water and light wine, the same fish cooked
+in oil as a second course, bread and hardtack, and an occasional dish of
+beans, which seemed to be regarded by them as a luxury. They had an
+abundance of beer and light wine and in the morning before going to haul
+their trawls, coffee was served with brandy. Cooking was done on a brick
+platform, or fireplace, in the cabin, and the captain, the mate and all
+hands sat around one large dish placed on the cabin floor and each
+helped himself with his own spoon. A loaf of bread was passed around,
+each cutting off a slice with his own sheath knife. But notwithstanding
+simple food, frugal meals and primitive conditions, the hospitality was
+genuine and against the background of our recent hunger, thirst and
+general wretchedness, the place was heaven and our hosts were angels in
+thin disguise.
+
+In about ten days we were brought into St. Pierre, the French fishing
+town on the small rocky island of Miquelon, off the Newfoundland coast,
+the depot of the French fishing fleet and the only remaining foothold
+for the French of the vast empire once held by them between the North
+Atlantic and the Mississippi Valley. The American consul took us in
+charge, sending us to a sailors' boarding house and giving each of us a
+change of clothing. In another week we were sent on by steamer to
+Halifax, consigned to the American consul at that port. There John's
+feet proved to be in such bad condition that it was necessary to send
+him to the hospital, and, as gangrene had set in, a portion of each foot
+was amputated. He was "queer" for several weeks, but, with returning
+physical health, gradually recovered his mental equilibrium. After a few
+days in Halifax, I was sent on by steamer to Boston, bringing the first
+news of either our loss or our rescue.
+
+On reaching my home town I did not go to a boarding house; there was
+plenty of room for me in the home and I was contented to stay there for
+a while. The old salts received me as a long-lost brother, and while the
+official notice was never handed me, I was made to feel that somewhere
+in their inner consciousness I had been elected a regular member of the
+Amalgamated Society of Sea Dogs, and was entitled to an inside seat, if
+I could find one, about the stove of any shoemaker's shop in the Cove.
+The Banks were revisited in memory, and all the old fog experiences were
+brought out, amplified and elongated as far as possible, but it was
+conceded that we had established a new record in the nautical traditions
+of the Cove. It took several years for me to inch my way back to
+physical solvency from the effects of my exposure, and this delayed the
+carrying out of my plans, to which my fishing trips had been a prelude.
+
+The strange thing that I now have to record is that I soon forgot, or
+willfully ignored, my whole experience of God, prayer and deliverance,
+and became apparently more skeptical and indifferent than before. The
+only way I can explain this is that I had not become a Christian, and my
+dominant mental attitude reasserted itself when danger was past. I
+practically never attended church. My position and influence, however,
+were not merely negative; I was positively antagonistic to Christianity,
+and this attitude continued up to the April following.
+
+[Illustration: Dave Lived in a Beautiful Old Place Near the Shore and I
+Had Been in the Habit of Spending Many of My Sundays with Him]
+
+But while I forgot, I was not forgotten. God had begun a work in me, the
+continuation and completion of which waited on my willingness to
+cooperate, and the most powerful force in the world, that of believing
+and persistent prayer, was being released in my behalf. My mother was a
+woman of remarkable Christian character, with rare qualities of mind and
+heart, knowledge and love of the Scriptures, and a deep and genuine
+prayer life. Notwithstanding my lack of sympathy with her in the things
+most fundamental, she had confidence that the tide would turn with me.
+Her confidence, however, was not based on me. She knew the Lord and
+understood that it was not the sheep that went out after the Shepherd
+who was lost until it found Him. So she kept a well-worn path to the
+place of prayer.
+
+She was wise and said little to me on the subject, but I knew her life
+and what it was for which she was most deeply solicitous. She had taught
+me from the Bible as a boy, and many a cold winter night, though weary
+with a day filled with household cares, she had come to my room and
+"tucked me in" with prayer.
+
+My attitude toward Christianity in the winter following my second
+fishing trip on the Newfoundland Banks was different from that of the
+year before. Then I had been a skeptic, as I assumed, and declined
+responsibility for what to me was unknown and seemed to be unknowable.
+But, in the meantime, something had happened that had lifted this whole
+question with me from the realm of speculation to that of experience.
+The Pilot's response to my signal might, for the time, be ignored, but
+it could not be forgotten.
+
+But, by deliberately putting aside my convictions of God, prayer and
+deliverance, treating them as if they had no existence in fact, I had
+introduced an element of distrust of my own mental processes. The will
+had taken the place of judgment, and the result was confusion; I was in
+the fog. I never attended prayer meeting, but one Sunday night I was
+passing the chapel where such a meeting was being held. I had been there
+with my mother, as a boy, and while the meetings were "slow," they were
+pervaded with a true devotional spirit and a something real, though to
+me intangible and difficult to describe.
+
+Whether I was influenced by the memory of these boyhood glimpses into
+the spiritual world, or by the spirit of the scoffer and the cynic
+possessing me at that time, or by the still small voice that had pointed
+the way to safety only a few months before, I never fully knew, but I
+went in.
+
+The room was filled with people and a meeting was in progress, during
+which two men, old neighbors, whose lives I knew well, told the story of
+their recent conversion. One was Skipper Andrew Woodbury, a man of
+blameless life, but who had lived sixty-five years without religion. The
+other was my uncle by marriage, twenty years my senior, a close personal
+friend and familiarly called "Dave." I had been in the habit of spending
+many of my Sundays with him, as he was a non-church goer, companionable,
+genuine and open-hearted as the day. It was evident that he had found
+something that he wanted to share with his friends, and while I made
+light of it at the time, his testimony made a profound impression on me.
+
+Toward the close of the meeting the leader gave the invitation to those
+"who want to become Christians" to rise. No one stood up. Then he came
+within closer range and invited those "who would like to become
+Christians," but still no one responded. I was becoming interested and
+was almost disappointed when no one answered to this second invitation.
+Then he put up the proposition to those "who _have no objections_
+to becoming Christians." "He will get a lot of them on this call," I
+said to myself, but to my surprise, no one stirred. "Well," I thought,
+"this is too bad, but why couldn't I help him out? I have no objections
+to becoming a Christian," and I stood up. I slipped out of the meeting
+ahead of the crowd, but in my room that night before I went to bed, I
+found myself on my knees, trying to pray. I did not succeed very well.
+"Oh, what's the use?" I said, "there's nothing in it." But I lay awake
+far into the night, thinking, feeling the beating of my heart, wondering
+what kept it going and "what if it should stop suddenly?"
+
+But in less than a day these impressions had passed. I laughed them off
+and kept on in my own way. For six weeks I steered clear of Dave, but I
+did not want to lose his friendship, and then, too, I was rather curious
+to find out what, if anything, he had really discovered. So, one Sunday
+morning in early April, I drifted down to his home, as I had done so
+many times before. I stopped at my father's house on the way, and after
+a short visit, went on to Dave's. It was a pleasant morning, and I left
+my overcoat at home, as I had but a short distance to go.
+
+Dave lived in a beautiful old farmhouse near the shore, overlooking the
+harbor, and our Sunday program had been walking along the beach, or
+sitting around the house smoking, eating apples, drinking cider and
+killing time in the most unconventional way possible. "It's too bad," I
+thought, "that Dave has got religion, it spoils all our good times"; but
+I was hoping to find him less strenuous on the subject than when I had
+heard him in the chapel six weeks before. But Dave's conversion was so
+genuine and his enthusiasm so real that it was impossible for me
+entirely to resist and beat back the impact of his testimony.
+
+I concealed my impressions, however, and told him that no doubt he
+needed it, it was probably a good thing for him, I wouldn't say a word
+to discourage him, but as for me, I did not need that kind of medicine.
+He urged me to go to church with him, but I declined his invitation so
+positively that he did not renew it. "I'll walk along with you as far as
+the corner," I said, but when we came to the point of parting an impulse
+came to me to go with him. "Walk slow, Dave," I said, "I'll go in and
+get my coat and go to church with you." We were both surprised, he,
+because he had given up all hope of my going with him, and I, because
+ten seconds before I had no thought of going. I have often thought of it
+since, and never without a sense of profound thankfulness for the
+impulse that came to me that bright Sunday morning, at the parting of
+the ways.
+
+I went with Dave to church that morning, came back and spent the
+afternoon with him and went with him again to the evening service, after
+which I remained for personal conversation. Dave had exhausted his
+ammunition, but the man who talked with me had been practicing the
+Christian life for twenty-five years and was a man of fine personality,
+culture and business experience. He knew the Gospel and also knew human
+nature, and mine in particular, while I knew that he was genuine.
+
+"Charlie," he said, "don't you think it is time for you to be a
+Christian?"
+
+"No," I answered, "I can't be a hypocrite; I can't pretend to believe
+what I don't believe."
+
+"What is there that you can't believe?"
+
+"Well, there is the Bible, for instance."
+
+"Don't you believe the Bible?"
+
+"About as I believe Robinson Crusoe."
+
+"Do you think the trouble is with the Bible, or with yourself? Don't you
+think that, if you had faith, as a Christian man, the Bible would be a
+different book to you?"
+
+"That looks easy; of course, if I had faith I would be just as you are.
+But how can a man believe what he does not believe?"
+
+"Did you ever hear about prayer?"
+
+"Yes, I have heard something about it."
+
+"Don't you think that there is something in it?"
+
+"Yes, I am inclined to think there is." (I could not honestly deny it in
+the light of my experience.)
+
+"Well, don't you think that if you were to pray to God for faith, God
+would give it to you?"
+
+This question touched the spring of memory, and conscience showed me
+what it thought of me. I was ashamed of my littleness and of my
+unscientific attitude of mind in wilfully ignoring the greatest facts of
+my experience, and I was also ashamed of my ingratitude. And so, in an
+unguarded moment, that is, in a moment when my will was off its guard
+and my judgment asserted its right to be heard, I gave my answer to the
+question and the answer was, "Yes, I believe that He would."
+
+And then came the question, "Won't you do it?" This question
+precipitated the fight of my life. I do not remember how long my friend
+waited for my answer, but judging from the struggle in my mind, it must
+have been a long time. What would it mean for me to answer this question
+in the affirmative? First, it would mean the sacrifice of my
+independence; next, it would mean fellowship with a lot of so-called
+Christians, whose Christianity was not of a manly type; third, it would
+mean a step in the dark, and this seemed to me to be unreasonable. On
+the other hand, it might mean the winning of something better than that
+which I called independence; it might also mean fellowship with the
+really great characters of the Christian Church, and these men had
+always appeared very attractive to me. With this last thought came the
+question, How did these men live the victorious life? and it was clear
+to me that they lived it by faith. Then came the thought, How did they
+begin to have faith? and it seemed to me that this step in the dark,
+which I hesitated to take, was probably the very step by which these
+great men had passed from a life of unbelief to their victory of faith.
+
+This last thought came as a revelation. It had always seemed to me that
+faith was an experience of the emotions or a satisfying of the
+intellect, and that one might _obtain_ faith by the _initiative
+of the will_ was a new idea to me. If this was true, the step in the
+dark was not unreasonable but scientific and psychological. I was
+certainly in the dark then. It could be no darker if I went forward in
+the path to which my friend invited me. I decided therefore to take the
+step and to pray for faith, hoping that in the process I should find a
+Christian experience. And so I answered, "Yes, I'll do it."
+
+My friend prayed with me and then I prayed, but all that I could say was
+"Lord, show me the way." I was not conscious of any special interest, I
+had simply willed to pray and wanted to believe. I had won the fight
+with myself, however, to the extent of getting the consent of my will to
+pray and to trust, but I realized that the battle with myself was only
+begun and I knew also that I had another fight ahead of me, or a series
+of them, with the conditions that hemmed me in and seemed to make the
+Christian life impracticable.
+
+One of these adverse conditions was my relations with the men in my
+boarding house. How could I go back and tell them that I had decided to
+do the thing that I had ridiculed and scoffed at in their presence? Of
+course this was pure cowardice; I was afraid of their ridicule. But the
+break was made easier for me than I feared it would be. I found on
+entering the smoking room of the boarding house, that "Uncle Dick Moss,"
+a rank spiritualist, had the floor. He was on his high horse and was
+charging up and down the room in the midst of a bitter and blatant
+Ingersollian tirade against Christianity and the Bible. The crowd was
+cheering him on. The day before, this probably would have amused me and
+I might have followed him, supporting his arguments, or rather
+assertions--there were no arguments.
+
+But during the twelve hours that had just passed I had been facing
+realities and Uncle Dick's exhibition disgusted me. So when he had
+quieted down, I decided that it was time for me to run up my colors. If
+the break had to come, it had better come then. "Uncle Dick," I said,
+"you have been talking about something that you don't know anything
+about. Here you are swallowing spiritualism, hook, bob and sinker, and
+having trouble with the Bible and the only religion that can do the
+business that we need to have done. The trouble with you is that you are
+afraid that the Bible will upset your spiritualism, and you don't dare
+to investigate the Bible and stand by the result of your investigation.
+I'm tired of this whole business, and I have made up my mind to
+investigate the Bible and, if it is what I think it is, to try to live
+by it. I am going to be a Christian."
+
+A shout and a laugh went up. I was called "Deacon," and it was suggested
+that I lead in prayer or at least make a few remarks. But I had said
+enough to put myself on record and it was hardly to be expected that
+they would take me seriously on such short notice. When it came time to
+go to bed I felt that in order not to be misunderstood I must pray in
+the presence of my roommate. He was a cynic and a nothingarian and I
+felt sure that he would neither understand nor appreciate it. It was
+hard to bring it about, as he kept on talking in a way that seemed to
+give me no opportunity to turn the subject naturally. I was tempted to
+let it pass, but felt that, if I did, it would be fatal to my new-formed
+purpose. So finally, in almost an agony of awkwardness, I blurted out,
+"Jim, I don't care what you think about it, I'm going to pray." Jim
+proved to be entirely mild and agreeable about it, however, and gave me
+his blessing in a patronizing sort of a way. The next day I burned my
+bridges behind me by packing my trunk and going home.
+
+Up to this time I was conscious of nothing unusual. What things had
+taken place I had done myself and it had been entirely within my own
+option and power to do or not to do them. I had received the testimony
+of at least four witnesses of the fact of conversion and the reality of
+the Christian life; I had relaxed the opposition of my will and given my
+judgment a chance to act; I had taken advice from experience; I had
+prayed; I had turned my face toward the Christian life; I had cut loose
+from conditions unfriendly to Christian experience, and I was trying to
+be a Christian. But I was still in the fog.
+
+For the next three days I worked very hard trying to be a Christian. I
+attended a meeting each night, rose for prayer, prayed, did everything I
+was told to do, and as much more as I could think of. The burden of my
+prayer and of my requests for prayer was that I might have faith. I
+wanted to get something that I thought every Christian had, or must have
+in order to be a Christian, and so far as I knew, I was willing to pay
+the price. But nothing resulted, except the natural weariness from my
+own exertions. I was still in the fog.
+
+The fifth day was "Fast Day," a good old New England institution, with a
+prayer meeting in the morning, which I attended and at which I rose for
+prayer. In the afternoon was a union service, with a civic or
+semi-religious topic, but I attended it, as I did not want anything to
+get by me that might contribute to the solution of my problem. There was
+scarcely anything about the service that was calculated to make a
+spiritual impression. The address was poor, as also was the music. I
+tried to follow the argument, but finally gave it up and began to think
+about that which had been uppermost in my mind for the five days past.
+The thing baffled me; the object of my quest had eluded my every effort
+to grasp it. The experience of the five days was new, but it contained
+nothing but that which could be accounted for by purely natural causes.
+I reviewed the whole period to see if I had left out any essential part
+of the formula. Was it possible that my skepticism had been well
+founded, that there was nothing in the so-called "Christian experience"
+after all? It was about four o'clock in the afternoon of the fifth day
+since I had set my face toward the Christian life and I was still in the
+fog.
+
+But I was weary with the effort, and as I thought it over, I said to
+myself "What are you trying to do?" and the answer was, "I am trying to
+be a Christian." Then it dawned upon me that _trying_ was not
+_trusting_; that, if I succeeded in my effort, I should have only a
+self-made product and not the religion of the Bible and that it was
+unreasonable for me to expect the results of faith before exercising
+faith itself. I was stumbling at the very simplicity of faith. I was
+working to win what God was waiting to give, while my latent faculty of
+faith, the greatest asset in personality, was lying worthless through
+disuse. I thought of my experience on the ocean, when finally, helpless
+to help myself, I had left my whole problem with the Pilot and He had
+taken command and brought us through to safety, and so I deliberately
+gave up the struggle and said to myself, "It is right for me to serve
+God and to live for Him, and I will do it whether I have what they call
+an 'experience' or not." And, having settled the question, I dismissed
+it and waited for instructions.
+
+[Illustration: It Came as Quietly as the Daylight Comes When the Night
+is Done]
+
+And then something happened, for, from without, surprising me with its
+presence, like the discovery of a welcome but unexpected guest, there
+came into my life a deep, great, overflowing peace. I had never known it
+before, and therefore I could not by any possibility have imagined it;
+but, I recognized it as something from God. It was not sensational, it
+came quietly; as quietly "as the daylight comes when the night is done."
+It was not emotional, unless it was in itself an emotion. But emotions
+are transient and this had come to stay.
+
+With the peace, there came also something that seemed to be a
+reinforcement of my life principle, an achieving power, a disposition to
+dare and an ability to do that which hitherto had seemed impossible; and
+the petty pessimism of the past gave way before this new consciousness.
+
+With this deep incoming tide of peace and power came a clearing of the
+mental atmosphere, and I saw that the fog had lifted. When I saw this, I
+said to myself quietly, "I think I am a Christian," and almost
+immediately added, "I am a Christian!"
+
+The fog had passed, and the drifting was over; I had come within sight
+of land. What land it was I did not then know, but it proved to be a new
+world. How great it is I do not yet fully understand, but I have been
+exploring it thirty years and I think it is a continent.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Out of the Fog, by C. K. Ober
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