Installment Eight

Yesterday we left Harold making his way to the ship that will take him to
Japan. But this journey will be different from the one before. Now he has
found a replacement for the marked Bible he threw overboard years ago.
This time he is determined to read it.
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Installment eight

Once he was on board, Harold had sometime to meditate:
"Now I am starting on another trip, not because I wish, but because I must.
I am compelled to leave America until I can show that I am a man worth
trusting. But I have no mother and no friends.
No friends? Yes. I have one. I have this Bible. It seems like a mother and
a friend to me. Then that old man at the pier was a good man. He seemed
to understand me. When he prayed something gripped my heart and I
was really glad when he told me I could take the Bible with me. But he
sure said some queer things and he sounded a lot like my mother.
I remember that mother used to tell me that we ought to keep the Ten
Commandments, all of them. She said she didn't understand why
Christians keep Sunday when the Bible says we should observe the
seventh day. But that old gentleman keeps the day mother thought
people ought to keep. The queer thing about this whole business is
the Bible he gave me. In the first place it looks like the one I threw
away; and besides, it is marked almost the same - the same texts,
the same kind of ink, explanations in the margin, and a message
written on the flyleaf. But - what's that?" He now spoke aloud.
He had suddenly been aroused by a voice which seemed like a
ghost of times long since gone. He glanced back, but seeing no one,
concluded he must have been mistaken. But again he heard it. And
this time he looked toward the bridge. There stood captain Mann!
Yes, it was the same old captain, the hero of the 'Alaska Transport,'
who was now in command of this great trans-Pacific passenger liner.
Harold Wilson was almost overcome with emotion. His heart palpitated
with joy. Deep in his heart there was a something which seemed to
tell him that during this journey across the sea he was to learn the
secret of a better life and that the man of prayer on the bridge had
been given to aid him.

It was several days before the opportunity came to the young man
to meet and greet the man he so much revered.
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To be continued.....