ir
need, even when in their joy they had turned away from Him.

Help came to these sailors tossed on the wide, wild sea, but it did not
come in the way that they had hoped. At first it seemed only like
greater peril, for through the haze which darkened the sea, the dim
outline of land was seen, standing high, sharp, and dark against the
sky.

What land it could be they did not know. In such rough charts as they
possessed, no rock even was marked, no speck of land for many hundred
miles on either side the place where they were now fighting for their
lives.

The ship was driven nearer and nearer, and, so far as the mariners could
tell, they were being driven to certain destruction, for what ship could
hope to avoid the terrible wall of rocks before them, or live in the
white seething waters which boiled at its foot. A shout, an eager
wondering cry, from one of the sailors, roused his comrades; he was
pointing to a narrow inlet between the rocks, on either side of which
the sand lay smooth and low--if they could only gain that opening there
might yet be hope. But the ship was past all guidance, and the only
chance of life seemed to lie in the boats, which might be directed up
the narrow inlet, so that the men might land in safety on its shores. At
last the anxious, terrified sailors stood safely on the beach, watching
the still raging sea as it washed to their feet plank and mast and
rudder of their now broken ship.

Their first thought was to offer thanks to God who had delivered them,
and then they began to look around at this strange unknown land on which
they had been thrown.

"Let us build ourselves a shelter with the planks of the broken ship,
she will never sail blue water again," said one sailor.

"Nay," replied another, "rather let us build a house for God, let us
leave a church on this island. We need no shelter in the warm May
weather, no rain will fall for months yet, I warrant, and some of those
rare trees yonder will be our fittest roof."

"But of what use can a church be when none dwell here to worship?" asked
a third.

"Doubtless many will come to dwell here when we return home and tell the
story of the new land, and many ships will stay here to rest the sailors
and to gather stores. Were it not well done that they should find
prepared a place which should remind them of their duty to their God,
and of His care of them?"

"And," said the captain, speaking now for the first time, "were it not
we