BEN BOLTSome time since, in the story of a wasted life, we depicted the results of intemperance and the terrible grasp which this vice fastens upon its victims, alas, but seldom broken. Lest our young readers should be left to imagine that reformation is hopeless, we will relate the story of Ben Bolt.Ben Bolt was an English sailor about forty years of age, and a very powerful man, of an iron frame and constitution and a choice man on board ship. He was withal intelligent, having received a good common school education, and of most excellent disposition even when in liquor. He was honest as the sun, was never known to back out of a ship, cheat his landlord, or run away after getting his month’s advance. Ben was an excellent singer, and obtained his name from a song called “Ben Bolt,” that he was very fond of singing. What his real appellation was, for many years I did not know. He had noneof the vices common to seamen except drinking, and that he had to perfection, insomuch that he was seldom sober while on shore.I was conscious of a singular attraction towards Ben; I liked him; and whenever I could catch him comparatively sober, endeavored to wean him from his cups. Sailors are, in general, inclined to relate incidents of their life, and if they have religious or well-to-do parents, to speak of them with satisfaction and honest pride. Ben, however, was reticent in this respect.One day I was sitting at an open window in the reading room of the Sailors’ Home, and Ben was seated on the piazza outside singing a psalm in a low tone; at the conclusion he turned, and seeing me, said:—“Parson, I’ve sung that psalm many times in the parish church at home.”Then, as though afraid I might pursue the subject further, abruptly left. I judged from this that during his youth he might have sung in the church choir; at any rate he could read music, had a thorough knowledge of it, and was a skilful player on the violin.There were two hundred grog shops within a short distance of the Home, several withinthree or four rods of the door, and every inducement was held out to encourage seamen to drink. Ben had shipped for New Orleans, but when the hour came for the vessel to sail, he was missing. The superintendent of the Home told the “runners” to go to Ben’s room, get a key, open his chest, and see if he had got his outfit of sea-clothes and was ready to go, and if so, to search among the grog shops and find him; but if he had not got his outfit, he would take a man who was ready and put Ben in another vessel.I happened to be in the entry when they came upstairs, and went into the room with them. They opened the chest, and there were his oil clothes, sea-boots, woollens, and every part of his outfit, and stowed snugly away among the flannels a two-gallon jug of whiskey. One of the “runners” took it and was about to pour the liquor out of the window, but I interfered, saying:—“You have no right to pour his liquor out; he bought it and paid for it and worked hard to earn the money.”“It is against the rules of the house to bring liquor into it.”“Well, it is here now.”“When he goes aboard, the mate of that ship will throw it overboard. The last time he went from here he carried a jug, and the mate of the ship took all their liquor away, for every man in the forecastle had a jug.”“Well, the mate can do as he likes, but you shan’t pour it out.”I put the jug back and sat down on the chest to wait for Ben. The “runners” did not succeed in finding him at his usual haunts, and, as time was pressing, another man was taken and Ben left behind. I knew he had a noble spirit of his own, and that taking liquor from him by force had accomplished nothing in the past, and I resolved to make an effort in another direction. I had some temperance tracts, written by the boatswain of an English man-of-war, discussing the evils of intemperance from the sailor’s standpoint, which I knew had produced impressions upon many sailors. I spread one of these over the jug, then took a Bible and opened to the twenty-ninth verse of the twenty-third chapter of Proverbs, locked the chest, and went away.The doors of the Home were locked at twelve o’clock, and those who were not in by that time must stay out. Ben came home, asthe watchman told me, about ten minutes before twelve pretty decidedly drunk. Finding himself safe in his room, he concluded as he was not going in the ship, and didn’t need the whiskey to carry to sea, he would have a good drink and turn in. Opening the chest, he saw the tract and read it, espied the Bible and read that, the result of which was that he turned in without tasting the whiskey. When he waked in the morning, he read the tract again, then took the jug, turned the liquor out of the window, and broke the vessel on the window-sill. At breakfast he told the “runners” what he had done. Upon this they told him of what had taken place the previous afternoon, and who had placed the tracts and Bible in his chest beside the rum jug. He then came into my room, the tears on his cheeks, exclaiming:—“Parson, you wouldn’t let ’em pour out my whiskey.”“No, Ben.”“Well, I’ve poured it out and broke the jug, and so help me God not another drop of whiskey shall pass my lips. Rum and I have fell out. There’s two kinds of drunk, being drunk in the head and in the legs. I wasdrunk in the legs last night; I had all I could do to get upstairs, but my head was clear enough to read that tract and take the sense of it. The boatswain of that man-of-war talks well ’cause he talks from experience. I also read the Good Book and took the sense of that. I went to the “runners,” and they told me you wouldn’t let ’em pour out the whiskey. Ah, that took hold. I knew it wasn’t ’cause you wanted me to drink liquor that you wouldn’t let ’em pour it out. I knew you was a bitter enemy to liquor, but a good friend to the man who drinks it. Don’t think I’ve forgotten all the good words you’ve said to me during the four or five years I’ve been knocking about this house drunk. I’ve thought of ’em in the middle watch at sea when I was myself. I’ve thought of these bloodsuckers round this house trying to get my money away from me, to take the clothes off my back and the shoes off my feet, and you trying to get me out of their clutches and save my soul; and I’ve thought if ever I got ashore again, I’d ship in with you and sign the articles, and now I am going to do it.”“Are you really determined to leave offdrinking, or is it a mere impulse of the moment?”“I never was more resolved to get drunk when I had come off a long voyage than I now am to keep sober.”“You cannot do this in your own strength. I have known hundreds attempt it and fail; you do not, cannot realize the struggle it will cost. Let us ask help of God.”We knelt down together. When I had finished, I asked him to pray; he said he could not.“Then repeat the Lord’s Prayer with me; we are together in this thing and must both have our hands on the rope.” He did so, and added to it,” God, be merciful to me a sinner.”“Your appetites and passions, Ben, have got you under their feet, and you must have help outside of yourself; so long as you seek it where we have sought it together this morning you will succeed.”The next week he shipped for Australia. For five years I had seen him go from the house on different voyages, and he had always gone so intoxicated as to be barely able to sit in the wagon and unable to get aboard withouthelp. The captain or mate would often say to the “runners”:—“What did you bring that drunken fellow here for? I was to have good men from your place.” And the invariable reply would be:—“Captain, he will be the best man in the ship when the rum’s out of him. He’s a bully man.”This time he went aboard sober and fit for any duty, and came home as second mate of the ship. He was no longer Ben Bolt, but men who had been in the ship with him and whom he brought to the Home, called him Mr. Adams, William Adams.Note these two characters so strikingly different in circumstances and in results.George L., spoken of in “A Wasted Life,” after several struggles for victory over appetite, yielded and died by his own hand. William Adams conquered, continued steadfast through life, and accumulated property. George L. had youth on his side, a mother’s affection and many kind friends to encourage him, and he made shipwreck. Adams at forty years of age was a confirmed drunkard, all his associates were in the practice of the same vice, allleagued together to drag him back, and with but one friend to take him by the hand and encourage him to a better course. George L. had a home, his flute, books, and steady employment. He could attend lectures, find innocent amusement, and good society. Adams was in the narrow compass of a ship’s forecastle, where all the conversation among his shipmates was in respect to the debauchery they had practised while on shore and meant to practise again at the first opportunity. George L., if he had been so minded, could have turned down the next street and got clear of his evil companions, but Adams could not, and when the vessel arrived in a foreign port, and the crew had money given them and liberty to go ashore, the pressure was terrible. You may say, he could stay on board and let them go; so he did. But if you think this was an easy matter for a person of his previous habits, all I can say is, you don’t know what sailors are, and are entirely incapable of forming any conception of the strength of that instinct which leads a sailor to go with his shipmates either in good or evil. We talk about the strength of the college tie; the college tie is a spider’s web in the contrast.Why, I have frequently known the whole watch in a crew of men who had just come off a long voyage to insist on sleeping in the same room, three in a bed, and the rest on the floor, because they had been so long together in the forecastle in the same watch; but after three or four nights they would pair off and take rooms two together.All these trials, temptations, and discouragements Adams met and surmounted. I attribute the failure of George L. to the fact that he trusted in himself, and the success of Adams to the fact that he went out of himself at the very outset, went to God for aid. In his case it was the moral force supplementing the will that had become well-nigh powerless which decided a contest in which character, consideration, and happiness both here and hereafter, were at stake. All the talk at present is about forces of various kinds; but if a young man would have real force of character and wage a successful contest, let him seek for it where William Adams sought and found.
Some time since, in the story of a wasted life, we depicted the results of intemperance and the terrible grasp which this vice fastens upon its victims, alas, but seldom broken. Lest our young readers should be left to imagine that reformation is hopeless, we will relate the story of Ben Bolt.
Ben Bolt was an English sailor about forty years of age, and a very powerful man, of an iron frame and constitution and a choice man on board ship. He was withal intelligent, having received a good common school education, and of most excellent disposition even when in liquor. He was honest as the sun, was never known to back out of a ship, cheat his landlord, or run away after getting his month’s advance. Ben was an excellent singer, and obtained his name from a song called “Ben Bolt,” that he was very fond of singing. What his real appellation was, for many years I did not know. He had noneof the vices common to seamen except drinking, and that he had to perfection, insomuch that he was seldom sober while on shore.
I was conscious of a singular attraction towards Ben; I liked him; and whenever I could catch him comparatively sober, endeavored to wean him from his cups. Sailors are, in general, inclined to relate incidents of their life, and if they have religious or well-to-do parents, to speak of them with satisfaction and honest pride. Ben, however, was reticent in this respect.
One day I was sitting at an open window in the reading room of the Sailors’ Home, and Ben was seated on the piazza outside singing a psalm in a low tone; at the conclusion he turned, and seeing me, said:—
“Parson, I’ve sung that psalm many times in the parish church at home.”
Then, as though afraid I might pursue the subject further, abruptly left. I judged from this that during his youth he might have sung in the church choir; at any rate he could read music, had a thorough knowledge of it, and was a skilful player on the violin.
There were two hundred grog shops within a short distance of the Home, several withinthree or four rods of the door, and every inducement was held out to encourage seamen to drink. Ben had shipped for New Orleans, but when the hour came for the vessel to sail, he was missing. The superintendent of the Home told the “runners” to go to Ben’s room, get a key, open his chest, and see if he had got his outfit of sea-clothes and was ready to go, and if so, to search among the grog shops and find him; but if he had not got his outfit, he would take a man who was ready and put Ben in another vessel.
I happened to be in the entry when they came upstairs, and went into the room with them. They opened the chest, and there were his oil clothes, sea-boots, woollens, and every part of his outfit, and stowed snugly away among the flannels a two-gallon jug of whiskey. One of the “runners” took it and was about to pour the liquor out of the window, but I interfered, saying:—
“You have no right to pour his liquor out; he bought it and paid for it and worked hard to earn the money.”
“It is against the rules of the house to bring liquor into it.”
“Well, it is here now.”
“When he goes aboard, the mate of that ship will throw it overboard. The last time he went from here he carried a jug, and the mate of the ship took all their liquor away, for every man in the forecastle had a jug.”
“Well, the mate can do as he likes, but you shan’t pour it out.”
I put the jug back and sat down on the chest to wait for Ben. The “runners” did not succeed in finding him at his usual haunts, and, as time was pressing, another man was taken and Ben left behind. I knew he had a noble spirit of his own, and that taking liquor from him by force had accomplished nothing in the past, and I resolved to make an effort in another direction. I had some temperance tracts, written by the boatswain of an English man-of-war, discussing the evils of intemperance from the sailor’s standpoint, which I knew had produced impressions upon many sailors. I spread one of these over the jug, then took a Bible and opened to the twenty-ninth verse of the twenty-third chapter of Proverbs, locked the chest, and went away.
The doors of the Home were locked at twelve o’clock, and those who were not in by that time must stay out. Ben came home, asthe watchman told me, about ten minutes before twelve pretty decidedly drunk. Finding himself safe in his room, he concluded as he was not going in the ship, and didn’t need the whiskey to carry to sea, he would have a good drink and turn in. Opening the chest, he saw the tract and read it, espied the Bible and read that, the result of which was that he turned in without tasting the whiskey. When he waked in the morning, he read the tract again, then took the jug, turned the liquor out of the window, and broke the vessel on the window-sill. At breakfast he told the “runners” what he had done. Upon this they told him of what had taken place the previous afternoon, and who had placed the tracts and Bible in his chest beside the rum jug. He then came into my room, the tears on his cheeks, exclaiming:—
“Parson, you wouldn’t let ’em pour out my whiskey.”
“No, Ben.”
“Well, I’ve poured it out and broke the jug, and so help me God not another drop of whiskey shall pass my lips. Rum and I have fell out. There’s two kinds of drunk, being drunk in the head and in the legs. I wasdrunk in the legs last night; I had all I could do to get upstairs, but my head was clear enough to read that tract and take the sense of it. The boatswain of that man-of-war talks well ’cause he talks from experience. I also read the Good Book and took the sense of that. I went to the “runners,” and they told me you wouldn’t let ’em pour out the whiskey. Ah, that took hold. I knew it wasn’t ’cause you wanted me to drink liquor that you wouldn’t let ’em pour it out. I knew you was a bitter enemy to liquor, but a good friend to the man who drinks it. Don’t think I’ve forgotten all the good words you’ve said to me during the four or five years I’ve been knocking about this house drunk. I’ve thought of ’em in the middle watch at sea when I was myself. I’ve thought of these bloodsuckers round this house trying to get my money away from me, to take the clothes off my back and the shoes off my feet, and you trying to get me out of their clutches and save my soul; and I’ve thought if ever I got ashore again, I’d ship in with you and sign the articles, and now I am going to do it.”
“Are you really determined to leave offdrinking, or is it a mere impulse of the moment?”
“I never was more resolved to get drunk when I had come off a long voyage than I now am to keep sober.”
“You cannot do this in your own strength. I have known hundreds attempt it and fail; you do not, cannot realize the struggle it will cost. Let us ask help of God.”
We knelt down together. When I had finished, I asked him to pray; he said he could not.
“Then repeat the Lord’s Prayer with me; we are together in this thing and must both have our hands on the rope.” He did so, and added to it,” God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
“Your appetites and passions, Ben, have got you under their feet, and you must have help outside of yourself; so long as you seek it where we have sought it together this morning you will succeed.”
The next week he shipped for Australia. For five years I had seen him go from the house on different voyages, and he had always gone so intoxicated as to be barely able to sit in the wagon and unable to get aboard withouthelp. The captain or mate would often say to the “runners”:—
“What did you bring that drunken fellow here for? I was to have good men from your place.” And the invariable reply would be:—
“Captain, he will be the best man in the ship when the rum’s out of him. He’s a bully man.”
This time he went aboard sober and fit for any duty, and came home as second mate of the ship. He was no longer Ben Bolt, but men who had been in the ship with him and whom he brought to the Home, called him Mr. Adams, William Adams.
Note these two characters so strikingly different in circumstances and in results.
George L., spoken of in “A Wasted Life,” after several struggles for victory over appetite, yielded and died by his own hand. William Adams conquered, continued steadfast through life, and accumulated property. George L. had youth on his side, a mother’s affection and many kind friends to encourage him, and he made shipwreck. Adams at forty years of age was a confirmed drunkard, all his associates were in the practice of the same vice, allleagued together to drag him back, and with but one friend to take him by the hand and encourage him to a better course. George L. had a home, his flute, books, and steady employment. He could attend lectures, find innocent amusement, and good society. Adams was in the narrow compass of a ship’s forecastle, where all the conversation among his shipmates was in respect to the debauchery they had practised while on shore and meant to practise again at the first opportunity. George L., if he had been so minded, could have turned down the next street and got clear of his evil companions, but Adams could not, and when the vessel arrived in a foreign port, and the crew had money given them and liberty to go ashore, the pressure was terrible. You may say, he could stay on board and let them go; so he did. But if you think this was an easy matter for a person of his previous habits, all I can say is, you don’t know what sailors are, and are entirely incapable of forming any conception of the strength of that instinct which leads a sailor to go with his shipmates either in good or evil. We talk about the strength of the college tie; the college tie is a spider’s web in the contrast.
Why, I have frequently known the whole watch in a crew of men who had just come off a long voyage to insist on sleeping in the same room, three in a bed, and the rest on the floor, because they had been so long together in the forecastle in the same watch; but after three or four nights they would pair off and take rooms two together.
All these trials, temptations, and discouragements Adams met and surmounted. I attribute the failure of George L. to the fact that he trusted in himself, and the success of Adams to the fact that he went out of himself at the very outset, went to God for aid. In his case it was the moral force supplementing the will that had become well-nigh powerless which decided a contest in which character, consideration, and happiness both here and hereafter, were at stake. All the talk at present is about forces of various kinds; but if a young man would have real force of character and wage a successful contest, let him seek for it where William Adams sought and found.