t is a most difficult
thing to search for a drowning person, especially in muddy water. I had
to make this attempt again and again, and sometimes the fear has crept
over me that my exertions would be in vain, when I made the most
prodigious and exhausting efforts. And that I have never failed, in a
single instance, is to me a source of great gratitude to God, "in whose
hand my breath is, and whose are all my ways."'

[Sidenote: AN INSTANCE OF HIS PLUCK.]

'I remember once I had my leg crushed between our packet and the pier,
and for some days after I could not walk without the aid of crutches.
One day I got down to the South End, but soon felt tired, and returned
home; but after a short rest, I again went to the pier, when I was told
that, during my short absence, a cabman, named Sharpe, had fallen into
the harbour and was drowned. I was filled with indescribable distress at
the news, and said, "If I had been here I would have saved him, despite
my broken leg. At least I would have tried." A man, who professed to be
a great swimmer, was present, and he answered, "O, I can swim as well as
you can," when my muscles began to quiver, and my blood to throb, and I
replied, in no very good temper, I assure you. "I dispute that, unless
you mean now that I have my broken leg. Why did'nt you try to save him?"
I always felt that I would much rather have the satisfaction of having
tried to save a drowning person and fail, than have the miserable
satisfaction of shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders and saying,
"Oh, I knew it would be of no use trying to save him; it was foolish to
try." "I could have done it," never saved a drowning man. "I will try,"
has enabled me, under God, to save fifty of my fellow creatures.

'I do not wish to intimate that every man who sees a fellow creature
drowning, ought to plunge into the water to rescue that person. Indeed,
I have seen two or three instances where men, who could not swim
themselves, have jumped into the water to save the drowning, and in
every instance the consequences have nearly been fatal. Before a person
makes such an attempt, he should have tested his own ability to swim. If
he can float himself and believes he can save the drowning person, he
ought to make the attempt, and God will help him. This is not mere
theory, but what I have felt again and again. Ever after my conversion
to God, I used to pray, when plunging into the water, "Lord help me,"
and knowing as I did, tha