CHAPTER XIII. There has been a time when a ship's chief mate, pocketbook in hand, and pencil behind his ear, kept one eye aloft upon his rigors, and the other down the hatchway on the stevedores, and watching the disposition of his ship's cargo, knowing that even before she started, he was already doing his best to secure for her an easy and quick passage. The hurry of the times, the loading and discharging organization of the docks, the use of hoisting machinery which works quickly and will not wait, the cry for prompt dispatch, the very size of his ship, stand nowadays between the modern seamen and the thorough knowledge of his craft. There are profitable ships and unprofitable ships. The profitable ship will carry a large load through all the hazards of the weather, and when at rest will stand up in dock and shift from birth to birth without ballast. There is a point of perfection in a ship as a worker when she has spoken of as being able to sail without ballast. I have never met that sort of paragon myself, but I have seen those paragons advertised amongst ships for sail. Such excess of virtue and good nature on the part of a ship always provided my distrust. It is open to any man to say that his ship will sail without ballast, and he will say it too with every mark of prevailed conviction, especially if he is not going to sail in her himself. The risk of advertising her as able to sail without ballast is not great, since the statement does not imply a warranty of her arriving anywhere. Moreover, it is strictly true that most ships will sail without ballast for some little time before they turn turtle upon the crew. A ship owner loves a profitable ship. The seamen is proud of her. A doubt of her good looks seldom exists in his mind, but if he can boast of her more useful qualities, it is an added satisfaction for his self-love. The loading of ships was once a matter of skill, judgment, and knowledge. Thick books have been written about it. Stevens on Stowage is a portly volume with the renown in weight. In its own world of coke on Littleton. Stevens is an agreeable writer, and as in the case with men of talent, his gifts adorn his sterling soundness. He gives you the official teaching on the whole subject is precise as to rules, mentions illustrative events, quotes law cases where verdicts turned upon a point of stowage. He is never pedantic, and for all his close adherents to broad principles, he is ready to admit that no two ships can be treated exactly alike. Steve Adoring, which had been a skilled labor, is fast becoming a labor without the skill. The modern steamship with her many holds is not loaded within the sailor-like meaning of the word.  Her cargo is not stowed in any sense. It is simply dumped into her through six hatchways more or less by twelve winches or so with clatter and hurry and racket and heat in the cloud of steam and a mess of cold dust. As long as you keep her propeller underwater and take care, say, not to fling down barrels of oil on top of bales of silk, or deposit an iron bridge girder of five ton or so upon a bed of coffee-bags, you have done about all in the way of duty that the cry for prompt ill-spatch will allow you to do. CHAPTER XIV The sailing ship, when I knew her in her days of perfection, was a sensible creature. When I say her days of perfection, I mean perfection of build, gear, seaworthy qualities, and ease of handling, not the perfection of speed. That quality has departed with the change of building material. No iron ship of yesterday ever attained the marvels of speed which the seamanship of men famous in their time had obtained from their wooden copper-sheeted predecessors. Everything had been done to make the iron ship perfect, but no wit of man had managed to devise an efficient coating composition to keep her bottom clean with the smooth cleanness of yellow metal sheeting. After a spell of a few weeks at sea, an iron ship begins to lag as if she had grown tired too soon. It is only her bottom that is getting foul. A very little affects the speed of an iron ship which is not driven on by a merciless propeller.  A certain mysteriousness hangs around the quality of speed as it was displayed by the old sailing ships commanded by a competent seamen. In those days the speed depended upon the seamen, therefore, apart from the laws, rules, and regulations for the good preservation of his cargo, he was careful of his loading or what is technically called the trim of his ship. Some ships sailed fast on an even keel, others had to be trimmed quite one foot by the stern, and I have heard of a ship that gave her best speed on a wind when so loaded as to float a couple of inches by the head. I call to mind a winter landscape in Amsterdam, a flat foreground of wasteland with here and there stacks of timber like the huts of a camp of some very miserable tribe, the long stretch of the handle-skade, cold stone-faced quays with the snow-sprinkled ground and the hard frozen water of the canal in which were set ships one behind another with their frosting mooring ropes hanging slack and their decks idle and deserted, because as the master stevedore, a gentle pale person with a few golden hairs on his chin and a redden nose, informed me their cargoes were frozen in upcountry on barges and chutes. In the distance beyond the waste ground and running parallel with the line of ships, a line of brown, warm-toned houses seemed bowed under snow-laden roof. From afar at the end of Tsar Peter Strait, issued in the frosty air the tinkle of bells of the horse-tram cars appearing and disappearing in the opening between the buildings like little toy carriages harnessed with toy horses and played with by people that appeared no bigger than children. I was, as the French say, biting my fists with impatience for that cargo frozen upcountry, with rage at that canal set fast at the wintry and deserted aspect of all those ships that seemed to decay in grim depression for want of the open water. I was chief mate in very much alone. Directly I had joined I received of my owner's instructions to send all the ships apprentices away on leave together, because in such weather there was nothing for anybody to do unless to keep up a fire in the cabin stole. That was attended to by a snuffy and mop-headed, inconceivably dirty and weirdly toothless Dutch shipkeeper who could hardly speak three words of English, but who must have had some considerable knowledge of the language since he managed invariably to interpret, in the contrary sense, everything that was said to him. Notwithstanding the little iron stove, the ink froze on the swing table in the cabin, and I found it more convenient to go ashore, stumbling over the arctic wasteland and shivering in glazed tram cars in order to write my evening letter to the owners in a gorgeous cafe in the center of the town. It was an immense place, lofty and gilt, upholstered in red plush, full of electric lights, and so thoroughly warmed that even the marble tables felt tepid to the touch. The waiter who brought me my cup of coffee bore, by comparison with my utter isolation, the dear aspect of an intimate friend. There, alone in a noisy crowd, I would write slowly a letter addressed to Glasgow, of which just would be, there is no cargo and no prospect of any coming till late spring, apparently, and all the time I sat there the necessity of getting back to the ship bore heavily on my already half congealed spirits. The shivering in glazed tram cars, the strumbling over the snow-sprinkled wasteground, the visions of ships frozen in a row, appearing vaguely like corpses of black vessels in a white world, so silent, so lifeless, so soulless they seem to be. With precaution, I would go up the side of my own particular corpse and would feel her as cold as ice itself and as slippery under my feet.  It was a cruel winter. The very air seemed as hard and trenchant as steel, but it would have taken much more than this to extinguish my sacred fire for the exercise of my craft. No young man of twenty-four appointed chief mate for the first time in his life would have let that Dutch tenacious winter penetrate into his heart. I think that in those days I never forgot the fact of my elevation for five consecutive minutes. I fancy it kept me warm, even in my slumbers, better than the high pile of blankets which positively crackled with frost as I threw them off in the morning, and I would get up early for no reason whatever except that I was in sole charge. The new captain had not been appointed yet. Almost each morning a letter from my owners would arrive, directing me to go to the charters and clamor for the ship's cargo, to threaten them with the heaviest penalties of demure-age, to demand that this assortment of varied merchandise set fast in a landscape of ice and windmills somewhere up-country should be put on rail instantly and fed up to the ship in regular quantities every day. After drinking some hot coffee, like an Arctic explorer setting off on a sledge journey toward the North Pole, I would go ashore and roll shivering in a tram car into the very heart of the town, past clean-faced houses, past thousands of brass knockers upon a thousand painted doors glimmering behind rows of trees of the pavement species, leafless, gaunt, seemingly dead, forever. That part of the expedition was easy enough, though the horses were painfully glistening with icicles, and the aspect of the tram conductor's faces presented a repulsive blending of crimson and purple, but as to frightening a bullying or even weedling some sort of answer out of Mr. Huedig, there was another matter altogether. He was a big, swarthy Netherlander, with black mustaches and a bold glance. He always began by shoving me into a chair before I had time to open my mouth, gave me cordially a large cigar, and an excellent English would start to talk everlastingly about the phenomenal severity of the weather. It was impossible to threaten a man who, though he possessed the language perfectly, seemed incapable of understanding any phrase pronounced in a tone of remonstrance or discontent.  The weather was too bitter for that. His office was so warm, his fire so bright, his side shook so heartily with laughter that I experienced always a great difficulty in making my mind to reach for my hat. At last the cargo did come. At first it came dribbling in by rails and trucks till the thaw set in, and then fast, in a multitude of barges, with a great rush of unbound waters. The gentlemaster Stevedor had his hands very full at last, and the chief mate became worried in his mind as to the proper distribution of the weight of his first cargo in a ship he did not personally know before. Ships do want humoring. They want humoring and handling, and if you mean to handle them well, they must have been humored in the distribution of the weight which you asked them to carry through the good and evil fortune of a passage.  So seemed to think the new captain who arrived the day after we had finished loading on the very eve of the day of sailing.  This stranger was walking up and down, absorbed in the marked contemplation of the ship's fore-and-aft trim, and when I saw him squat on his heels in the slush at the very edge of the quay to peer at the draught of water under her counter, I said to myself, this is the captain. And presently I described his luggage coming along, a real sailor's chest carried by means of rope beckots between two men with a couple of leather portmanteaus and a roll of charts sheeted in canvas piled upon the lid, the sudden spontaneous agility with which he bounded aboard right off the rail afforded me the first glimpse of his real character. Without further preliminaries than a friendly nod he addressed me, you have got her pretty well in the fore-and-aft trim. Now what about your weights? I told him I had managed to keep the weight sufficiently well up, as I thought, one-third of the whole being in the upper part above the beams as the technical expression has it. He whistled, scrutinizing me from head to foot, a sort of smiling vexation was visible on his ready face. Well, we shall have a lively time of it this passage, I bet, he said. He knew. It turned out he had been chief made of her for the two preceding passages and I was already familiar with his handwriting in the old log books I had been perusing in my cabin with a natural curiosity. Looking up the records of my new ship's luck, of her behavior, of the good times she had had and of the troubles she had escaped, he was right in his prophecy. On our passage from Amsterdam to Samarang with a general cargo of which alas, only one-third in rate was stowed above the beams, we had a lively time of it. It was lively, but not joyful. There was not even a single moment of comfort in it, because no seaman can feel comfortable in body or mind when he has made his ship uneasy. To travel along with a cranky ship for ninety days or so is no doubt a nerve-trying experience, but in this case what was wrong with our craft was this, that by my system of loading she had been made much too stable. Neither before nor since have I felt the ship's role so abruptly, so violently, so heavily. Once she began you felt that she would never stop, and this hopeless sensation characterizing the motion of ships whose center of gravity is brought down too low in loading made everyone on board weary of keeping on his feet. I remember once overhearing one of the hands say, by heavens, Jack, I feel as if I didn't mind how soon I let myself go and let the blamed hooker knock my brains out if she likes. The captain used to remark frequently, I, yes, I dare say one third weight above beams would have been quite enough for most ships, but then you see there's no two of them alike on the seas, and she's an uncommonly ticklish jade to load. Down south, running before the gales of high latitudes, she made our life a burden to us. There were days when nothing would keep even on the swing tables, when there was no position where you would fix yourself in so as not to feel a constant strain upon all the muscles of your body. She rolled and rolled with an awful dislodging jerk and that dizzy fast sweep of her mass on every swing. It was a wonder that the men sent to loft were not flung off the yards, the yards not flung off the mass, the mass not flung overboard. The captain in his armchair, holding on grimly at the head of the table, with the soup terrine rolling on one side of the cabin, and the stewards sprawling on the other would observe, looking at me, that's your one third above the beams. The only thing that surprises me is that the sticks have stuck to her all this time. Ultimately, some of the minor spars did go, nothing important, spanker booms and such like, because at times the frightful impetus of her rolling would part a four-fold tackle of new three-inch manilla line as if it were weaker than pack thread. It was only poetic justice that the chief mate who had made a mistake, perhaps a half-excusable one, about the distribution of his ship's cargo should pay the penalty. A piece of one of the minor spars that did carry away flew against the chief mate's back and sent him sliding on his face for quite a considerable distance along the main deck. Thereupon followed various and unpleasant consequences of a physical order, queer symptoms as the captain who treated them used to say, inexplicable periods of powerlessness, sudden accesses of mysterious pain, and the patient agreed fully with the regretful mothers of his very attentive captain, wishing that it had been a straightforward broken leg. Even the Dutch doctor who took the case up in Samarang offered no scientific explanation. All he said was, ah, friend, you are young yet. It may be very serious for your whole life. You must leave your ship. You must quite silent be for three months. Quite silent. Of course he meant the chief mate to keep quiet, to lay up as a man of fact. His manner was impressive enough. If his English was childishly imperfect when compared with the fluency of Mr. Huedig, the figure at the other end of that passage, and memorable enough in its way. In a great airy ward of a far eastern hospital lying on my back, I had plenty of leisure to remember the dreadful cold and snow of Amsterdam while looking at the fronds of the palm trees tossing and rustling at the height of the window. I could remember the elated feeling and the soul gripping cold of those tramway journeys taken into town to put what in diplomatic language is called pressure upon the good Huedig with his warm fire, his armchair, his big cigar, and the never-failing suggestion in his good-natured voice. I suppose in the end it is you they will appoint captain before the ship sails. It may have been his extreme good nature, the serious, unsmiling good nature of a fat, swarthy man with cold black mustache and steady eyes, but he might have been a bit of a diplomatist, too. His enticing suggestions I used to repel modestly by the assurance that it was extremely unlikely as I had not enough experience. You know very well how to go about business matters, he used to say, with a sort of affected moodiness clouding his serene round face. I wonder if he ever laughed to himself after I had left the office. I dare say he never did, because I understand that diplomatists in and out of their career take themselves and their tricks with an exemplary seriousness. But he had nearly persuaded me that I was fit in every way to be trusted with a command. There came three months of mental worry, hard rolling, remorse, and physical pain to drive home the lesson of insufficient experience. Yes, your ship wants to be humored with knowledge. You must treat with an understanding consideration the mysteries of her feminine nature, and then she will stand by you faithfully in the unceasing struggle with forces wherein defeat is no shame. It is a serious relation that in which a man stands to his ship. She has her rights as though she could breathe and speak, and indeed there are ships that, for the right man, will do anything but speak as the saying goes. A ship is not a slave. You must make her easy in a seaway. You must never forget that you owe her the fullest share of your thought, of your skill, of your self-love. If you remember that obligation naturally and without effort, as if it were an instinctive feeling of your inner life, she will sail, stay, run for you, as long as she is able.  CHAPTER XVI Often I turn with melancholy eagerness to the space reserved in the newspapers under the general heading of shipping intelligence. I meet there the names of ships I have known. Every year some of these names disappear, the names of old friends, Tempi Pesati. The different divisions of that kind of news are set down in their order, which varies but slightly in its arrangement of concise headlines. And first comes speakings. Reports of ships met and signaled at sea, name, port, wherefrom, wherebound for so many days out, ending frequently with the words, all well. Then come wrecks and casualties, a longish array of paragraphs, unless the weather has been fair and clear, and friendly to ships all over the world. On some days there appears the heading Overdue, an ominous threat of loss and sorrow trembling yet in the balance of fate. There is something sinister to a seaman in the very grouping of the letters from which form this word, clear in its meaning, and seldom threatening in vain. Only a very few days more, appallingly few to the hearts which had set themselves bravely to hope against hope. Three weeks, a month later, perhaps, the name of ships under the blight of the Overdue heading shall appear again in the column of Shipping Intelligence, but under the final declaration of missing. The ship or bark or brig so-and-so bound from such a port, with such and such a cargo, for such and other port, having left at such and such a date, last spoken at sea on such a day, and never having been heard of since, was posted to-day as missing. Such, in its strictly official elegance, is the form of funeral orations on ships that, perhaps, wearied with a long struggle, or in some unguarded moment that may come to the readiness of us, had let themselves be overwhelmed by a sudden blow from the enemy. Who can say? Perhaps the men she carried had asked her to do too much, had stretched beyond breaking point the enduring faithfulness which seems wrought and hammered into that assemblage of iron ribs and plating of wood and steel and canvas and wire, which goes to the making of a ship. A complete creation endowed with character, individuality, qualities and defects by men whose hands launch her upon the water, and that other men shall learn to know, with an intimacy surpassing the intimacy of man with man, to love with a love nearly as great as that of man for woman, and often as blind in its infatuated disregard of defects. There are ships which bear a bad name, but I have yet to meet one whose crew for the time being failed to stand up angrily for her against every criticism. One ship which I call to mind now had the reputation of killing somebody every voyage she made. This was no calamity, and yet I remember well, somewhere far back in the late seventies, that the crew of that ship were, if anything, rather proud of her evil fame, as if they had been an utterly corrupt lot of desperados, glorying in their association with an atrocious creature. We, belonging to other vessels moored all about the circular quay in Sydney, used to shake our heads at her with a great sense of the unblemished virtue of our own well-loved ships. I shall not pronounce her name. She is missing now, after a sinister, but from the point of view of her owners, a useful career extending over many years, and I should say, across every ocean of our globe.  A fitting end this to a life of usefulness and crime, in a last burst of an evil passion supremely satisfied on some wild night, perhaps, to the applauding clamor of wind and wave. How did she do it?  Did she go quickly from under the men's feet, or did she resist to the end, letting the sea batter her to pieces, start her butts, wrench her frame, load her with an increasing weight of salt water, and dismastered, unmanageable, rolling heavily, her boats gone, her deck swept, had she wearied her men half to death with the unceasing labor at the pumps before she sank with them like a stone? However, such a case must be rare. I imagine a raft of some sort could always be contrived, and even if it saved no one, it would float on and be picked up, perhaps conveying some hint of the vanished name. Then that ship would not be, properly speaking, missing. She would be lost with all hands, and in that distinction there is a subtle difference, less horror and a less appalling darkness. Chapter 17 The unholy fascination of dread dwells in the thought of the last moments of a ship reported as missing in the columns of the shipping gazette. Nothing of her ever comes to light. No grading, no life buoy, no piece of boat or branded ore to give a hint of the place and date of her sudden end. The shipping gazette does not even call her lost with all hands. She remains simply missing. She has disappeared enigmatically into a mystery of fate, as big as the world, where your imagination of a brother sailor of a fellow servant and lover of ships may range unchecked. And yet sometimes one gets a hint of what the last scene may be like in the life of a ship and her crew, which resembles a drama in its struggle against a great force bearing it up, formless, ungraspable, chaotic, and mysterious as fate. It was on a gray afternoon in the lull of a three days gale that had left the southern ocean tumbling heavily upon our ship, under a sky hung with rags of clouds that seem to have been cut and hacked by the keen edge of a southwest gale. Our craft, a Clyde-built bark of 1,000 tons, rolled so heavily that something a lot had carried away, no matter what the damage was, but it was serious enough to induce me to go aloft myself with a couple of hands and the carpet to see the temporary repairs properly done. Sometimes we had to drop everything and cling with both hands to the swaying spars, holding our breath in fear of a terribly heavy roll. And wallowing as if she meant to turn over with us, the bark, her decks full of water, her gear flying in bites, ran at some ten knots an hour. We had been driven far south, much farther that way than we had meant to go, and suddenly, up there in the slings of the four-yard, in the midst of our work, I felt my shoulder grip with such force in the carpenter's powerful paw that I positively yelled with unexpected pain. The man's eyes stared close in my face, and he shouted, Look, sir! Look! What's this? Pointing ahead with his other hand. At first I saw nothing. The sea was one empty wilderness of black and white hills. Suddenly, half concealed in the tumult of the foaming rollers, I made out a wash, something enormous rising and falling, something spread out like a burst of foam, but with a more bluish, more solid look. It was a piece of an ice flow, melted down to a fragment, but still big enough to sink a ship, and floating lower than any raft, right in our way, as if ambushed among the waves with murderous intent. There was no time to get down on deck. I shouted from aloft till my head was ready to split. I was hurt aft, and we managed to clear the sunken flow, which had come all the way from the southern icecap to have at a try at our unsuspecting lives. Had it been an hour later, nothing could have saved the ship, for no eye could have made out in the dusk that pale piece of ice swept over by the white-crested waves. And as we stood near the taff rail, side by side, my captain and I, looking at it, hardly discernable already, but still quite close to on our quarter, he remarked in a meditative tone. But for the turn of that wheel just in time there would have been another case of a missing ship. Nobody ever comes back from a missing ship to tell hard was the death of the craft, and how sudden and overwhelming the last anguish of her men. Nobody can say with what thoughts, with what regrets, with what words on their lips they died. But there is something fine in the sudden passing away of these hearts from the extremity of struggle and stress and tremendous uproar, from the vast, unrestful rage of the surface to the profound peace of the depths, sleeping untroubled since the beginning of ages. CHAPTER XVIII But if the word missing brings all hope to an end, and settles the loss of the underwriters, the word overdue confirms the fears already borne in many homes ashore, and opens the door of speculation in the market of risks. Maritime risks be it understood. There is a class of optimists ready to reinsure an overdue ship at a heavy premium, but nothing can insure the hearts on shore against the bitterness of waiting for the worst. For if a missing ship has never turned up within the memory of seamen of my generation the name of an overdue ship, trembling as it were on the edge of the fatal heading, has been known to appear as arrived. It must blaze up indeed with a great brilliance the dull printer's ink expended on the assemblage of the few letters that form the ship's name to the anxious eyes scanning the page in fear and trembling. It is like the message of reprieve from the sentence of sorrow suspended over many a home, even if some of the men in her have been the most homeless mortals that you may find among the wanderers of the sea. The reinsurer, the optimist of ill luck and disaster, slaps his pocket with satisfaction. The underwriter, who had been trying to minimize the amount of impending loss, regrets his premature pessimism. The ship has been stauncher, the sky's more merciful, the sea's less angry, or perhaps the men on board of a finer temper than he has been willing to take for granted. The ship, so-and-so, bound to such a port, and posted as overdue, has been reported yesterday as having arrived safely at her destination. Thus run the official words of the reprieve addressed to the hearts ashore lying under a heavy sentence, and they come swiftly from the other side of the earth over wires and cables, for your electric telegraph is a great alleviator of anxiety. Details, of course, shall follow, and they may unfold a tale of narrow escape, of steady ill luck, of high winds and heavy weather, of ice, of interminable coms, and of endless headgales, a tale of difficulties overcome, of adversity defied by a small knot of men upon the great loneliness of the sea, a tale of resource, of courage, of helplessness, perhaps. Of all ships disabled at sea, a steamer who has lost her propeller is the most helpless, and if she drifts into an unpopulated part of the ocean, she may soon become overdue. The menace of the overdue and the finality of missing come very quickly to steamers whose life, fed on coals, and breathing the black breath of smoke into the air, goes on in disregard of wind and wave. Such a one, a big steamship too, whose working life had been a record of faithful keeping time from land to land in disregard of wind and sea, once lost her propeller down south on her passage out to New Zealand. It was the wintry murky time of cold gales and heavy seas. With the snapping of her tail-shaft, her life seemed suddenly to depart from her big body, and from a stubborn, arrogant existence she passed all at once into the passive state of a drifting log. A ship sick with her own weakness has not the pathos of a ship vanquished in a battle with the elements, wherein consists the inner drama of her life. No seaman can look without compassion upon a disabled ship, but to look at a sailing vessel with her lofty spars gone is to look upon a defeated but indomitable warrior. There is defiance in the remaining stumps of her masts, raised up like maimed limbs against the menacing scowl of a stormy sky. There is high courage in the upward sweep of her lines toward the bow, and as soon as, on a hastily rigged spar, a strip of canvas is shown to the wind to keep her head to sea, she faces the waves again with an unsubdued courage. CHAPTER 19 The efficiency of a steamship consists not so much in her courage as in the power she carries within herself. It beats and throbs like a pulsating heart within her iron ribs. And when it stops, the steamer whose life is not so much a contest as the disdainful ignoring of the sea sickens and dies upon the waves. The sailing ship, with her unthrobbing body, seemed to lead mysteriously a sort of unearthly existence bordering upon the magic of the invisible forces sustained by the inspiration of life-giving and death-dealing winds. So that big steamer, dying by a sudden stroke, drifted an unwieldy corpse away from the track of other ships, and she would have been posted really as overdue, or maybe as missing, had she not been sighted in a snowstorm vaguely like a strange rolling island by a wailer going north from her polar cruising ground. There was plenty of food on board, and I don't know whether the nerves of her passengers were at all affected by anything else than the sense of interminable boredom or the vague fear of that unusual situation.  For a man who has never been a passenger it is impossible to say, but I know that there is no harder trial for a seaman than to feel a dead ship under his feet. There is no mistaking that sensation, so dismal, so tormenting, and so subtle, so full of unhappiness and unrest.   Evidently they didn't believe in ghosts, for on arrival into port her captain unromantically reported having sighted a disabled steamer in latitude somewhere about fifty degrees south, and a longitude still more uncertain. Other steamers came out to look for her, and ultimately towed her away from the cold edge of the world into a harbor with docks and workshops, where with many blows of hammers her pulsating heart of steel was set going again to go forth presently in the renewed pride of its strength, fed on fire and water, breathing black smoke into the air, pulsating, throbbing, shouldering its arrogant way against the great rollers in blind disdain of winds and sea. The track she made when drifting while her heart stood still within her iron ribs looked like a tangled thread on the white paper of the chart. It was shown to me by a friend, her second officer. In that surprising tangle there were words in minute letters, gales, thick fog, ice, written by him hair and there as memoranda of the weather. She had interminably turned upon her tracks. She had crossed and recrossed her haphazard path till it resembled nothing so much as a puzzling maze of penciled lines without a meaning. But in that maze they lurked all the romance of the overdue and a menacing hint of missing. We had three weeks of it, said my friend. Just think of that. How did you feel about it? I asked. He waved his hand as much as to say, It's all in the day's work.  I can answer for it. He was a good man, as good as ever stepped upon a ship's deck, but he could not bear the feeling of a dead ship under his feet. The sickling, disheartening feeling which the men of some overdue ships that come into harbor at last under a jury rig must have felt combatted and overcome in the faithful discharge of their duty. It is difficult for a seaman to believe that his stranded ship does not feel as unhappy as an unnatural predicament of having no water under her keel as he is himself as feeling her stranded. Stranded is, indeed, the reverse of sinking. The sea does not close upon the waterlogged hull with a sunny ripple, or maybe with the angry rush of a curling wave erasing her name from the roll of living ships. No, it is as if an invisible hand had been stealthily uplifted from the bottom to catch hold of her keel as it glides through the water. More than any other event does stranding bring to the sailor a sense of utter and dismal failure. There are strandings and strandings, but I am safe to say that ninety percent of them are occasions in which a sailor, without dishonor, may well wish himself dead. And I have no doubt that of those who had the experience of their ship taking the ground, ninety percent did actually for five seconds or so wish themselves dead. Taking the ground is the professional expression for a ship that is stranded in gentle circumstances. But the feeling is more as if the ground had taken hold of her. It is for those on her deck a surprising sensation. It is as if your feet had been caught in an imponderable snare. You feel a balance of your body threatened, and the steady poise of your mind is destroyed at once.  By Jove, she's on the ground. And that is very terrible. After all, the only mission of a seamen's calling is to keep ship's keels off the ground. Thus the moment of her stranding takes away from him every excuse for his continued existence. To keep ships afloat is his business. It is his trust. It is the effective formula of the bottom of all these vague impulses, dreams, and illusions that go to the making up of a boy's vocation. The grip of the land upon the keel of your ship, even if nothing worse comes of it than the wear and tear of tackle and the loss of time, remains in a seamen's memory and an indelibly fixed taste of disaster. Stranded within the meaning of this paper stands for a more or less excusable mistake. A ship may be driven ashore by stress of weather. It is a catastrophe, a defeat. To be run ashore has the littleness, poignancy, and bitterness of human error. Chapter 21 That is why your strandings are for the most part so unexpected. In fact, they are all unexpected, except those heralded by some short glimpse of the danger, full of agitation and excitement, like an awakening from a dream of incredible folly. The land suddenly at night looms up right over your bows, or perhaps the cry of broken water ahead is raised, and some long mistake, some complicated edifice of self-delusion, overconfidence and wrong reasoning is brought down in a fatal shock, and the heart-searing experience of your ship's keel scraping and scrunching over, say, a coral reef. It is a sound for its size, far more terrific to your soul than that of a world coming violently to an end. But out of that chaos, your belief in your own prudence and sagacity reasserts itself. You ask yourself, where on earth did I get to? How on earth did I get there? With a conviction that it could not be your own act, that there has been at work some mysterious conspiracy of accident, that the charts are all wrong, and if the charts are not wrong, that land and sea have changed their places, that your misfortunes shall forever remain inexplicable, since you have lived always with the sense of your trust the last thing on closing your eyes, the first on opening them, as if your mind had kept firm hold of your responsibility during the hours of sleep.  That is the time when you ask yourself, how on earth could I have been fool enough to get there? And you are ready to renounce all belief in your good sense, in your knowledge, in your fidelity, and what you thought till then was the best in you, giving you the daily bread of life and the moral support of other men's confidence. The ship is lost or not lost, once stranded you have to do your best by her. She may be saved by your efforts, by your resource and fortitude bearing up against the heavy weight of guilt and failure. And there are justifiable strandings in fogs, on uncharted seas, on dangerous shores, through treacherous tides. But saved or not saved, there remains with her commander a distinct sense of loss, a flavor in the mouth of the real abiding danger that lurks in all the forms of human existence. It is an acquisition to that feeling. A man may be the better for it, but he will not be the same. Damocles has seen the sword suspended by a hair over his head, and though a good man need not be made less valuable by such a knowledge, the feasts shall not henceforth have the same flavor. Years ago I was concerned as chief mate in a case of stranding which was not fatal to the ship. We went to work for ten hours on end, laying out anchors in readiness to heave off at high water. While I was still busy about the decks forward, I heard the steward at my elbow saying, The captain asks whether you mean to come in, sir, and have something to eat today. I went into the cutty. My captain sat at the head of the table like a statue. There was a strange motionlessness of everything in that pretty little cabin. The swing table, which for seventy odd days had been always on the move if ever so little, hung quite still above the soup to rean. Nothing could have altered the rich color of my commander's complexion laid on generously by wind and sea, but between the two tufts of fair hair above his ears his skull generally suffused with the hue of blood shone dead white like a dome of ivory. And he looked strangely untidy. I perceived he had not shaved himself that day, and yet the wildest motion of the ship in the most stormy latitudes we had passed through never made him miss one single morning ever since we left the channel. The fact must be that a commander cannot possibly shave himself when his ship is aground. I have commanded ships myself, but I don't know. I have never tried to shave in my life. He did not offer to help me or himself till I had coughed markedly several times. I talked to him professionally in a cheery tone, and ended with the confident assertion, We shall get her off before midnight, sir. He smiled faintly without looking up, and muttered as if to himself, Yes, yes, the captain put the ship ashore, and we got her off.  What makes this soup so bitter? I am surprised the maid can swallow the beastly stuff. I am sure the cooks ladled some salt water into it by mistake. The charge was so outrageous that the steward for all answered only dropped his eyelids bashfully. There was nothing the matter with the soup. I had a second helping. My heart was warm with hours of hard work at the head of a willing crew. I was elated with having handled heavy anchors, cables, boats without the slightest hitch, pleased with having laid out scientifically, bower, stream, and exactly where I believed they would do the most good. On that occasion the bitter taste of astranding was not for my mouth. That experience came later, and it was only then that I understood the loneliness of the man in charge. It's the captain who puts the ship ashore. It's we who got her off. CHAPTER 22, 23, and 24, by Joseph Conrad THE CHARACTER OF THE FOOL CHAPTER 22 It seems to me that no man born and truthful to himself could declare that he ever saw the sea looking young as the earth looks young in spring. But some of us, regarding the ocean with understanding and affection, have seen it looking old, as if the immemorial ages had been stirred up from the undisturbed bottom of ooze. For it is a gale of wind that makes the sea look old. From a distance of years, looking at the remembered aspects of the storms lived through, it is that impression which disengages itself clearly from the great body of impressions left by many years of intimate contact. If you would know the age of the earth, look upon the sea in a storm. The greyness of the whole immense surface, the wind furrows upon the faces of the waves, the great masses of foam tossed about and waving, like matted white locks, give to the sea in a gale an appearance of hoary age, lusterless, dull, without gleams, as though it had been created before light itself. Looking back, after much love and much trouble, the instinct of primitive man who seeks to personify the forces of nature for his affection and for his fear is awakened again in the breast of one civilized beyond that stage even in his infancy. One seems to have known gales as enemies, and even as enemies one embraces them in that infectionate regret which clings to the past. Gales have their personalities, and after all, perhaps it is not strange. For when all is said and done, they are adversaries whose wiles you must defeat, whose violence you must resist, and yet with whom you must live in the intimacies of days and nights. Here speaks the man of masts and sails, to whom the sea is not a navigable element, but an intimate companion. The length of passages, the growing sense of solitude, the close dependence upon the very forces that, friendly today without changing their nature, by the mere pudding forth of their might, become dangerous to moral, make for that sense of fellowship which modern sea men, good men as they are, cannot hope to know. And besides, your modern ship, which is a steamship, makes her passages on other principles than yielding to the weather and humoring the sea. She receives, smashing blows, but she advances. It is a slogging fight, and not a scientific campaign. The machinery, the steel, the fire, the steam, have stepped in between the man and the sea. A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway. The modern ship is not the sport of the waves. Let us say that each of her voyages is a triumphant progress, and yet it is a question whether it is not a more subtle and more human triumph to be the sport of the waves and yet survive achieving your end. In his own time a man is always very modern. Whether the seaman of 300 years hence will have the faculty of sympathy it is impossible to say. An incorrigible mankind hardens its heart in the progress of its own perfectability. How will they feel on seeing the illustrations to the sea novels of our day, of our yesterday? It is impossible to guess. But the seaman of the last generation brought into sympathy with the caravals of ancient time by his sailing ship, their lineal descendant, cannot look upon those lumbering forms navigating the naive seas of ancient woodcuts without a feeling of surprise, of affectionate derision, envy, and admiration. For those things whose unmanageableness even when represented on paper makes one gasp with a sort of amused horror were manned by men who are his direct professional ancestors. No, the seaman of 300 years hence will probably be neither touched nor moved to derision, affection, or admiration. They will glance at the photogravus of our nearly defunct sailing ships with a cold inquisitive and indifferent eye. Our ships of yesterday will stand to their ships as no lineal ancestors, but as mere predecessors whose course will have been run and the race extinct. Whatever craft he handles with skill the seaman of the future shall be not our descendant but only our successor. Chapter 23 And so much depends upon the craft which made by man is one with man that the sea shall wear for him another aspect. I remember once seeing the commander officially the master by courtesy the captain of a fine iron ship of the old wool fleet shaking his head at a very pretty brigantine. She was bound the other way. She was a taught trim, neat little craft, extremely well kept, and on that serene evening when we passed her close she looked the embodiment of coquettish comfort on the sea. It was somewhere near the Cape. The Cape being, of course, the Cape of Good Hope, the Cape of Storms of its Portuguese discoverer. And whether it is that the word storm should not be pronounced upon the sea where the storms dwell thickly or because men are shy of confessing their good hopes it has become the nameless Cape, the Cape to core. The other great Cape of the world strangely enough is seldom if ever called a Cape. We say a voyage round the horn. We rounded the horn. We got a frightful battering off the horn, but rarely Cape horn. And indeed with some reason for Cape horn is as much an island as a Cape. The third stormy Cape of the world, which is the Liouin, receives generally its full name as if to console its second rate dignity. These are the capes that look upon the gales. The little brigantine then had doubled the Cape. Perhaps she was coming from Port Elizabeth, from East London. Who knows. It was many years ago, but I well remember the captain of the wool clipper nodding at her with the words, fancy having to go about the sea and something like that. He was a man brought up in big deep water ships, and the size of the craft under his feet was a part of his conception of the sea. His own ship was certainly big as ships went then. He may have thought of the size of his cabin or unconsciously perhaps have conjured up a vision of a vessel so small tossing amongst the great seas. I didn't inquire, and to a young second mate, the captain of the pretty little brigantine, sitting astride a camp stool with his chin resting on his hands that were crossed upon the rail might have appeared a minor king amongst men. We passed her within earshot without a hail reading each other's names with a naked eye. Some years later the second mate, the recipient of that almost involuntary mutter, could have told his captain that a man brought up in big ships may yet take a peculiar delight in what we should both then have called a small craft. Probably the captain of the big ship would not have understood very well. His answer would have been a gruff give me size, as I heard another man reply to a remark praising the handiness of a small vessel. It was not a love of the grandiose or the prestige attached to the command of great tonnage, for he continued, with an air of disgust and contempt, why you get flung out of your bunk as likely as not in any sort of heavy weather. I don't know. I remember a few nights in my lifetime, and in a big ship too, as big as they made them then, when one did not get flung out of one's bed simply because one never even attempted to get in. One had been made too weary, too hopeless to try. The expedient of turning your bedding out onto a damp floor and lying on it there was no earthly good, since you could not keep your place or get a second's rest in that or any other position. But of the delight of seeing a small craft run bravely amongst the great seas, there can be no question to him whose soul does not dwell ashore. Thus I well remember a three-days run got out of a little bark of four hundred tons somewhere between the islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam and Cape Otway on the Australian coast. It was a hard long gale, gray clouds and green sea, heavy weather undoubtedly, but still what a sailor would call manageable. Under two lower top sails and a reef foresail, the bark seemed to race with a long, steady sea that did not become her in the troughs. The solemn, thundering comers caught her up from a stern, passed her with a fierce boiling up of foam level with the bulwarks, swept on ahead with a swish and a roar, and the little vessel dipping her gym boom into the tumbling froth would go on running in a smooth, glassy hollow, a deep valley between two ridges of the sea hiding the horizon ahead in a stern. There was such fascination in her pluck, nimbleness, the continual exhibition of unfailing seaworthiness in the semblance of courage and endurance that I could not give up the delight of watching her run through the three unforgettable days of that gale, which my mate also delighted to extoll as a famous shove. And this is one of those gales whose memory and after years returns welcomed in dignified austerity as you would remember with pleasure the noble features of a stranger with whom you cross swords once in nightly encounter and are never to see again. In this way gales have their physiognomy. You remember them by your own feelings, and no two gales stamp themselves in the same way upon your emotions. Some cling to you in woe be gone misery.  Others again have a catastrophic splendor. Some are unvenerated recollections as of spiteful wildcats clawing at your agonized vitals. Others are severe like a visitation and one or two rise up draped and mysterious with an aspect of ominous menace. In each of them there is a characteristic point at which the whole feeling seems contained in one single moment. Thus there is a certain four o'clock in the morning in the confused roar of a black and white world when coming on deck to take charge of my watch I receive the instantaneous impression that the ship could not live for another hour in such a raging sea. I wonder what became of the men who silently you couldn't hear yourself speak must have shared that conviction with me. To be left to write about it is not perhaps the most enviable fate, but the point is that this impression resumes in its intensity the whole recollection of days and days of desperately dangerous weather. We were then for reasons which it is not worthwhile to specify in the closed neighborhood of Kerguelen land and now when I open an atlas and look at the tiny dots on the map of the southern ocean I see as if engraved upon the paper the enraged physiognomy of that gale. Another strangely recalls a silent man and yet it was not din that was wanting in fact it was terrific. That one was a gale that came upon the ship swiftly like a pampereau which last is a very sudden wind indeed. Before we knew very well what was coming all the sails we had set had burst the furled ones were blowing loose ropes flying sea hissing it hissed tremendously wind howling and the ship lying on her side so that half of the crew were swimming and the other half clawing desperately at whatever came to hand according to the side of the deck each man had been caught on by the catastrophe either to leeward or to windward. The shouting I need not mention it was the nearest drop in an ocean of noise and yet the character of the gale seemed contained in the recollection of one small not particularly impressive salo man without a cap and with a very still face captain jones let us call him jones had been caught unawares two orders he had given at the first sign of an utterly unforeseen onset after that the magnitude of his mistake seemed to have overwhelmed him we were doing what was needed and feasible the ship behaved well of course it was some time before we could pursue in our fierce and laborious exertions but all through the work the excitement the uproar in some dismay we were aware of this silent little man at the break of the poop perfectly motionless soundless and often hidden from us by the drift of sprays when we officers clamored at last upon the poop he seemed to come out of that numbed composure and shouted to us downwind try the pumps afterwards he disappeared as to the ship i need not say that although she was presently swallowed up in one of the blackest nights i can remember she did not disappear in truth i don't fancy that there had ever been much danger of that but certainly the experience was noisy and particularly distracting and yet is it is the memory of a very quiet silence that survives chapter 24 for after all a gale of wind the thing of mighty sound is inarticulate it is man who in a chance phrase interprets the elemental passion of his enemy thus there is another gale in my memory a thing of endless deep humming roar moonlight and a spoken sentence it was off that other cape which is always deprived of its title as the cape of good hope is robbed of its name it was off the horn for a true expression of disheveled wildness there is nothing like a gale in the bright moonlight of a high latitude the ship brought to and bowing to enormous flashing seas glistened wet from deck to trucks her one set sail stood out a cold black shape upon the gloomy blueness of the air i was a youngster then and suffering from weariness cold and imperfect oil skins which let water in at every scene i craved human companionship and coming off the poop took my place by the side of the boson a man whom i did not like in a comparatively dry spot where at worst we had water up only to our knees above our heads the explosive booming gusts of wind passed continuously justifying the sailors saying it blows great guns and just from that need of human companionship being very close to the man i said or rather shouted blows very hard boson his answer was i and if it blows only a little harder things will begin to go i don't mind as long as everything holds but when things begin to go it's bad the note of dread in the shouting voice the practical truth of these words heard years ago from a man i did not like have stamped its peculiar character on that gale a look in the eyes of a shipmate a low murmur in the most sheltered spot where the watch on duty are huddled together a meaning moan from one to the other with a glance at the windward sky a sigh of weariness a gesture of disgust passing into the keeping of the great wind became part and parcel of the gale the all of hue of hurricane clouds presents an aspect peculiarly appalling the inky ragged rack flying before a northwest wind makes you dizzy with its headlong speed that depicts the rush of the invisible air a hard southwestern startles you with its close horizon and its low gray sky as if the world were a dungeon wherein there is no rest for body or soul and there are black squalls white squalls thunder squalls and unexpected gusts that come without a single sign in the sky and of each kind no one of them resembles another there is infinite variety in the gales of wind at sea and except for the peculiar terrible and mysterious moanings that may be heard sometimes passing through the roar of a hurricane except for that unforgettable sound as if the soul of the universe had been goaded into a mournful groan it is after all the human voice that stamps the mark of human consciousness upon the character of a gale end of chapter 24


Today, it takes five or six Marines to get somebody wounded off the battlefield with something like this so you can do it with one. And that keeps more Marines in the fight. We are testing out the LS-3. It's a robotic mule. It's really easy to control, really easy to understand. And it's a whole lot of fun. You can pretty much teach anybody in the military to use it. They're walking through just simple patrol maneuvers with the machine to see what its limits are and where it makes most sense for it to be when the squad is on patrol. Experimentation phase is in full swing right now. Then we'll come back and we'll look at all the data. We'll get the feedback from all the Marines on how they feel. It can support them best. And then we'll look at what it needs to look like, what Wright looks like at the end of the day for a legged support system that's autonomous. We ultimately wanted to support Marines in the field. We ultimately wanted to get some of the load off their backs. The system was really good. It's a great idea. And I'm glad that they're coming out. It just shows that the Marine Corps is changing. Times are changing in the next 15 to 20 years. Stuff like this should be everywhere in the military.


Welcome back to our class. We are on page 20. Fire up your passion for purity. Can one of us please turn to 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 19 to 22. 2 Timothy chapter 2 19 to 22. Yes. Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands. Having this seed, the Lord knows who are His. Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness. Now in a large house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel of honor sanctified, useful to the master, prepared for every good work. So as we see that there are vessels of honor and to dishonor. Personal purity. When we purify ourselves, we become that vessel of honor unto God. So cleansing ourselves of whatever is impure is very important and that's necessary. We need to cleanse ourselves to be that vessel of honor in God's hand, in God's house, so that we will be ready for the master's use. The world considers itself normal to be impure, to sin. It's normal. That's the trend. We call it as a lifestyle. But then we, children of God, knowing what pleases God, we need to look at that. We should always remember that we are the temple of the most high God. We need to keep the temple clean. We need to stay away from the impure sinful things, so that we can keep ourselves pure, pure, and we can be a pleasing vessel of honor unto God, so that God can use us. We can be ready for the master's use. We not only have to guard ourselves against the impure sin around us, but then what is more important is we need to carry that passion toward purity, toward guarding ourselves from the other impure things around us and not letting ourselves to be part of it. That is very important. Only when we guard ourselves from all these impure things around us, we can remain pure in the sight of God and we can be the vessel of honor unto master's use. So we need to set personal and moral boundaries around us for us to maintain this pure lifestyle. Can I request one of us to please turn to Psalms 101, verse 2 and 3? Can I request one of us to read from our class, like Sid, Anita, Georgia, Rosalind, Jeffina? Can others also please take turn and read the scriptures? I will behave wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will you come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.  It shall not cling to me. Amen. Thank you. So we need to exercise this in wisdom, the prudence to walk in a perfect way before God. Very important to have the perfect heart, how we can walk the perfect way before God. Only when we set some simple boundaries around us, very important. The boundaries that we set helps us not to get into any kind of unnecessary trouble or not to have any kind of fall in our life. Personal boundaries help us maintain good character, develop good character. Personal boundaries help us to stay pure. Personal boundaries help us not to have any kind of unavoidable fall. We need to set personal boundaries in our life. So there are certain personal boundaries as a man and a woman of God that we have listed in this book. One that we at ABC, at All People's Church, we follow is, we don't meet the opposite sex men or women alone in a closed area. If in case we need to speak with the opposite sex, we see to it that we speak in an open space where others are there around us. On purpose, we see to it that we have people around us when we speak. For example, our church office is been designed in such a way completely glass. It's all transparent. And we have kept it the open space for all the stuff. And yes, we have few cabins. But even those cabins are used as, you know, the pastor's cabin or for the counseling for any kind of ministry work we use. But still even those cabins are transparent. It's made out of glass. So we know who's inside and out. So one of the way that we could avoid any sin could happen within the closed walls. Or in our Bible college, yes, we have walls. But then we see to it that we keep it open. On purpose, if I had to meet with somebody else, with a student of the opposite sex, on purpose, I would ask some of the leaders to stay around, you know, stay around, keep the doors open. In that way, we try to set some boundaries aside. Another boundary we can see is never try to travel with the opposite sex alone in the same vehicle, the same car, or in the bike, unless and until it is an emergency, it's life threatening. But as much as possible, we need to try to avoid doing that unless and until the opposite sex person is your own family. Like your wife, mother, sister, or brother, husband. These are, like we're not telling it's compulsory, you have to do it. But these are certain boundaries that we could set to avoid any kind of fall in our life. And one of the way it's a culture in India is, I don't know now is it there, but yes, there was a time in India we don't hug the opposite sex. Okay, yes, now the trends are changing, it's becoming more open, and we just try to hug anyone and everyone. But then one of the way in the ministry, again, as we are open here, we have many international students as well. I'll leave it to you. Okay, yeah. What we do is we just shake hands with the opposite sex person. And yes, sometimes we give that comfort and hug for an elderly person or a family related. It can be a wife, daughter, auntie, mother, sister. Same goes with the opposite sex. But as much as possible, we don't do this. And these are some simple, and yes, they may be simple, but then they are effective boundaries from getting ourselves into trouble. There was a pastor, he was saying that I don't have a problem with the women and I overcome all that. And he said, yes, he was married, he had about two or three children. And he said, I don't have any problem and he had his own personal secretary as women and wherever he traveled, he traveled with her down the line after five years. She comes with the police to his house, claiming that he misbehaved with me. She started blackmailing him, give me five black. If not, I will let out all the secrets that you did with me. The minute the man of God didn't have that much of money to give, she took him behind the bars and it brought shame to him, his family, his ministry, his marriage was in stake. But then by God's grace, they both worked together, that is his wife and him. He repented, he asked for forgiveness, he asked for forgiveness with the church, with the people, with his family, with his wife, with his children. By God's grace, the family has been restored. But then if the simple boundary would have set right at the initial stage, I'm sure we can avoid such pitfalls in our life. We may consider ourselves wise, but then we need to also know there's an enemy who's around us waiting for a time to devour us. So these boundaries will only help us to stay pure, stay on God when we set ourselves as a minister of God to serve God and His people. We need to set ourselves on God, stay clean at all private sexual sin. Can one of us please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 12, 13, 19 to 20. Jafina, Nixon, Nicholson, sorry, Nikki. Anyone can please read. Ma'am, can I? Okay, Rosalind. Maybe the next verse is somebody else. Please be ready so we all can take turn and be quick in reading. Yes. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore, glorify God in your body. Next verse, 13 and then 19 to 20. 19 to 20. Ma'am, I read from 19 to 20. 19 to 20 also glorify God in your body. Yeah. And in your spirit, which are of God's. So God has designed a sexual, God has designed a sexuality. It is part of who God has made us to be. He has also clearly given us the perimeters within which we are to express and operate and experience a sexuality. However, as men and women, managing that sexual passion is may not be easy. Just because we are the ministers of God, it's not that we have this. We don't become an angel to manage all these areas, but then it is the grace when we see God and keep certain boundaries around us that we don't give into such passion. When we ask God to empower, give us the grace by his word, by his Holy Spirit, we can overcome such such passion, unhealthy passion from us. We normally don't discuss all this in the church. We don't put a sermon based around this, but then because it is a private life. But then if we as a minister of God, when we don't set boundaries towards these areas, it may lead us into many pitfalls or bondages and we may, it may also lead to sin and compromise in this area. But if we are careful and guard ourselves, set guard around us, we can overcome from this area. We can be clean in this area as well. Because the word of God says, Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 6, he says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little sin can corrupt our whole nature, whole ministry. It can affect the whole ministry. It can break family. And we have seen many families been broken because of unhealthy sexual sin. Married men getting indulged in the sexual sin outside the marriage. Or some of them before getting into marriage, they commit adultery with others. So all these things can be avoided the minute we know God is watching over us. God knows our intention, our thoughts, our attitudes. And minute we have the sphere of God and we set guard around us in all the areas. I think we can avoid such pitfalls in our life, such sin in our life. With the help of God, with the grace of God. The minute we have such passion coming into us or the thought that comes into us and we are struggling in this area with this thought. One thing that we need to do is don't keep it to yourself. Bring it to God. You know it is not right. When we know it is not right. At the same time, we need to know we cannot hide from God. God is all knowing. He knows everything. The minute we bring it to God and pray about it. Read the word and claim and ask God to bring you out of this desire, out of this passion that is burning within you which is not right. God will make a way. God will cleanse you. God will help you to be an overcomer. And see to do the right things in the right way. If you are single, get married.  Honor your wife, honor your husband. Guard your relationship. And even especially for the ministers of God, when we are traveling to many places, see to it that you don't travel alone but you take a companion with you. Now this companion should be either your family member, your wife or the fellow worker. It can be the same sex. It should not be the opposite sex. Be very careful. And also when you travel, when you stay in a hotel, see to it that if you are alone, one of the caution is we don't have to watch the TV there because the wrong things can come on the television and corrupt our mind. But yeah, these days it's everything in our cell phones. So even on our cell phones when we tend to use YouTube for many good things like watching sermon, messages, preparing many other areas we use our internet for. So we could streamline those videos where we can block certain websites and certain unhealthy videos from popping up so that we don't have to be given into any kind of temptation when we are alone, when we are private, when you are alone at home. How do you keep yourself? Because God is watching us when we are alone. How do we conduct our life? When no one are watching, what are we doing? There are some of the ways that we can avoid when we read through any kind of books, newspapers, magazines. Try to skip and avoid such a nude or unhealthy pictures, images that come away so that we can refuse and do not allow any kind of unhealthy thoughts or passion to stir within us. As we said that we can take captive of any kind of negative thoughts and cast it out. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3 to 5, can I request one of us to read? 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3 and 5, 3 to 5, Brother Abu Bakr, Brother Isaac, Brother Lubeiga, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 3 to 5, it is God's will that you should be sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is wholly and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who do not know God. Amen. So it is very important that we learn to appreciate and give dignity to our body and not abuse it. As it's common for others to do it, but then be the child of God, we need to keep ourselves pure because God wants us to live a pure life and keep ourselves from any kind of sexual immoralities. So with this we will move on to the next point and be accountable to God every moment. Be accountable to God every moment. Can I request one of us to please turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9 to 10? Shall I read now? Yes, Jafina. It's 1st Corinthians or 2nd? 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9 to 10. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verse 9 to 10. We make it our goal to please Him whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due to Him for the things done while in the body whether good or bad. While we respect and encourage accountability to man, whether it be through accountability group or leaders or mentors or overseers, ultimately all of us come to a place where we are accountable to God Himself. The fact that one day we will stand before God in His awesome presence before the judgment seat. So we are ultimately accountable to God. When we have the sense that we are accountable to God, our life changes. It is not the same as used to see our life before because everything has been noticed by God. Every thought, every feelings, everything has been noticed by God. So it helps us to keep ourselves much pure and guard ourselves much careful than what we do friend of man. Every act of us will be clean, will be pure because we have this conscious that God is watching over us. The minute we as a minister of God lead our life and accountable to God, knowing that God is watching over me and I need to be accountable to Him, just this understanding can help us and keep us away from many sin, many sin around us. This conscious knowing God is watching over me can help us lead our life pleasing to God. It can make our life much more fruitful than what we can make it with our own effort. That's why the word of God says, fear of God brings wisdom. So as a minister of God in all our ways, in all our life if we lead with this sense in our mind, with this understanding in our mind that God is watching over us.  So it is very important for us to stay accountable to God at every moment. As a minister of God, we can't say we are full-time minister or part-time minister. As a believer, as a minister of God, we are in full-time. Can I request one of us to turn to the book of Acts chapter 20 verse 33 to 35? Acts chapter 20. Yes. Verse 20 to 25. Am I correct? Yes. And how I can... 1 minute, Acts chapter 20 verse 33 to 35, I'm sorry. 33, okay. Yes, 33 to 35. Converted no man, silver, or good, or apary. Yes. He yourself know that this hand have ministered unto my necessity and to them that were with Him. I have sure the all things how that soul libering ye hearts to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said it's more blessed to give them to receive. Amen. It's more blessed to give them to receive. Amen. So one of the thing, as a minister of God, we must understand that we are to serve God all the time. Just because we may be part of a secular job and then we serve God in the evenings. You're in a secular job from morning 9 to 6 and in the evening, you get into the ministry, you go do some house visits, share the word. So that does not mean that you're doing a part-time job.  Even if you're working, you offer that to God and you work. And when you're ministering, you offer that to God and you serve. Yes, we have seen many leaders in the ministry where initially when they started in the ministry, you know, they were working because financially they need to support themselves. So they work through the day and they started serving in the evening. So as the ministry grew, as the ministry grew and the ministry needs much of their time, they quit work and they got into full-time much later. See, one thing as a minister of God, we need to know that all of us have a call of God in our life. God called David when he was a shepherd boy. Did David become a king immediately? Or did he wait for a certain period where he can learn and he can train himself, get the full knowledge of king and there was a time when God appointed him as a king of Judah first and then of Israel later. Did it happen in one day or did it take time for the process to take place? Yes. Did it happen one day for David? No. It took time. Just like that, when you and I, as a child of God, as a minister of God when we receive a call, it is not that I have to quit my job immediately and get back into the ministry. So what happens if you're married? You have a family to take care of. What do we do? So we need to be mindful, okay? Yes, God has called us. We need to serve God. But at the same time, there is a time appointed time where we will get full time into serving God. So what we need to do that. And we should also see to it that we serve God in all the area even if we are working, okay? There's nothing called part-time, full-time when the minister or the child of God, we are all the time. We are full-time believers in God. We are full-time ministers of God. Whatever area that we are working, we need to serve. We need to, if you're working in a secular company, see to it that we'll be a good employee. We show ourselves that we are the child of God and whatever we do will be a blessing. We will keep up that excellent in our work, excellence in our work. We will focus on our work saying, God, I surrender my work to you. Okay, make me fruitful in this area. Make me fruitful in this business. Make me the head and not the tail. And God will bless you. God bless Daniel and the pagan kingdom to serve. God bless Joseph again in Egypt and he raised him as a minister. The same way, wherever we are, let's not separate God from our secular world or God from our secular work when we unite ourselves together with God and we work wherever we are, we will be excellent. We will be a blessing. Others around us will see Jesus and us. They will see that he reflects as God and we see the hand of God on him so that whatever he does, prosperous, whatever he does, flourishes, whatever he does, we see being fruitful. So this is one of the testimony that we can carry in our life when we invite Jesus in our work and when we allow him to be part of our life in whichever area we work and we serve. And one more point we can look at is watch our diet exercise regularly. Can I request one of us to turn to 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20? 1 Corinthians 6 verse 20. So you were bought at the price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are gods. Yes, we have been bought at the price and we need to glorify God in our body and our spirit which are of gods. Our body is a temple of God. We all have experienced the fact that when both our body and mind are doing well it helps us in our spiritual growth as well. We can pray, we can read the word, we can go about doing minister all around but if our body has been affected are we able to serve God in the same way the way we served before? So we need to take care of our body. It's very important. God desires to glorify himself in our body. So we need to take care of our body in an honorable manner. We need to be very careful because many times as a minister of God when we step out on the ministry you know the host want to treat us with the best of the delicacies of their town of the cities they can offer us but then as a child of God as a minister of God we need to take care of our health. Our health. So we need to be watchful on what we eat. So we need to you know handle it very carefully. We should not say no I don't want I don't enjoy food so it's okay and hurt them but then in a very well manner we can just we can take some of the food and taste it so that they are pleased they are happy but not completely feast over it which can overload our body that would be too much for us to take it. So we need to be watchful on what we eat because that can affect our body at the same time we need to stay healthy having a proper eating habits and proper sleeping habits we need to cultivate it so that we can stay fit and strong. We should also implement exercise. Exercising is very important. Sometimes it may be difficult for some of us to keep that in a daily routine in one of the effective way it helps us when we exercise regularly to keep our body fit and strong. So when we keep our body fit and strong and healthy we can serve God in much effective and better way because we will have a healthy body we can stay strong and we can live long to serve God at the same time. So one more important point is personal management plan can I request one of us to please turn to book of Titus chapter 1 verse 7 and 8 and the other person can take up 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 can I request one of us to please read Titus chapter 1 verse 7 to 8 for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God not self-willed not quick tempered not given to wine not violent not greedy for money but hospitable a lover of what is good sober minded just holy self-controlled next person can you please read on 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 for God did not give us a spirit of humanity but a spirit of power of love and of self-discipline thank you, thank you so as a bishop, as a spiritual leader we must be blameless we must be a steward of God not self-willed or quick tempered and we must not be given to wine and not be violent not be greedy for money but hospitable very important and we need to be a lover of what is good and stay away from what is evil and we need to be sober minded just holy self-controlled the word in 2 Timothy chapter 7 chapter 1 verse 7 it says sound mind which literally means self-control the word of God self-control the Holy Spirit fills us with the boldness, the power, the love and discipline to have the self-control and Holy Spirit also gives us the power to keep ourselves under discipline all body, spirit and soul so with the help of the Holy Spirit we can handle any given situation or circumstance that comes up on our way so that all that has been said in Titus chapter 1 verse 7 and 8 we can follow them because we have the spirit of the Lord who is with us he will empower us so that we can be blameless we can be a good steward of God we can have the self-control within us and we will not be given into any kind of emotions that can stir us at times we need to be God-conscious when we are God-conscious we can handle our life in a much better way that pleases God so one of the way we can we can handle a personal management that is a personal life in a daily life is having a daily schedule so in a daily schedule a priority should be like spending time with God no matter how busy your schedule could be from morning to evening either you may be working you are doing your business you are studying in a college it can be whatever but in that schedule keep your priority to the personal time because from that secret place from that time is where you can draw your strength you can draw your wisdom because God is the source of all wisdom all understanding all knowledge so we need to have a priority in setting our time with God spend that time do not compromise that for anything else accepting ministry invitation yes in ministry we may get busy we may get occupied so at the same time we need to choose which one to take which one to leave check our attitude and also see the person who is inviting you is he trying to fill up space and he is calling you or is he genuinely wanting you to come and share come and impart the revelation the understanding of God what God is doing in your life or in your ministry meeting up church people we need to be there to meet their needs because people want to meet and talk and share their trouble and problem with the minister of God to get the right direction to be prayed for and we need to give time for everyone so when we try to meet people there are some safe boundaries that we need to set ourselves as I said before as we discussed already when we try to meet it's not that we should not minister to the opposite sex we can minister to the opposite sex but in a safe boundary way if you are married have your bike along with you when you minister to the opposite sex if you are single and if the other person is coming to meet you is married meet that person with his partner or a partner or if you have a safe setup two or three people around you or with that person when you are ministry it is very important and also one other way is to meet the person in ministries if you have a office setup it is always good to meet the person at your office at your office or at the safe place or in an area where it is safe but not some way personally one on one and listen until it is the same sex person solving problem meeting needs we must remind ourselves that we are not God we are not the saviour of this world that we can solve all the problem we can take up every person's need it will only drain us and we will not be able to meet every person's need it is only God so we need to lead the person to God but we can take the responsibility of certain things certain problems where God wanted you to help certain people certain situations, certain family and go ahead and do that but you cannot do that every time we need to seek God but one thing we can do is ask the person to seek God and God is our ultimate provider he provides for every one's need he is a God who is not partial he meets everyone's need and one of the other is the life plan we need to have a life plan the past has given us an example of 10 decades how you can plan your life 5 years ahead 10 years ahead so that you are focused you have a goal you have a vision to lead your life which is more important so because in problems we say a man who do not have a vision he falls so when you have a vision yes the vision can always change it can expand it can improve but then you write it on in the book of Habakkuk chapter 2 read that when you write down your vision though it may tarry but it will be fulfilled in the right season we need to write it down there will be a time it will happen but planning and setting goals setting visions in our life is very important so plan ahead for your life 5 years down the line 10 years down the line you can plan your life so live life with the divine purpose we need to have the call and the purpose of God in our mind of us and so that we can set our life in track to fulfill that call that purpose in our life so all of us each of us who are here in this class and later will join also if we have this divine purpose in our mind we can live our life that's that's adding meaning it's meaningful life we can live a meaningful life in this world we can live a legacy we can make a mark and that should be our desire when we have these things in our mind in our head ahead of us we can see our life that we are living is with purpose we plan our life set things what is it needed and set aside those things that are not needed to our life and so that we can maintain a simple clean life that would be pleasing to God and we can be that vessel the vessel of honor unto God so with this we are finishing the first chapter in this book called personal life so I would open up to the class if you have any questions you would like to share class, Sid you would like to share something that you learned can I please it was such a wonderful session I appreciate all these being taught because as you said usually we don't get to you know be taught on these topics right even from a church platform so yeah I really appreciate this being taught may God bless faculty and you thank you okay we will end the session with a word of prayer can I request one of us to please lead us in prayer Deveer can you lead us in prayer yeah sure thank you thank you father thank you lord for this wonderful time father that you have given us thank you lord for speaking through as to Diana lord about father these topics father that are really important father lord sometimes father we take for granted father lord but we know father that we are a commanded lord to guard our hearts to guard our minds father lord yes father to watch out father lord for those pit pit loops father the loop holes in our life father lord where we can give a foothold to the devil father lord we pray that you guard us father you guide us by the holy spirit lord you help us keep ourselves lord in purity father just as you are holy help us be holy lord and we ask for lord your guidance father the renewal of our minds lord with your word yes father lord and the guidance of the holy spirit in our lights lord yes father help us lord there are areas where we are struggling father may you intervene father yes lord if we are struggling lord with discipline lord if you are struggling father with consistency lord having those spiritual disciplines lord if you are struggling with any father sin lord in our lives father that are difficult father in our own fleshly father efforts to overcome father lord that you empower and equip that we will father lord get over father because you have called us as overcome us lord you have called us more than conquerors father lord yes lord father we know lord that you have given us a victory help us lord to live out of that victory that you have given us father lord and help us lord that we may bring glory and honor to your name father and being lord the people lord who inspire faith into others lord who inspire purity and holiness in other's lives father lord thank you and praise you lord bless pastor Diana father lord thank you father for all that you are speaking through her father lord thank you lord for the empowerment lord the courage the boldness father lord that you are filling her with father lord i pray your blessing over her and each and every person here thank you lord for redefining us lord i pray lord let your word be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our paths lord in Jesus precious name pray amen amen amen thank you so much thank you for the prayer that we are thank you each one for joining in today's session god bless see you all in the next class thank you god bless


Hey everybody, again, we're at IRF 2019 here in Bel Air, Maryland. And I'm here with Tim from TH3D. How you doing, Tim? I'm tired, Jim. We were, we had a late night. You went to Printed Solid for an event at Printed Solid. How was it? It was fun, got to hang out with everybody, got to see Dave's new extrusion line, which was, well, it wasn't running, but he had beer in it. I love it. So we're checking out the table. You've got the Ender 3 here. And the Ender 3 is completely tricked out. Pretty much just like mine is, because I have all the same equipment that you gave me. For the most part, yeah. So what do you think? How's Murph been? It's been great. Honestly, like we come out here, obviously, to, you know, we do sell some stuff here, but we come out here to meet everybody, customers, other people in the community and just hang out and have a good time. So it's been a good time. Got to meet a ton of people here. Everybody's been very friendly. Yeah, it's been awesome. So this is day two. This is Sunday. And it's a little more chill today. Yesterday, it was jam-packed in here. It was great. Anything new we got cooking over here? Nothing really new. And we got our control board in here. I've been playing around with just doing faster speed prints on here. Nothing too new right now. Nothing really in the pipeline immediately. But stay tuned for new stuff coming next year. Nice. I'm glad you guys are here. Thank you so much for being a sponsor on my channel. Full disclosure, right? But I appreciate it. Thanks for coming by. Nice to see you, Tim.


Okay, good morning everyone. Plan of action here today is to watch Boeing. Excuse me, I got to get some water and see if this sets up at ShipTrucker. I said that is was really cool for the Navy ship. What was updated? In fact, let's look at it right now. Really super neat. So I had bought a camera that I haven't used yet to tape myself for Christmas and I'm gonna set it up in front of the window and try to get the whole thing on camera. CBS. On CBS today, so I have to close out the room before 10. Did anyone listen to my spot on Friday? On CBS? Double check this. The ship! U.S. NS Comfort. Oh crap, there's so many ships around it. I can't see it now. Oh darn it. I hope it doesn't come in when we're trading. I can't tell. There's too many ships in New York Harbor to see. It's on top of them now. I think it's here. I think it's in the harbor. I don't have the camera set up. I'm gonna be on CBS. So I'm not gonna even have time to set it up. I have to do that. I think I can set it up quick before I get on. It's almost here. That's pretty cool. Let's see if Boeing sets up. Well, I'll get pictures of it. I wanted to see it come in and I wanted to see how it docks. Because it's so big. I did get your emails on trader a day. Thank you. I'll look at those later. Let's see if we can get a set up on Boeing here. It's got a long way to push back if it wants to. 158, so not that it has to do that. And again, what have I repeated every day? Every day. Every single day for the last three weeks, every single day for the last month. What have I repeated? What's the song? Just remind yourself. No, that's not the song. Although I have repeated that. That's not the song. What's the song? Elaine got it. Elaine got it. Elaine gets an A plus plus. Air Shower, Singer, Answered and Jackie too. All right, here we go. And here we go. All right, this is licking good. Actually, let's go, let's just quickly glance at this CCL too. Oh, this little puppy. Actually, let's do this first. This is going to set up before the other one. Stop's going to be 1355. CCL, 1355 is a stop and I don't have the entry yet. Crap, this is just going, look at this. Unbelievable. I'll tell you where the entry is, but I can tell you the stop's 1355. Okay, we're going to do 88 by 55. 88 by 55. Air, do it, do it, get the stop in. 1355 is a stop for CCL. Be in it. Be in it, be in it, be in it, be in it, be in it. That's going to be good enough. Okay, hold on. We'll go back to Boeing. But I needed a quick trade today anyways because I'm on CBS.  This is going to be 15430. Stopping this is going to be 15430. It's already going. Wow. Okay. I decided to do CCL because I thought it was going to go and it is going, but BA is going as well. See if we can find an entry in this. They're both going to go. Darn it. Wow. I thought that was going to back up. No, it's going here. If you're, if you're in CCL, you're in it. The stop is in, and I'm going to go back to Boeing and see if we can get an entry in this. Maybe we should just put the stop over 154. 15435. 15435. 15435. Let's see if it's going to hold. So stopping this is 1355 and if you didn't do it, you'll have another chance here and I'm going back to Boeing to see if we can get a decent, decent entry in this. I think we might have to just do it. 15435. It's basically three bucks. Let's do 99 by 35. Not here. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. We're not going to get any other better entry. It's already going to make sure you have the stop at the right place. This is Boeing and it's 15435. 15435 and this you're in if you're in it. Okay. This is here we go. Here we go. Here we go. It's good. We didn't hesitate and we would have gotten a better entry, but it's either here or there because CCL is going to work too. So we would have gotten a dollar better entry actually, but either way, this looks great. So we got two trades going here. Just make sure you size yourself right. So the target, let's go over all the targets and everything here quickly because I'm because I have to go in about 10, 10, 12 minutes here. So CCL target, somebody, anybody, tell me what the target is. I'm here. Here we go. Here we go. America green on this market. Where are the targets? Give me the targets and be a give me the targets and CCL everybody. And then we'll go over what I've been saying the whole time around.  Again, you could still do CCL if you want to. I think it's a little late to do be a