ARE WE TOO EASY WITH OURSELVES? Some years ago, while Pastor of the Methodist Church in Scituate Harbor, Massachusetts, I stood upon the shore and watched the drifting boat that inspired this poem. It was during a severe northeast storm, that in some sections of North Scituate, sent the waves crashing over the sea wall and the roofs of summer cottages near by. As I watched I noticed a small boat that had broken from its mooring. It looked like an apple bobbing in the water. Men were too busy to bother with this craft and so it was allowed to go on its giddy, reckless way. It soon became partly filled with water and on several occasions appeared as though it would sink. However, when I left, it still could be seen drifting crazily about, always widening the distance between it and its mooring. The thought came to me, "How much like the drifter that I had preached about and referred to many times from my pulpit!" Yes, and I not only preached about that drifter, but I had seen him. I had watched him as he staggered into Morgan Memorial in Boston. I had prayed with him at the altar of the Dover Street Rescue Mission. I had preached to him in jail. And always in private interview I had found this, that at one time that broken piece of driftwood was once a noble vessel. He was securely anchored at some mooring. Then came an exceptionally severe northeast gale. He had weathered many of them. Some not too successfully, but enough to get by, but this one was different. It was a temptation made to order and he trusted in himself instead of in God. He was too easy with himself. He broke away from his mooring to spend a life drifting.
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