Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1940, Síða 214

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LE NORD
of the Norwegian colony living there. Only exceptionally, how-
ever, are there organised congregations. The church is available
for baptism, confirmation, marriage (where permitted), and
burials, and the chaplain is ready to help the sick and destitute so
far as there are means at his disposal. But first and last the great
task of the Seamen’s Mission is the evangelical teaching of the
Gospel. The numerous social undertakings have of course their
special value. They express Christianity at work on the different
fronts. This practical service of the Gospel contributes to open the
hearts to what the Norwegian Seamen’s Mission especially wants
to bring: the glad tidings of salvation and peace, of future and
hope in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
What is now the attitude of the Norwegian seamen to the
Church and Christianity? The answer is that as a rule there is a
better attendance at the services in the Seamen’s Churches than
at home. And for good reasons. Seamen do not live on the sunny
side of life. Life to them means privation, longing, intense and
vivid yearning for understanding and love. The struggle against
storms and hard weather often fills the days with such suspense
and uncertainty that it is not easy to find rest in anything unstable
and in motion. An elderly skipper who came home safe and sound
from a voyage where he had been in peril of death gave a classic
expression to the thoughts that were in his mind while he was
fighting for his life in the waves: “I prayed to God,” he said. And
added: “For I can tell you that the planks that separate a seafaring
man from eternity are too thin to create freethinkers.”
There are great possibilities when the Gospel is taught with
spiritual fervour and force to such men. And even if we do not
always see great results of the work at once, the Word of God
has a wonderful power of survival. There are no doubt many
who could do as the old “salt” who was about to set out on his
last journey. Before he died, he sent a greeting and thanks to an
old chaplain for a sermon he had heard in London some forty
years earlier. Now it pointed the sure course through the troubled
waters of death.
As mentioned above the services of the Norwegian Seamen’s
Mission are conducted in accordance with the ritual and laws
of the Established Church of Norway. Norwegian is spoken at
all meetings. The Mission’s activities are thereby confined to those
who understand Norwegian: Norwegians, Norwegian Americans,
Swedes, Danes, and Swedish-speaking Finns. This laid the