Christian Stories - O'er Uncharted Seas and The True Story of Devereux Spratt

O'er uncharted seas
To their heart's desire
Do men of faith set sail,

While the beaten men
Walk with fearful hearts
Along life's beaten trail.

The men of faith will challenge
Both men & Satan's wrath,

But the beaten men will compromise
And walk the beaten path.

Beaten roads are for beaten men,
As they walk with measured tread,

With tuneless souls they move along
To dwell among the dead.

But men of faith climb unscaled walls,
And sail uncharted seas.

They dare to cross convention's bounds

To set the captives free.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 1542)

DevereuxSpratt

On a tablet in a church of Algiers is the name of "Devereux Spratt, 1641." The traveller inquires what that means, and he is told that Devereux Spratt, an Englishman, was captured with one hundred andtwenty others in 1641 by Algerian pirates. He was put to work with his fellow-slaves on the fortifications around Algiers. Cut off from congenial company, he looked to God for sympathy and strength, and God's grace proved, as always, sufficient.

Finding his fellow-captives full of despair, he began to cheer them with words of faith and hope; and soon he had gathered about him,through his faithful testimony, a little band of praying and worshipping Christians. Through the influence of his brother in England, after several years, Devereux Spratt was ransomed, and the order for his release was brought to the fortifications.

His fellow-captives rejoiced with tears at his good fortune, butexpressed regret that their leader was to leave them. Devereux Spratt refused to accept the ransom, and remained until he died, a slave among slaves, that he might continue to comfort those whom God had brought to Christ through him.

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