The Watsonian (blog)

‘A ship, belong­ing to a hea­then owner, was once sail­ing over the sea, one of the pas­sen­gers being a Jew­ish boy.  A great storm arose, and all the Gen­tiles aboard took hold of their idols and prayed to them, but to no avail.  See­ing that their prayers had been in vain, they said to the lad: “Call upon your God, for we have heard that He answers your peti­tions when you cry to Him and that He is all-powerful.”  The boy imme­di­ately stood up and called with all his heart upon God, Who hear­kened to his prayer, and the sea became calm.  On reach­ing land, they dis­em­barked to pur­chase their require­ments and said to him: “Do you not wish to buy any­thing?”  He answered: “What do you want of a poor alien like me?”  They exclaimed :  “You a poor alien!  We are the poor aliens; for some of us are here and have our gods in Baby­lon; other have them in Rome; other have their gods with them but they are no ben­e­fit to us.  As for you, how­ever, wher­ever you go your God is with you!“‘