He loved the sea, this rebellious Scottish lad. The fishing villageof Ardrishaig was his home, and the fishermen his friends. Thesea was wild when the wind blew strong, like young Chalmershimself. He breathed the sea air and wondered what lay beyond the rolling waves. Later, when God’s call to missionary service touched hisheart, he spent many perilous days on the sea, searching out peoples whohad never heard God’s story. Chalmers was eighteen when he converted to Christ in an evangelistic meeting led by two preachers from Ireland. Chalmers had come withfriends to break up the meeting, to mock the zealots, to make sport ofthe timid who sought their peace in religion. Perhaps the heavy rain thatnight dampened the youths’ recklessness, but Chalmers listened andbelieved. The message was from Revelation 22:17: “The Spirit and theBride say, ‘Come.’” It was an invitation to make his heart’s home in God;Chalmers gladly accepted. “I was thirsty, and I came,” he said later.A few years later he received pastoral training and a commission bythe London Missionary Society to serve in the Pacific Islands. Chalmersand his wife, Jane Hercus, were standing at water’s edge in New Guinea.Suddenly a mob of painted warriors surrounded them, demanding giftsand
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