2 Samuel 19:18 - "And there went over a ferry boat to carry over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good" (KJV).

In our highly-automated, machine-oriented world, I don’t suppose that we often think about the little jobs that are still done by hand - by men - by sheer manual labor. And yet, surprisingly, many of these jobs are very necessary in our workaday lives.

For example, take the lowly ferryman. I suppose, if you’ve visited New York City, you might have taken the Long Island Ferry across to the Island, perhaps just for the sake of saying that you had been on it.

But did you know that the fifty ferryboats operating in San Francisco Bay carried as many as fifty million passengers a year before the building of bridges across the bay put the commuter ferries out of business in 1939? Some ferries carry trains, some carry cars. But whatever they carry, there are still places which are inaccessible without them.

Of course, this is a business, like any other, and the ferryman expects, and deserves, his wage. Today, this is in the form of pay just as any other service receives pay. In the time of which our reference speaks, there probably was a desire to ingratiate themselves with the reigning monarch! But the general idea was the same - the worker is worth his hire.

However, the ferryman was probably given only a small fee for his service, and had to supplement his income by other means. Perhaps he was a farmer or cattle owner, who also held the right of the property where the ferry was situated. In reading the annals of our Southwest, we often find that this situation prevailed - the owner of property abutting a stream or river would charge cattle drives for the privilege of fording the streams, and also charge stage coach drivers for the privilege of a ferry ride across to the other side. And why not? The rights of property are still to be respected!

The ferryman has played his part throughout history and mythology. Perhaps the most famous is Charon - in Greek mythology - who led the souls of the dead across the black river Styx. We have dispensed with his services today, but we still find need of his human counterpart in many phases of our daily lives.