The Underwater God
Illustration
by Editor James S. Hewett

In the Hebrides Islands they have a lovely legend about a god who lived beneath the sea. And the great desire of this god who lived beneath the sea was to have a little baby boy—a human baby. So he was always trying to catch little babies that might be in boats passing along the surface of the sea from island to island. And so the people always clutched their children close when in their boats.

On one occasion, he almost got a boat. He was surging behind it, this sea­god, when the boat reached shore. And they lifted the little boy who was in it out onto the shore just as this god approached in a great wave. And they hurried away with the boy. At least they thought they'd gotten away except the sea-god managed to send just one little wavelet into the heart of that little child. And as that god, momentarily frustrated, settled back down to his palace beneath the waves, he was heard to say, "He will return to me for I have put a part of myself into his heart."

Years later, the people of the village were astonished one day to see a strong, young man go down to the beach and get in a rowboat and begin to row out into the sea, but not toward another island. And they called out to him, "There is no island that way." But on he rowed. And as they watched, when he had gotten a good distance, he stood up and dived into the sea to the god who had put a part of himself into that boy's heart.

When we were made, God put a bit of himself, a bit of eternity, a bit of the Kingdom of Heaven right inside of us and it cries out for him.

Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Illustrations Unlimited, by Editor James S. Hewett