In the days of the potato famine in Ireland, many Irishmen left the country and came to America seeking a new way of life. And among those thousands of people who came as immigrants to our country there was a young man who couldn’t afford passage on the ship, so he hid himself aboard and became a stowaway. Halfway across the Atlantic their ship hit an iceberg and was going down. By the time when he realized what was happening, all of the other passengers were on the lifeboats. The captain of the ship was about ready to step off of the ship and take the last seat in the last lifeboat when he saw this little lad. In the highest tradition of the seas he stepped back on board and allowed this stowaway to take his place in the lifeboat. As the lifeboat was pushed out from the sinking ship and he saw the image of the captain for the last time in the fog, he heard the captain say to him, “Son, never forget what’s been done for you.”
He came to America and was successful in business. People often asked him, “What motivates you? What keeps you going?” He said, “When I am down and depressed and am not feeling very good about myself, I see again a vision of the captain standing there in the fog and saying to me, ‘Son, never forget what has been done for you.’ And I get up and I get going again so that I might be worthy of the price paid for me.”