'The mistakes that doctors make are buried in the ground,' W.S. Meriwether, the nautical writer, says. 'Those made by lawyers are paid for by their clients, but the mistakes of sea captains are paid for by themselves. The captain in our story paid such a price. With one officer sick, he is standing watch with his first mate, when his love for drink leads him to neglect his duty. While the ship is plunging to destruction, the captain, who should have been on the bridge, is below in the stateroom, helplessly intoxicated. The ship founders, and the captain and his first mate are the only ones who are saved. The luckless commander is placed on trial for the deaths of his men. The evidence of his mate counts heavily against him, and he is sent to prison for a term of years. His wife, who stands by him during the trial, prays for him in vain, and when the jury returns its verdict, she hands him her golden cross, hoping that in his cell he may yet find comfort and consolation in religion. The cross, which is taken from him when he is received at the prison, is restored to him on his release. He is then brokenhearted and embittered. His wife has died during his absence, his prospects are blighted, and the only thing that keeps him up is the desire for revenge upon the man he unjustly blames for his misfortunes. So he hunts him out, and when they meet, he greets the mate with every evidence of friendship. The mate, a good hearted chap, is sorry for his old commander, and only too ready to extend him a helping hand. He invites him to his home, and it is his intention to see that the captain's remaining days are free from care and worry. Although the captain is cunning enough to conceal from his mate his feeling of fanatic hatred, his secret is partially revealed to a visitor at the mate's home, the parish priest. The clergyman meets him at the mate's home, and the captain's conduct worries him. The priest leaves the house in deep thought. He ponders over the problem on the way home, then decides to return to the house. He is just in time to save the mate's life, the captain being about to kill him. When the priest suddenly appears before the captain, holding out the cross toward him, the would-be assassin thinks of his wife, and for the first time realizes the crime he would commit. He sees that the punishment he has suffered is the consequence of his own fault, and he sinks at the priest's feet, begging forgiveness for the crime he had been about to commit. The priest, finding that his repentance is sincere, secures him a refuge in a monastery. There, by prayers and good deeds, he is trying to atone for the faults he committed in this world, so that he may meet the one he loved in eternity.

Source: Moving Picture News, 12 Aug 1911

It is a fault in many photoplays that they demand our acceptance of incidents, which may be natural but which are not convincing merely because time and space were not taken to make us familiar with the mental peculiarities that make the events natural. The picture of the captain's conversion fails to be powerfully convincing for just that reason. One point in the picture was obscure. We are shown the priest as leaving the mate and the captain together and on his way home being moved to return to the mate's house. We see him start back; but, for a moment, this reviewer thought that the house the priest seems to be leaving was another view of the mate's house, whereas it was his own house.

Source: Moving Picture World, 2. Sep 1911