PBIZE ESSAY, 
 
 I
 
 
 
 

 
 C j I -<r.
 
 PRIZE ESSAY. 
 
 ^ZJEBULON;, 
 
 THE MORAL CLAIMS OF SEAMEN 
 STATED AND ENFORCED. 
 
 BY REV. JOHN HARRIS, 
 \\ 
 
 Of Epsom, England. 
 
 AUTHOR OP "MAMMON," THE "GREAT TEACHER," &c. 
 
 " Zebulon shall dwell <u the haven of the tea, and ho cball be (a, a haven 
 ul ships." Gen. ilix. 13. 
 
 K1KST AMERICAN, 
 
 REVISED 1 ROM THE THIRH LOM1O.N EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 GOULD, KENDALL & LINCOLN, 
 59 Washington Street. 
 
 1837.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by 
 
 GOULD, KENDALL & LINCOLN, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 
 
 Fran of James Loring.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN . . 19 
 
 PART II. 
 
 REASONS WHY THE PUBLIC IN GENERAL, AND 
 ALL CHRISTIANS IN PARTICULAR, SHOULD 
 PROMOTE THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS IM- 
 PROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN 37 
 
 PART III. 
 THE MEANS BY WHICH THE CONDITION OF 
 
 OUR SEAMEN MIGHT BE IMPROVED 83
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IN the early part of J836, an advertisement appeared 
 in some of the religious periodicals, and the several 
 Essays written in consequence of its appearance were 
 placed in the hands of the Rev. W. H. Murch, Presi- 
 dent of Stepney College, and the Rev. John Clayton, 
 jun., A. M., who presented the following report : 
 
 " Desirous of awakening the whole Christian com- 
 munity to the claims of the British and Foreign Sai- 
 lors' Society, several gentlemen of the Committee have 
 originated a subscription to offer a premium of fifty 
 pounds for the best Essay on the moral claims of Brit- 
 ish Seamen. The proposed title is, ' An Essay ; the 
 Moral Claims of Sailors Stated and Enforced, embody- 
 ing the present condition of the seafaring population, 
 and the duty of the public in general, and all Chris- 
 tians in particular, to promote their moral and religious 
 improvement, and the best means by which this may 
 be accomplished.' In consequence of this notice, seve- 
 1*
 
 VI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 ral Essays have been written, and sent to the Commit- 
 tee, at wliose request we have carefully perused them 
 for the purpose of adjudication. It is proper to remark, 
 that the names of the authors are unknown to us. 
 Whilst, then, we have great pleasure in recording, that 
 some of the other Essays are written with considerable 
 ability, and are well adapted to answer the proposed 
 object, we have no hesitation in arriving at the deci- 
 sion, that this is entitled to the prize. We earnestly 
 pray that this appeal to the wisdom, humanity, and 
 piety of the public may meet with an honest response ; 
 and that, in the hands of God, it may be very instru- 
 mental to the bringing in of that glorious period, when 
 ' the abundance of the sea shall be turned toward the 
 Church, and the wealth of the nations shall come to 
 her.' " 
 
 W. H. MURCH, Stepney College. 
 JOHN CLAYTON, JCN., Hackney. 
 
 Jfov. 26, 1836.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 THE following work is substantially a reprint of 
 BRITANNIA, a Prize Essay by Mr. Harrison the moral 
 claims of seamen. It seemed desirable that a produc- 
 tion by such an author, on such a subject, should come 
 as extensively as possible before the American public. 
 In examining the Essay with reference to the press, it 
 was found to be so completely English, as to render its 
 naturalization indispensable to secure its highest utility 
 among us. The very things, which in part gave it 
 weight and influence in England, unfitted it for our 
 own meridian. We cannot be expected to be moved 
 by the glory of her naval warfare, or to feel the power 
 of appeals based on the extent of her commerce. As 
 far as the argument is grounded on things which are as 
 true of the American as the English sailor, it would be 
 impertinent to make any alterations. It has been our 
 object therefore, to make the Essay, an appeal by iMr.
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 Harris to the Christians of America on the moral claims 
 of our own seamen. We judged it indispensable to 
 this end, that appeals to sympathies peculiarly English, 
 should be erased, and that the statistics of our own com- 
 merce and benevolent operations in 'behalf of seamen 
 should be substituted for those of England. The origi- 
 nal title of Britannia has been rejected, and from 
 the various substitutes which have occurred to us, we 
 have selected (not without distrust,) that of Zebulon, 
 the name of the tribe in Israel who dwelt by " the 
 haven of ships." 
 
 We are not aware of having taken greater liberties 
 with the work, than was necessary to our object, or 
 than is common in England with the productions of 
 American authors. We hope Mr. Harris will not con- 
 sider his Essay barnacled by its passage across the At- 
 lantic. If it shall appear to him to have suffered at our 
 hands, he will impute it to an honest, though misguid- 
 ed desire that he <! might have some fruit among us 
 also, even as among other Gentiles." 
 
 AMERICAN EDITORS.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
 
 MR. HARRIS, in his Essay, appears to attach 
 less importance to the Sailors' Home, as a 
 means for the intellectual and moral elevation 
 of seamen, than has been usual among us. Per- 
 haps the experiment has not been tried as ex- 
 tensively or under as favorable circumstances in 
 England, as in the United States. As far as it 
 has been made, the benefits derived from it jus- 
 tify us in placing the Home second only to the 
 Chaplain and the Bethel. There are many ad- 
 vantages in this institution which a riper expe- 
 rience will render more apparent, but the fol- 
 lowing are perfectly obvious to the friends of 
 seamen among us. 
 
 1. The Home withdraws the sailor from the 
 influences which have degraded him. The sai- 
 lor is a homeless man. He usually commences
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his career in early life, a wayward boy, sent to 
 sea as the last school of reformation left his pa- 
 rents, or seeking it as the element most con- 
 genial to his own buoyant and daring spirit. 
 When he has broken away from the family cir- 
 cle, he seldom revisits it, but floats, like a weed 
 torn from its native rock, where wind and wave 
 may bear him. It is but seldom that he gathers 
 another circle and knows the endearments of 
 husband and wife, of parents and children. He 
 does violence to his nature. He is a lonely, 
 solitary man, with one half of the sympathies 
 of humanity withered within him. In conse- 
 quence, he has no object for which to live out 
 of himself. He has no motive to be temperate 
 and saving. He is left to the dominion of his 
 passions ; and if their indulgence be denied 
 him while at sea, on his return they do but 
 rage the more, like his own ocean, for the pre- 
 vious calm. When he reaches port, how is he 
 met? Not by the respect and kindness of the 
 community he benefits, not by the influences of 
 the gospel he has borne to the heathen, but by 
 the tempter with the cup of death. It is the 
 interest of the landlord, that the sailor should 
 be licentious and intemperate, and while he 
 furnishes the means, he sees to it, that a day or
 
 INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 a week is sufficient to squander the hard earn- 
 ings of months and years. What results can 
 be expected under such circumstances, from 
 preaching the gospel to seamen. You mingle 
 the truths of the Bible with the coarse revels of 
 the bar and the brothel, and which will have 
 the mastery, the voice of God or of the pas- 
 sions ? You can expect no good result. You 
 might as well hope that the scanty and inter- 
 rupted showers of heaven would freshen the 
 brine of the sea, or stand upon the rocks, which 
 restrain the ocean and scattering the seed broad- 
 cast upon its waters, look to see a harvest spring- 
 ing up from its sands and waves. The Home 
 separates him from such influences, and brings 
 him sobered and in his right mind, in contact 
 with good principles and men. 
 
 2. In the Home, the sailor is associated 
 with the best men of his own class. 
 
 Whenever a Sailor's Home is opened, the 
 temperate, the saving, the aspiring, and the 
 thoughtful will frequent it. Whoever else may 
 come, you will find there the men, who are not 
 contented with the fore-castle, but determined 
 to reach the summit of the profession. You 
 cannot keep them away from its schools, its 
 library, its reading room, or its lectures. The
 
 Xil INTRODUCTION. 
 
 circle may be a limited one, but still it is large 
 enough to form a public opinion, which exerts 
 a powerful control over its members. The first 
 principles of reform are laid in an entire dis- 
 use of whatever intoxicates. The sailor finds 
 himself associated with men who respect them- 
 selves, and are respected, and whose whole 
 influence goes in favor of strict temperance. 
 Once a sober man, he learns to accumulate, 
 and the Savings Bank is ready to receive his 
 deposits. A large sphere opens upon him, and 
 with the hope of rising above his present condi- 
 tion, he fits himself for a better. From this 
 hour, he has a stake in the community, and the 
 community have a pledge for his good conduct. 
 The Sailor's Home too, furnishes an oppor- 
 tunity to the friends of seamen, to form crews 
 of the sober and religious, and to convince the 
 merchant by them of the benefit resulting from 
 efforts for the good of seamen. " When you 
 will send a crew from the Home to New Or- 
 leans, who will all return, said a merchant on 
 one occasion, I will believe in it." A crew had 
 been sent to that port and they returned to a 
 man, notwithstanding that triple the wages, 
 they were then receiving, had been offered 
 them if they would desert the ship. They had
 
 INTRODUCTION. Xlll 
 
 learnt that lesson of fidelity to their engage- 
 ments at the Home, for he who does not do his 
 duty as a seaman, is not fit to be an officer. 
 
 3. At the Home, the sailor is associated 
 with Christians, who feel the deepest interest in 
 his welfare, under circumstances which pro- 
 mise the happiest results to their efforts for his 
 conversion. 
 
 He has been a lonely man, a stranger to 
 kindness or attention. He has lived in the 
 world, as the rock and the ocean together, in 
 perpetual conflict. He has been the victim of 
 the designing, neglected by the church, and 
 the prey of his own wicked passions. " I feel," 
 said a sailor, who was friendless and homeless, 
 and who for nineteen years had wandered from 
 port to port without a single return to the fire- 
 side of his childhood, " I feel as if I were the last 
 spar left standing after a storm." In the Home, 
 the hand of Christian sympathy is extended to 
 him, and kindness is the more grateful because 
 it has been so unknown before. The truths 
 and blessings of the gospel are urged on his at- 
 tention, and there is good hope of the result. 
 He has indeed been separated from the influ- 
 ences of the Sabbath, and the pulpit, and prayer, 
 but not utterly separated from his God. While
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the dwellers by the shore grow up to manhood 
 with an indifference to sacred things, arising 
 from their commonness and familiarity, it is 
 amidst the unbelievers of God, eternity, and the 
 wonders of his power in the deep, amidst the 
 calm and the storm, amidst deliverances from 
 strange and sudden death, that the elements of 
 his character are combined. And never will 
 you find the seaman, whether excited or sober, 
 who will treat religion or its ministers with oth- 
 er than respect. If he have mistaken super- 
 stition for religion, he is far from denying all 
 religion in infidelity. He is open to the ap- 
 proaches of truth. When convinced that God 
 speaks in the Bible and to him, the very train- 
 ing of his calling prepares him to obey at once 
 and heartily. The sailor never questions or- 
 ders issued from the quarter-deck. If he should, 
 life and property would very often be put in 
 great danger from the neglect of duty, which 
 requires instant attention. The same subordi- 
 nation to authority is carried into religion and 
 the voice of Christ saying, " follow me," meets 
 now as ready an obedience, as when the fisher- 
 men of Galilee left all and followed him. At 
 the Home, there is every reason to hope, that 
 his religious susceptibilities will be developed
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 aright. He is brought in contact with pious 
 seamen. In the circle for prayer, and confer- 
 ence, he is addressed in his own language by 
 men who know his feelings, his wants, and 
 even prejudices as well as the blessings of a 
 Christian's hope. Their speech is rude, their 
 address is coarse, their illustrations uncouth, 
 but withal, there is an honest and hearty con- 
 viction of the truth, and a fervent love of it to 
 which the graces and ornaments of language 
 can add but little. Some men desire that one 
 should come back again from the grave, and 
 reveal its mysteries. Vain wish ! The nearest 
 approach to it, is perhaps the Christian sailor 
 when setting forth the revelations of another 
 life. He has been in the wards of a foreign 
 Hospital and still lives, he has been in the deep, 
 he has been famished and athirst, until he glar- 
 ed with cannibal eyes on the maddened and the 
 dead Jabout him, he has been on the wreck for 
 hopeless days and nights, he has been within 
 the verge of the gates of death, amid the light- 
 ning and the storm, and he has come back 
 again almost a resurrection, to utter the truth 
 of God, in the memory of what he hath been 
 and seen and felt. To such influences we en- 
 trust the sailor at the Home. Besides, he is
 
 XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 there brought under the influence of a friend 
 and pastor, the minister of Christ in the things 
 of an eternal life. Whatever of good the church 
 can devise for him, whatever wisdom can sug- 
 gest, whatever prayer may prompt, whatever 
 love may direct, it may and does centre in the 
 Home, to compass his conversion by the grace 
 of God. 
 
 No class of the community can be more in- 
 terested personally in the improvement of sea- 
 men than our merchants. They entrust to their 
 care, property to the amount of 260,000,000 
 annually. For its safe and speedy transport 
 from market to market, they have no other 
 guarantee from the sailor on the wide ocean, 
 beyond the reach of law, than his own moral 
 character. Whatever tends to make him a 
 wiser and better man, gives security to that 
 property. It were a deed worthy of the mer- 
 chants of Boston whose wealth has been de- 
 rived so largely from the toils of the sailor, to 
 rear a Home, with all the appendages of schools, 
 libraries, reading rooms, lectures, &c. which 
 would make it a model to the sea-ports of our 
 land. It would be but justice to the sailor. 
 For who hath made our merchants princes, and 
 our traffickers the honorable of the earth ? Who
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV11 
 
 hath gathered the harvest of the rivers, the 
 revenue of the sea, the treasures hid in the 
 sand, and the peculiar blessings of every clime 
 and poured them out at our feet ? Who but the 
 sailor 1 We have had an existence, as a na- 
 tion, but little above fifty years, and our com- 
 merce threads every river and visits every shore 
 of the earth, whilst its astonishing increase at 
 the rate of 12 per cent., gives promise, that it 
 will soon rival that of England herself. Could 
 we call up from their graves, in the power of an 
 anticipated resurrection, the stout hearts who 
 have carried on this good work, whence would 
 they come ? But few indeed from the church- 
 yards of their native village. Few from slum- 
 bering with kindred dust in the hope of an as- 
 sociated rising. They would come from the 
 unmarked waves of every shore from the cav- 
 erns of every ocean, from the solitary rivers and 
 the ends of the earth, where they have found an 
 early and a sudden death. The memory of the 
 dead demands for the living, who are following 
 in their steps, the common benefits of humanity 
 on earth, and the hopes of glory afterward. 
 
 To the Christian, the welfare of seamen has 
 an interest into which silver and gold does not 
 enter. Jesus Christ began the conversion of
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the world with the fishers of the lake. It was 
 the fulfilment of the promise, " the ships of 
 Tarshish first." The appeal in their behalf 
 comes to us from every quarter, from our cities 
 corrupted by their vices, from the heathen, who 
 stood between our missionaries and our licen- 
 tious and maddened seamen ; from the very 
 priests of idolatry, whose morality, low as it is, 
 loathes the vices of these men ; from our breth- 
 ren, who are constrained to turn aside from the 
 appropriate work of their mission, to preach the 
 gospel to sailors ; and from seamen themselves 
 as ceaseless as the moan of the ocean. Shall 
 we not heed it? When Nelson met the com- 
 bined fleets of France and Spain at Trafalgar, 
 every arm was nerved, every heart beat more 
 proudly as the signal rose to the masthead and 
 revealed itself on the breeze, " England ex- 
 pects every man to do his duty." In another 
 warfare, in a nobler cause, let our watch-word 
 be, " God expects every Christian to do his 
 duty," and then indeed, the abundance of the 
 sea shall be converted unto him. 
 
 WILLIAM M. ROGERS. 
 
 DANIEL M. LORD.
 
 Z E B U L O N. 
 
 PART THE FIRST.
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 THE PRESENT CONDITION OP OUR SEAMEN. 
 
 IT is impossible for a person to institute an 
 inquiry into the character and claims of our 
 seamen, without soon discovering that his in- 
 vestigations relate to a class of men perfectly 
 unique. A person who steps for the first time 
 on the deck of a ship, and commits himself to 
 the ocean, does not find himself cut off more 
 completely from all his familiar associations, 
 and surrounded hy a world of novelty, than 
 such an inquirer finds himself impressed with a 
 sense of strange and original interest. Per- 
 haps, the only class with which sailors can for 
 a moment be compared is the army ; but even 
 here, the points of resemblance are less promi- 
 nent than the points of contrast. For, while 
 the chief, and almost only feature, which these 
 two classes have in common, is that arising 
 from peril the peril of war, the sailor has an 
 element of his own ; perils of his own, arising
 
 20 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 from that element ; social and religious priva- 
 tions peculiar to himself; and, (to say nothing 
 of an exclusive technical phraseology,) he has 
 habits and characteristics arising out of these 
 peculiarities, which he shares with no other 
 class of the community. 
 
 Did the limits of this essay permit, we might 
 advantageously prepare for looking at the pre- 
 sent condition of our seamen by reviewing their 
 history during the last half century ; and here, 
 a very little attention would soon disclose the 
 unwelcome truth, that their treatment has been 
 as peculiar as their character is unique. 
 
 The page of a Smollet, himself a sailor, and 
 drawing from the life, might furnish us with 
 truths so startling and revolting, that the reader 
 of the present day regards them as exaggera- 
 tions. We might cite unquestionable testimony 
 to prove that " during the last war, when so 
 many sailors were wanted both for the navy and 
 merchant service, every art was used to entrap 
 them, and every species of demoralization en- 
 couraged to keep them in a state of depend- 
 ence." We might advert to the way in which, 
 for years, our ships of war were made recepta- 
 cles for the polluting refuse of our jails, to the 
 necessary deterioration of the character of the 
 genuine sailor. We might fill page after page 
 with quotations from " Voyages," " Tales," 
 and " Narratives" of those times a class of 
 books which have lately formed the most popu- 
 lar reading of circulating libraries exhibiting 
 scenes of license and depravity, especially at
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 21 
 
 anchor, at which the heart sickens. We might 
 appeal to the survivors of those times, " how 
 common it was to practise swearing to see 
 which could excel in oaths, and to drink to in- 
 toxication, with the idea that he who could 
 swear best, and drink most, was the best sai- 
 lor." And we might furnish abundant evi- 
 dence to show how justly our ships deserved 
 the appalling names they received, of floating 
 hells, and hells afloat. 
 
 Instead, however, of occupying our pages 
 with details of this nature, we may advert to a 
 fact which virtually includes them all, namely, 
 that in the opinion of the world, generally, the 
 idea of a sailor and of true piety are almost in- 
 compatible with each other. Not long since, 
 and even now. in many places, a converted sai- 
 lor would be regarded by multitudes as no less 
 a prodigy than a converted Jew. If piety ever 
 belonged to our seamen as a class, the traces of 
 it had so completely disappeared, and so long 
 been wanting, that, until recently, the public 
 were not only quite reconciled to its absence, 
 numbers seemed to doubt whether religion could 
 be introduced among them, and others even 
 doubted whether it ought to be ; whether it 
 would not destroy their distinctive character ; 
 whether irreligion was not an essential attri- 
 bute of the class. Now, what must have been 
 the guilty neglect, and the vicious treatment, 
 which could have led to all this depravity of the 
 maritime population, and what must have been 
 the enormity of that wickedness which could 
 2*
 
 22 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 have occasioned and countenanced such an 
 idea ! 
 
 " It is true, that for years past their tem- 
 poral condition has been slowly improving. Our 
 attention naturally turns, in this view of the 
 subject, first, to our National Hospitals. ' These 
 have been established at Boston, New York, 
 Philadelphia, Baltimore, and a few other cities, 
 but should a vessel put into Holmes' Hole, Sa- 
 lem, New London, besides more than fifty other 
 places on the coast, the sick sailor must either 
 pay his own bill or be carried to an alms-house. 
 Besides, where our Government have establish- 
 ed Marine Hospitals, they have supported them 
 by a tax of twenty cents a month, deducted 
 from the hard earned wages of the sailor, without 
 regard to his circumstances.' ' The Trustees of 
 the Sailor's Snug Harbor, have erected a large 
 and commodious building on Staten Island, 
 New York, where some fifty or sixty disabled 
 seamen have found a refuge for life. The an- 
 nual income of this Institution has already 
 reached the sum of $32,000. Savings Banks 
 for seamen have already been put into success- 
 ful operation at Portland, Boston, Warren, New 
 York, and Mobile. Besides these provisions 
 for the temporal welfare of seamen, they have 
 formed themselves into various benevolent so- 
 cieties, for their own relief in case of sickness 
 and shipwreck.' "* 
 
 But while these laudable though inadequate 
 
 * Sailor's Magazine, November 1836.
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 23 
 
 steps were taken to ameliorate the temporal con- 
 dition of our seamen, what efforts were made to 
 promote their moral and religious welfare? Our 
 answer to this inquiry must be twofold. In the 
 first place, we have to acknowledge our guilty 
 omissions. While we were reading with trans- 
 port, from time to time, of their courage, their 
 humanity and patriotism when every battle 
 was a victory who thought of aiming to add 
 piety to their list of excellencies ? Provided 
 the national fame resounded, the principal so- 
 licitude was to meet the great demand for these 
 rough and warlike materials, created by martial 
 consumption. While we read with anguish of 
 the killed and wounded, in our naval dispatches, 
 what efforts were made to impart religious pre- 
 paration to those who were going out to supply 
 their place, and to follow them into eternity ? 
 As if the nation, having destined a good pro- 
 portion of them to be " food for powder," felt 
 that it would be inconsistent to be making much 
 of the happiness of living machines, which were 
 so soon to be hacked to pieces or blown to 
 atoms. While we gloried in the proofs they 
 gave that they feared not them who could kill 
 the body, what was done to inculcate the fear 
 of Him " who is able to destroy both soul and 
 body in hell 1" As if their souls had been 
 given them merely to render their bodies more 
 serviceable machines, who thought of calling 
 into exercise, and employing, any thing but 
 their physical vigor and courage? And while 
 the necessity of doing something for the tempo-
 
 24 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 ral advantages of so exposed and deserving a 
 class, forced itself in a manner on the attention 
 of the country, what was Christian benevolence 
 planning or doing for their eternal welfare? 
 The only answer which can be given to these 
 inquiries, is one which rnay well cover us with 
 shame and confusion of face. Having surren- 
 dered them to a foe more dreadful than any 
 which threatened our shores, we saw them per- 
 ish by thousands, and yet allowed the destruc- 
 tion to go on as uninterruptedly as if we had 
 apprehended a bolt from heaven on moving to 
 prevent it. Their situation was, indeed, a 
 moral anomaly. The most deserving class of 
 the community was the most neglected ; was 
 the only class which could be said to have been 
 entirely neglected. 
 
 They seemed to have escaped Christian at- 
 tention. Their depravity had become proverb- 
 ial, and all were aware of it, yet no man cared 
 for their souls. Conduct which would have 
 shocked us in any other class, was looked for in 
 them as a matter of course. As if religion 
 were not a thing for sailors, no direct endeavors 
 were made to place it within their reach. Ef- 
 forts were made to impart the unspeakable gift 
 to every other class at home and abroad, but as 
 if sailors had been placed under a Divine inter- 
 dict, as if the charter of redemption had con- 
 tained a clause excluding them from its bene- 
 fits, they were apparently avoided and forgotten. 
 " While philanthropy and Christian charity 
 were almost at a stand what to attempt next,
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 25 
 
 because every thing seemed to be attempted 
 which man could do, even then, with astonish- 
 ment be it spoken, even then, there was one 
 immense field of labor, stretching itself around 
 the nation, and lying in the most forlorn and 
 
 uncultivated state This field was our 
 
 maritime world !"* The only occasions on 
 which piety approached it on an errand of reli- 
 gious mercy, was when she accompanied her 
 missionary agents to embark for distant shores, 
 the men who were to convey those agents 
 were left to perish. Worse than this ! not only 
 was nothing of a direct nature done to place 
 salvation within their reach, if one of them here 
 and there ventured to approach the means of 
 grace, he was not unfrequently repulsed. Many 
 a so-called Christian seemed to view it as a 
 kind of presumption for a sailor to seek reli- 
 gious instruction ; resented it as an impertinent 
 encroachment on ground belonging exclusively 
 to other classes ; and if he dared roughly to re- 
 sent the insult which was thus offered to his 
 common humanity, it was paraded as a con- 
 vincing proof that he was not Jit for religion, 
 nor religion for him. " You cannot deny," 
 said one of them, at the last anniversary meet- 
 ing of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, 
 4< that for a long time you almost every where 
 refused to let sailors come to your churches.t I 
 have been denied admission to the house of 
 
 * The Ocean by the author of the Retrospect. 
 t Equally true of the Churches of America.
 
 26 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 God. It is true, I then cared nothing about it ; 
 I was willing to spend my time in folly, as it 
 appeared the people ashore did not think we 
 had any thing to do with religion." " And 
 many a congregation still," said a lieutenant of 
 the Navy, on the same occasion, " would soon 
 let it be known that sailors were intruders." 
 Not only were they left to famish, but when 
 they sought to gather up the crumbs of the 
 bread of life which fell from our table, they 
 were actually repelled. 
 
 " The second part of our answer relates to 
 the utter inadequacy of the means we are at 
 length employing in their behalf. It was only 
 at so recent a date as 1816, that the attention 
 of the Christian public was directed to the 
 moral condition of seamen. A small congrega- 
 tion was gathered in New York by Rev. Ward 
 Stafford during that year, and another in Bos- 
 ton in 1818, by Rev. Dr. Jenks, and another in 
 Philadelphia 1819, by Rev. Mr. Eastburn of 
 Apostolic memory. Since that time congrega- 
 tions, and in some instances churches have 
 been collected, and in connexion with Port So- 
 cieties at Portland, Salem, Boston, New Bed- 
 ford, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Rock- 
 etts, Va. Charlestown, Savannah, Mobile on the 
 sea-board, and at Cleveland, Buffalo, Utica 
 and Troy on our inland waters. Local Societies 
 have been formed at some of these places, for 
 the supply of seamen within their limits, with 
 Bibles, Tracts and other religious publications. 
 In 1828, the American Seamen's Friend Society
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 27 
 
 was formed, " to improve the social and moral 
 condition of seamen, by uniting the efforts of 
 the wise and good in their behalf, by promoting 
 in every port, boarding houses of good charac- 
 ter, Savings Banks, Register Offices, Libra- 
 ries, Museums, Reading Rooms, and Schools, 
 with the ministrations of the gospel and other 
 religious blessings, in our own and other lands. 
 This Society has labored for the intellectual 
 and moral improvement of seamen in twelve 
 foreign ports, viz. at Canton, Havre, Marseilles, 
 Smyrna, Honolulu, Rio Janeiro, Cronstadt, 
 New Orleans, Batavia, Singapore, Lahaina, and 
 Calcutta. In the first eight of these places, 
 regular Chaplains are supported entirely by the 
 Society, at an expense (including chapels, &c.) 
 of not less than $1000 per annum. Several 
 hundreds of dollars have been expended yearly, 
 in providing and distributing Bibles, Magazines, 
 Temperance Almanacs, &c. The Society also 
 publish monthly, 3500 of their Sailor's Maga- 
 zine. 
 
 " In 1836 the American Bethel Society was 
 formed with the object of superintending Bethel 
 operations on the Inland waters, to constitute a 
 bond of union between local Societies, and aid 
 them in obtaining funds and Chaplains, as well as 
 to establish other stations where they seemed to 
 be needed. This Society circulate 1400 of their 
 Bethel Magazine, and provide for the distribution 
 of Bibles and Tracts by their depositories at De- 
 troit, Marietta, Ohio River, Geneva, and Ithaca. 
 The American Seamen's Friend Society is the
 
 28 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 largest and most promising of these Associa- 
 tions, but its present resources are entirely in- 
 adequate to the accomplishment of its impor- 
 tant task : considering the limitation of its funds, 
 (not $11,000 a year,) and the recent date of its 
 existence, it merits the praise of having done 
 what it could" 
 
 But, promising and cheering as these names 
 may sound, their means of making them more 
 than names are so slender, that, when contrast- 
 ed with the multitude which they seek to bene- 
 fit, one is inevitably reminded of another multi- 
 tude and another slender supply, and constrained 
 to exclaim, " What are these among so many ?" 
 nothing but a miracle can make them ade- 
 quate. Their friends are aware that, at pre- 
 sent, they are only employing temporary expe- 
 dients and provisional measures, that the great 
 mass of maritime evil has yet to be explored, 
 that it is a mare incognitum not yet laid down 
 in the charts of general benevolence, that only 
 a few of the Christian public have hitherto 
 cast even a hasty glance towards it, they feel 
 that the public attention has yet to be aroused 
 to the neglected condition of our seamen, in 
 order to its effective amelioration. 
 
 What that condition is might be inferred 
 from the very neglect to which, till of late, it 
 seems to have been almost unanimously doom- 
 ed. For let any class of the people be con- 
 signed to similar neglect, and what would be 
 the speedy and certain result, but ignorance, 
 depravity, and perdition ? What that condi-
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 29 
 
 tion is might be inferred too from that neglect, 
 coupled with the nature of a sailor's occupa- 
 tion, which takes him away for days, and weeks, 
 and even months, from all the ordinary means 
 of religious improvement. Neglect a lands- 
 man, and he may yet surmount the effect of 
 that treatment. He is constantly moving among 
 the signs and mementos of religion. The re- 
 turn of the Sabbath ; the weekly cessation from 
 labor; the sight of the Bible in his cottage; 
 the sight of the church, the chapel, and the 
 school, the occasional meeting with religious 
 persons these, and a variety of other circum- 
 stances, combine to prevent the idea of religion 
 from entirely vacating his mind, and may lead 
 him to put forth an effort to obtain that reli- 
 gious instruction to which those around him 
 have neglected to invite him. But neglect the 
 sailor, and the very nature of his avocation, by 
 removing him from the presence of all these 
 valuable religious mementos, and casting his 
 lot on another element, tends to complete the 
 evil which such neglect had begun. 
 
 His moral condition, under such circumstan- 
 ces, might be inferred, also, from the high tem- 
 perament of his character. " Even for his 
 maladies," says Dr. Mower, " a sailor frequent- 
 ly provides a cause that has in it something of 
 the energy of the winds and waves that usually 
 excite him. He does not disorder his nerves, 
 or derange his stomach moderately by quiet 
 sotting or occasional intoxication, but resolutely 
 keeps himself drunk for weeks together ; and 
 3
 
 30 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 after the most perfect devotion to liquor, till his 
 money is expended, he comes with horrors, and 
 in a wild delirium, to the Seamen's Hospital." 
 His character takes no middle rank, but tends 
 to the extreme either of good or evil. The 
 amount of good which it might he made to pro- 
 duce is unknown, for the experiment has yet to 
 be made ; but, like every rich neglected soil, 
 its present produce must necessarily be a luxu- 
 riance of evil. Had it been our aim to deter- 
 mine how large an amount of evil it would yield, 
 if left to entire neglect, scarcely could we have 
 conducted the experiment more guardedly, or 
 have waited more patiently to see the result. 
 Alas, that it should be found to produce so 
 much, and that we should be so late in putting 
 a period to the process ! 
 
 And the moral condition of the sailor, at pre- 
 sent, might be inferred not only from the neg- 
 lect to which he has been consigned, the un- 
 propitious nature of his calling in relation to 
 the ordinances of religion, and his characteristic 
 energy left to the disposal of his passions but 
 also from the additional fact, that he is one of a 
 very numerous and closely united class, who 
 keep his irreligion in countenance, and increase 
 it. He seldom emerges, even on land, out of 
 his peculiar circle. From custom, and choice, 
 and circumstances, he confines himself almost 
 exclusively to the society of those who can sym- 
 pathize with his habits, and understand his 
 nautical phraseology, and lives within sight of 
 that element which is his chosen home. And
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 31 
 
 by thus constantly moving in the presence of 
 those only who are all like himself, that which 
 was bad in his character becomes worse, until 
 he reaches a point of depravity in which he is 
 in danger of forgetting that it is possible for 
 him, or for any man, to be better. 
 
 But in ascertaining the condition of our mari- 
 ners, we are not left to mere probable evidence. 
 In that case, it might have been suspected that 
 inference had misled us, or that our fears had 
 exaggerated the evils we deprecate. We have, 
 however, access to evidence direct, palpable, 
 convincing. The result of that culpable neglect 
 to which they have been consigned is twofold. 
 First, it has left them to be the prey of the de- 
 signing and the depraved. Let the reader pe- 
 ruse and ponder the following representation of 
 this fact from the pen of one whose magisterial 
 office, in one of the maritime districts of Lon- 
 don, eminently qualified him to speak on the 
 subject : " Sailors have no friends to put them 
 in the right way ; whilst they are beset on every 
 side by the most voracious and profligate of 
 both sexes, whose interest it is to decoy them 
 into habits of the most senseless improvidence. 
 From the moment they arrive in port, and be- 
 fore they can set foot on shore, till they are not 
 only pennyless, but have exhausted their credit 
 on the most ruinous terms, they are made the 
 victims of a regularly organized gang of land- 
 sharks, who haunt them wherever they go. 
 Calumniated and unprotected whilst they might 
 be able to secure their independence, they be-
 
 32 THE PRESENT CONDITION 
 
 come objects of sympathy only when sickness, 
 accident, or old age has reduced them and their 
 families to destitution. A sailor's reception on 
 his return to land is ordinarily a sorry recom- 
 pense for the dangers and hardships of a long 
 voyage ; and in a few days he often finds him- 
 self shamelessly stripped of the earnings of as 
 many months. When on the ocean he must 
 make up his mind to be cut off from domestic 
 enjoyment, but when on land, it is too often 
 embittered or destroyed by the profligate sys- 
 tem to which he is exposed."* 
 
 The other evil arising from our neglect, ap- 
 pears in their extreme depravity. Let any one 
 who is sceptical on this point approach any of 
 the maritime districts of our sea-port towns, and 
 investigate the prevailing character of the neigh- 
 bourhood. Where is he likely to find the law 
 of the Sabbath more disregarded, or its sacred 
 rest disturbed by more boisterous mirth, or 
 more profane language, than here ? Take, for 
 example, the port of New- York. It is estimat- 
 ed that 10,000 seamen are constantly there. 
 Now, deduct the small proportion of those who 
 attend on the worship of God on the Sunday, and 
 of such as may be employed in incumbent du- 
 ties where shall we look for the large remain- 
 der, and how should we be likely to find them 
 
 * From Tl>.e Original; by Thomas Walker, M. A., 
 Barrister at Law, and one of the Police Magistrates of 
 the Metropolis. What was true of London has been 
 equally true of our own seaports.
 
 OF OUR SEAMEN. 33 
 
 occupied 1 And who does not know that the 
 habitual desecration of the Sabbath is either a 
 sign of confirmed depravity, or is one of the 
 most effectual means of leading to it? Where 
 are we likely to find so great a proportion of 
 public-houses and grog-shops, as in this quarter 1 
 or to witness so many instances of beastly in- 
 toxication 1 or to hear language more licentious, 
 and imprecations more appalling ? Where shall 
 we find so many brothels of the lowest descrip- 
 tion 1 or more frequently meet with instances 
 of outraged decency ? In a word, where shall 
 we find so large a proportion of the voracious 
 and the profligate living on the vices of others, 
 as we shall meet with in such a neighbourhood, 
 battening on the wasteful improvidence, and the 
 debasing vices of our seamen ? Thousands live 
 on their depravity. 
 
 And let the reader remember that this repre- 
 sentation applies not to the sailors of some ports 
 merely, but of every port ; not to an inconsider- 
 able portion of the community, but to a class 
 consisting of at least 144,000. That excep- 
 tions exist, we not only readily but cheerfully 
 admit. That exceptions not only exist, but that 
 in every port where a chapel is built, or a 
 church floats, or an Ark is opened for seamen, 
 they are constantly increasing, we firmly be- 
 lieve. But, alas, their paucity reminds one of 
 the small number which once entered another 
 ark, " wherein few, that is, eight souls, were 
 saved by water." Even taking the calculation 
 of Christian charity, that about 2000 seamen 
 3*
 
 34 CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 
 
 consistently profess the gospel of Christ, still 
 142,000, the great bulk of the class are in 
 the deplorable condition described. And they 
 are in this state with our connivance, and 
 through our neglect ! 142,000 of the most de- 
 serving of our countrymen, living, and, through 
 our sinful apathy, dying, without God in the 
 world ! He who " when he saw the multi- 
 tudes, was moved with compassion on them," 
 looks upon this multitude, and he sees that, like 
 them, " they are scattered abroad, as sheep 
 having no shepherd." " Verily, we are guilty 
 concerning our brother !"
 
 ZEBULON. 
 
 PART THE SECOND.
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 REASONS WHY THE PUBLIC IN GENERAL, AND ALL CHRISTIANS 
 IN PARTICULAR, SHOULD PROMOTE THE MORAL AND RELI- 
 GIOUS IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 
 
 WERE the American community to be divided 
 into classes for the sake of distinguishing and 
 weighing their respective claims on Christian 
 effort, what class could establish a stronger 
 claim, or one which might be left more confi- 
 dently to its own peculiar merits, than that 
 which comprises our seamen ? Their condi- 
 tion is one of which the simplest statement is 
 the strongest. It speaks for itself in terms more 
 affecting than any advocate can employ for it. 
 
 1. There are other classes, indeed, which 
 would outnumber it ; but in determining a ques- 
 tion of this nature, number is only one consider- 
 ation among many ; and, as it will appear in 
 the present instance, a consideration of minor 
 importance. The claims before us are of a 
 moral nature, and can only be determined by 
 moral considerations.
 
 38 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 Let it be supposed, for example, that a whole 
 fleet is in danger of destruction. Three of the 
 fleet can be saved. Their names we will sup- 
 pose to be Commerce, Manufacture, and Agri- 
 culture. The first is supposed to have a hun- 
 dred souls on board ; the second, two hundred ; 
 and the third, three hundred. But, though all 
 are in danger, the peril of the first, we will sup- 
 pose, is evidently the most imminent. Would 
 not every principle of wisdom and humanity 
 dictate, that notwithstanding the comparative 
 smallness of her crew, the Commerce should 
 have the benefit of our endeavours first ? But 
 suppose that on nearing her, we learnt that her 
 crew was more than we had expected that in- 
 stead of 100, it consisted of 150 souls, and all 
 these in the jaws of destruction should we not 
 feel so many additional motives for putting forth 
 our utmost efforts to save them ? This fleet is 
 the American community. All its classes are 
 in danger. But we have already seen, and shall 
 presently show more clearly still, that the con- 
 dition of the maritime class is by far the most 
 perilous and urgent. And because they are 
 numerically less than the manufacturing and 
 agricultural population, shall we leave them, in 
 the extremity of their danger, to perish ? 
 
 On ascertaining their number, however, we 
 find that it is by no means insignificant. Ame- 
 rica has 16,000 vessels, employing 144,000 men. 
 Had their number been only 25,000, that would 
 not have made their exigency less, nor have 
 diminished our duty to save them. But they
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 39 
 
 amount to ten times that number, and though 
 that does not increase the duty we owe to each, 
 it greatly increases the duty we owe to the 
 whole. Every additional unit should be felt as 
 an additional inducement to attempt their sal- 
 vation. 
 
 2. But this is only one view of the question. 
 It would be easy to show that that class of a 
 community which, numerically considered, is 
 the least important, may yet, morally consider- 
 ed, be the most important. We have seen that 
 the maritime class is important, if on no other 
 ground than its numbers. We would now ad- 
 vert to certain considerations which would in- 
 vest it with surpassing interest, were those num- 
 bers insignificant. 
 
 What class can appeal more truly to their 
 past sufferings than sailors? or establish a 
 stronger claim on our gratitude and generosity 1 
 Generous themselves to a fault, reckless of dan- 
 ger, and lavish of their blood in the defence of 
 their country, they seem thrown entirely on the 
 nobler feelings of their fellow-countrymen. Who 
 has not been affected while reading that tale of 
 Grecian story which relates that when ^Eschy- 
 lus was condemned to death at Athens, his bro- 
 ther Aminias procured the reversal of the sen- 
 tence, by uncovering an arm, of which the hand 
 had been cut off at the battle of Salamis, in the 
 service of his country ? who has not felt the 
 mute eloquence of that appeal ? The religious 
 public constitutes a court, not of legal justice, 
 but of Christian benevolence ; and as it weighs
 
 40 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 the respective claims of the various classes of 
 the community on its regard, does it call for our 
 seamen to appear ? Would not the apt repre- 
 sentative of that class be a man who had been 
 maimed and mutilated in battle ? a manly figure, 
 shorn of its fair proportions, in the service of 
 his country, while we were peacefully pursuing 
 our daily course, or securely slumbering in our 
 homes ? And shall he exhibit his scarred and 
 dismembered person in vain ? If a warm and 
 undisguised heart can win our regard ; if a 
 dauntless courage in encountering enemies, 
 and unbounded generosity in succouring the 
 distressed, should engage our esteem ; if the 
 calm endurance of sufferings, perseverance 
 amidst difficulties, and patriotic ardour, should 
 command our esteem, then have our seamen 
 established an irresistible claim on our gratitude 
 and generosity, for in these qualities they have 
 abounded. 
 
 3. The services of the naval class, both in 
 the time of peace and of war, make a powerful 
 appeal to our sense of justice. Their profes- 
 sion is far from being of an ordinary description: 
 our situation makes such an occupation indis- 
 pensable, and yet probably the great mass of the 
 community would revolt at the idea of entering 
 and pursuing it : then, are we not laid under 
 obligations to the class which does devote itself 
 to the occupation ? In the time of war, our 
 navy, under Providence, defends our home. 
 " And should war again sound its alarm, it must 
 be to our seamen, as instruments in the hands
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 41 
 
 of Providence, that we must look for future pro- 
 tection and deliverance. Their ships must 
 form a rampart to begird our coasts ; their bos- 
 oms, so often bared to the storm, must then be 
 presented to the enemy's cannon."* Then 
 shall we not provide for the spiritual welfare, the 
 eternal security, of those who watch so patient- 
 ly, and contend so bravely, for our temporal 
 safety? In the time of peace, they eminently 
 contribute to our national wealth, and furnish 
 us with many of our domestic cornfprts. And 
 if they minister to us in temporal things, is it 
 too much for us to minister to them in those 
 which are spiritual ? Oh, were only a thou- 
 sandth part of the labour, the hazard, the ar- 
 dour, the costly self-sacrifice, of the maritime 
 class in the cause of the national welfare, to be 
 repaid by Christians in the promotion of its reli- 
 gious interest if only justice were done to it 
 how large and active the machinery of benevo- 
 lence which would instantly be put into motion 
 on its behalf! 
 
 4. A sense of our past neglect should operate 
 as an incentive to instant exertion and future 
 diligence in favour of our seamen. " We were 
 a people," says one who formerly belonged to 
 them,t " at once caressed and neglected, hon- 
 oured and despised. Our courage in the battle 
 and the storm was applauded ; our services were 
 acknowledged to be great and meritorious ; our 
 
 * The Ocean, by the author of the Retrospect. 
 i The author of the Retrospect, &c. 
 4
 
 42 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 wouuds were bound up and healed ; and our 
 fame was blazoned through the world. But our 
 moral conduct engaged little or no attention; 
 our depravity excited no pity ; our profane and 
 rude manners made us shunned by one part of 
 the community and despised by anpther," 
 
 But our insensibility to their claims has not 
 discharged us from the debt we owe them. 
 While we have been slumbering, our arrears of 
 duty have gone on hourly increasing. While 
 we have been slumbering, they have been per- 
 ishing. From the shores of eternity they cast 
 back on us looks of upbraiding and reproach, 
 because we never stretched out a friendly hand 
 to save them from destruction ; and because, 
 while every other class was enjoying the benefit 
 of our Christian solicitude, we entirely neglect- 
 ed them. From eternity they implore us in- 
 stantly to warn their brethren and children, lest 
 they also corne to the place of torment. And 
 shall we not acknowledge the force of the ap- 
 peal 1 The present generation of seamen is 
 inheriting all the fatal consequences of our guil- 
 ty neglect of the past, shall we not hasten to 
 repair, as far as present diligence can be regard- 
 ed as a reparation for past neglect, our fatal 
 negligence of former generations, by instant 
 and earnest endeavours for the present? 
 
 5. In estimating the claims of sailors on our 
 benevolent regard, it is important to bear in 
 mind their peculiar perils. '* They that go 
 down to the sea in ships, that do business in 
 great waters ; these see the works of the Lord,
 
 IMPROVEMENT OP OUR SEAMEN. 43 
 
 and his wonders in the deep. For he com- 
 mandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which 
 lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up 
 to the heavens, they go down again to the 
 depths : their soul is melted because of trouble. 
 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunk- 
 en man, and are at their wit's end." In con- 
 nexion with this vivid description of mariners in 
 a storm, the readers of Scripture will think of 
 Jonah when, coasting the Mediterranean to 
 Tarshish, " the sea wrought, and was tempes- 
 tuous :" and of a greater than Jonah when, 
 crossing the Galilean sea with his disciples, 
 " behold, there arose a great tempest on the 
 sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with 
 the wares :" and of the great apostle of the 
 Gentiles, with his companions, wrecked in the 
 Adriatic gulf, and escaping, " some on boards, 
 and some on broken pieces of the ship." And 
 how many a mariner can actually adopt the 
 language of the same apostle, and say, " twice 
 have I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day 
 have I been in the deep." 
 
 At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony 
 of the surrounding expanse attracts attention. 
 " One day," says Washington [rving, describ- 
 ing his voyage across the Atlantic, " we descri- 
 ed some shapeless object drifting at a distance. 
 It proved to be the mast of a ship that must 
 have been completely wrecked ; for there were 
 the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some 
 of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar 
 to prevent their being washed off by the waves.
 
 44 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 There was no trace by which the name of the 
 ship could be ascertained. The wreck had 
 evidently drifted about for many months ; clus- 
 ters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long 
 sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, 
 thought I, is the crew ? Their struggle has 
 long been over they have gone down amidst 
 the roar of the tempest their bones lie whiten- 
 ing among the caverns of the deep. Silence, 
 oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, 
 and no one can tell the story of their end. 
 What sighs have been wafted after that ship ! 
 what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside 
 at home ! How often has the betrothed, the 
 wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to 
 catch some casual intelligence of this rover of 
 the deep ! How has expectation darkened into 
 anxiety anxiety into dread and dread into 
 despair ! Alas, not one memento shall ever re- 
 turn for love to cherish. All that shall ever be 
 known is, that she sailed from her port, ' and 
 was never heard of more.' " 
 
 When the wind is howling around our com- 
 fortable habitations, that " it must be a dread- 
 ful time at sea," are " familiar household words." 
 And when gales of days' or weeks' continuance 
 rage round our coasts, we say that " we must 
 expect to hear of wrecks." No sooner, how- 
 ever, does the storm subside, than the subject 
 is dismissed. Or, if a few of lively sympathy 
 go the length of congratulating the mariner, in 
 thought, on the returning calm, how small the
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 45 
 
 number of those who attempt to follow the 
 drowned, in thought, into eternity ! 
 
 How affecting, how appalling the statement, 
 that " for every sixteen sailors who die of all 
 diseases, eleven die by drowning, or in 
 wrecks."* 
 
 It appears by a report of a Committee of Par- 
 liament on the extent of loss in property and 
 lives at sea, that between 1833 and 1835 inclu- 
 sive, there were 1573 vessels stranded or wreck- 
 ed, and during the same period, there were 129 
 vessels missing or lost, making a total of 1702 
 vessels wrecked, and missing in the period of 
 three years. The amount of property, in those 
 vessels was believed to be .8,510,000 while 
 2682 lives were lost at the same time. 
 
 On our own coast it appears by the Sailor's 
 Magazine for January 1837, that 316 vessels 
 and 826 lives were lost in 1836. Now, estimate 
 the value of each vessel and cargo at 20,000 dol- 
 lars, we have the amount of 6,320,000 dollars 
 lost the last year by shipwrecks. 
 
 Well, indeed, might an ancient philosopher 
 inquire, when distributing the human race into 
 the two classes of the living and the dead, "who 
 
 * Such is the result of a careful calculation over a 
 space often years, by Mr. H. Woodroffe, Secretary of 
 the Seamen's Society, South Shields ; " but," he adds, 
 " during the last four years, ending March last, on 
 looking over the books, and taking the account of sea- 
 men of the port, they are as 17 to 16 of all other cases ; 
 and the cholera has been raging heavily." This, how- 
 ever, is a special case ; and applies in all its extent only 
 to the port of Tyne. 
 4*
 
 46 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 can determine in which class we are to enter 
 the names of those on the sea ?" At this mo- 
 ment, perhaps, while the reader is quietly peru- 
 sing these lines, the sea, in some parts, is lashed 
 into fury. Deep is calling unto deep. A ves- 
 sel is staggering and plunging from the moun- 
 tain waves down into the roaring caverns. 
 Death is raging around it, seeking for his prey. 
 A moment longer a nail starts, a seam yawns, 
 the masts plunge over the side he enters, and 
 the vessel disappears. So literally and empha- 
 tically true is it of the seaman, that there is but 
 a step between him and death ! 
 
 And should not a consideration of the more 
 than ordinary perils of a sailor's life, impel us 
 to do something more than ordinary for his sal- 
 vation ? When one who is in earnest to save his 
 fellow-men from perdition, deems it necessary 
 to explain or defend his earnestness, he points 
 to the brevity and uncertainty of human life. 
 By adverting to the solemn fact that the objects 
 of his solicitude will soon have passed beyond 
 the reach of his instrumentality, he feels that 
 he has sufficiently justified his zeal, and estab- 
 lished the duty of doing whatsoever his hand 
 findeth to do with all his might. But here is a 
 whole class of our fellow-countrymen, in rela- 
 tion to whom the ordinary span of human life 
 is contracted to little more than half. "The 
 average life of seamen," said Nelson, " is, from 
 hard service, finished at forty-five."* But how 
 
 * Southey's Life of Nelson ; Family Library Edition, 
 page 294.
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 47 
 
 much earlier is it finished if perils be reckoned 
 as well as labours ! Short as the ordinary day 
 of life is, here is a class of men whose sun goes 
 down while it is yet day. Had we reason to 
 believe that our own lives would only average 
 this period, would not the command of our Lord, 
 to " work while it is day," come on us with 
 greater emphasis and effect? But if our period 
 of usefulness be abridged, whether by the cur- 
 tailment of our own lives, or of the lives of those 
 whose salvation we seek, the practical effect 
 should be the same it should redouble our 
 efforts for their salvation. 
 
 When the life of a criminal is about to be 
 forfeited to the laws of his country, those who 
 are anxious for his salvation cultivate the short 
 remainder of his time with a zeal proportioned 
 to its brevity. Here is a class of men whose 
 every return to port is to be looked on only as 
 a reprieve from destruction, should not similar 
 assiduity mark our conduct towards them ? Do 
 we not seem, in our treatment of them, to have 
 taken leave of common kindness, and of all the 
 methods by which Christian benevolence usual- 
 ly regulates its proceedings? Ordinary zeal 
 would be insult here : the call for activity is 
 extraordinary ; yet we have not evinced even 
 common solicitude. Shall it be necessary for 
 us to hear their dying shriek, to see them per- 
 ishing before our eyes, before we extend to them 
 a friendly hand ? Oh, let us imagine that we 
 are saving men in a storm that we see them 
 sinking rapidly disappearing in the raging
 
 48 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 waves around us, that a moment lost, is a soul 
 lost for ever ! 
 
 Be it remembered also that the same perils 
 which terminate the lives of our seamen early, 
 terminate most of them suddenly. One of the 
 kindest arrangements of Him who willeih not 
 the death of a sinner, consists in the slow and 
 regular steps with which death is made to ap- 
 proach. Since it is appointed unto all men 
 once to die, and to come to the close of their 
 mortal probation, it is a provision unspeakably 
 gracious, that a period of slow and gradual de- 
 cay should give friendly warning for days, arid 
 weeks, and, often, even months beforehand, 
 that the coming of the Lord draweth near. 
 Even the Christian owns its value, though, for 
 years he may have been substantially prepared 
 for the final change. From sudden death, he 
 prays to be delivered, as from an evil. But, for 
 the impenitent sinner, the provision we speak 
 of is of infinite value. It severs him from his 
 unholy associates and pursuits, calls him away 
 from the objects which have hitherto diverted 
 his attention from religion, shuts him up in the 
 solitude and silence of a sick chamber, gives 
 him an opportunity of taking an impartial sur- 
 vey of his past conduct and his future prospects, 
 of receiving the visits of Christian friends, and 
 of casting himself, though at the final hour, at 
 the feet of hitherto insulted mercy. But here 
 is a class of men, many of whom are deprived 
 of the benefits of this merciful arrangement also. 
 For them the probationary period is not only
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 49 
 
 shortened, but closed abruptly. Not only is 
 their day oflife unnaturally brief, but it has no 
 lengthening warning shadows, no sober eve, no 
 twilight hour, for reflection. 
 
 How affecting to think that the great majori- 
 ty of those who have perished at sea, were cut 
 off suddenly in the prime oflife. The earth is 
 the grave of infantine weakness, of diseased 
 emaciation, of worn-out age, but the ocean is 
 the tomb of the young, the vigorous, the brave. 
 While yet they were full of heart and hope, 
 buoyant as the bark in which they had careered 
 over the waves, the lightning smote them, or 
 the boom struck them overboard ; they fell from 
 aloft, or the resistless wave washed them from the 
 deck ; the ship sprung a leak, or stranded, or 
 struck ; the boat sunk, or the tempest gathered, 
 burst, and overwhelmed them. " Thou didst 
 blow with thy wind, the sea covered them, they 
 sank like lead in the mighty waters." Under 
 circumstances the most unfavourable for reflec- 
 tion or prayer, " in a moment, in the twinkling 
 of an eye," they passed into the presence of 
 their Judge. 
 
 How affecting to anticipate the day when 
 " the sea shall give up the dead which were in 
 it ;" when 
 
 " From out their watery beds, the Ocean's dead. 
 Renewed, shall, on the unstirrintr billows, stand, 
 From pole to pole, thick covering all the sea." 
 
 How appalling to reflect that of the countless 
 hosts which the sea shall then surrender up
 
 50 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 more numerous than its waves the great mass 
 perished suddenly, " went down quick." And, 
 oh ! what ground there is to fear that (hey died 
 unprepared died in anger with death died, 
 and " gave no sign," but that of impenitence 
 died, and offered no prayer but that of horrid 
 imprecations died amidst noise and tumult 
 hostile to salutary reflection ! But who shall 
 attempt to picture the awful scenes which will 
 then ensue 1 And shall we wait till the sea 
 give up its dead, before we awake to a sense of 
 our responsibility? Shall we delay till we see 
 them standing for judgment, before we begin to 
 weigh their claims, or to consider the conse- 
 quences of our guilty neglect? Shall the hosts 
 of those who will then arise unprepared go on 
 augmenting, and we make no combined effort 
 to prevent it ? 
 
 6. The religious privations of sailors entitle 
 them to a large share of our Christian solici- 
 tude. Their privations, even of a domestic and 
 social kind, are such as to distinguish them 
 from all other classes of society, and to excite 
 the wonder and sympathy of numbers. But 
 what are these when compared with the loss of 
 religious advantages ! And yet of these advan- 
 tages the sailor is almost entirely deprived ! 
 
 " The Sabbath was made for man." It was 
 graciously appointed by Him who knows the 
 constitution arid necessities of our nature. And 
 who that marks the humanizing and ennobling 
 moral influence which the stated observance of 
 the Sabbath exerts--, even on those who only
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 51 
 
 outwardly regard it, does not admire the wis- 
 dom and goodness which appointed it ? But 
 of this wise and beneficent provision, the sailor 
 is to a considerable degree deprived. Shall we 
 not, then, study to repair the loss by every 
 means which an ingenious and diligent Chris- 
 tian benevolence can supply ? The Sabbath is 
 spoken of by God as his crowning gift to a peo- 
 ple, " moreover, also, I gave them Sabbaths," 
 for the nation which has no Sabbath will soon 
 have no religion. But to the maritime part of 
 a nation this distinguishing gift of God is com- 
 paratively lost. The very nature of their call- 
 ing, to a certain extent, precludes them from 
 enjoying it. Shall we not attempt to meet their 
 special exigency by a special provision ? The 
 ordinances of religion are spoken of by God, 
 and frequently promised, as marks of his pecu- 
 liar love to a people : for he has not only hal- 
 lowed the Sabbath, but blessed it made it a 
 day of special grace. This is why the Christian 
 would rather be a door-keeper in the house of 
 the Lord, than dwell in the tents of wickedness. 
 But here is a class whose occupation removes 
 and exiles them from the ordinary privileges of 
 public devotion takes them without, and away 
 from, the pale of stated congregational worship. 
 It is true that where piety prevails, it will 
 maintain its wonted communion with God, 
 like Paul in the storm, and on the verge of ship- 
 wreck, taking bread and giving thanks to God 
 in jthe presence of all on board. And there is 
 reason to believe, also, that where a disposition
 
 52 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 to hallow the Sabbath exists in those who com- 
 mand, Sunday sailing would be found much less 
 necessary than it is generally deemed ; and, 
 when at sea, opportunities of joining, not only 
 in the weekly, but even in the daily worship of 
 God, might oftener be found than they now are. 
 The " Retrospect" tells us of a commander of 
 one of his Majesty's ships of war, who, though 
 his vessel was very inferior in point of force and 
 sailing, yet, through a winter, and in a climate 
 far more severe than our own, was continually 
 under way, chasing, cutting off, or boarding the 
 enemy's vessels in shore, while our squadron of 
 larger ships could do little more than lie off at 
 anchor, and witness his almost incredible per- 
 severance. But even this state of incessant ac- 
 tivity and severe public duly did not prevent his 
 performing morning and evening prayers every 
 day ! And the records of our societies testify, 
 that many of the Bethel captains, regarding 
 their men and boys as their families, maintain 
 the practice of daily worship on board. 
 
 But while such instances illustrate the power 
 of superior piety in surmounting difficulties, 
 they must be received as liable to many excep- 
 tions. For, besides that many of the opportu- 
 nities for worshipping God at sea must be ne- 
 cessarily inferior to the quiet of the domestic 
 altar and the stated ordinances of God's house, 
 the best intentions on the part of the captain 
 will often be frustrated by the winds and the 
 waves. The sea is the aptest and most ancient 
 emblem of uncertainty ; and every one that
 
 IMPROVEMENT OP OUR SEAMEN. 53 
 
 places himself at its disposal must accommodate 
 himself to its moods. To him, the Sabbath 
 brings many of the duties of any other day. 
 This is particularly the case in the merchants' 
 service, where there are but few hands, and 
 where all, at times, are laboriously employed, 
 from the captain who commands to the seamen 
 who obey. The sails must be reefed, or taken 
 in ; the ship must be steered, or, if needful, 
 tacked ; defects must be supplied, and disasters 
 repaired as soon as they occur ; while a gale 
 may keep all hands on the alert for days and 
 nights together. While his friends on shore 
 are listening to the still small voice of the gos- 
 pel, the sailor " afar off upon the sea," may be 
 deafened by the hoarse voice of the tempest, and 
 the roar of the storm : and that which to them 
 is a day of rest, may be to him a day of toil, and 
 peril, and wrestling with death. And one of 
 the consequences of this uncertainty and irre- 
 gularity is, that the Sabbath comes either to be 
 totally neglected ; or, if not quite undistinguish- 
 able from the other days of the week, what is 
 still worse its only distinction, at sea, consists 
 in attending to personal cleanliness : in foreign 
 ports, it is devoted to recreation and license on 
 shore : and at home, as may be easily seen in 
 any of our sea-ports and fishing-towns, it is spent 
 in greater excesses of intemperance and profa- 
 nity. 
 
 Here then is a class whose religious priva- 
 tions are such that a person, judging hastily 
 and from appearances, might almost be tempted 
 5
 
 54 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 to think that the God of mercy, in providing 
 the means of grace for others, had disregarded 
 and passed them by. The Sabbath which he 
 has given to others, is but seldom enjoyed by 
 them. The ordinances of public worship which 
 he has instituted for the general good, shed little 
 of their sacred influence upon them. Could 
 the person bring himself to believe in the pre-ex- 
 istence of the soul, he might almost imagine that 
 they belonged to a class which, for some unparal- 
 leled guilt iu a former life, were doomed to be ex- 
 cepted from the ordinary provisions of mercy in 
 this life. But the privations under which they are 
 labouring are partly voluntary, and partly invo- 
 luntary. By far the greater proportion, we have 
 seen, is voluntary ; and of that, we must divide 
 the guilt with them. The explanation relative 
 to that which is involuntary is easy : the ordi- 
 nances of nature are older than the ordinances 
 of grace, and were not meant to be controlled 
 by them ; and the sailor, by placing himself al- 
 most entirely at the disposal of the former, is 
 deprived of the full enjoyment of the latter. 
 Now, if one of the great laws of nature relating 
 to the supply of food had failed to a people for 
 only a single season, and involved them in scar- 
 city and famine, should we not hasten to their 
 relief? Bat here is a class to whom, owing to the 
 peculiarity of their calling, the great ordinances 
 of grace which supply the bread of life, come 
 scantily and irregularly ; and this, not for a 
 season merely, but for all time. Here is a class 
 whose probabilities of salvation, humanly speak-
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 55 
 
 ing, are incomparably less, at present, than 
 those of any other class of the community ; 
 and why ? because their opportunities, their 
 means of salvation are less, and God is a God of 
 order who works by means. 
 
 In order to realize this distressing idea, let 
 the reader of these lines imagine, if he be a 
 parent, that his children are from this day to 
 mingle with seamen, to pursue their calling, 
 and to incur their religious privations does he 
 not feel as if the probabilities of their salvation 
 would from this day be painfully diminished ? 
 If he be a minister of the gospel of Christ, let 
 him imagine that all the youths in his congre- 
 gation are from this day to do business in great 
 waters, and to follow the occupation of seamen ; 
 would he not feel as if his expectations con- 
 cerning them were all but blasted ? and would 
 not his parting address to them evince how 
 much his fears were stronger than his hopes ? 
 
 To place our sailors, then, on a level with 
 others in point of religious advantages, we must 
 evidently employ extraordinary means. Indeed, 
 recourse is obliged to be had to peculiar mea- 
 sures in order to put them as nearly as possible 
 on a level with others in certain temporal re- 
 spects. The land-mark must be reared, the 
 lighthouse must be kindled, the life-boat must 
 nightly be kept ready for launching, and all the 
 various apparatus and methods which ingenuity 
 and humanity have devised, (and still they are 
 devising others,) must be placed and prepared 
 for instant use ; while session after session the
 
 56 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 legislature is employed in framing enactments 
 and provisions to suit their peculiar case. And 
 shall the Christian Church do nothing special 
 to meet the exigency of their spiritual condi- 
 tion ? Shall the life-boat be launched to snatch 
 them from destruction 1 and shall we not point 
 them to the ark of salvation from the second 
 death? Shall the light-house be kindled? and 
 shall we not be seen " holding forth the word 
 of life" the Pharos of a tempest-tossed and be- 
 nighted world ? Not only should we labor to 
 remedy the grievous religious privations which 
 at present they voluntarily endure, by special 
 provision made for their welfare while they are 
 on shore, we should aim to compensate for their 
 unavoidable privations at sea. 
 
 7. We have already glanced at the peculiar 
 temptations of seamen ; and what a touching 
 and powerful claim on our sympathy arises from 
 this ground. Profanity, intemperance, extrava- 
 gance, and licentiousness, are their besetting 
 sins. And, though they may be chargeable 
 with these sins only in common with the de- 
 praved of other classes, their temptations to 
 commit them are of a kind and a degree pecu- 
 liar to themselves. The very restraints imposed 
 on the indulgence of their passions while at sea, 
 prepares them on their return to plunge into 
 unusual depths of iniquity. The current of 
 their depravity, which, if left to flow on un- 
 checked and at will, might have exhibited noth- 
 ing peculiar, acquires, by the temporary check, 
 a fullness and a force, which, on resuming its
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 57 
 
 course, carries them far beyond the point of 
 ordinary sin. During their absence, too, a 
 check has been placed on their friendly and 
 social feelings ; they return to meet with com- 
 panions and friends whom they love, and the 
 occasion calls forth and justifies a flow of feel- 
 ing, which but too often leads to carousal, and 
 ends in excess. Their return to port, too, is 
 not unfrequently felt by them to be an escape 
 from imminent danger ; and all that pleasura- 
 ble excitement experienced on such occasions, 
 and which if rightly directed would ascend in 
 gratitude to God, too often expresses itself in 
 extra carousals and boisterous mirth. They 
 compliment their own skill and daring ; "they 
 sacrifice to their own net, and burn incense to 
 their own drag," and only shout moie loudly a 
 bacchanalian song, which drowns the memory 
 of the past, and madly defies the future. Let 
 it be remembered, also, that the accumulated 
 sums ia which they receive their wages, give 
 them the power of " running to an excess of 
 riot." Multitudes of our artificers and work- 
 men of various trades., on receiving only the 
 wages of the week, cease to labor as long as a 
 shilling remains: but the sailor receives an 
 amount comparatively inexhaustible ; and the 
 consequence is that his improvidence and ex- 
 cesses are comparatively greater. 
 
 But that which constitutes the strength of all 
 
 the temptations to which the sailor is exposed, 
 
 is the notorious fact that they are all organized 
 
 and plied with the force and certainty of an in- 
 
 5*
 
 58 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 fernal system. Let the reader peruse and pon- 
 der the following accounts of this dreadful sys- 
 tem furnished by the late Mr. Walker, whose 
 magisterial office, as we have already intimated, 
 gave him an opportunity of watching the work- 
 ing of the plot. * " There is no class of men 
 who meet with such ill treatment from their 
 fellow-creatures as sailors. After suffering the 
 hardships of the sea, and toiling with uncon- 
 querable labor, they are beset on their return 
 from each voyage by the most villanous and the 
 most profligate of the species, for the purpose 
 of robbing them of their hard-earned wages ; 
 whilst those who should step foward to protect 
 them, leave them to their fate, or even hold that 
 they are capable of nothing better. When a 
 vessel arrives from a long voyage, the crimps, 
 or keepers of sailors' lodging-houses, are on the 
 alert to get as many of the crew into their 
 power as possible. Boats are sent to fetch the 
 men ashore, and the watermen receive a fee 
 from each crimp for every sailor they can bring. 
 The sailors leave the vessel, often I believe 
 made half drunk, without money, and with 
 nothing but their chest, upon which the crimps 
 advance them money, till they receive their 
 wages. Every temptation is put in their way 
 to lead them to extravagance and recklessness. 
 An exorbitant bill is made out, the amount of 
 which is deducted from their wages, and they 
 
 * The statements of Messrs. Walker and Moore are 
 substantially true of our own seaports.
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 59 
 
 are robbed or defrauded of the balance. As 
 soon as they land, they are sponged upon by a 
 set of idle fellows, who hang about the docks, 
 pretending to be unable to get employment, or 
 to have been old shipmates ; and they are plun- 
 dered and imposed upon by the most profligate 
 women. It is in a great measure a confedera- 
 tion against them, from which they have no 
 chance of escape. Each party plays more or 
 less into the other's hands. I have occasion to 
 see frequent instances of these abominations, 
 and in general they are so contrived, that there 
 is no remedy or punishment. It frequently 
 happens, that a sailor, who has sixty or seventy 
 pounds to receive, will have, at the end of a 
 few days, an enormous bill made out against 
 him by a crimp, for what he and his hangers 
 on are alleged to have consumed, and for money 
 advanced to supply his extravagance in his 
 freaks of intoxication. For his balance there 
 is an eager contest among the harpies who sur- 
 round him, which leads them sometimes to the 
 
 most barefaced and scandalous practices In 
 
 the lowest of the sailor's public-houses, there 
 are, at the back, what are called long-rooms, 
 the walls of which are painted with ships or 
 other devices : and here are to be witnessed at 
 almost all hours, but principally at night, scenes 
 of the greatest villany and debasement. Sailors 
 who are entrapped into these long-rooms, or 
 similar places, are kept in a constant state of 
 reckless excitement, and they never think of 
 returning to sea, till they have got rid of all
 
 60 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 their wages ; indeed, I believe, they are not 
 unfrequently glad when their means are gone, 
 as the only chance they have of escaping from 
 the fangs of those who surround them." 
 
 In corroboration of this affecting statement, 
 the writer would add the following paragraph, 
 from Mr. Mark Moore's " Evidence before the 
 Committee of the House of Commons, on drunk- 
 enness," in 1834: "For more than three 
 years I was connected with a Society establish- 
 ed for the improvement both of the morals and 
 the temporal condition of sailors, and in that 
 capacity I had an opportunity of seeing not only 
 a great deal of sailors, but also of their places 
 of resort, at the east end of London. I have 
 visited, for that purpose, most of the public 
 houses in that part of the metropolis, and I sup- 
 pose there are not less than twenty of those 
 houses, where, at the back of the gin-shops, 
 there are what are called ' long-rooms ;' those 
 long-rooms will contain from 100 to 300 per- 
 sons ; and every evening, almost, all those 
 rooms are full of sailors and girls of the town, 
 and a class of men, principally Jews, called 
 Crimps; and it is truly distressing to see the 
 demoralization not only of the sailors, but also 
 of the other individuals who frequent those dis- 
 graceful places. Some of these houses, I am 
 sorry to say, are kept open at all hours during 
 the night. I have been into those ' long-rooms' 
 at ten and eleven o'clock at night ; and the 
 whole company, perhaps 200 or 300 persons, 
 have been drinking and dancing, till the poor
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 61 
 
 fellows are in a most dreadful state. It is a 
 very common practice for the girls to get vari- 
 ous articles, such as laudanum and other drugs, 
 put into the liquor of the sailors, who thus be- 
 come completely intoxicated : they are then 
 easily prevailed upon to accompany them to 
 their lodgings ; and they soon sink into a state 
 of total stupefaction : they are then robbed of 
 every penny they possess, and very often of 
 their new clothes ; and, when they awake, an 
 old jacket and an old pair of trowsers are all 
 the articles left to them. I have known in- 
 stances of men being thus robbed of 30/., 40/., 
 or 50/., at a time." What a complication of 
 temptation, debasement, and helplessness ! 
 
 But let us trace the working of the system a 
 step farther, and we shall find that the despoil- 
 ers of these helpless victims often become their 
 accusers. " It is a subject that comes particu- 
 larly home to me," says Mr. Walker, " because 
 I have had occasion so often to become ac- 
 quainted, in my magisterial capacity, with the 
 dreadful impositions, robberies, and profligacy, 
 which are consequent upon the arrival of any 
 number of vessels from distant parts of the 
 globe ; and, from the arts that are practised 
 against sailors by gangs of confederates, in de- 
 coying, and stupifying them with liquor and 
 with drugs, it is generally quite impossible to 
 fix any proof of guilt. In fact, they are almost 
 helplessly exposed to every combination of vil- 
 lany, and whether they are the accusers or the 
 accused, they are almost equally objects of pity,
 
 62 MORAL, AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 I have known instances of sailors being robbed 
 of fifty pounds or upwards, the very day they 
 received it ; but having been first rendered 
 senseless, detection is impossible. Sometimes, 
 the day following their corning ashore, or even 
 the same day, they are themselves brought for 
 drunkenness and disorder, the consequence of 
 conspiracy against them ; and when remon- 
 strated with on their imprudence, they will pa- 
 thetically lament their helpless situation." 
 
 Now what can result from such a state of 
 things operating on minds already vicious 
 what, but a rapid growth of depravity, torment- 
 ing remorse, self-abandonment, and reckless- 
 ness in guilt, which shall prepare them, in turn, 
 to become the tempters and the destroyers of 
 others ! But are we not responsible for the 
 continuance of this system of iniquity 1 To the 
 full amount to which, under God, it is in our 
 power to correct the evil, unquestionably we 
 are. And, be it remembered, that every mo- 
 ment we delay to take the necessary steps, the 
 evil goes on increasing in vigor, and extending 
 its operations. 
 
 In confirmation of this statement, the public 
 papers report that a series of scandalous frauds 
 have lately been brought to light in Doctors' 
 Commons. They have been effected by parties 
 who have taken out letters of administration, 
 and made oath of their being next of kin, or 
 only surviving relatives, of seamen who have 
 died at sea, and thus obtained the wages due to 
 them at their decease. The fraudulent parties
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 63 
 
 have consisted chiefly of Jew crimps, swearing 
 that they are brothers of the deceased seamen ; 
 or else, in concert with women pretending to 
 be the wives of the deceased. This solitary 
 fact would he sufficient to give us an idea of 
 the organized nature of the system in operation 
 against seamen ; of the wide ramifications of 
 that system ; of the daring and determined cha- 
 racter of those who work the system, and follow 
 it as their ordinary calling; and who, not con- 
 tent with ruining the sailor in life, follow and 
 persecute him after death in the person of his 
 poor and suffering relatives. It may give us 
 also an idea of the utter helplessness of the sai- 
 lor in the hands of such a class, when even his 
 legal protectors themselves can be thus deceived 
 and over-reached by them. Like the flying fish, 
 which escapes from the olbacore in its native 
 element, only to be pounced on by the man-of- 
 war bird waiting to devour it, the sailor no 
 sooner escapes the perils of the deep, than he 
 is the object of instant attack from those who 
 live by preying arid feasting on his misery, on 
 shore. On coming to anchor, he exhibits the 
 spectacle of a helpless victim, bound hand and 
 foot, and passed from the ship to the crimp, 
 from the crimp to the long-room, from the long- 
 room to the brothel, and from the brothel to 
 a ship again watched and guarded at every 
 stage, and his fetters unrelaxed glad to escape, 
 though with injured health, and the loss of all 
 his earnings, to take refuge amidst the perils of 
 the sea from the greater perils of the land.
 
 64 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 8. The neglected and debased condition of 
 our seamen renders them the means of immense 
 evil to others, both at home and abroad. Its 
 pernicious effects do not terminate with them- 
 selves. Ship owners suffer, and the maritime 
 interest generally. How many vessels have 
 been lost, how many valuable cargoes sunk, 
 through the one sin of drunkenness alone ! 
 " Society at large," observes Mr. Walker, " is 
 much interested, from selfish motives, as well 
 as from motives of humanity, in shutting up the 
 fertile field which the improvidence of sailors 
 offers to vice and crime. And even a regard 
 for the profligates and criminals themselves 
 should induce an effort to remove temptation 
 out of their way." " It is a matter of great 
 consequence also to the rest of society on its own 
 account, because the harvest which the present 
 state of seafaring men affords to the vicious and 
 the criminal, is one great cause of so many dep- 
 redators, who prey at other times upon the vari- 
 ous classes of the public It is to be observ- 
 ed that the immense quantity of crime and pau- 
 perism that springs directly and indirectly from 
 the present want of moral cultivation among sai- 
 lors, is to be paid for by the public in addition 
 to their wages If any laborer by his im- 
 providence becomes a pauper, or causes any of 
 those who ought to be dependent on him to be- 
 come paupers, the expense of that pauperism is 
 to be added to his wages, to make up the whole 
 cost of his labor ; and, in the same manner, if 
 he is guilty of crime, or tempts others to be
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 65 
 
 guilty, the expense incident to that crime is 
 likewise to be reckoned part of the cost of his 
 labor, though it is not paid by his employers, 
 but by the public." 
 
 From this representation, then, it is evident, 
 that the merchant, the political economist, the 
 statesman, and the patriot, are alike called on 
 to remedy the evils we deprecate, and are all 
 interested in the success of their measures. 
 But the Christian philanthropist, without un- 
 dervaluing these considerations, will look above 
 and beyond them all to the moral effects of 
 these evils. Here, he will say, is a large class 
 of men who cannot be ruined themselves, with- 
 out instrumentally injuring and ruining multi- 
 tudes of others. The interest and energy pe- 
 culiar to their character, invest them with 
 considerable influence over those with whom 
 they associate ; and, if that influence be evil, 
 the injury must be immense. Many of them 
 have families. " The ignorant, ungodly sea- 
 man's house is the habitation of extravagance 
 and want, of riot and wretchedness, of misery 
 and sin. He returns to it after a successful 
 voyage, only to expend his hard-earned wages 
 in excess and irreligion ; and he leaves it again 
 in hunger, in wretchedness, and in rags."* 
 Whether the supposition be true, that that 
 dreadful scourge the cholera, pursued the course 
 of rivers, and the outline of the coast, or not, 
 here, at least, is a moral epidemic, a thousand- 
 
 * The Ocean.
 
 66 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 fold more fatal, pursuing this identical track, 
 diffusing infection wherever it comes, and rag- 
 ing with a virulence which sweeps off almost 
 all before it. But, unlike those who attempted 
 in vain the removal of that malady, we possess 
 a grand specific for the disease which we de- 
 plore. Shall we delay to administer it ? "Is 
 there no balm in Gilead ? is there no physician 
 there ? why then is not the health of the daugh- 
 ter of my people recovered ?" 
 
 But the Christian philanthropist will remem- 
 ber that the evil does not terminate at home. 
 Our sailors carry the moral contagion abroad. 
 A traveller in Egypt relates with astonishment, 
 that he met with natives of that country who 
 could utter the most awful oaths in the English 
 language, although they knew no other words 
 in our tongue. His inquiries soon elicited the 
 information, that they had learnt thus to swear 
 from our sailors. Truly might they say, 
 
 " You taught us language ; and our profit is, 
 We know how to curse ! " 
 
 It is well known that the blasphemies of our 
 sailors became a by-word and a proverb, and 
 the oath they most commonly swore, the nick- 
 name by which they were called. 
 
 " In a striking instance mentioned to me,* 
 by one of our arctic adventurers, such was the 
 pernicious effect of the ill behaviour of a body 
 
 * Discourses to Seamen ; by the Rev. W. Scoresby, 
 Chaplain of the Mariners' Church, Liverpool, &c.
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 67 
 
 of our countrymen in a remote district of North 
 America, that disgrace had been entailed both 
 upon the nation to which they belonged, and 
 the religion which they professed. Such irre- 
 parable injury had they done to their character 
 in their dealings with the natives, that were the 
 Indians of that district called upon to describe, 
 by a single word, the character of a man in all 
 respects false, dishonest, and base, they would 
 designate him by the name of a Christian !" 
 
 J 
 
 The greatest obstacles to the success of many 
 of our missionary efforts abroad, have hitherto 
 arisen from the depraved and atrocious conduct 
 of British and American seamen. At the last 
 anniversary of the British and Foreign Sailors' 
 Society, the Rev. Mr. Williams, a missionary 
 from the South Sea Islands, declared the dread- 
 ful effects produced on the minds arid manners 
 of the natives by the profligacy and cruelty of 
 seamen, arid deplored the visits of many of them 
 as a source of demoralization to the heathen 
 part of the population, and of fear to those who 
 are converted. 
 
 Evidence to the same effect might be fur- 
 nished in abundance from the records of our 
 various missionary societies. In the Church 
 Missionary Register, a letter from Capt. W. 
 Jacob, of the East India Company's service, re- 
 fers to a battle fought between some native 
 tribes in the " Bay of Islands," in Feb. 1830, 
 " which arose out of a dispute between two of 
 the wretched objects who had been welcomed 
 on board the by her commander. These
 
 68 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 transactions owe their origin entirely to that 
 improper intercourse which it is lamentable to 
 find is too generally allowed between the most 
 degraded portion of the native population and 
 the shipping, to the scandal of our country in 
 that part of the world. There is much to dis- 
 courage missionary efforts in the scenes of im- 
 morality and vice which are constantly exhibit- 
 ed, through the intercourse subsisting between 
 the islands and the shipping, and the dissolute 
 ha.bits of many of the inhabitants which that 
 intercourse has engendered. While we were 
 solemnizing Divine service at Korosarika, we 
 were much concerned to find that, within hear- 
 ing and within sight of our congregation, two 
 boats full of Europeans from the whalers in the 
 bay, were rioting in a state of brutal intoxica- 
 tion, to the disgrace of their country. These 
 are among the numerous hindrances which at 
 present exist to any extensive reception of 
 Christianity among the people." 
 
 The Rev. W. O. Croggon, Wesleyan mis- 
 sionary at Zante, in a letter dated May 8, 1833, 
 remarks, " the state of British sailors abroad 
 is shocking beyond description. It grieves one 
 to the heart to behold them so given up to in- 
 toxication." An appeal from the London Mis- 
 sionary Society, Dec. 16, 1833, alluding to 
 " the baneful influence of seamen on foreign 
 missions," remarks, " Our brethren state that 
 the besetting sin in Tahiti at present is drunk- 
 enness ; that it has produced the greatest mis- 
 chief in the churches ; and this state of things,
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 69 
 
 which fills the directors with the greatest dis- 
 tress, is attributed greatly to American and 
 British sailors, who have established a number 
 of grog-shops on shore, for the purpose of re- 
 tailing spirits, and who have induced the chiefs 
 to become traffickers in rum." 
 
 The history of their conduct at Lahaina 
 alone, one of the Sandwich group of islands, 
 would be sufficient to brand their character 
 with lasting disgrace. Often have they sent 
 armed boats on shore there for the most licen- 
 tious purposes, and have even carried away 
 many of the native women from the island. 
 And more than once, they have thus landed 
 with the sworn determination of firing the mis- 
 sionaries' houses, and taking their lives, on ac- 
 count of the restraints which, through mission- 
 ary influence, had been laid on their licentious 
 practices. And, doubtless, had they not been 
 prevented by the natives, who armed in multi- 
 tudes to protect their religious teachers, they 
 would have carried their murderous threats into 
 effect. But what a deep reproach to America 
 does this scene exhibit, a people, just emerg- 
 ing from the most barbarous heathenism, " de- 
 fending with their lives the ministers of Christ, 
 whilst Americans, shameless Americans, panted 
 to wade through their blood to gratify their sin- 
 ful passions !" 
 
 The unbridled licentiousness of our seamen 
 
 is written in many places in characters which 
 
 will not soon be effaced in deep, dreadful 
 
 traces of disease. Odious maladies the brand- 
 
 6*
 
 70 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 marks of unhallowed passions once unknown 
 to the poor islanders of the Pacific and the 
 Southern Oceans, painfully attest that the Brit- 
 ish and American sailor has been there. But 
 among the numerous and distressing illustra- 
 tions which might be furnished of the depraved 
 conduct of our sailors abroad, the following, sup- 
 plied by a captain commanding one of the Hon. 
 East India Company's ships, strikes the writer 
 as most affecting :* " When I was lying at 
 
 , in the East Indies, with seven or eight 
 
 sail of East India ships in company, 
 
 most of the men in the fleet were following 
 their own corrupt inclinations (i. e. on the Sab- 
 bath day) on shore. And it is painful to relate, 
 that so depraved, and so extremely wicked were 
 their manners, that it even affected the feelings 
 of the heathen natives ; so much so, that the 
 idolatrous priests, and others associated with 
 those chiefs in their worship, used every means 
 in their power to prevail on those Christian 
 sailors to embrace their religion ; and it ap- 
 peared they had no other motive than that of 
 making them better men." 
 
 Well, indeed, might the language of the pro- 
 phet to rebellious Israel be addressed to multi- 
 tudes of our sailors, Ye have been a curse among 
 the heathen. What a powerful counteracting 
 effect must their evil influence exercise on mis- 
 sionary labor ! Whether they go before the 
 
 * Related by Mr. Timpson in his, " What have I to 
 do with Sailors?" page 18, 19; an excellent manual, 
 especially for young persons.
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 71 
 
 missionary, and pre-occupy the ground with 
 thorns, or come after him, and sow tares among 
 the wheat; whether they influence the natives 
 by simply inoculating them with the virus of 
 their own depravity, or prejudice their minds 
 against the English character and the Christian 
 name by acts of cruelty and oppression, the 
 effects must be alike injurious to missionary 
 success. Like the South American chief in the 
 early days of Spanish conquest, when the priest 
 travelled in the rear of the advancing army to 
 baptize the captive converts, the heathen na- 
 tives can but little desire to go to the heaven 
 which the English missionary proclaims, if the 
 English sailor is to be there also. By our con- 
 cern then for the success of the gospel in for- 
 eign lands, we are bound to ameliorate the cha- 
 racter of our seamen. There is a sense, too, 
 in which they themselves are to be regarded as 
 missionaries. Yes, whether we will or not, 
 they are missionaries. The world has its mis- 
 sionaries as well as the church, and these are 
 they. And until they are rendered missiona- 
 ries of good, they will continue to act as mis- 
 sionaries of evil ; and will operate far more ex- 
 tensively in ruining the souls of men, than the 
 missionaries of the gospel do in saving them. 
 
 But if they now form a mighty agency of evil, 
 they might become a powerful agency of good. 
 If our apathy and neglect do not forbid, the 
 language of the prophet to Israel may be con- 
 fidently applied to them, " It shall come to pass
 
 72 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 that as ye were a curse among the heathen, so 
 will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing." 
 
 9. There are many elements in their charac- 
 ter, which, when baptized and sanctified by the 
 Holy Spirit, contain the promise of eminent 
 piety. May we not warrantably suppose, that 
 this was one reason why the Saviour of the 
 world devoted so much of his ministry to the 
 maritime part of the Jewish population ? Ca- 
 pernaum, on the sea of Tiberias, was his adopt- 
 ed town. It was on the " sea coast" that he 
 commenced, and principally pursued his minis- 
 try. There, the greater proportion of " his 
 mighty works were performed." His largest 
 audiences were composed of the inhabitants of 
 the sea coasts ; he found the greatest number 
 of disciples there ; and there his cause most il- 
 lustriously triumphed. 
 
 The character of the class is substantially 
 the same still. They are capable of quick and 
 abiding impressions ; full of grateful and gene- 
 rous affections ; with a superstitious but strong 
 belief in a superintending Providence ; a deep 
 veneration for signs, and omens, and old ob- 
 servances ; a feeling of intense interest in tales 
 relating to the invisible world, and to the ap- 
 pearance of spiritual beings. This must be 
 evident to any one who knows any thing of the 
 marvellous stories of the fair weather middle 
 watch ; and the very figure at the bow derived 
 from the ancient tutela, or chosen patron of the 
 ship, to which prayers and sacrifices were daily 
 offered, and which was held so sacred as to
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 73 
 
 offer a sanctuary to those who fled to it even 
 this figure, considering the deep feelings with 
 which it is generally regarded, indicates the 
 existence of a state of mind, the very reverse of 
 a selfish, cold, heartless scepticism. Here, 
 then, are elements of the most improveable na- 
 ture ; a deep substratum of rich and warm feel- 
 ing, such as we may suppose the apostle Paul 
 would have delighted to work in ; and which, 
 by whomsoever it may be wrought in earnest- 
 ness and faith, could not fail, under the Divine 
 blessing, to issue in a character of simple, glow- 
 ing, and vigorous piety. 
 
 Other characteristics mark them out for emi- 
 nent usefulness. And might not our Lord have 
 been influenced, in the selection of his disci- 
 ples, by a regard to these qualities? Peter and 
 Andrew, James and John a third part of his 
 disciples were called from their ships to fol- 
 low him ; Matthew was called from the quay of 
 Capernaum ; and it would appear, from the ac- 
 count of a scene subsequent to the resurrection 
 of Christ, John xxi. 13, that " Thomas and 
 Nathaniel, .... and two other of his disciples," 
 were not strangers to the work of " casting a 
 net into the sea ;" and even St. Paul himself 
 was a native and citizen of a maritime city. 
 He knew that their apostolic duties would sub- 
 ject them to privations, require courage, and 
 call them to sail to distant places to become 
 " fishers of men." For this, their daily employ- 
 ment had prepared them ; rendering them hardy, 
 laborious, and bold. And, accordingly, after
 
 74 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 his ascension, we find them voluntarily incur- 
 ring the greatest dangers, patiently enduring 
 the greatest toils, and compassing sea and land, 
 to achieve the noblest objects. 
 
 The same intrepidity, ardor, and devotodness 
 to the cause they espouse, distinguish our sea- 
 men as a class; these are the qualities which 
 have made them useful to their country ; and 
 the same characteristics which have rendered 
 them so eminently serviceable to the cause of 
 America, need only be sanctified and rightly 
 directed, in order to be equally useful in the 
 cause of God. Happy day for our country, 
 when her maritime population " shall be holi- 
 ness to the Lord !" Then, her sailors shall re- 
 turn, not to " riot in chambering and wanton- 
 ness," but to tell of " the works of the Lord, 
 and his wonders in the deep ;" they " shall 
 visit their habitation, and shall not sin." Their 
 arrival on shore shall furnish occasion for grate- 
 ful praise, and their departure to sea shall call 
 forth prayers and devout commendations to God. 
 The very qualities which now make them to be 
 feared and shunned, shall then excite affection 
 and esteem ; for they shall coast our shores, 
 and sail from port to port, as the agents of Chris- 
 tian benevolence, freighted with the blessings 
 of the gospel of peace. 
 
 And does not their calling mark them out 
 for extensive usefulness, as well as their char- 
 acter? In a literal sense, their " field is the 
 world." They are citizens of the world. They 
 are the missionaries of commerce to the ends of
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 75 
 
 the earth ; and, whether the church of God 
 avail itself of their agency or not, to the ends of 
 the earth they will continue to go; what an 
 instrumentality is here ! what a magnificent 
 agency for good ! And shall it remain com- 
 paratively unemployed ? Is there not ground 
 to believe that one of the reasons why Britain 
 has been allowed to possess the commerce of 
 the world is that she might possess the neces- 
 sary facilities for the evangelization of the world ? 
 Is it not remarkable that the three nations in 
 which reformed Christianity chiefly prevails, 
 England, America, and Holland, should be 
 the three most commercial nations? and must 
 not the obvious design of Providence in this 
 marked arrangement force itself on every re- 
 flecting Christian mind ? Had England and 
 America acted in accordance with this design ; 
 had we duly regarded the welfare of our sailors, 
 and trained them up in the fear of the Lord, 
 how different an aspect might the world, at this 
 moment, have presented ! How much, for in- 
 stance, might we have done for China by this 
 time, by the mere distribution of tracts, had our 
 sailors been men " valiant for the truth :" where- 
 as those very sailors themselves are there perish- 
 ing for lack of knowledge ; and an affecting 
 appeal has just been made to the Christians of 
 these United States in their behalf, by a mis- 
 sionary just entered into rest.* 
 
 * Rev. E. Stevens, American Seamen's Chaplain at 
 Whampoa, China ; in an Appeal to the Friends of Sea-
 
 76 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 Our sailors may yet be a blessing to the ends 
 of the earth. Not only might they be restrain- 
 ed from being a hindrance to the missionary's 
 efforts abroad, they might become his active 
 and powerful auxiliaries. The ancient Jews 
 were denominated God's witnesses, to give evi- 
 dence to the world in his behalf; Christians are 
 called the epistles of Christ, and are said to be 
 known and read of all men. Pious sailors would 
 eminently realize this purpose. If unable to be 
 witnesses to proclaim the gospel with their 
 lips, they would yet be epistles speaking to 
 the eye by the silent eloquence of a holy useful 
 life. And this is a language which needs no 
 translation, no interpreter ; men of every tongue 
 can understand it ; it is the only true universal 
 language. In some instances, indeed, our sai- 
 lors already answer this purpose ; " the Chris- 
 tian natives in the South Sea Islands are de- 
 lighted with the arrival of a praying ship, or a 
 believing ship." Seamen might often precede 
 our missionaries, and prepare the way for them. 
 By the distribution of bibles and tracts, and by 
 the thousand methods which a holy ingenuity 
 will devise, they might virtually lake possession 
 of a heathen land in the name of him who is 
 King of kings and Lord of lords, as they do of 
 a newly discovered land in the name of their 
 earthly sovereign. They might become the 
 pioneers, or the agents, of the Christian church 
 in every land. 
 
 How interesting the spectacle of a cloud of 
 shipping in one of our mercantile ports, avail-
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 77 
 
 ing themselves of the same tide, and spreading 
 their sails to the same auspicious breeze, to de- 
 part on their respective voyages ! For a short 
 time, they all proceed down channel together ; 
 but as " the great and wide sea" expands be- 
 fore them, they strike off in all directions, and 
 every day they diverge wider and farther from 
 each other, till eventually they are scattered 
 over the face of the world. " There go the 
 ships !" said the psalmist, when contemplating 
 the sublime spectacle, and filling his mind with 
 great thoughts of nature and providence. And 
 will not the church sanctify that sublimity, and 
 behold in the navigated sea a glorious agency 
 of grace? "There go the ships !" the Chris- 
 tian might say, as he stood and gazed at a nu- 
 merous fleet diverging and disappearing in the 
 distant horizon ; there go the ships, laden with 
 treasures more precious than those of the navy 
 of Solomon when freighted with the ivory and 
 the gold of Ophir ; in one of them are tracts ; 
 in another, bibles ; in another, missionaries ; in 
 all of them, men, who, like the Christian mari- 
 ners of the Galilean Lake, are " the messen- 
 gers of the churches and the glory of Christ," 
 men of simple, earnest, glowing piety, who 
 go to be " fishers of men," in all nations, kin- 
 dreds, and climes on the face of the earth. 
 The prayers of the church waft them on their 
 several ways: angels convoy them; He who 
 brought the ship of the disciples safe to land is 
 present with them ; and the very ends of the 
 earth shall be glad for them. 
 7
 
 78 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
 
 10. The example of our Divine Master points 
 our attention to sailors, with all the force of an 
 express command. His marked and devoted 
 attention to the maritime districts of Palestine, 
 had been the subject of early prophecy, Isaiah 
 ix. 1, and when the prediction was fulfilled, it 
 was made the subject of evangelic history, Matt. 
 iv. 13 16. " Leaving Nazareth, he came and 
 dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea- 
 coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephta- 
 lim : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken 
 by Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of 
 Zabulon and the land of Nephtalim, by the 
 way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the 
 Gentiles : the people who sat in darkness saw 
 great light ; and to them who sat in the region 
 and shadow of death, light is sprung up." We 
 have already seen that, in fulfilment of this pro- 
 phecy, our Lord commenced, and principally 
 pursued, his ministry on the sea-coasts. There 
 he performed his greatest miracles, found his 
 largest audiences, and called most of his apos- 
 tles. Though Bethlehem was his birth-place ; 
 Nazareth, the residence of Joseph and Mary ; 
 and Jerusalem, the metropolis of the land ; yet 
 Capernaum, a sea-port,* was his adopted, " his 
 own city." The synagogue was the appointed 
 
 * The inhabitants of Palestine in the vicinity of the 
 Lake still call it by its ancient and scriptural name, 
 the sea. In conformity with this usage, Capernaum is 
 sometimes spoken of as a sea-port ; though, perhaps, 
 the more appropriate appellation would be a fishing 
 town.
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 79 
 
 place for religious instruction, but he went to 
 the beach to proclaim the kingdom of God. 
 The beach was crowded, for " the people press- 
 ed on him to hear the word of God," " so he 
 went into a ship and the whole multitude stood 
 on the shore. And he spake many things unto 
 them in parables." Here we see the Saviour 
 having recourse to extraordinary methods for 
 the good of the maritime class ; and has he not 
 in this, as in every other respect, left us an ex- 
 ample that we should walk in his steps? Shall 
 he walk forth to the sea-side, as if he would 
 show us the way to this destitute class, and 
 shall we leave him to walk there alone, while 
 we sit still in the house? Shall he consecrate 
 the quay, the strand, the deck of the ship, by 
 his sacred presence, and personal activity, and 
 shall not we enter in and endeavor to fill these 
 spheres of usefulness, in his name, and to his 
 glory ? 
 
 11. But the motives which should urge us to 
 cultivate the improvement of our seamen are 
 endless. Ordinary consistency requires it. We 
 are concerned for the welfare of every other 
 class of our countrymen ; we are sending the 
 gospel to the people of every other land ; shall 
 the men to whom we must be indebted for con- 
 veying it, be the only class comparatively dis- 
 regarded ? And the voice of prophecy calls for 
 find encourages it : for " the abundance of the 
 
 sea shall be converted unto thee Surely, 
 
 the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of 
 Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their
 
 80 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR SEAMEN. 
 
 silver and their gold with them, unto the name 
 of the Lord thy God." And even "the mer- 
 chandise of Tyre shall be holiness to the Lord." 
 Every description of maritime agency shall be 
 consecrated and made subservient to the uni- 
 versal extension of the Divine empire.
 
 Z E B U L O N. 
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 7*
 
 PART THE THIRD. 
 
 THE MEANS BY WHICH THE CONDITION OP OUR SEAMEN MIGHT 
 BE IMPROVED. 
 
 HAVING sketched " the present condition of 
 our seafaring population ;" and enforced " the 
 duty of the public in general, and of all Chris- 
 tians in particular, to promote their moral and 
 religious improvement ;" it now remains that 
 the writer should specify what he considers "the 
 best means by which this object may be ac- 
 complished." 
 
 U is a distinguishing feature of Christian 
 benevolence, that, while it aims chiefly at the 
 highest good of man, it bestows a proportionate 
 regard on all his inferior interests ; resembling, 
 in this respect, its Divine Examplar, who, in 
 his way to the cross to save a world, often stood 
 still to heal the diseased and relieve the wretch- 
 ed. And so closely are the temporal and spi- 
 ritual welfare of mankind united in principle 
 and in fact, that whichever we begin with first, 
 we are certainly preparing the way for the other,
 
 84 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 and should be provided with the means of seiz- 
 ing and promoting it as soon as it begins to ap- 
 pear. If we commence with his temporal wel- 
 fare, and are the means of raising him out of a 
 state of social debasement, to cleanliness, indus- 
 try, and self-respect, we have, in effect, led him 
 up the steps of the Christian temple, brought 
 him to its very threshold, and, in the hope that 
 he may be induced to enter, a place should be 
 prepared and awaiting him within. If, on the 
 other hand, we begin with his spiritual welfare, 
 we cannot instrurnentally succeed in restoring 
 him to God, without, at the same time, restor- 
 ing him to himself and to society, raising him 
 in the scale of moral and social worth, convert- 
 ing his habits of idleness and improvidence into 
 industry and economy ; and thus proving that 
 godliness is profitable for the life that now is, 
 as well as for the life that is to come. And, in 
 the prospect of his social improvement, we 
 should be provided with helps and institutions 
 for the aid and development of his new-found 
 powers. 
 
 1. In devising liberal things for our seamen, 
 then, let us begin with the lowest form of their 
 exigency a state of sickness. As it was the 
 peculiar glory of Christ that he " took our infir- 
 mities and bare our sicknesses," so the erection 
 of hospitals and infirmaries for the indigent and 
 helpless sick a thing totally unknown to pa- 
 ganism seems to have been reserved for the 
 benevolence of his followers. 
 
 The writer is far from advocating that blind
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 85 
 
 and miscalculating charity, which, by render- 
 ing foresight on the part of the lower classes 
 unnecessary, makes them improvident, and aug- 
 ments the evil which it was meant to relieve. 
 But, in many instances, the earnings of the par- 
 ticular class in question are but barely sufficient 
 for the sustenance of life on its lowest terms ; 
 or, a want of employment has made saving im- 
 possible ; or, if actual extravagance has reduced 
 the patient to indigence, we should remember 
 that the improvidence of the class is, in a great 
 measure, owing to our own culpable neglect ; 
 and until the evils of that neglect be remedied, 
 we should hold ourselves bound to provide for 
 the consequences. 
 
 Perhaps, to no part of the sailor's wants has 
 more efficient aid been rendered than to his 
 wants in sickness. Still, however, it will re- 
 main to be considered, first, whether this pro- 
 vision is adequate ; second, whether these ex- 
 cellent charities afford sufficient facilities for 
 the admission of the sick ; and, third, whether 
 they secure a course of wholesome religious in- 
 struction. On the last of these particulars, the 
 Christian philanthropist will naturally lay con- 
 siderable stress ; remembering that it relates to 
 a situation highly favourable to the reception of 
 the gospel. 
 
 2. The next great desideratum is, the estab- 
 lishment of comfortable and respectable board- 
 ing-houses, in our maritime cities, for the re- 
 ception of sailors immediately on landing. A 
 few such already exist. But a vast number are
 
 86 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 quite the reverse, and are the cause of great 
 public detriment. It is very desirable that 
 there should be some systematic provision for 
 the protection of sailors, so as to give them a 
 fair chance of becoming prudent, by having 
 facilities afforded them for escaping bad com- 
 pany, and for placing in safety such part of their 
 wages as they would not wish to spend." The 
 moment of their landing from a voyage is often 
 the crisis of their fate. Having no home, no 
 refuge, open to receive them, and being quite 
 indifferent as to the particular direction they 
 take.they allow themselves to be led, like victims, 
 to debasement and ruin. But were Benevolence 
 as active in its movements, and as assiduous in 
 its attentions, as Avarice and Temptation, 
 were it to prepare for them a home, and, cordi- 
 ally taking them by the hand, to lead them into 
 it, how many a victim might be snatched from 
 the jaws of destruction ! And the expedient 
 would soon support itself. Only let respectable 
 persons establish such places ; and let all the 
 arrangements be made with as little sensible 
 restraint, and as studied a conformity to the 
 general habits and peculiar tastes of sailors as 
 a sound morality will permit, let this be done, 
 and it would be a libel, not only on the class, 
 but on common sense, to suppose that it would 
 not succeed, and be productive of the happiest 
 results on their morals. 
 
 3. " A public duty towards sailors will be 
 left unperformed, so long as savings' banks are 
 not opened in all our sea-ports for their exclu-
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 87 
 
 sive benefit." When the writer had mentally 
 sketched a plan for the improvement of seamen, 
 of which savings' banks formed a part, he was 
 not a little gratified at unexpectedly meeting 
 with the concurring testimony of Mr. Hutchin- 
 son, in favour of their adoption. This gentle- 
 man is actuary to the London Provident Insti- 
 tution. He informed me that he had some 
 time since sketched the plan of a seaman's sav- 
 ings' bank and, at my desire he has fur- 
 nished rue with a few observations, which I shall 
 make the ground-work of the following remarks, 
 in many instances using his own words. 
 
 " Of all the plans devised for bettering the 
 condition of the labouring classes, not one has 
 so successfully promoted that object as the 
 
 establishment of savings' banks The 
 
 seamen frequenting our ports make little use of 
 the savings' banks now existing, except those 
 designed for their use. They are not in any 
 particular manner brought to their notice. The 
 rules and regulations have no particular relation 
 to their peculiar exigencies and way of life. . . 
 . . It is a mistake to suppose that seamen are 
 naturally more improvident than landsmen ; 
 they are made so by the circumstance of receiv- 
 ing their wages in accumulated sums ; and other 
 men in the same rank of life, when exposed to 
 the like temptation, seldom resist to a greater 
 extent, except in so far as they are not equally 
 
 beset with villany But this failing is not 
 
 an incurable one, if all possible allurements and 
 facilities were afforded to habits of saving. And
 
 88 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 the sailor has then an advantage over all other 
 classes of labourers, in that, whilst he is earn- 
 ing his wages, he has not only no temptation to 
 waste them, but he has seldom the possibility. 
 Once instil into a seaman a desire for accumu- 
 lation, and it is easier to him than to any other 
 individual ; he puts a lump in store, and on his 
 return finds it not only safe, but increased. 
 He has the means in his hands to double 
 it. Is he not likely to apply them so, and to 
 go to sea again as soon, and a better sailor, 
 than the spendthrift ? A desire of saving hav- 
 ing once taken root in a sailor's mind, it has 
 more time and opportunity to grow there than 
 under any other circumstances ; and as a cer- 
 tain similarity of habits must ever characterize 
 the class, a partial change for the better would 
 most probably lead to an universal one. 
 
 " The establishment of a savings' bank in a 
 central situation, and under rules and regula- 
 tions having solely in view the habits and con- 
 venience of the class, would in all probability 
 confer invaluable benefits upon them, if patroni- 
 zed and supported by the shipping interest. 
 Here the produce of their labour might be safe- 
 ly housed until wanted for beneficial purposes, 
 instead of being dissipated in profligacy and 
 folly, or made a prey to others. What a bene- 
 fit it would be to a sailor to have his wages 
 placed in security, if only till, upon getting 
 another ship, he might be enabled to purchase 
 his outfit with his own money, instead of being 
 driven to procure it on the most extortionate
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 89 
 
 terms ! But if a permanent habit of saving 
 could be produced, it would, by raising him in 
 his own estimation, make him a more valuable 
 servant, and eventually be productive of great 
 national benefit. Experience has shown, that 
 when a depositor in a savings' bank has suc- 
 ceeded in accumulating a few pounds, a most 
 extraordinary stimulus is frequently given to the 
 formation of habits of industry and economy, 
 and every nerve appears to be strained to in- 
 crease his fund. At the same time, the very 
 bearing and manner of the individual is alter- 
 ed, and he seems to have acquired a proper 
 feeling of self-respect, the spread of which must 
 produce the most beneficial results to society 
 at large. The American sailor has many noble 
 qualities, which, as is often visible, make him 
 the more keenly feel the debasement of some 
 of his habits, arid which would doubtless induce 
 him to enter more willingly into any better 
 course that might be opened to him. There 
 seems to be no mode of offering him a better 
 course, in principle so sound, or in operation 
 so easy, as by the establishment of a savings' 
 bank, having for its sole object the encourage- 
 ment of provident habits among the seafaring 
 class, by afford ing them every possible facility 
 to place whatever part of their hard earnings 
 they may have to spare, out of the reach of 
 imposition and robbery, for their own benefit 
 and for that of their families. 
 
 " The principal objects to be aimed at in 
 such an institution would be, 1. To establish
 
 90 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 it in the most central situation ; to have it open 
 at the hours most suitable to the convenience 
 of seafaring men ; and to have in attendance 
 persons familiar with their habits and humours. 
 2. To afford every proper facility both in in- 
 vesting and withdrawing deposits ; so as to hold 
 out the greatest inducement to invest, and at 
 the same time to meet the sudden exigencies 
 of sailors wanting money for their outfit, or 
 any other necessary purpose. 3. To afford 
 facilities for making provision for seamen's 
 families during their absence, at sea. 4. To 
 receive the wages of sailors on their behalf 
 from their employers. 5. When desired, to 
 purchase annuities for seamen, and to invest 
 their money in the funds when exceeding the 
 amount allowed by law to be in the savings' 
 bank. 6. To keep a register of depositors 
 wanting ships, for the purpose of being refer- 
 red to by ship-owners wanting steady men. 7. 
 To provide for distributing savings, and receiv- 
 ing wages, in case of death. 8. To act in 
 every way as the stewards and friends of the 
 depositors. 9. To apply to the State Legisla- 
 tures for whatever increased powers might be 
 necessary to promote the above ends. 
 
 " American seameu do not stand in need 
 of charity, but justice ; and I hope to see their 
 cause meet with the highest patronage, and 
 the most extensive support, and I have no 
 doubt it will be so, if once taken up by those 
 competent to ensure its success. I should like 
 to see a public meeting called by influential
 
 THE CONDITION OP OUR SEAMEN. 91 
 
 men, and a subscription opened, for the pur- 
 pose of carrying this object into effect. . . '. . 
 It is, in my opinion, a very strong argument 
 in favour of the establishment of a savings' 
 bank for seamen on an efficient and extensive 
 plan, that while it would powerfully contribute 
 to rescue the improvident from the evils with 
 which they are surrounded, it would at the 
 same time afford facilities to the efforts of the 
 well-conducted, especially in the beginning of 
 their career, which under no other system 
 could they so certainly enjoy. And it might 
 lay the foundation of an entire change of ha- 
 bit in respect to prudence among the whole 
 
 class of seamen My view of such an 
 
 institution is, that after being well started, and 
 complete in all its appointments, it should be 
 made to pay its own expenses, and that it 
 should not be artificially and precariously main- 
 tained by external aid. I would have a gen- 
 eral superintendence by influential men, and 
 all the re*t matter of business. As I said be- 
 fore, American seamen do not want charity, 
 but justice ; and I should consider any effort 
 now made in their behalf, only as the payment 
 of a debt due to them for past ill-treatment and 
 neglect." 
 
 4. In connexion with the savings' bank, a 
 register should be kept of depositors wanting 
 ships, for the purpose of being referred to by 
 ship-owners wanting steady men. This sug- 
 gestion, indeed, forms a part of the preceding 
 plan. But it seems so important as to deserve
 
 92 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 distinct consideration. For only let it once be- 
 come generally known that the owners of ships 
 consult this register for men, and the circum- 
 stance would operate as a powerful recommen- 
 dation to seamen in favor of the savings' bank ; 
 while, on the other hand, their connexion with 
 the bank would furnish a presumptive guaran- 
 tee for the sobriety, providence, and general 
 steadiness of its depositors. They would mu- 
 tually recommend each other. And, what is 
 best of all a demand for character would be 
 created and proclaimed, which could not fail to 
 act beneficially on the whole class. 
 
 5. The establishment of Sailors' Temperance 
 Societies is obvious and indispensable. That 
 the promotion of temperance among seamen is 
 necessary, we know, for intemperance is the 
 sailor's besetting sin, and it is made by others 
 the occasion of his robbery and ruin. That it 
 is practicable is evident, for it has been tried 
 with success in the majority of American ships. 
 
 But, in order that the effort may be made 
 with the greatest likelihood of success, it seems 
 desirable that Temperance Societies should be 
 established for seamen exclusively. By this 
 means, not only would the objection which the 
 sailor feels to standing on the same footing with 
 landsmen in this particular, be successfully 
 met ; but he would feel that the Society was in 
 a sense A is own ; and would also acquire the 
 idea that the public takes a kind interest in his 
 special welfare. The rules and regulations 
 should be prepared directly with a view to their
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 93 
 
 habits and interests. And the tracts intended 
 for circulation on the subject, should be ex- 
 pressly adapted arid addressed to the seafaring 
 class. What incalculable benefits might thus 
 be conferred on this deserving section of the 
 community ! and never should it be forgotten, 
 that by benefitting any single class of society, 
 the whole community reaps the advantage. 
 What a fruitful source of guilt and misery 
 would thus be dried up ! for drunkenness is the 
 most fertile parent of crime. How greatly would 
 the security of maritime life and property be in- 
 creased !* for drunkenness has occasioned many 
 of the most fatal disasters at sea ; so that, in 
 this point of view, a Sailors' Temperance So- 
 ciety would be, in effect, a public safety society. 
 6. iiut if the sailor is io be kept from the 
 public-house, a place must be provided where 
 he can pleasantly and profitably spend his lei- 
 
 * What stronger proof can be afforded of this, than 
 the remarkable fact that the different marine insurance 
 companies in the city of New York have resolved that 
 they will allow a deduction of five per cent, on the net 
 premiums which may be taken after this date, on all 
 vessels terminating their voyage without loss of life, 
 provided the master and mate make affidavit, after the 
 termination of the risk, that no ardent spirits had been 
 drunk on board the vessel by the officers and crew dur- 
 ing the voyage or term for which the vessel was in- 
 sured ! Shortly after this, the Baltimore Insurance 
 Company, in the city of Baltimore, passed a similar 
 resolution. The Virginia Marine Insurance Company 
 at Richmond have adopted the same rule ; arid it is be- 
 lieved that several of the insurance companies in Boa- 
 ton have acted on a similar plan for some years. 
 
 8*
 
 94 THE MEANS OP IMPROVING 
 
 sure instead. This might be advantageously 
 done by the establishment of a Sailors' Insti- 
 tute. Why might there not be a Sailors', as 
 well as a Mechanics' Institute; where popular 
 instruction should be given on the many sub- 
 jects connected with a seaman's occupation, 
 and where he might lay in stores of useful 
 knowledge for pleasure and benefit, whether at 
 sea, or on shore ? A sailor frequently remains 
 many weeks in port ; either, when paid off, he 
 waits for another ship, or whilst the one to 
 which he belongs clears out her cargo. During 
 these weeks he has necessarily much leisure, 
 and were he comfortably lodged, and his money 
 at rest in a savings' bank, he might find in- 
 struction and profitable amusement at his Insti- 
 tute, and from a lending library that might be 
 attached to - it. He would, consequently, be 
 less exposed to drunkenness and disease, and 
 the knowledge gained would make him neither 
 less useful nor less happy. Assuredly he would 
 not feel less attached to the country which had 
 shown so much interest in his comfort and wel- 
 fare. 
 
 A naval museum would form a very natural 
 appendage ; this, besides furnishing the mind 
 with amusement while on shore, might be the 
 means of exciting a spirit of inquiry, creating a 
 thirst for information, and awakening a desire 
 to be the means of enriching the collection. 
 Suitable persons should be appointed or per- 
 mitted to lecture, and instruction in other forms 
 be given, on " the many subjects connected
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 95 
 
 with a seaman's occupation ;" and the whole 
 should be placed under a wise religious superin- 
 tendence. 
 
 7. In connexion, either with the sailors' in- 
 stitute, or with the savings' bank, or with both, 
 for these two objects might be beneficially 
 united together, the writer would suggest the 
 establishment of a society for the distribution 
 of honorary rewards to steady and deserving 
 seamen. It is well known that societies of this 
 kind exist in many of our agricultural districts; 
 and, wherever they exist, they are, and must 
 be, productive of good. Equal scope for their 
 beneficial operation exists among our maritime 
 population. Their claim to reward might be 
 made to depend on the way in which (if mar- 
 ried) they have supported and brought up their 
 families ; the length of time they have gone in 
 the same ships ; their sobriety, economy, regu- 
 larity of attendance on the means of improve- 
 ment on shore ; and on their general good be- 
 haviour on board. And their claim to reward, 
 on these grounds, might be ascertained by a 
 reference to the parochial register, to the list of 
 the savings' bank depositors, of the temperance 
 society's members, of the sailors' institute's mem- 
 bers, and by the testimony of the captains with 
 whom they have sailed, either oral, or by cer- 
 tificate. 
 
 8. Ascending into the higher region of reli- 
 gious improvement, the writer is constrained to 
 admire the wisdom, the variety, and (consider- 
 ing the limited resources devoted to the object)
 
 96 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 the extent of the means already in operation 
 for the evangelization of our seamen. The 
 Bible is distributed. Libraries, containing ap- 
 proved religious works, are lent to ships about 
 to sail. Religious tracts are circulated. Sun- 
 day-schools exist for the religious instruction of 
 sailors' children. Prayer-meetings are held at 
 appointed stations on board, at which sailors 
 are invited to attend. Domestic and foreign 
 agencies are employed for the diffusion of these 
 benefits to the greatest extent which existing 
 resources allow. And that which is the grand 
 method of religious usefulness appointed by 
 Christ himself for every creature under heaven, 
 and the great method which he himself pur- 
 sued for benefiting the fishermen and sailors of 
 Judea the gospel is proclaimed. On this me- 
 thod, therefore, our hopes should rest as the 
 principal mode of religiously benefiting the pre- 
 sent generation of the sailors of our country. 
 
 Now all these means of religious usefulness 
 so strongly commend themselves to every en- 
 lightened mind, that were either of them yet 
 untried, it ought to be put into operation to- 
 morrow. Our only regret concerning them is, 
 that, owing to the want of pecuniary resources, 
 the application of them, at present, should be 
 so extremely limited. Whatever methods of 
 usefulness we may be prepared to suggest in 
 addition, we can only deplore that these means 
 should be comparatively languishing for want 
 of pecuniary support. Let us hope that when 
 the public attention shall be duly called to the
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 97 
 
 condition and claims of our seamen, funds will 
 be provided for carrying those means into effect, 
 on a scale commensurate with their excellence, 
 and with the crying need which exists for them. 
 
 9. In the hope, and with the full persuasion, 
 that such will be the case, the writer would 
 suggest the establishment of Normal Schools to 
 qualify sailors for promoting the religious im- 
 provement of their shipmates on board. The 
 chief recommendation of this plan in his own 
 view is, that it promises to carry out the exist- 
 ing plans of religious usefulness, already refer- 
 red to, into more efficacious effect. Why should 
 the period of the sailor's improvement be stint- 
 ed to the time of his continuance in port ? es- 
 pecially, as the time which some ships are at 
 sea, exceeds the time in which they are at an- 
 chor. And why should his improvement be 
 left during this long period to the uncertainty 
 of his taking a book from the loan library on 
 board ? Through the want of some such in- 
 strumentality as that suggested, it is to be fear- 
 ed that much incipient good, commenced on 
 shore, is lost at sea ; and that many a religious 
 impression is as completely effaced between 
 port and port, as the trace of his keel in the 
 wave impressions which only required a kind 
 and watchful eye, to lead, through divine influ- 
 ence, to his permanent conversion to God. 
 
 In order to remedy this evil, and to carry out 
 existing plans of improvement, the writer sub- 
 mits that a number of sailors whose piety, zeal, 
 and general qualifications, render them eligible,
 
 98 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 should receive such instruction as would be 
 likely to render them religiously useful to their 
 shipmates while at sea. Were such men pro- 
 vided, the probability is, that tHe respectability 
 of their character and derneanor, would easily 
 procure them berths ; especially on board such 
 vessels as allow Bethel meetings to be held in 
 them. In addition to which, it would be the 
 duty of the Society which trained them, to in- 
 terest itself, by recommendation and otherwise, 
 in procuring them berths. It is likely, how- 
 ever, that when it became generally known that 
 such a class of men existed, such recommenda- 
 tions would be quite unnecessary ; that they 
 would be sought after as trustworthy and supe- 
 rior men ; and that many a ship-owner and cap- 
 tain would deem it their interest to procure and 
 prefer them. 
 
 Without at all interfering with the ordinary 
 duties of his station on board, an individual of 
 this class should consider himself as the repre- 
 sentative and servant of the Christian Society 
 which had assisted to prepare him. In this 
 capacity, it should devolve on him to carry on 
 instruction in reading of any of the boys or men 
 who had been learning on shore ; to seize every 
 prudent opportunity for reading the Scriptures 
 and religious books to such of the crew as were 
 disposed to listen ; to read or offer up prayer, if 
 allowed by the captain to do so ; to superintend 
 and circulate the books of the loan library ; 
 and, on arriving in provincial or foreign ports, 
 to communicate immediately with the agents of
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 99 
 
 the Society stationed there, that no time might 
 be lost in holding Bethel and other meetings on 
 board. But the ways in which such a man 
 might promote the objects of a religious society, 
 exceed enumeration. Religious impressions re- 
 ceived on shore, would, by his instrumentality, 
 be saved from dissipation ; and the crew would 
 feel that, though absent from port, they were 
 still in the presence of an agency expressly em- 
 ployed for their welfare ; and the Society em- 
 ploying him would feel that though the objects 
 of their solicitude were " afar off upon the sea," 
 a man of God, and a servant of their own, was 
 still with them. His character would necessa- 
 rily invest him with influence both in the eyes 
 of his captain and his shipmates ; as far as that 
 influence could be prudently exerted he would 
 naturally employ it to obtain, as his companions 
 on board, men like-minded with himself; thus 
 he would obtain the means of holding occa- 
 sional prayer-meetings at sea, and the ship be 
 converted into a Christian church. Besides 
 which, a powerful Christian agency would, in 
 this way, be raised up and put into motion, 
 from among the sailors themselves. And if the 
 writer mistake not, the time is not far distant, 
 when all our great religious societies which aim 
 at the propagation of the gospel, will find, that 
 the most speedy and effectual method of ac- 
 complishing their object is, to raise up an agen- 
 cy from among the nation or the class which 
 they seek to benefit, and to employ that agency for 
 the purpose. At all events, were such an agency
 
 100 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 raised up from among the maritime class, the 
 energy and zeal peculiar to the character of 
 that body warrant the persuasion that, under 
 God's blessing, the evangelization of the entire 
 class would certainly follow. 
 
 10. In the mean time, the writer would urge 
 the importance of seeing that each sailor, on 
 his departure from port, be in possession of a 
 copy of the word of God. Let the last question 
 put to him be, " Have you a Bible ?" And let 
 the question be repeated every time he departs ; 
 for, though he may have had one formerly, he 
 may not have it now. The question would 
 have the effect, at least, of convincing the sailor 
 of the great importance which the inquirer at- 
 tached to his possessing that sacred treasure, 
 and might thus be the means of recalling the 
 Bible to his memory under circumstances the 
 most favorable to the perusal and reception of 
 its truths. 
 
 The ship Argo says heathen mythology 
 was built of the oaks of the sacred groves of 
 Dodona, which were endowed with the gift of 
 prophecy. The consequence was, that the 
 beams of the vessel gave forth oracles to the 
 adventurous Argonauts, and saved them from 
 many an approaching calamity. Give the Bible 
 to the seaman, and the heathen fable will be- 
 come Christian fact. From his cabin, his berth, 
 his chest, his hammock, it will send forth its 
 living oracles warn him of dangers more fatal 
 than those which attended the recovery of the
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 101 
 
 golden fleece, and cause him to hear " words 
 whereby he rnay be saved." 
 
 11. Incalculable good would certainly result 
 from the adoption of the preceding plans. But, 
 while the writer would not allow a moment to 
 be lost in carrying them into effect ; while he 
 feels that, were the seafaring class to end with 
 the present generation of sailors, the Christian 
 public could not possibly do enough to atone 
 for its past neglect of them, even though it 
 should begin with all these plans to-morrow ; 
 yet he confesses that his hopes are chiefly fixed 
 on a new generation of that class. With this 
 impression, he would urge immediate and es- 
 pecial attention to the religious education of 
 sailors' children. 
 
 Infant schools, designed expressly for them, 
 and conducted on Christian principles, deserve 
 particular attention. These excellent institu- 
 tions, by taking the little ones from scenes of 
 negligence arid disorder during the greater part 
 of the day, and accustoming them from their 
 earliest age to the superior comforts of cleanli- 
 ness, order, and cheerful sobriety, would be the 
 means of imparting, in numerous instances, a 
 taste for the pleasures of morality and religion, 
 never to be lost. And even where the amount 
 of benefit fell short of this desirable point, a 
 witness would be left in the bosom of all who 
 had enjoyed the advantages of such schools, 
 which would always be ready to give its testi- 
 mony on the side of morality and religion. 
 Other schools should be ready to receive them 
 9
 
 102 THE MEANS OP IMPROVING 
 
 from the hand of the Infant school ; to train 
 them up in the fear of God, and in the knowl- 
 edge necessary to their calling, till they went 
 to sea ; and to assist them in procuring the situ- 
 ations necessary. The rising race of the mari- 
 time class would thus be secured, as by an em- 
 bankment, against the overflowing depravity of 
 the present generation, and a foundation be laid 
 for a new class of seamen of a superior charac- 
 ter. 
 
 12. The writer has but one plan more to 
 propose ; and the object of that will be to carry 
 the preceding plans into effect. 
 
 But before he proceeds to state it, he may be 
 allowed to say a word concerning that which 
 alone can entitle them to consideration their 
 practicability and suitableness. 
 
 In the outline we have sketched, we have re- 
 ceived the sailor, in sickness, and conveyed 
 him to a hospital, where his moral as well as 
 his bodily malady shall receive the necessary 
 attention. In health, we have received him 
 from his ship, and led him direct to a comforta- 
 ble and respectable boarding-house, provided 
 expressly for his reception. We have placed 
 his money in security; where, instead of being 
 " wasted in riotous living," he has the comfort 
 of knowing that it is safe, and increasing. We 
 have encouraged him to add to his economy, 
 temperance ; and, in order to diminish his 
 temptation to intemperance, we have provided 
 a place of resort where instruction and amuse- 
 ment are combined together. To foster in his
 
 THR CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 103 
 
 heart a sense of the value of character, we have 
 placed before him honorary rewards for merit ; 
 and have suggested a way hy which superiority 
 of character may lead to increased employment. 
 While remaining in port, we have provided 
 him with a rich variety of Christian instruction, 
 and of the means of salvation ; at the moment 
 of departure, we have put him in possession of a 
 copy of God's own hook ; and, for a companion 
 on the deep, we have given him a man of God 
 who will care for his religious welfare. And, 
 in order that his children may prove a comfort 
 to himself, and a blessing to society, we have 
 proposed to take them in infancy, and train 
 them up in the pleasant ways of wisdom and of 
 the fear of the Lord. Thus beginning with his 
 physical condition, we have ascended upwards 
 through his moral, social, intellectual, and spir- 
 itual necessities, and have aimed to provide for 
 them all. Following him through the entire 
 round of his temptations and his wants, we have 
 attended his course in sickness and health, at 
 home and abroad, temporal and spiritual, and 
 have endeavored to provide for the whole cir- 
 cle ; leaving him in the possession of his sav- 
 ings for the season of infirmity and age, and 
 with the prospect of his children improving on 
 their father. 
 
 But the plan we have sketched, besides be- 
 ing comprehensive, seems also simple and com- 
 pact. All those parts of it which relate to the 
 temporal and moral improvement of the sailor, 
 arise so naturally out of each other, that they
 
 I 04 THE MEANS OP IMPROVING 
 
 may be advantageously united, and conducted 
 together. And those which relate to his reli- 
 gious welfare are but ramifications of the same 
 principle differently applied. 
 
 The plan proposed, too, has for its object, 
 not simply the relief and assistance of the sai- 
 lor : it aims to aid him in a way which shall 
 enable him to aid himself, and lead to his 
 personal improvement. By forming him to 
 habits of economy and self cultivation, it aims 
 to develop his own powers, and to raise him in 
 the scale of social worth; and by leading him 
 to the means of grace, it aspires to complete his 
 happiness, and to render him a religious bless- 
 ing to others. 
 
 Nor may it be irrelevant to advert to the 
 comparative inexpensiveness of the plan. The 
 expenditure of the religious department, would 
 depend, of course, on the extent of its opera- 
 tions ; but were the other parts of the plan to 
 be fairly and fully carried into effect, there can 
 be but little question, that, in a short time, they 
 would be found capable of supporting them- 
 selves. 
 
 And then as to the question, whether or not 
 sailors would avail themselves of those means 
 of improvement, abundant evidence might be 
 adduced to establish the affirmative. In the 
 full proportion in which means have been em- 
 ployed for their welfare, they have succeeded. 
 Our endeavors in this respect have been signal- 
 ly successful. The reports of our Temperance 
 Societies testify that the use of spirituous liquors
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 105 
 
 in the navy is on the wane, and may be entire- 
 ly subdued, while it is generally discontinued 
 in the merchant service. In a letter addressed 
 " To the Friends of Seamen in England," and 
 dated Canton, Jan., 1836, an American mis- 
 sionary writes. " Intemperance, I trust, is be- 
 ginning to give ground. Within the last two 
 years more than 100 vessels have been here in 
 which no spirits are given to the crews, and it 
 is now a long time since I have seen a single 
 American vessel which allows any ardent spirits 
 to officers or people." The reports of the sav- 
 ings' banks at some of our maritime towns, ex- 
 hibit symptoms of economy also in the seafar- 
 ing class. Thus the number of depositors in 
 the Seamen's Savings' Bank at New York in 
 1833 was 569, and the amount deposited was 
 $74,286,74. The whole number of depositors 
 in that at Boston is 1720. of whom 566 are 
 seamen. The number of depositors from August 
 1st 1836, to August 1st 1837, is 431, of whom 
 117 are seamen. 
 
 The maritime character was once as distin- 
 guished for its religious manifestations, as that 
 of any other class ; and, as we have already 
 seen, it contains many a hopeful feature still. 
 In regard to Mariners' Churches, the regularity 
 of attendance, and peculiar strictness of atten- 
 tion, give unvarying occasion for both ministers 
 and patrons of Seamen's Friend Societies, " to 
 thank God and take courage." Their attend- 
 ance is numerous and their attention and 
 
 decorum have ever been most striking, and 
 9*
 
 106 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 often deeply affecting. There is, indeed, an 
 intenseness of attention an openness of ear 
 and heart a tenderness and simplicity of feel- 
 ing, so remarkable, as to form a uniform cha- 
 racteristic of these interesting congregations. 
 And what is better still numbers of the class 
 are at this moment adorning the doctrine of 
 God their Saviour in all things. God is antici- 
 pating his church in the improvement of sea- 
 men. As he commenced a divine renovation 
 among them during the war, when his people 
 on land were slumbering on the subject, so does 
 he still continue to go before his church, sham- 
 ing their indolence and their fears, exceeding 
 their hopes, and encouraging them to attempt, 
 and to expect great things. 
 
 But would piety improve our seamen, as such 1 
 " I have had the honor," writes Captain Sir W. 
 E. Parry, " and, I may truly say, the happiness, 
 of commanding British seamen, under circum- 
 stances requiring the utmost activity, implicit 
 and immediate obedience, and the most rigid 
 attention to discipline and good order : and I 
 am sure that the maintenance of all these was, 
 in a great measure, owing to the blessing of 
 God upon our humble endeavors to improve the 
 moral and religious character of our men. The 
 friends of religion will feel a pleasure in having 
 the fact announced, that the very best seamen 
 on board the Hecla such I mean as were al- 
 ways called upon in any cases of extraordinary 
 urgency were, without exception, those who 
 had thought most seriously on religious sub-
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 107 
 
 jects ; and that if a still more scrupulous selec- 
 tion were to be made out of that number, the 
 choice would fall, without hesitation, on two or 
 three individuals, possessing dispositions and 
 sentiments eminently Christian." 
 
 At the anniversary of" the Naval and Mili- 
 tary Bible Society," 1818, when the Duke of 
 York presided, Admiral Sir James Saumarez 
 stated, " that he had uniformly found, that the 
 best and bravest sailors were those who habitu- 
 ally read their Bibles. In allusion to a victory 
 gained under his command, he added, that, he 
 could only say, that it was solely through the 
 Bible, and from a firm confidence in the grace 
 of God, which that sacred volume inspired, that 
 he had been animated to combat the dangers 
 
 before him and be successful Every ship 
 
 did its duty that day ; but it was in the name 
 of our God that we set up our banners, and the 
 Lord has heard our prayers. To fight in hum- 
 ble dependence on the divine protection, and 
 with a simple reliance on the divine mercy, 
 through the Redeemer, is, and always must be, 
 the highway to victory and honor." 
 
 And is there no heroism in the Bible ? " The 
 time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of 
 Barak, and of Sampson, and of Jephiha ; of 
 David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets : 
 who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought 
 righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the 
 mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, 
 out of weakness were made strong, waxed va- 
 liant in fight, turned to Might the armies of the
 
 108 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 aliens." With these ancient Jewish heroes, 
 piety was not only no impediment to success, it 
 was the very principle and secret of their brav- 
 ery and triumph. 
 
 Religion, in every age, has been able to boast 
 heroes more distinguished than any other cause, 
 whether the object for which they contended 
 was their aitars, their liberty, or their native 
 land. Have the religious Vaudois, ever given 
 their oppressors reason to laugh at their piety, 
 when encountered in battle? They have al- 
 ways fought as from heaven. Did the Puritans 
 whatever the character of their quarrel, just 
 or unjust ever bring disgrace on English brav- 
 ery ? did they not cause it to be universally re- 
 spected ? Did not Sidney, the bravest of the 
 brave, make religion his boast, and wear it as 
 an ornament? Or did piety impair the courage 
 of a Gardiner, or a Blackader, a Melville, or a 
 Burn? 
 
 What can be the meaning of the question 
 then whether piety would improve the charac- 
 ter of our seamen, as such ? If there be a God, 
 and if that Supreme Majesty beholds all the 
 dwellers upon earth, am I likely to acquit my- 
 self with less fidelity and vigor for believing 
 that I am acting in his presence? If there be 
 a region of blessedness to which the spirits of 
 the just ascend at death, am I likely to be ener- 
 vated by the belief that Providence will either 
 cover me with its shield in the day of battle, or 
 else will conduct me to unmingled happiness 
 above? Am I likely to conduct myself with
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUK SEAMEN. 109 
 
 less consistency and dignity for believing that I 
 am an object of interest to an Infinite Being ? 
 
 Piety alone is wanting to make the character 
 of the seaman complete. Only let this divine 
 element be infused into it, and the peace which 
 it imparts will render him cheerful and happy, 
 the new motives to obedience which it supplies 
 will give stability and principle to his discipline, 
 while the animating and heavenly hopes which 
 it inspires will raise his mere animal spirits in- 
 to a lofty moral courage equal to any extremity 
 in which he can be placed. 
 
 All that we want are energy and activity 
 equal to the occasion. And shall not these be 
 found ? O that we could engage if only a 
 fraction of the enterprise and enthusiasm which 
 any one of the great pecuniary speculations of 
 the day can command and the work would be 
 done ! O, that we could have that energy 
 " sanctified by the word of God and by prayer," 
 and the success of the work would be cer- 
 tain ! 
 
 Let me appeal to that large and influential 
 portion of the community who annually visit 
 our coasts for the purposes of recreation and 
 health. 1 " Who amongst you can stand on the 
 margin of our coast, and look over the out- 
 stretched world of waters, rolling at his feet, 
 without being pained at heart while he thinks 
 of what sin hath done in the world, and es- 
 pecially on what it hath done among those who 
 have gone down to the sea in ships ? Those 
 waters which, on many accounts, form the
 
 110 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 grandest subject for contemplation, are at once 
 recognized as the grave of myriads of seamen, 
 who, from generation to generation, passed 
 through all the toils, and sufferings, and dan- 
 gers of a maritime life, living quite unmindful 
 of the great end of their creation, and dying 
 without one scriptural evidence of ever having 
 exercised repentance towards God, or faith in 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Their lives were, with 
 a very few exceptions, a scene of labor, blas- 
 phemy, ignorance, and debauchery ; and most 
 of their deaths were sudden, and their end with- 
 out hope. Infidelity, and affected charity, may 
 frown and condemn these remarks ; but alas ! 
 jieither zeal nor affected charity can disprove 
 
 their truth We cannot undo what has 
 
 been done, but, by the help of God, we may 
 stem the torrent of evil."* Ponder the condi- 
 tion of our seamen. Pity them. Render your 
 sea-side visits conducive to their improvement. 
 And come to the help of the Lord, to the help 
 of the Lord against the mighty. 
 
 Pious sailors ! aspire to imitate the example 
 of those distinguished men whose names honor 
 your calling, and who were called by Christ, 
 while following their maritime occupation, to be- 
 come his disciples. Like Andrew, evince a zeal 
 to bring others to the Saviour whom you have 
 found. In all your endeavors to benefit your 
 shipmates, aim to unite the boldness of Peter, 
 the energy of James, and the affectionate earn- 
 
 * The Ocean.
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. Ill 
 
 estnass of John. You have been called to be 
 followers of Christ under circumstances which 
 mark you out for great usefulness, and which 
 loudly call on you to be active, exemplary, and 
 faithful unto death. 
 
 Christian merchants ! will not you come for- 
 ward to support this enterprise ? Self-interest 
 demands that you should ; for an improvement 
 in the character of seamen would be an increase 
 of security for your property. Gratitude de- 
 mands it ; for you derive your wealth from their 
 instrumentality. Christian consistency demands 
 it ; for if they minister to you in temporal things, 
 ought not you to take a deep interest in their 
 religious welfare ? 
 
 Political economists, and legislators ! here is 
 a noble sphere of action for you. The moral 
 improvement of our seamen would be a great 
 saving to the whole community, and would sup- 
 ply the place of a thousand laws for it would 
 be making them a law to themselves. Legisla- 
 tive enactments can only save them from injus- 
 tice, and social degradation ; but here is a me- 
 thod of raising them to respectability and hap- 
 piness, and of rendering them blessings to 
 society. 
 
 Members of Bible, Missionary, Tract, and 
 School Societies ! here is a new and powerful 
 claim upon you. Here are thousands of men 
 who might be made your agents to the ends of 
 the earth will you not aid in the work 1 At 
 present, they form a source of weakness and 
 discouragement to many of your agents, and a
 
 1 12 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 formidable obstacle to the accomplishment of 
 those plans which are nearest your hearts will 
 you not assist to improve them ? You are not 
 asked to apply the funds of your respective in- 
 stitutions to the object for which we are plead- 
 ing though were you to do so, to a certain 
 extent, you would only be exercising a wise 
 economy, and a far-sighted, magnanimous be- 
 nevolence ; that which we urge you to do is to 
 join with us in our solicitude and efforts for our 
 seafaring fellow-countrymen, as the means of 
 certainly promoting your dearest objects in for- 
 eign lands. 
 
 Christians, of all denominations ! do you de- 
 sire a new sphere for your benevolent exertions? 
 Here is a wide field comparatively untouched. 
 And, O, if numbers can move you to compas- 
 sion, as they 'did your Lord, here are thousands, 
 hundreds of thousands, scattered as sheep hav- 
 ing no shepherd. If a warm and generous 
 heart if humanity, enterprise, and courage, 
 are qualities to be valued here is a class of 
 men who possess them to a degree that even 
 the enemies they have vanquished have often 
 been constrained to admire : and shall they 
 who are the pride of the nation, be the reproach 
 of the church ? If any amount of services can 
 excite our gratitude here is the class to whose 
 instrumentality, in war, America is to look for 
 defence, and to whose occupation, in peace, 
 she owes it that " her merchants are princes, 
 that the harvest of the river is her revenue, and 
 that she is the mart of nations." If a sense of
 
 THE CONDITION OP OUR SEAMEN. 113 
 
 past negligence should urge us to present ac- 
 tivity here is a class of whom it may be said, 
 " much as the wealth arid power of America 
 depend onJier seamen, the souls of these mari- 
 ners, the salvation of their souls, who is there, 
 the world over to care for it, to look after them, 
 to speak to them kindly, to show them the way 
 to the Saviour of the world ? Age after age 
 she has neglected them, and they have neglect- 
 ed themselves ; and now they are far from God, 
 living in sin, dying in misery, and passing away 
 beyond the kind voice of mercy forever." If 
 extreme danger can interest us in the behalf of 
 those who encounter it here are men whose 
 time is spent " in perils of waters, in perils in 
 the sea," and whose whole life may be looked 
 on as a narrow escape from death. If peculiar 
 religious privations deserve our pity here are 
 men whose exigencies in this respect are obvi- 
 ous and extreme, and the result of which ap- 
 pears in the proverbial depravity of the class. 
 If a state of great temptation, and exposure to 
 evil, if helplessness, debasement, and misery 
 should engage our concern here is a class 
 whose condition, in these respects is so crying, 
 that men of the world are touched and moved 
 by it, and are heard calling upon each other to 
 hasten to their deliverance, and to assist in their 
 protection. If the sight of a vast agency, which 
 might be consecrated to the noblest ends, produc- 
 ing and diffusing evil in all directions, can inspire 
 us with concern here is a large class of men, 
 spreading contamination by their evil example 
 10
 
 114 THE MEANS OF IMPROVING 
 
 at home, and proving a curse among the heathen 
 abroad, though there is much in their charac- 
 ter and calling which marks them out for ex- 
 tensive usefulness. If the example of Christ 
 drawing us, or his authority commanding, if the 
 successes of others encouraging us, or the glow- 
 ing language of prophecy cheering us if any 
 thing can move us to ameliorate the condition 
 of our seafaring fellow-countrymen, then by all 
 these urgent considerations, let us make the 
 attempt, and make it at once. 
 
 And is there nothing in this object to Idndle 
 and inflame a sacred ambition ? Ancient my- 
 thology tells us that the inventors of ships took 
 rank among the gods, and that even the ships 
 were translated to the heavens, where they still 
 shine among the constellations. But honors 
 such as heathen fable never pictured await the 
 Christian actors in this glorious enterprise. For 
 we know who it is that hath said, " They that 
 be wise shall shine as the brightness of the fir- 
 mament ; and they that turn many to righteous- 
 ness as the stars forever and ever." Let us 
 then make the attempt proposed, and make it 
 at once. 
 
 And shall not the prospect of the happy scene 
 which shall result from our endeavors, fill us 
 with zeal 1 Only let us commence the work in 
 a spirit suited to its lofty nature, and on a scale 
 commensurate with its magnitude, others will 
 be raised up to sustain and carry it on, and on, 
 till every sailor shall become a Christian mis- 
 sionary, and every sea-port a Tyre, whose raer-
 
 THE CONDITION OF OUR SEAMEN. 115 
 
 chandize shall be holiness to the Lord, and 
 every ship a floating church ; and the ocean it- 
 self, resembling the " sea of glass like unto 
 crystal," which circulates around the throne 
 above, shall become a holy element, reflecting 
 the smile and the glory of God. Come, then, 
 and in the name of God, let us commence the 
 work, and let itf commence it at once.
 
 \ \ 
 
 \ Gould, Kendall, fy Lincoln's Publications. \ 
 
 * nnHE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF MISSIONS ; * 
 
 \ *- a Record of the Voyages, Travels, Labors, and Sue- \ 
 
 \ cesses of the various Missionaries, who have be.cu sent forth \ 
 
 x by Protestant Societies and Churches to evangelize the \ 
 
 \ Heathen; compiled from authentic Documents ; forming a ^ 
 
 ^ complete MISSIONARY REPOSITORY ; illustrate.! by numerous * 
 
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 mand. 
 
 RECOMMENDATIONS. X 
 
 \ The plan and object of the ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF Mis- \ 
 
 \ SIOKS having been submitted to us, we beg leave most cordially ^ 
 
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 \ sidering it highly calculated to extend the interest wliich is al- \ 
 \ ready felt on behalf of the great missionary enterprise. 
 
 V Rev. DAXIEL SHARP. D. D., Boston. 
 
 \ Rev. B. B WISNER. D. D., Boston. \ 
 
 ^ Rev. JOHN CODMAN, D. D., Dorchester. Mass. \ 
 
 > Rev. HOWARD MALCOM, Boston. \ 
 \ Rev. WILLIAM JE.NKS, I). D., Boston. ^ 
 \ Rev. JAMES D. KNOWLES, Professor of Pastoral Duties, JVeio- \ 
 ^ ton Theological Institution. \ 
 
 > Rev. BARON STOW, Boston. \
 
 \ Gould, Kendall, fy Lincoln's Publications. \ 
 
 * .^^^ - T^-i-t^rt,-. * ( 
 
 \ ~ \ 
 
 \ ~|V/|"AMMON; (PRIZE ESSAY;) or, Covetousness the Sin %! 
 
 \ 1*JL of the Christian Church. By Rev. JOHN HARRIS, \! 
 
 \ Author of the " Great Teacher." Second American, from $J 
 
 the Tenth London Edition. ^ 
 
 S This work has already engaged the iittention of churches and individuals, \J 
 
 S and receives the highest commendations. '1 he publishers take pleasure in V 
 
 ^ presenting the following united recommendation from clergymen in this ^; 
 
 \ city : V 
 
 > Having read the Prize Essay of the Rev. John Harris, entitled \> 
 \ " Mammon, or Covetousness the Siri of the Christian Church." \! 
 J we cordially recommend it as deserving the serious perusal of \| 
 
 > the professed followers of Christ. *| 
 \ Its general circulation will be a powerful means of increasing V 
 \ the spirituality of the churches, and of advancing every good* \! 
 ^ work which depends in any measure upon pecuniary contn- ^{ 
 \ butions. R ANDERSON, J. H. FAIRCHU.D, 
 
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 > DANIEL SHARP, HUBBARD WINSLOW, ^{ 
 WM. M. ROGERS, Lucius BOLLES, \ 
 
 \ JOTHAM HORTON, ABEL STEVENS, \^ 
 
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 > WM. HAGUE, A. BOIES, ^ 
 v GEORGE B. IDE, D. M. LORD, 
 
 \ GKO. W. BLAGDEN, E. THRESHER. \{ 
 
 \ [From the Christian Watchman.] Q 
 
 > We wish not only to add our testimony to the excellency of 
 \ this book, but to urge it upon the attention of our readers. We 
 \ commend it to the attention of business men, and especially 
 ^ young men. 
 
 [From the New York Observer.] 
 
 \ We have read this work with great interest, and recommend \\ 
 
 $ it as equally rich in evangelical principle, philosophical analysis, \\ 
 ^ and practical application. 
 ^ [From the Philadelphia Observer.] 
 ^ This neat little volume, on the important subject of which it 
 ^ treats, we have read with much satisfaction. The author han- 
 dies it in a masterly manner. * * Our hope is, that it will be 
 extensively read. 
 
 [From /.hiii's Herald.] 
 
 Among all the books which have fallen into our hands to ^| 
 
 notice, we have never felt our inability to do justice to any of v 
 
 them, to such an extent as to the one now before us. It exhib- v 
 
 its the writer as a man of superior intellectual power, and gifted v 
 
 with talents which, if rightly applied and heeded, may yet be ^[ 
 
 destined to move the moral world. His eloquence is the elo- V
 
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 Gould, Kendall, fy Lincoln's Publications. 
 
 \ quence of reason, founded in the records of eternal truth. His \ 
 
 ^ sentiments are a wonderful concentration of truth and wisdom, ^ 
 
 * carrying with them such convincing power, as must strip ava- \ 
 \ rice of its coat of mail, and turn the streams of extravagance \ 
 \ into the channel of universal love. His style is so entirely free \ 
 ^ of cumbrous words, that the whole book resembles a series of ^ 
 
 > epigrammatical sentences, each one conveying, in a few lines, \ 
 \ that for which, in many writers, we have to travel over pages. \ 
 
 [From the Southern Religious Telegraph.] 
 
 \ Its appearance is highly seasonable. Its title may appear \ 
 
 \ repulsive to some members of the church. Mammon ! Who is ^ 
 
 ^ willing to be recognized as a disciple of Mammon ? * ' The ^ 
 
 \ power and spirit in which it is written, the noble thoughts of \ 
 
 \ the writer, nobly expressed, will commend it to their attention, \ 
 
 ^ and they will read and admire it, even if they decide that they ^ 
 
 N will not repent. 
 
 5 [From the Biblir-al Recorder, Newburn, N. C.] ^ 
 
 ^ The extent and ruinous consequences of the sin of which this \ 
 
 \ work treats, even among professors of religion, we have long 
 
 \ been fully apprized of. The publication of the above-named \ 
 
 \ work in this country, we therefore consider seasonable and v 
 
 I happy. $ 
 
 \ [From the Richmond Religious Herald.] \ 
 
 The work attacks with much force this insidious vice. Mr. \ 
 
 Harris is a fearless and energetic writer. His style is close, \ 
 
 nervous and lucid, and his hab:ts of thinking highly original. ^ 
 
 The topics he selects are judiciously selected, and impressive- > 
 
 ly enforced. The present treatise has fully answered our ex- \ 
 
 pectations ; and we earnestly trust it will be extensively read, \ 
 
 and be productive of much good. > 
 
 [Extract from an extended Notice in the Christian Review.] > 
 
 * We hail this volume with heartfelt pleasure. Its appearance > 
 \ is most seasonable. It will commend itself to all who will \ 
 \ peruse its pages ; and we trust that its solemn and powerful ap- \ 
 ^ peals to conscience and duty may be productive of the happiest J 
 
 > results. We do earnestly advise the pastors of churches to take > 
 \ pains to promote the circulation and perusal 'of this masterly \ 
 ^ production among their congregations. \ 
 
 ^ [A correspondent of the Bo ton Recorder says,] N 
 
 N O that Christian professors generally could be induced to N 
 
 \ read, with a teachable spirit, this pungent, soul-stirring appeal, \ 
 
 \ and then examine how clearly and frequently the Scriptures \ 
 
 ^ place the covetous with " idolaters," who " have no inheritance \ 
 
 ^ in the kingdom of Christ and of God." \
 
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 [From Rev. J. O. Choules, of New Bedford.] \t 
 
 I have read the Memoir of Boardman with great satisfaction. V 
 
 * * * The great charm in the character of Mr. Boardman was v 
 
 his fervent piety ; and his biographer has succeeded admirably ^ 
 
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 \ >J 
 
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 N Tliis Memoir belongs to that small class of books, which may *\ 
 
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 ^ much of interesting history ; so much of simple and pathetic V 
 
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 ^ [From Rev Baron Plow.] \v 
 
 ^ No one can read the Memoir of Boardman, without feeling N 
 
 \ that the religion of Christ is suited to purify the affections, exalt - 
 
 \ the purposes, and give energy to the character. Mr. Boardman 
 
 ^ was a man of rare excellence, and his biographer, by a just ex- ^ 
 
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 \. of personal godliness. } 
 
 ^ Yours, with esteem, EARON STOW. ^; 
 
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 EMBELLISHED WITH ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 
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 > [Extract from Mrs. Hale's Ladies' Magazine.] 
 
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 \ own expressive language. Her talents were unquestionably of ^ 
 
 ^ a high order; but the predominant quality of her mind was its ^ 
 
 \ energy. The work contains, besides the life of Mrs. Judson, a \ 
 
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 ^ engraved portrait of Mrs. Judson. \ 
 
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 \ [From the London New Baptist Miscellany.] \ 
 
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 \ With an Introductory Essay, by FRANCIS WAYLAND, D. D., \ 
 \ President of Brown University. With a correct Likeness. * 
 
 ^ [From the Monthly Paper of the Baptist General Tract Society.] ^ 
 
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 \ a Christian missionary that Dr. Carey preeminently shines. It v 
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 \ which have justly made them the admiration of the Christian N 
 \ world. We compliment the publishers for the beautiful style in ^ 
 ^ which they have issued this book. 
 
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 ^ The name of Carey awakens feelings of the most interesting 
 
 > character in the mind of every reflecting Christian, whose heart 
 \ is alive to the prosperity of the Redeemer's kingdom on earth, and 
 \ who longs for the spiritual welfare of a perishing world. The life 
 
 ^ of the founder of modern missions, the pioneer in those efforts ^ 
 ^ which, we believe, are destined to fill the whole earth with the ^ 
 \ glory of God, and to cause the kingdoms of the earth to become \ 
 \ the kingdoms of the Lord, cannot be perused with ordinary \ 
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 \ AND A3 \ 
 
 AN AID TO FAMILY INSTRUCTION. 
 BY HENRY J. RIPLEY, 
 
 \ Professor of Biblical Literature and Interpretation in New-Ion Thnological \ 
 V Institution. 
 
 \ I 
 
 ^ [Extracts from the Preface.] ^ 
 
 ^ In the following Notes. 1 have endeavored to avoid prolixity, ^ 
 
 v and yet not to pass over, without explanation, passages that N 
 
 \ really need explanation. * * * A person who may use this book, \ 
 
 \ either for personal information, or for enabling him to instruct \ 
 
 ^ others, must submit to some labor. Frequently passages of ^ 
 
 \ Scripture are merely referred to. and the benefit to be drawn ^ 
 
 \ from those passages will require that they be examined. Par- \ 
 
 ^ ticularly will this be found necessary in the case of a Sabbath \ 
 
 ^ School teacher, or the leader of a Bible Class. If such a person ^ 
 
 \ depends on this book as a help, he will not find his work all done \ 
 
 \ for him here ; but he will find, I trust, materials afforded him, v 
 
 ^ by which he may dv kis loork himself. \ 
 
 * Such is the nature of the work I proposed to myself in this book, ^ 
 
 \ that I have not felt at liberty, even if I had been disposed or \ 
 
 ^ able, to indulge in flights of fancy, or to seek any rhetorical \ 
 
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 N or opinions. Nor have I made many moral reflections. Some- V 
 
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 \ practical remark ; at other times, 1 have not done so. I have \ 
 
 ^ been guided, in this matter, by the nature of different passages, ^ 
 
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 ^ convey to my readers the mind of the Holy Spirit, and to shed ^ 
 
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 \ from whom come all good desires and designs, whose blessing is ^ 
 
 ^ necessary for every undertaking, and " whose approbation can ^ 
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