thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest murder, dost thou commit murder? The name of God is blasphemed among us Gentiles through you." IV. In the last place, need I say that as Christians, taught to prize the souls of men as above all price, we are solemnly bound to labor for the salvation of seamen, and through them, for the salvation of those to whom they go. Sailors can at best enjoy but a small share of the living ministrations of the Gospel. Fivesixths of their time is spent upon the ocean. But they have hearts. They are rarely skeptical. They see too much of the wonders of the Lord in the deep, and know by sad experience, too much of the uncertainty and vanity of life, to take refuge in the cheerless creed of the unbeliever. They feel as all friendless men feel, an inexpressible yearning for sympathy; and their hearts open, like those of children, to the appeals of any who show that they are friends indeed. That now, sailors professing and exemplifying piety can be counted by thousands, where, twenty years ago, piety was all but unknown-that those in the navy occupying the most distinguished and responsible posts are not ashamed to confess Christ and him crucified before men ;-these results, when we think of the means employed, prove how much greater would be the results, were we to rise and quit ourselves like men. Be it remembered too, that when a sailor, be he officer or be he man, comes out as a follower of Christ, he is frank and decided. His influence is at once apparent, and it is in the same proportion effective. A single whaling ship, commanded by a pious captain, and manned by an examplary crew, has been known, in the Pacific, to shed a hallowing and restraining influence on all surrounding vessels. Others, whatever might be their propensities, and to whatever excesses they might otherwise rush, felt the silent but powerful rebuke that there is in Christian principle, acted fairly and frankly out. And hence it is, that among seamen, sooner than elsewhere, the leaven of a holy influence spreads itself abroad. And then on heathen soil, what aid and comfort would not Christian sailors give to our few and fainting missionaries. There are, in all the Pagan world, some twelve hundred Protestant missionaries, proclaiming the doctrines of the cross, while sailors bearing the Christian name, who go among these Pagans, must be at least a hundred times that number ;—so that one hundred sailors are seen by the heathen, where they see but a single Christian missionary. Now it is often the delight of the one to oppose and calumniate the other. Not many years since, at the instance of American seamen, the chiefs of the Marquesas Islands in the Pacific, drove away the missionaries who had labored faithfully among them. Under their influence, barriers were rising to the indulgence of licentious passion, and the native chiefs were persuaded to sacrifice their best friends, that their own homes and the homes of their people might become stews for American and English sailors. So, well-nigh, was it in the Sandwich Islands; and there is hardly a missionary post where the toiling evangelist does not find himself obstructed by those professing his own faith, and coming perhaps from his own land. Oh! that this suicidal policy might cease-this policy of sending one man to enlighten and purify, while we send a hundred to pervert and contaminate. Would that Christians would rouse to the magnitude and urgency of the evil, and that they would resolve in the strength of God that this evil shall be abated. Remember the heathen, Brethren, dying in the debasement and abominations which have been confirmed, if not induced by our own seamen. Remember the seaman himself. We give him but little else; let us not withhold the Gospel. A few years more, and he will fall a prey to the fury of some remorseless storm. Few seamen-very few die in their beds on shore. Suddenly, in most cases, when aloft on his perilous duty; when battling in vain with the overpowering elements; when the ship parts, and he casts himself among the breakers-then does he give back his soul to God. Let it go washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Let not the deep waters that engulph his body, be the image of deeper and darker waters that overwhelm his soul. Let there be a Dove hovering over him from brighter worlds; holding up to view her olive branch, and betokening the happy hour when the Son of Man shall say, "Come, ye blessed of my Father." |