ON PRAISING A CREW.
Now that I am out of all danger of incurring the disapprobation of the mates, I am free to speak thus about a sailor, and I would be glad to say more. One Sabbath I spoke to the crew in terms of commendation. We were lying at anchor in Hong Kong harbor. In the night there were signs of a gale. One anchor only was down; the ship drifted, and we were afoul of an English bark. As the wind was still rising and we had lately had a typhoon, we were apprehensive of another. All hands in each vessel were at work, some aloft, clearing the rigging and fending off, and those below anxiously watching the growing snarl, contending with unequal strength against the chafing, and now and then the grinding action, of the vessel. From my window I could see and hear all that was going on, as we lay close to. The crews being strangers one to the other, many of them of different nationality, there was due deference paid to each other, courteous, kind expressions, regrets on the one side at running upon a neighbor, on the other the deprecation or the ready acceptance of apologies, the ‘don’t mention it,’ or, ‘we should have been foul of you, if the wind had been the other way.’ After working hard from two o’clock till four, in the dark, we were clear of each other, and the spare anchor went down to hold us fast. No words of impatience met my ear during the whole work of disentangling the snarl. It came in my way to speak of this the next Sabbath. A few days after we were discussing the sailors, when one of the mates said to me, “I was afraid last Sabbath that you were going too far in praising them.” “Yes,” said the other, “I was on tenter hooks, till you got through.” I am ready to defer to the practical judgment of the mates, yet we may be too sparing of kind words, courteous tones, and praise, in our treatment of those whom we would impress with the feeling that they are under authority. It will not hurt any of us to have in mind the injunction of an old poet:
“Praise, above all; for praise prevails;
Heap up the measure, load the scales,
And good to goodness add.
The generous soul her Saviour aids,
While peevish obloquy degrades;
The Lord is great and glad.”