As bounding and as free.”—P. Benjamen.
“Therefore also do men entrust their lives to a little piece of wood.”
Wisd. of Sol. xiv. 5.
ONCE upon a time, over two thousand years ago, our ancestors lived in a country smaller than ours, to the north-east.
They had not yet taken possession of two Isles, which in the then distant future were to become the Headquarters of a world-wide Empire. Already one characteristic of the race was prominent; they delighted in the Sea. Within their small limits of power they ranged the Ocean, they wrestled with its fury, they subdued it to their will, they rejoiced in its strength, they found often their graves beneath its surface. The English then, as now, were Ocean-folk.
May it not be that we in modern days love the sea, and flock to its shores, and carry our Flag to its furthest bounds, because our forefathers, the Norsemen, the Angles, the ancient Vikings, found their joy in it? Their march, like ours, was on the mountain-wave; their Home, like ours, was on the deep.
Probably with them, as with us, it was not always an unchastened joy. Even a hardy Viking might know the unpleasant consequences of Ocean’s rougher moods. But no such discomforts drove him to stay ashore.
Had our forefathers been made of feebler stuff, had they been easily checked in their enterprises, centuries of history must have been changed. The development of English nature would have followed other lines.
In those days the fight could not but be severe. No mighty ironclads, no huge three-deckers, existed. No P. and O. liners, no great merchant ships ranged the seas. Our forefathers tackled the waste of waters with what we should consider the merest cockleshells. Even in these days we know what is meant by “perils of the seas;” but in those days the term must have carried a hundred-fold deeper meaning, both to the brave fellows who ventured on the stormy main, and to the waiting wives and mothers on land.
All the more honour to them that they were not daunted. Each man’s victory or failure in life’s battle cannot but help to shape the course which his descendants in future ages will pursue.