The analogy, not to speak it profanely, between overloading a gun and overloading a discourse applies especially to ship-preaching. Sailors are such odd fellows that they are nowise moved by noise and smoke; but they well know how to value a good aim, and always love and honour a commanding-officer who truly respects their feelings, nor by means of long-winded and ill-timed discourses, or what they irreverently call psalm-singing, interferes too much with their religious concerns.
It would be easy, though perhaps rather invidious, to point out in what other respects many officers are apt, besides the protracted length of the church service on Sunday, to err in excess in these matters. I am very sorry to say it would be still easier to show in what respects all of us err in defect. I should rejoice much more in being able to make officers who have not sufficiently reflected on these things, duly sensible that it is quite as much to their immediate professional advantage that the religious duties of their ship should form an essential part of the discipline of the crew, and be considered not less useful in a moral point of view, than rigging the masts properly is to the nautical department of their command.
If, indeed, religion, when applied to the ordinary business of life, should be found inconsistent with those moral obligations which are dictated to us by conscience; or even were we to discover that the ablest, most virtuous, and most successful person, amongst us were uniformly despisers of religion, then there would certainly be some explanation, not to say excuse, for young and inexperienced men venturing to dispute on such subjects, and claiming the bold privilege of absolutely independent thought and action. But surely there is neither excuse nor explanation, nor indeed any sound justification whatsoever, for the presumption of those who, in the teeth of all experience and authority, not only trust themselves with the open expression of these cavils, but, having settled the whole question in their own way, take the hazardous line of recommending their daring example to those around them. It is also material to recollect that there is not a single point of duty in the whole range of the naval profession, which, when well understood, may not be enforced with greater efficiency by a strict adherence to the sanctions of religion, than if it were attempted single-handed; so that most of the objections which one hears made to the due performance of the church service on board ship, on the score of its interfering with the discipline, are quite absurd, and inapplicable to the circumstances of the case.
The captain of a man-of-war, therefore, if his influence be as well-founded as it ought, may, in this most material of all respects, essentially supply the place of a parent to young persons, who must be considered for the time virtually as orphans. He may very possibly not be learned enough to lay before his large nautical family the historical and other external evidences of Christianity, and, perhaps, may have it still less in his power to make them fully aware of the just force of its internal evidences; but he can seldom have any doubt as to his duty in this case more than in any other department of the weighty obligations with which he is charged; and if he cannot here, as elsewhere, make the lads under his care see distinctly, in the main, what course it best becomes them to follow, he is hardly fit for his station. I freely own that it is far beyond his power to make them pursue that line, if they choose to be perverse; but he will neglect an important, I might add, a sacred and solemn part of his business, if he leaves their minds more adrift on the score of religion than he can possibly help. Their steering in this ticklish navigation, it is true, depends upon their own prudence; but it is his bounden duty to provide them with both a rudder and a compass, and also, as far as he is able, to instruct them, like a good pilot, in the course they ought to shape. The eventual success of the great voyage of life lies with themselves; the captain's duty, as a moral commander-in-chief, is done if he sets his juvenile squadron fairly under weigh. It is in vain to conceal from ourselves, that, unless both officers and men can be embodied more or less as a permanent corps, every ship that is commissioned merely furnishes a sort of fresh experiment in naval discipline. The officers are brought together without any previous acquaintance with one another; and many of them, after a long residence on shore, have lost most of their naval habits. The sailors, being collected how and where we can get hold of them, are too frequently the off-scourings and scum of society. With such a heterogeneous crew, the first year is employed in teaching them habits of cleanliness and common decency; and it is only in the third year of their service that the ship becomes really efficient. Just as that point has been reached, all hands are turned off, to make room for another experiment. If a few active men of the crew have become better sailors, they generally go into the merchant-service for higher wages; while the officers are again laid on the shelf. Something has been done lately to retain the petty officers in the navy, but perhaps not enough. It has been suggested that, instead of giving men pensions for long servitude, it might be more useful to allow their wages to increase gradually year by year, at some small rate, and at the end of fourteen years give them half-pay of the rating to which they had reached, if they chose to retire.[5]
In returning to the subject of the church, it must be remembered that the circumstances of wind and weather will often interfere with the regularity of our Sunday service. In some parts of an Indian voyage, for instance, it may be safely calculated that no interruption will take place; while there occur other stages of the passage when Divine service must of necessity be stopped, to shorten sail or trim the yards. In peace-time, or in harbour, or in fine weather at sea, no such teasing interference is likely to arise; but in war, and on board a cruising ship, the public service frequently calls a ship's company to exchange their Bibles and Prayer-books for the sponges and rammers. The collect in which they have petitioned to be defended from the fear of their enemies, and that their time might be passed in rest and quietness, may hardly have passed their lips, before they are eagerly and joyfully scampering up the rigging to shake the reefs out in chase of an enemy, with whom, in the next hour, they will perhaps be engaged in hot fight!
I remember once in a frigate, cruising deep in the Bay of Biscay, just as the captain had finished the Litany, and the purser, whose greatest pleasure it was to officiate as clerk, had said Amen, that the man at the main royal-mast head screamed out,—
"A strange sail, broad on the lee bow!"
The first effect of this announcement was to make the commander turn round involuntarily to the man at the wheel and exclaim, "Put the helm up!" He then closed the book, with a degree of energy of which he was made somewhat ashamed when the sound was echoed back by that of the rapidly closing volumes all around him.
"My lads," said he quickly, but not without solemnity, "our duty to our King is our duty to God; and if, as I hope, this sail turn out to be the ship we have been so long looking after, you will not give a worse account of her to the country, I am sure, for having applied in good earnest for assistance from aloft." After which, suddenly changing his tone and manner, he sung out loudly and clearly,—
"Hands, make sail! Let go the bow-lines! Round in the weather braces! Mast-head, there! let me know when the strange sail is right ahead!"