Mr. John W. Norton arrived home in October, 1855; Mr. John P. Fisher, and Mr. Abram Osborn, Jr., arrived home in April, 1856;—making the time since they sailed from New Bedford, October, 1851, four years for the first, and four and a half years for the last two.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
The Ocean.—The Seaman's Home.—Confidence of the Mariner in his Ship.—Shipwreck.—Moral and religious Claims of Seamen.—The Spirit of the Age.—Interest in the Mariners' Meeting.—Seaport Places.—Sudden Intelligence.—Seamen remembered elsewhere.—Ships supplied with Books.—Bible and Tract Societies.—Good seed sown.—Field for Usefulness.—The American Seaman.—Concert of Prayer.—All interested.—The most important Reform for Seamen.
Whatever pertains to seamen in their adventures, explorations, privations, and disasters, never fails to be of interest to all classes in the community.
The ocean is a vast and mysterious world in itself; a world of mighty waters, grand, sublime; an image of eternity, a scene of wonders and terrors, which no mortal tongue can adequately describe. Man, with his frail bark, borne on its ever restless and heaving bosom, is but a mere particle on the surface of the boundless expanse.
Those, however, whose "home is on the deep," inured both to its smiles and frowns, are familiar with this mode of life, and thus become daily conversant with its varied phases around them.
With a good ship, firm deck beneath his feet, well manned, plenty of sea room, the experienced mariner fears but little the rising wind or the surging main.
"A storm at sea" which would appall perhaps the heart of a landsman, and lead him to abandon all hope of safety, and that the noble vessel would be utterly incapable of contending with the frightful odds against her, is, to the seaman, who looks calmly on the same scene, only as an ordinary episode in ocean experience; indeed, in some respects, a gale of wind is far preferable to a calm. With what confidence and energy the navigator gives his orders, and is quickly obeyed; soon the faithful ship is trimmed to meet the storm; and true to her native instinct, former antecedents, and original design, she parts the crested billow, and bounds over the waves as a "thing of life"!