"Why," he replied, "how can you board but board the ship Berlin! Here," (calling to one of the men) "go with this boy and help him with any luggage he may have, and put it in the cabin."
Soon I was duly installed. You may readily imagine my feelings of gratitude to God and the monitor on the levee.
In due time we sailed, after receiving the reverend gent, who was a tall, portly person, wearing the garb and look of his church.
CHAPTER II.
THE VOYAGE—DISCUSSION—MINISTER'S DISCOMFITURE—ARRIVE IN LIVERPOOL—KINDNESS OF CAPTAIN BAKER—LEARN OF HIS DEATH AND MY DUTY—MY SHABBY APPEARANCE—FIRST SERMON—MONEY PUT INTO MY HAND—VISIT HOME—UNKINDNESS OF RELATIVES—MORE HELP FROM STRANGERS.
When fairly out at sea, and as evening set in, the captain would order lights and request the minister to bring out his large Bible, and "you, little one, bring out your little Bible."
Neither of us was loth, and the theological set-to would commence.
Captain Baker would exclaim with a hearty oath, that the little one had the best of it, and then the big one would get wrathy, and close his book with a bang and declare the contest off. But Mrs. Baker would interpose and soften his ire, and again we would return "to the law and the testimony."
But, alas! at one of these theological "bouts," the theme being water baptism, sprinkling and circumcision, the new birth, etc., I was so marvelously assisted in delineating the new birth—water baptism, that he closed his big book with a clang, and declared that he would never argue with me any more.