He enjoyed good preaching, but never liked the sermon to be too long. “The unskilled speaker,” says the Japanese proverb, “is long-winded.” The parson was encouraged not to tire his hearers, or to cultivate the gift of continuance to the wearing of the auditor’s flesh. In flagrant cases, the Commodore usually made it a point to clear his usually healthy throat so audibly that the hint was taken by the chaplain. In his endeavor to be fair to both speaker and hearers, Perry had little patience with either Jack Tar or Shoulder Straps who shirked the duty of punctuality, or shocked propriety by making exit precede benediction. When leave was taken, during sermon, with noise or confusion, the unlucky wight usually heard of it afterwards. While at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Perry had the old chapel refurnished, secured a volunteer choir, and a piano, and so gave his personal encouragement, that the room was on most occasions taxed beyond its capacity with willing worshippers. When in 1842, the ships fitted out at the yard were supplied with bibles at the cost of the government, Perry wrote of his gratification: “The mere cost of these books, fifty cents each, is nothing to the moral effect which such an order will have in advancing the character of the service.”
Perry manifested a reverence for the Lord’s Day which was sincere and profound. He habitually kept Sunday as a day of rest and worship, for himself and his men. Only under the dire pressure of necessity, would he allow labor or battle to take place on that day. In the presence of Africans, Mexicans and Japanese, of equals, or of races reckoned inferior to our own, Perry was never ashamed or afraid to exemplify his creed in this matter, or to deviate from the settled customs of his New England ancestry. Japan to-day now owns and honors the day kept sacred by the American commodore and squadron on their entrance in Yedo Bay.
With chaplains, the clerical members of the naval households, Perry’s relations were those of sympathy, cordiality and appreciation. About the opening of the century, chaplains were ranked as officers, and divine service was made part of the routine of ship life on Sundays. The average moral and intellectual grade of the men who drew pay, and were rated as “chaplains” in the United States Navy, was not very high until 1825, when a new epoch began under the Honorable Samuel L. Southard. This worthy Secretary of the Navy established the rule that none but accredited ministers of the gospel, in cordial relations with some ecclesiastical body, should be appointed naval chaplains. From this time onward, with rare exceptions, those holding sacred office on board American men-of-war have adorned and dignified their calling. Until the time of Perry’s death, there had been about eighty chaplains commissioned. With such men as Charles E. Stewart, Walter Colton, George Jones, Edmund C. Bittenger, Fitch W. Taylor, Orville Dewey, and Mason Noble,—whose literary fruits and fragrant memories still remain—Perry always entertained the highest respect, and often manifested personal regard. For those, however, in whom the clerical predominated over the human, and mercenary greed over unselfish love of duty, or who made pretensions to sacerdotal authority over intellectual freedom, or whose characters fell below their professions, the feelings of the bluff sailor were those of undisguised contempt.
We note the attitude of Perry toward the great enterprise founded on the commission given by Jesus Christ to His apostles to make disciples of all nations. Naval men, as a rule, do not heartily sympathize with Christian missionaries. The causes of this alienation or indifference are not far to seek, nor do they reflect much credit upon the naval profession. Apart from moral considerations, the man of the deck, bred in routine and precedent is not apt to take a wide view on any subject that lies beyond his moral horizon. Nor does his association with the men of his own race at the ports, in club or hong, tend to enlarge his view. Nor, on the other hand, does the naval man always meet the shining types of missionary character. Despite these facts, there are in the navy of the United States many noble spirits, gentlemen of culture and private morals, who are hearty friends of the American missionary. Helpful and sympathetic with all who adorn a noble and unselfish calling, they judge with charity those less brilliant in record or winsome in person. Perry’s attitude was ever that of kindly sympathy with the true missionary. With the very few who degraded their calling, or to those who expected any honor beyond that which their private character commanded, he was cool or even contemptuous. He had met and personally honored many men and women who, in Africa, Greece, the Turkish Empire, and China, make the American name so fragrant abroad. In the ripeness of his experience, he took genuine pleasure in penning these words: “Though a sailor from boyhood, yet I may be permitted to feel some interest in the work of enlightening heathenism, and imparting a knowledge of that revealed truth of God, which I fully believe advances man’s progress here, and gives him his only safe ground of hope for hereafter.[[50]] To Christianize a strange people, the first important step should be to gain their confidence and respect by means practically honest, and in every way consistent with the precepts of our holy religion.” Of the Japanese people, he wrote: “Despite prejudice, their past history and wrongs, they will in time listen with patience and respectful attention to the teachings of our missionaries,” for they are, as he considered, “in most respects, a refined and rational people.”
How grandly Perry’s prophecy has been fulfilled, all may see in Christian Japan of the year 1887.
| [44] | Silas Bent, U. S. N. |
| [45] | Rear-Admiral Joshua R. Sands, U. S. N. |
| [46] | Rear-Admiral John Almy, U. S. N. |
| [47] | Engineer John Follansbee. |