just above the Southern horizon, Orion at the other end in the zenith, and several of the bright constellations full in view.2
THE SOUTH EAST TRADE WINDS.
We celebrated a birthday a few days since, (Jan. 8th,) by having the South East Trades set in, blowing us on our direct course to San Francisco. Rose at six and sat on deck, the ship going at the rate of eleven knots, the foam flying before us in sheets. These S. E. Trade winds blow from 25° S. to the Equator, both in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The N. E. Trades blow from Lat. 30° N. to lat. 5° N.3
RELIGIOUS INTEREST.
My colleague, the captain, spoke to the crew on the Prodigal Son. We have conversed with several of the men, and have found that there are among them those who make a practice of secret prayer. We concluded to have a meeting in the evening, when we would explain the way to be saved. Twenty-four of the crew were present; indeed all who could be spared from duty. I spoke from the words, “Ho, every one that thirsteth,” &c., (Is. 55,) and the captain followed. Some of them showed a tearful interest. I advised them to begin and act as believers in the Saviour of men, to give up the long, wearisome endeavor which some of them had confessed to me they had been pursuing for years, to find if they were christians, or when and how they became such. Several of them are members of christian families, all of them have heard the gospel, understand the way of acceptance with God, are respectful in their attendance on religious service, show at times that they are impressed with the truths which they hear. It is deeply affecting to speak to these men. Soon they will be scattered to the four winds. Few of them shall we meet again in this world. This thought cannot fail to make one affectionate and earnest in preaching to them. It may be stated here that I never felt more deeply the privilege of declaring the gospel to men, nor did I in my congregation ever feel more the need of carefulness in my statement of christian truth. These men weighed everything which was spoken, did not care for excellency of speech, nor man’s wisdom; loved simplicity, felt nothing compared with the representations of Christ, his words, his treatment by men, his claims on them, his present and future glory, and his coming to judge the world.
SCRIPTURE PROMISES.
These have been a great, I may truly say, constant source of delight: “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Jos. I, 9. This was so impressed on my mind before leaving home, that I ventured to take it for my sailing orders. I feel that I have not come to sea of my own motion. I tried every other method of recovery, had many other plans of travel; but one after another was frustrated, and I was shut up to this, which, like a certain iron gate before a prisoner and his angel, is beautifully said to have “opened to them of his own accord.” I have no expectation other than that all will be well. Everything has proceeded so much better than I could have expected that there seems to be nothing to do but to receive trustfully every day’s experience. Words of Scripture have had a wonderfully sedative effect. When the sea rises I remember, “The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” Ps. 93. One day in the Gulf Stream, when all around was in confusion, I thought of these words: “The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid; the depths also were troubled.” Ps. 77:10. It was a comfort to know that there is One of whom the sea is afraid. If my heart can say, “O God, thou art my God,” why should I fear the sea? I may even say, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water;” I may even come down out of the ship to go to Jesus. I was glad that the sea was afraid; it gave me a feeling of superiority to the sea. Paul says, “And in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which,” that is, your not being terrified, “is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.” One morning, lately, at home, as I was rising, my eye was caught by these words in the “Scripture Promises” which hung in my room: “When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee.” Is. 43:2. This, and the passage above quoted from Joshua, are most frequently in my thoughts. If those at home could look in upon us, they would give thanks. The day before we left New York, a clergyman who came on board said, “Probably the history of navigation contains no instance more remarkable than this: A father and daughters going to sea with a son and brother for captain, with everything combining to make them happy.” We said with thankful hearts, “The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”
SUNRISE ON DECK.
On hearing eight bells last night I supposed it to be twelve o’clock. Having gone to bed at half past eight I felt rested, looked out of my window and thought I saw “The Dipper,” not knowing but that the ship was tacking and going North. Wishing to salute our old friend, the north star, I put on my wrapper and went on deck and was told by the man at the wheel that it was five o’clock. The eight bells were for four o’clock instead of twelve, so soundly had I slept. I staid up to see the sunrise, wishing to correct the impression which I had long cherished that there is more to be enjoyed in the idea of sunrise than in its actual beauty. This I was willing to attribute to the want of disposition when drowsy to appreciate the morning. We are prejudiced in favor of a departing day, look kindly on the advancing darkness; we have pleasant associations with the season of repose; it awakens no apprehensions of care, nor of labor; each step of coming night is associated with quiet, while the opening day is the signal for noise; we are not so much disposed to welcome an untried day with its liabilities, as a finished day which can make no new demands upon us. The valedictory of sundown implies less responsibility than the salutatory of a new day. The progressive development of evening with the softening, fading colors, its pathos, finds us more disposed to sympathize with it than we are with a day yet to be tested. But morning has it votaries and its poetry. Therefore,
let me see once more if the beauty of morning is real or wholly ideal. There are no birds in our tops to herald its coming; no living things to make it appear that they welcome the return of light, the flying fish are no more of them on the wing than when the ship at night breaks in among them, nor do the porpoises gambol more at day break than at noon. There is a touch of pathos in seeing the stars pale in the growing light; but they cannot awaken much sentiment in us; we find it, if at all, in the victories of light over darkness; the imprint of beauty on monotony; the responses of the zenith and then of the west to the first outgoings of the morning in the east, the crimson bars, the purpling cloud, the snowy top of a pile whose base is yet black. But do we not yield a ready response to these oft quoted words, or do we pass them over as the desponding language of a decaying race: “Let others hail the rising sun,” and count it as merely an act of resistless sympathy to “bow to him whose course is run?” It must be acknowledged that sitting on deck three quarters of an hour in a dishabille dress in the middle of January to see day break, required the temperature of Pacific latitudes to make the experience pleasant. I could not decide which to choose, abstractly. “The day is Thine, the night also is Thine.”
LOW TONES OF NATURE.
One cannot but be impressed with the same thing at sea which meets us everywhere on the land, the low pitch of natural tones, in the wind, the thunder, the waves in mid ocean. If the thunder made the same indiscreet noises as some of our locomotives, thunder storms would be more appalling than they ever are now. May we not see the benevolence of God in this? As one sits for a long time soothed by the wind blowing through the grass, so in listening to the waves around the ship he is not agitated but composed. Even in a tempest the key note of the wind through the cordage has a low pitch; “strong without rage,” much of the time. So with the roar of the sea. Men’s voices in a multitude met for conversation partake of the same quality. I remember that some years ago several gentlemen were in the Exchange in an English metropolis on some ordinary business day, and on going upstairs they noticed the uniform pitch which the voices below naturally assumed. One or two of these gentlemen were musical men, who, on being appealed to, gave it as their opinion that the pitch was on F, and there being no excitement the hum or droning sound continued uniform on that low note. One may catch that note much of the time at sea; yet there is no painful monotone in nature. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification; yet a wonderful harmony prevails, without any artificial arrangement to keep the ruling pitch at F.
THE SHIP’S GUNS.
Our two guns, nine pounders, have been raised from the hold and painted black. They have been in the hold much of the time, and unless we meet a pirate they will not be needed, except in case of their being required to announce an astounding passage. A hundred and twelve days is the ship’s shortest passage. We are only twenty-five hundred miles from San Francisco, which is small compared to the fifteen thousand five hundred with which we began.
THE SHIP PUT IN PERFECT ORDER.
Every thing about the ship, outside as well as inside, is in beautiful order. Even the belaying pins, of which there are about forty, including all on each side of the deck and about the masts, have been scraped and varnished. No house on shore is in a more creditable state of neatness. No idleness is allowed, but we are not so much at a loss to find employment for the sailors as was one captain, who, when everything about his ship was in perfect order, still kept his men occupied by setting them to scrape the anchors.
CROSSING THE LINE AGAIN.
Jan. 22. We crossed the line to-day. Nov. 22d we crossed it in the Atlantic. By land over the continent where we then were is four thousand miles; but we have sailed thirteen thousand. We are two days behind the ship’s shortest passage, and we watch the winds. To sit on deck in a summer suit, listening to the music of the water as the ship glides along, and watching the light and shadows, is perfect enjoyment to an invalid feeling that this medicine is accomplishing a cure.
BONITOS.
To-day one of the boatswains caught with a hook two bonitos. They are as large as the largest mackerel; the flesh hard. We are to dine upon them to-morrow; but what shall we do for lettuce? Every now and then we are made to feel that there are some good things on land. But we are as often reminded what a barren region these deep waters are. They evidently were not designed to support human life. Instead of abounding in articles of food, we do not find any, except by accident, till we draw near to rocks, or run upon soundings.
WHALE FEED.
Yet the Creator “opens his hand” even here, and ‘satisfies the desires of every living thing.’ At night we were startled by a bright light around the ship. We were in a patch of whale feed, a kind of skid, myriads of little creatures who give out a phosphorescent light. It seemed like a patch of the milky way. The mate lowered a bucket, hoping to bring some of the animalculæ on deck; but they either eluded us, or were too minute for observation apart.
A MARINE ARTIST ON BOARD.
If sailors are kept in good condition by being furnished with something to do, instead of being suffered to be idle, it is so with all of us. While one of the female passengers is sitting by me on deck, writing, the other has been furnished by the mate with a small paint brush, and is painting blue the brass hoops of the twelve deck water buckets. They are to stand in a row, each with a letter of the name of the ship, Golden Fleece, the name furnishing a letter for each of the buckets.
THE END OF THE NORTH EAST TRADES.
Having been almost becalmed for several days, the doldrum weather ended with a heavy rain last night. Going on deck after breakfast, we found the ship driving ahead nine knots instead of three. It was a merry sight. I betook myself to the hammock, and lay there till twelve, the captain and one of his sisters sitting by, writing home, and the other reciting Virgil to me, and learning, at my request, Hannah’s song (I Sam. II.) It was one of the choice forenoons of the voyage. We gained a half day on the ship’s best passage, and by one o’clock the wind increased, so that we are now only one day and a half behind the enviable time. Pleasant as rest is, one cannot suppress the desire to be at work.
BOSONS.
Six or eight bosons have flown above and around the ship all day. Unlike the Albatross, they keep their wings in constant motion; the Albatross has none, after rising a little from the surface. They are white. The tail feathers terminate in a long sharp point, in resemblance of a marlinspike, which has led sailors to call the bird after the boatswain.
THE CAPTAIN’S CLOSING ADDRESS.
Feb. 6. This evening the captain invited the sailors to a valedictory religious service. He spoke to them from the words, “God is love,” which he judiciously explained in consistency with the other attributes. He told the men that he never sailed with a crew with whom he was more pleased. He would be willing to have them all sail with him again, which he had never before been able to say to a crew. Of the various groups of laboring men with which I have been connected, I have never seen among them a greater proportion of faithful men, of good dispositions, civil behavior, pleasant manners, intelligent, and fully deserving the encomium of the captain. Some of them were from Northern European nations, and proverbially there are no better sailors than they, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians. Some of them were from highly respectable family circles; for all of them I formed a strong personal attachment. It is with sorrow that I think of their leaving us, as of course they will soon after reaching port; for after the manner of these citizens of the world, they will, the most of them, ship at once for sea again. Some of them came with us for the round voyage; these will remain with us; the rest will soon be like the gulf weed which falls into the many ocean currents. It was gratifying to think that for nearly four months they have been under christian influences, have listened to the word of salvation, have joined in christian worship, have had abundant opportunities to read the Bible, listen to moral advice and religious instruction. I will record the names of the whole company.4
Feb. 10. The captain called all hands into the forward cabin, and gave them a Temperance address, warning against the evil men who drug sailors, ship them on board a vessel just sailing, securing to themselves the sailor’s advance wages, and thrusting him on board stupefied, leaving him to come to himself at sea, perhaps bound on a long voyage, with but a pittance coming to him at the close. It was a capital lecture, full of anecdotes; it put the sailors in good spirits, affected them with its kindness, while it impressed them with its good sense.5
As I must be much absorbed on arriving at anchorage, and shall wish to get my journal and letters into the mail at once, I will finish the journal now.
In one sense God has kept my eyes from tears; but as it regards tears of joy, I have never felt like shedding so many. My principal reading, (I will say again,) for the pleasure to my taste, if I were to mention no other reason, has been in the Old Testament. I know not why I should specify the book of Deuteronomy, only it is noticeable in the account in Matthew of the Saviour’s temptation in the wilderness, it appears that of his four quotations from the Old Testament prefaced by “It is written,” thereby foiling the suggestions of Satan, three of them are in the Book of Deuteronomy. In the Old Testament I have seen and heard God talking with men, which I have felt more at sea than on land. Whenever they prayed, there was sure to be an answer, excepting to the ungrateful, godless Saul. It has deeply moved me to think of God as always at hand when one prays. This has comforted me on the ocean. When I have heard the gale at night, or have seen the ocean lashed to fury, I could not resist the feeling: It is God, not nature; God is doing something. This has kept down every feeling of fear, for I knew that the wind could not blow longer nor stronger than he should let it out. Nor was the ocean more than a little water in the hollow of his hand. The voyage has made permanent impressions, I trust, upon me, concerning the personality of God, his intimate knowledge, his personal love, all having their most perfect expression and seal in the life, and, above all, in the atoning death of Jesus Christ.
Of course I have had thoughts of home which but for this would have agitated me. But why should I fear future events, with such experience as this voyage has given me? How little I had to do about this voyage; how manifestly it has been the work of God. Not according to my works, but of his mercy he saves me. Had I done some great service for God, He could not make me feel his goodness more. Now it is all of grace, not earned, but for nothing. Far better this than though I felt that it was of works; for his grace is a better foundation than our deserts. If he has done so much for me for nothing, I may confidently ask Him for all that I need. As I told the sailors one Sabbath, God never sells anything; He never lets a man give him an equivalent; He will receive as much grateful love as we will give, but nothing in the light of payment.
Let me never feel on shore that if I were at sea I could have more vivid impressions of God’s presence. The following lines I wrote to rebuke this feeling:
PRIVATE WORSHIP IN THE CAMP OF ISRAEL.