it
now; only Mary has very strong notions, and very right notions too. I
wasn't once what I now try to be. I was altogether careless about
religion. I fell in love with Mary, and tried my best to appear good,
and so far succeeded that I won her love. When, however, she found out
what I really was she said that nothing would induce her to marry me
unless I was a Christian. She gave me books and I read them, and I read
the Bible as I had never read it before, and she talked to me till I
thought that I was what she wanted me to be; but she said that people
couldn't tell what they really were till they were out in the busy world
and tried, and that I must be tried before she could venture to marry
me. At first I thought her terms very hard; but I do assure you, sir,
when I came to know more of the Gospel I felt that they were wise and
just. It's a very different thing to appear all right and correct, and
to feel very good too, in a quiet village, with a religious, sensible
young woman to watch over one, than to keep straight aboard a man-of-war
among a number of godless associates. In one case a man may almost
forget the necessity of earnest prayer. I do assure you sir, I have
felt aboard here that I could not get on an hour without it."

Reader, remember these words of Ellis. Consider how you will act when
you are tried and tempted. Satan often lets people alone when he finds
them in an easy position, that they may grow conceited of their own
strength. Never cease praying that you may see his wiles, and that,
through the Holy Spirit, you may be enabled to resist them, but never,
never trust to your own strength, or you will be sure to fall.

Some two years after this, when Harry Lethbridge had grown into a fine
young man, promising to be as smart an officer as any in the navy, we
were on our passage between the northern and southern portions of our
station, when we were caught in as heavy a gale as I ever experienced--a
complete hurricane. It came down on us so suddenly that it required all
hands to shorten sail as smartly as they could do. Among those who
sprang aloft when the hands were turned up was Harry Lethbridge, whose
station was the foretop. The post of honour among seamen in reefing
sails is the weather earing. [Note. An earing is a rope to haul up the
outer part of a sail.] Thus when the fore-topsail was to be reefed,
Harry eagerly sought, and was the first man out on, the yard-arm. While
reef