lmost like the saints', looking
things in the face, so that to that fine carelessness everything, all
enterprises, hazards, fortunes, shipwreck, if it come, or battle, are
but the incidents of a chequered day, and his part merely to 'carry on'
in the path of routine and duty and the honorable tradition of his
calling. Manifestly his present business is epic and the making of
epic, if he knew it; yet not knowing it he grasps things, as the epic
paladins always grasp them, by the matter-of-fact, not the heroic,
handle. What better stories have the poets to tell than that of
Captain Parslow, a Briton if ever there was one, who, refusing to
surrender, saved his ship in a submarine attack at the cost of his own
life? Mortally wounded as he stood on the ship, the wheel was taken
from the dying father's hand by his son, the second mate. Knocked down
by the concussion of a shell that gallant son of a gallant father still
held to his post and steered the vessel clear. Or have they anything
better to relate than the tale of the _Ortega_ and Captain Douglas
Kinneir, who, when pursued by a German cruiser of vastly greater speed,
called upon his engineers and stokers for a British effort and drove
his vessel under full steam, and a trifle more, into the uncharted
waters of Nelson's Straits, 'a veritable nightmare for navigators,' the
narrowest and ugliest of channels, walled by gloomy cliffs, bristling
with reefs, rocks, overfalls, and currents, through which, by the mercy
of God and his own daring, he piloted his ship in safety and gave an
example to the world of what stout hearts can do. It is such men
Germany supposed she could intimidate!

"These are but episodes in the long roll of honor. You will find
others in the quite peaceful occupation of minesweeping, or the search
for mines--'fishing' the navy calls it--that the impartial German
scatters to trip an enemy, perhaps a friend, an equal chance and it
matters not which, an occupation for humanitarians and seekers after a
quiet life. On this little business alone a thousand ships and
fourteen thousand fishermen have been constantly engaged. Take the
case of Lieutenant Parsons, who was blown up in his trawler, escaped
with his life, and undisturbed continued to command his group of
sweepers. On that day near Christmas time they blew up eight and
dragged up six other mines, while, as incidents within the passage of
ten crowded minutes, his own ship and another were dam