e considered not less useful in a moral point of view, than rigging
the masts properly is to the nautical department of their command.

If, indeed, religion, when applied to the ordinary business of life,
should be found inconsistent with those moral obligations which are
dictated to us by conscience; or even were we to discover that the
ablest, most virtuous, and most successful person, amongst us were
uniformly despisers of religion, then there would certainly be some
explanation, not to say excuse, for young and inexperienced men
venturing to dispute on such subjects, and claiming the bold privilege
of absolutely independent thought and action. But surely there is
neither excuse nor explanation, nor indeed any sound justification
whatsoever, for the presumption of those who, in the teeth of all
experience and authority, not only trust themselves with the open
expression of these cavils, but, having settled the whole question in
their own way, take the hazardous line of recommending their daring
example to those around them. It is also material to recollect that
there is not a single point of duty in the whole range of the naval
profession, which, when well understood, may not be enforced with
greater efficiency by a strict adherence to the sanctions of religion,
than if it were attempted single-handed; so that most of the
objections which one hears made to the due performance of the church
service on board ship, on the score of its interfering with the
discipline, are quite absurd, and inapplicable to the circumstances of
the case.

The captain of a man-of-war, therefore, if his influence be as
well-founded as it ought, may, in this most material of all respects,
essentially supply the place of a parent to young persons, who must be
considered for the time virtually as orphans. He may very possibly
not be learned enough to lay before his large nautical family the
historical and other external evidences of Christianity, and, perhaps,
may have it still less in his power to make them fully aware of the
just force of its internal evidences; but he can seldom have any doubt
as to his duty in this case more than in any other department of the
weighty obligations with which he is charged; and if he cannot here,
as elsewhere, make the lads under his care see distinctly, in the
main, what course it best becomes them to follow, he is hardly fit for
his station. I freely own that it is far beyond his power to make them
pursue