that line, if they choose to be perverse; but he will neglect
an important, I might add, a sacred and solemn part of his business,
if he leaves their minds more adrift on the score of religion than he
can possibly help. Their steering in this ticklish navigation, it is
true, depends upon their own prudence; but it is his bounden duty to
provide them with both a rudder and a compass, and also, as far as he
is able, to instruct them, like a good pilot, in the course they ought
to shape. The eventual success of the great voyage of life lies with
themselves; the captain's duty, as a moral commander-in-chief, is done
if he sets his juvenile squadron fairly under weigh. It is in vain to
conceal from ourselves, that, unless both officers and men can be
embodied more or less as a permanent corps, every ship that is
commissioned merely furnishes a sort of fresh experiment in naval
discipline. The officers are brought together without any previous
acquaintance with one another; and many of them, after a long
residence on shore, have lost most of their naval habits. The
sailors, being collected how and where we can get hold of them, are
too frequently the off-scourings and scum of society. With such a
heterogeneous crew, the first year is employed in teaching them habits
of cleanliness and common decency; and it is only in the third year of
their service that the ship becomes really efficient. Just as that
point has been reached, all hands are turned off, to make room for
another experiment. If a few active men of the crew have become better
sailors, they generally go into the merchant-service for higher wages;
while the officers are again laid on the shelf. Something has been
done lately to retain the petty officers in the navy, but perhaps not
enough. It has been suggested that, instead of giving men pensions for
long servitude, it might be more useful to allow their wages to
increase gradually year by year, at some small rate, and at the end of
fourteen years give them half-pay of the rating to which they had
reached, if they chose to retire.[5]

In returning to the subject of the church, it must be remembered that
the circumstances of wind and weather will often interfere with the
regularity of our Sunday service. In some parts of an Indian voyage,
for instance, it may be safely calculated that no interruption will
take place; while there occur other stages of the passage when Divine
service must of necessity be stopped, to s