oor mother do when she hears that you and I are
gone to the bottom in this outlandish country, where they seem to have
nothing to do but to fight and shoot and knock each other on the head?"

Poor Tom's notion of the country was very naturally formed from his own
experience.

"I hope, Tom, things are not so bad as you fancy," said I. "We must
pray to God, and trust in His mercy to save us. He has power to hold us
up if He thinks fit; and I have no doubt, too, that your mother and mine
are praying for us, and I feel sure that He will listen to their
prayers, if He does not to those of such careless, thoughtless fellows
as we are."

"That's truth, Mr Hurry," put in old Grampus; "there's nothing like
having a good mother to pray for one, depend on't. While my old mother
lived, I always felt as how there was one who loved me, who was asking
more for me than I dared ask for myself; and now she's gone aloft, I
don't think she has forgotten her son, though I doubt if she would know
his figure-head if she was to see him."

"I cannot say exactly that. Grampus," said I, "though it looks to me
like true philosophy; but one thing I do know--and that the Bible tells
us plainly--that, if we will but trust and believe on Him, we have an
Advocate with the Father, ever pleading for us, bad as we may have
been--He who came into the world to save us, our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. He knows how to plead for us better than any earthly parent,
either alive or in heaven, for He so loved us that He took our nature
upon Him, and He knows all things, and knows our weaknesses and
temptations, and want of opportunities of gaining knowledge."

"That's true again, sir," observed Grampus; "that's what I calls right
earnest religion--you'll pardon me for saying it, but to my mind the
parsons couldn't give us better."

I told Grampus I was glad of his good opinion, and we talked on for some
time much in the same strain. I had gained more religious knowledge
lately from poor Mercer, who, during the last weeks we had been
together, had been very assiduous in impressing his own convictions on
me. There are occasions like this which bring people of different ranks
together, and which draw out the real feelings and thoughts of the
heart, when all know that any moment may be their last; a slight
increase of the gale, one heavier sea than usual, the starting of a
plank may send them all to the bottom. The pride of the proudest is
humbled, t