h
from the week-day, and no social intercourse of a natural kind, (for a
society of men only is not natural), to elevate them above the lower
animals, and with only drinking and gambling left to degrade them below
these creatures; and this for forty or fifty years of their lives, with,
in too many cases, neither hope nor thought beyond!

At last the fishermen's prayers were answered, the thoughts of the
visitor bore fruit, and, convinced that he was being led by God, he
began to move in the matter with prayer and energy. The result was that
in the year 1881 he received the unsolicited offer of a smack which
should be at his entire disposal for mission purposes, but should
endeavour to sustain herself, if possible, by fishing like the rest of
the fleet. The vessel was accepted. A Christian skipper and fisherman,
named Budd, and a like-minded crew, were put into her; she was fitted
out with an extra cabin, with cupboards for a library and other
conveniences. The hold was arranged with a view to being converted into
a chapel on Sundays, and it was decided that, in order to keep it clear
on such days, the trawl should not be let down on Saturday nights; a
large medicine-chest--which was afterwards reported to be "one of the
greatest blessings in the fleet,"--was put on board; the captain made a
colporteur of the Bible Society, agent for the Shipwrecked Mariners'
Society and of the Church of England Temperance Society. The Religious
Tract Society, and various publishers, made a grant of books to form the
nucleus of a free lending library; the National Lifeboat Institution
presented an aneroid barometer, and Messrs. Hewett and Company made a
present of the insurance premium of 50 pounds. Thus furnished and
armed, as aforesaid, as a Mission Church, Temperance Hall, Circulating
Library, and Dispensary, the little craft one day sailed in amongst the
smacks of the "Short Blue" fleet, amid the boisterous greetings of the
crews, and took up her position under the name of the _Ensign_, with a
great twenty-feet Mission-flag flying at the main-mast-head.

This, then was the style of vessel towards which the boat of the
_Evening Star_ was now being pulled over a superficially smooth but
still heaving sea. The boat was not alone. Other smacks, the masters
of which as well as some of the men were professed Christians, had
availed themselves of the opportunity to visit the mission smack, while
not a few had come, like the master