be used should any night prove
particularly dark and cloudy, and the compass be required, for when the
stars were shining they were sufficient to steer by.

For several days the boat sailed on over the tranquil ocean. Sometimes
it fell calm, when the men took to their oars. The rest of the day they
spent lying along the thwarts. Morning and evening, however, Tom
offered up prayer, and Harry read some chapters in the Bible, to which
most of the men listened attentively.

"What we should have done without your Bible, Mr Harry, I do not know,"
observed old Tom. "I believe it has mainly contributed to keep the men
contented and happy; I only hope that they will remain in the same
temper."

"I at all events will read the Bible to them," said Harry. Harry kept
to his resolution. Dickey was one of the most attentive of the
listeners.

"Harry," he said, one day, "I confess that I did not before know what
was in the Bible when I used to sneer at old Tom for being religious,
and was afraid that he would make you so. I wish that he would make me
like himself or like you."

"God's Holy Spirit can alone make you, Mr Bass, what you ought to be,"
observed old Tom, who had been listening to the boys' conversation.
"But you have to seek His grace, and to trust in Jesus, according to the
teaching of His word; for we are there told that faith cometh by
hearing, and hearing by the word of God. I never yet met an infidel or
careless, bad fellow who really had read the Bible with prayer. It is
only thus that we can benefit by it. Many complain that they have no
faith, and that it is no fault of theirs--and yet they will not do the
very thing that God tells us to do; so you see that it is not God's
fault if a man does not believe, but the man's own fault. Do you read
and pray earnestly and faithfully, and depend upon it God's Holy Spirit
will do His part and help you."

"I will try, Tom, indeed I will," said Dickey; "and will you and Harry
pray for me?"

"That we will, Mr Bass, because God has said that earnest, believing
prayer availeth much; but you must pray for yourself--you must not trust
to others praying instead of you. God will hear your prayers, though
they may be very weak and imperfect, just as He heard the prayer of the
poor publican who smote on his breast and said, `God be merciful to me a
sinner.'"

It cannot be said that all in the boat listened to Harry when he read
the Bible, or to old Tom when he spo