's furnace into a
ship's forecastle, nor wear India-rubbers and carry an umbrella when
you go aloft. But men will brave all such discomforts and the attendant
perils with a hearty delight, if you will train up the right spirit in
them. Better the worst night that ever darkened off Hatteras, than the
consumption-laden atmosphere of the starving journeyman-tailor's
garret, the slow inhalation of pulverized steel with which the
needle-maker draws his every breath! The sea's work makes a man, and
leaves him with his duty nobly done, a man at the last. Courage, loyal
obedience, patient endurance, the abnegation of selfishness,--these are
the lessons the sea teaches. Why must the shore make such diabolical
haste and try such fiendish ingenuity to undo them? The sea is pure and
free, the land is firm and stable,--but where they meet, the tide rises
and falls, leaving a little belt of sodden mud, of slippery, slimy
weeds, where the dead refuse of the sea is cast up to rot in the hot
sun. Something such is the welcome the men of the sea get from that
shore which they serve. Into this Serbonian bog between them and us we
let them flounder, instead of building out into their domain great and
noble piers and wharves, upon which they can land securely and come
among us.

Some years ago, a young scholar was led to step forth from his natural
sphere into the forecastle of a merchantman. No quarrel with the world,
no romantic fancy, drove him thither, but a plain common-sense purpose.
He saw what he saw fairly, and he has told the tale in a volume which,
for picturesque clearness, vigor, and manly truthfulness, will scarcely
find its equal this side the age of Elizabeth. He owed it to the sea,
for the sea gave him health, self-reliance, and fearlessness, and that
persistent energy which saved him from becoming that which elegant
tastes and native refinement make of too many of our young men, a mere
literary or social _dilettante_, and raised him up to be a champion of
right, a chivalrous defender of the oppressed, whose name has honored
his calling. His book was an effort in the right direction. By that we
of the land were brought nearer to those to whom this country owes so
much, its merchant-seamen. But we want more than the work, however
noble, of one man. We want the persistent and Christian interest in the
elevation of the seaman of every man who is connected with his calling.
We do not want a Miss-Nancyish nor Rosa-Matildan senti