al of the fleet.

They have, of course, many rules and laws to govern them. When they
fish far from the land, they remain out six weeks, or more; and do not
once, all that time, go into port. There are, however, steamers
employed, which run to and fro to carry them food and fresh-water, also
to take ice to them. With this ice the fish are packed, as soon as
caught, in large baskets. The steamers then collect the fish from the
different fishing-vessels, and carry it to London, or to the nearest
port where there is a railway station. This account will give an idea
of the many thousand people employed as fishermen on the eastern coasts
of our country. In summer, while the weather is fine, their calling is
pleasant and healthy; but when storms arise the hardships and perils are
very great, and many of the men every year lose their lives, leaving
widows and orphans behind them.

There was belonging to Sandhills, the little hamlet about which I have
spoken, as fine and bold a set of fishermen as any to be found on the
British coast. There were from fifteen to twenty families. The largest
family was that of old John Hadden. He had eight sons and several
daughters: three of his sons were away at sea--two of these were on
board men-of-war, and the third was on board a trading-vessel; four
followed his calling as fishermen, and formed part of the crew of the
lugger of which he was master; the youngest, the eighth--Little Ben as
he was always called, the son of his old age--was as yet too young to go
regularly to sea. He, however, went with his father and brothers in the
summer season, when fine weather was looked for, and he would not
probably be exposed to hardships too severe for his tender years.

The fishermen of that coast were long known as rough and careless men,
thinking nothing of religion, and utterly ignorant of religious truth.
It used to be said of them, that as a rule they lived hard and died
hard, caring for nobody, and nobody caring for them. This was too true
of many, but not of all. It was not true of John Hadden. His outside
was rough enough, and very much so in winter, when he had on his high
fishing-boots, broad-flapped sou'-wester, thick woollen comforter,
Guernsey frock, with a red flannel shirt above it, and a pea-coat over
all. But he had an honest, tender, true, God-loving, and God-fearing
heart. As he had been brought up, so he brought up his children in "the
way they should go," trusti