you when you run on shore
at morning from your honest labour; and if they fail--if that weak
cordage, and these planks, and thinner canvas, on which your lives
depend, do but give way, what is left for you the next moment? what but a
grave in the deep, deep sea, and your wives widows and your children
orphans, and your bodies devoured by ugly creeping things, and your souls
gone--gone where? My good men--you who sit around me now so strong and
full of life and skill and happiness--where would your souls be if you
were drowned at sea to-morrow?

What a question! Oh, ask it yourselves honestly! I have been out in
gales myself, and I cannot understand how you can go out, in thirty feet
of timber, upon that mighty sea, with the wind howling over your heads
like a death-bell, and the great hungry waves chasing you for miles, each
one able and willing to swallow you up into the deep, and the gulls
screaming over you as if they were waiting to feed upon your floating
carcases, and you alone, in a tiny boat, upon that waste, howling
wilderness of waters!--I cannot understand, I say, how, when a man is in
such a case as that, day after day, year after year, he can forget his
God, the only friend who can save him from the sea! the only friend who
can send him safe out to his work in the evening, and bring him home safe
to his wife at morning. One would think that when you went down to the
shore in the morning, you would say, "Oh, God! without whose help I am no
stronger than a piece of sea-weed floating up and down, take care of me!
Take care of my wife and my children; and forgive me my sins, and do not
punish me by calling me away this night to answer for them all!" And
when you come home at night, you would say, "Oh, God! who hast kept me
safe all this day, what can I do to show how thankful I am to Thee!" Ay!
what _can_ you do to show how thankful you are to God for His care? What
_ought_ you to do to show your thankfulness to Him? What _must_ you do
to show your thankfulness to Him? He has told you. "If you love me, He
says, keep my commandments. Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with
thy God."

These, my friends, are the holy and thankful thoughts which ought to be
in your hearts every day and hour. This is the thought which God meant
to put into your hearts when He made sailors of you, and brought you into
the world, by the sea-side, to take up your business in great waters. You
might have been born in