hase would sometimes make merry. "Come, boys, don't hang
back," he would say; "come, let us go hear the parson talk about his
Lord High Admiral Plato, and Commodore Socrates."

But, in one instance, grave exception was taken to this summons. A
remarkably serious, but bigoted seaman, a sheet-anchor-man--whose
private devotions may hereafter be alluded to--once touched his hat to
the Captain, and respectfully said, "Sir, I am a Baptist; the chaplain
is an Episcopalian; his form of worship is not mine; I do not believe
with him, and it is against my conscience to be under his ministry. May
I be allowed, sir, _not_ to attend service on the half-deck?"

"You will be allowed, sir!" said the Captain, haughtily, "to obey the
laws of the ship. If you absent yourself from prayers on Sunday
mornings, you know the penalty."

According to the Articles of War, the Captain was perfectly right; but
if any law requiring an American to attend divine service against his
will be a law respecting the establishment of religion, then the
Articles of War are, in this one particular, opposed to the American
Constitution, which expressly says, "Congress shall make no law
respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise
thereof." But this is only one of several things in which the Articles
of War are repugnant to that instrument. They will be glanced at in
another part of the narrative.

The motive which prompts the introduction of chaplains into the Navy
cannot but be warmly responded to by every Christian. But it does not
follow, that because chaplains are to be found in men-of-war, that,
under the present system, they achieve much good, or that, under any
other, they ever will.

How can it be expected that the religion of peace should flourish in an
oaken castle of war? How can it be expected that the clergyman, whose
pulpit is a forty-two-pounder, should convert sinners to a faith that
enjoins them to turn the right cheek when the left is smitten? How is
it to be expected that when, according to the XLII. of the Articles of
War, as they now stand unrepealed on the Statute-book, "a bounty shall
be paid" (to the officers and crew) "by the United States government of
$20 for each person on board any ship of an enemy which shall be sunk
or destroyed by any United States ship;" and when, by a subsequent
section (vii.), it is provided, among other apportionings, that the
chaplain shall receive "two twentieths" of this price paid