e matters one occasionally hears of it he
happens to drift in the way of a church?"

"The question is broad as the ocean, my good friend, and a fitting answer
might lead us into abstrusities deeper than any problem in our
trigonometry.--Was that the stroke of an oar?"

"'Twas a land noise. Well, I am no great navigator among the crooked
channels of religion. Every new argument is a sand-bar, or a shoal, that
obliges me to tack and stand off again; else I might have been a bishop,
for any thing the world knows to the contrary. 'Tis a gloomy night,
Captain Ludlow, and one that is sparing of its stars. I never knew luck
come of an expedition on which a natural light did not fall!"

"So much the worse for those who seek to harm us.--I surely heard an oar
in the row-lock!"

"It came from the shore, and had the sound of the land about it;" quietly
returned the master, who still kept his look riveted on the heavens. "This
world, in which we live, Captain Ludlow, is one of extraordinary uses; but
that, to which we are steering, is still more unaccountable. They say that
worlds are sailing above us, like ships in a clear sea; and there are
people who believe, that when we take our departure from this planet, we
are only bound to another, in which we are to be rated according to our
own deeds here; which is much the same as being drafted for a new ship,
with a certificate of service in one's pocket."

"The resemblance is perfect;" returned the other leaning far over a
timber-head, to catch the smallest sound that might come from the ocean.
"That was no more than the blowing of a porpoise!"

"It was strong enough for the puff of a whale. There is no scarcity of big
fish on the coast of this island, and bold harpooners are the men who are
scattered about on the sandy downs, here-away, to the northward. I once
sailed with an officer who knew the name, of every star in the heavens,
and often have I passed hours in listening to his history of their
magnitude and character, during the middle watches. It was his opinion,
that there is but one navigator for all the rovers of the air, whether
meteors, comets, or planets."

"No doubt he must be right, having been there."

"No, that is more than I can say for him, though few men have gone deeper
into the high latitudes on both sides of our own equator, than he. One
surely spoke--here, in a line with yonder low star!"

"Was it not a water-fowl?"

"No gull--ha! here we have the obj