.

Only a few years ago a visitor to the North Sea fleet observed, with
much concern, that hundreds of the men and boys who manned it were
living godless as well as toilsome lives, with no one--at least in
winter--to care for their souls. At the same time he noted that the
Dutch _copers_, or floating grog-shops, were regularly appointed to
supply the fleets with cheap and bad spirits, and stuck to them through
fair-weather and foul, in summer and winter, enduring hardship and
encountering danger and great risk in pursuit of their evil calling. Up
to that time a few lay missionaries and Bible-readers had occasionally
gone to visit the fleets in the summer-time, [see Appendix], but the
visitor of whom we write felt that there was a screw loose here, and
reasoned with himself somewhat thus:--

"Shall the devil have his mission-ships, whose crews are not afraid to
face the winter gales, and shall the servants of the Lord be mere
fair-weather Christians, carrying their blessed and all-important
message of love and peace to these hard-working and almost forsaken men
only during a summer-trip to the North Sea? If fish _must_ be caught,
and the lives of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons be not only
risked but lost for the purpose, has not the Master got men who are
ready to say, `The glorious Gospel _must_ be carried to these men, and
we will hoist our flag on the North Sea summer and winter, so as to be a
constant witness there for our God and His Christ?'"

For thirty years before, it has been said, a very few earnest Christians
among the fishermen of the fleet had been praying that some such
thoughts might be put into the hearts of men who had the power to render
help.

We venture to observe in passing that, perchance, those praying
fishermen were not so "few" as appearances might lead us to suppose, for
God has His "hidden ones" everywhere, and some of these may have been at
the throne of grace long prior to the "thirty years" here mentioned.

Let not the reader object to turn aside a few minutes to consider how
greatly help was needed--forty-six weeks or so on the sea in all
weathers all the year round, broken by a week at a time--or about six or
seven weeks altogether--on shore with wife and family; the rest, hard
unvarying toil and exposure, with nothing to do during the brief
intervals of leisure--nothing to read, nothing new to think of, no
church to raise the mind to the Creator, and distinguish the Sabbat