elf. Once I took every penny I had off a
voyage to the public-house, and I stopped there and never had my boots
off till I went to sea again. Every duty was neglected, my wife went
cold in the bad weather, and my children were barefooted. When you're
drinking and fooling you can see nothing at all, and you think you're
a-doing all right, and everybody else is wrong when they try to help
you. Out at sea I gambled and drunk when I could get the money; I made
rare game of religious men, and lived as if I had never to die. Then I
was persuaded by one of my mates to visit the Mission ship, the very
first as ever come, and I wish there was twenty. I'd had a bad time
ashore, and my children was frightened of my ways, though I was kind
enough when sober, and I'd left the wife to pick up a living how she
could. Then I heard what Mr. Fullerton said; God bless him! And I says
to myself, 'Tom Barling, you're no better than a pig you're not.' But I
was proud, and I needed to be brought low. I went again and again and
talked with old John about the Mission ship, but, bless you, I couldn't
see nothing. But some kind of a--what I may say a voice kept a-saying,
'Tom Barling, you're not a good 'un,' and at last I got what I wanted,
and I bursts out crying for joy, for I had learned to trust my blessed
Saviour, whose blood cleanses from all sin. And now by His grace I've
dropped the drink, and them fits of bad temper, and my family looks
well, and I'm so quiet in my breast here like, as I can walk for hours
on deck and pray quiet, and never think of no drink, nor cards, nor
excitement, and I never nags at any man that's wrong as I was, but I
says 'I wish you were happy as me, mate, and you may be if you'll come
to the dear Lord.' And that's all. I bless God for the Mission, because
there's many a chap like me that would like to do right but he don't
know how. I was a bad chap, and I went on doing bad things because I
knew no better; and so, brothers, when you see a mate going wrong just
coax him. And God bless you, gentlemen and ladies, and all on us."

Every variety of story was told, and, in the exaltation of the hour, the
men sang rapturously. Some of the speakers moved the doctor with
terrible pathos. (I, who chronicle these things, have heard tales which
come to me in wild dreams, and make me tremble with pity and terror.)
There was no showing off, and even those who used the stereotyped
phrase, "When I was in the world," did it with