1827.] The S/iip-Clergymaji. 465 



within him, 1 ' and if he cannot pray with, pray for, the whole ship's com- 

 pany. He may, it is certain, treasure up all the enormities of the crew, 

 and touch upon them with a tongue of flame in his Sunday's discourse 

 he may lay forth in the most odious colours, the vice of evil-speaking, 

 even though the captain be not notorious for his courtly figures he may, 

 it is true, level his fire at the sin of drunkenness, and at the red nose of 

 the purser the reverend gentleman may fulminate against fornication, 

 even though a hundred nymphs from the neighbouring sea- port make a 

 part of his auditory and such they always do, whenever the vessel bears 

 so rich and gentle a freight ! The reverend orator may doubtless scourge 

 every creature in the ship from the admiral to the loblolly-boy ; but, 

 alas ! can human courage dare so much ? Ought he, compelled to live 

 with tigers, to venture to pull them by the whiskers ? 



Indeed after, we trust, a very patient and comprehensive view of 

 things, a view in which we have anxiously pondered on all the harm- 

 less creatures and engines to be found in either civilized or savage society- 

 we conscientiously declare, we know not a more unoffending, a more 

 innoxious compound than a ship-sermon. These discourses form striking 

 contrasts to the ceremony which they precede : they are generally deli- 

 vered at the bottom of the quarter-deck companion ladder, where, on the, 

 pulpit being, " doused," the soul-cheering liquor is instantly served forth * 

 the prayer, " May the peace," &c. is directly followed by the pithy 

 order " Pipe to grog!" and those of the congregation who have provi- 

 dently hidden their cans under the *' church" benches, are in a moment 

 ready to receive their liquor. The sermon is generally from Blair or 

 Tillotson ; all the vigorous passages expunged, with a few original emen- 

 dations to mystify; hiatus in manuscriptis frequently occurs, but Jack 

 has not the bitterness of criticism. These lectures are, in truth, more 

 pleasant, as they are less comprehensible ; ship-sermons, like glow- 

 worms, shine most in darkness. Let us not, however, deny, that our 

 clergyman is sometimes wholly original. He sometimes produces a fine 

 soporific manuscript, with laudanum worked into the very paper, and 

 bearing in every line a row of poppies disguised as letters a volume, the 

 leaves of which are no sooner parted, than we sympathise with the covers, 

 and yawn likewise ! 



We have endeavoured philosophically to account for the distinction 

 between the churchman of the land and the (pardon the pun) " rector 

 pelagi.^ Notwithstanding, we cannot come to a close ere we attempt to 

 strike off the lineaments and habitudes of one particular ship clergyman, 

 at present most vivid in our recollection. 



There was an admirable union of the gravity of the church and the 



sturdiness of the quarter-deck in the person and manners of Mr. E . It 



was a droll, yet happy amalgamation. There was, to the eye of Fancy, 

 a smutch of nautical tar on the three-corner beaver of the theologian ; the 

 milk-white bands which descended from his neck, were not cambric, but 

 plaited oakum ; his very hair, although closely cropt, to the considerate 

 look, seemed to tend in all the downward yearnings of a pig-tail. When 

 he exclaimed " Dearly beloved brethren!" one naturally concluded that 

 " Hearts of oak'* must follow. Not a boatswain in the whole fleet had, 

 a more unyielding frame. There was a compact robustness in his form 

 a kind of graceful violence in his bearing, which spoke the man whose 

 nerves delighted in a stiff gale and a high sea. In the event of an appalling 



M.M. New SeriesVOL. IV. No. 23. 3 O 



