INTRODUCTION. 15 



tion from homo and friends, God is with him, often 

 unrecognized and forgotten, but surrounding him 

 with mercy, protecting him and guiding him, and 

 Avilling to cheer him by the visitations of His grace, 

 and the assurance of His love. " If I take the wings 

 of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of 

 the sea ; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and 

 Thy right hand shall hold me." 



The Ocean is the highway of commerce. God 

 seems wisely and graciously to have ordained, that 

 man should not be independent, but under perpetual 

 obligation to his fellow-man ; and that distant coun- 

 tries should ever maintain a mutually-beneficial de- 

 pendence on each other. He might with ease have 

 made every land to produce every necessary and com- 

 fort of life in ample supply for its own population : 

 in which case, considering the fallen nature of man, 

 it is probable the only intercourse between foreign 

 nations would have been that of mutual aggression 

 and bloodshed. But he has ordered otherwise ; and 

 the result has been, generally, that happy inter- 

 change of benefits which constitutes commerce. It is 

 lamentably true, that the evil passions of men have 

 often perverted the facilities of communication for 

 purposes of destruction ; yet the sober verdict of 



i 



mankind has for the most part been, that the sub- 

 stantial blessings of friendly commerce are prefer- 

 able to the glare of martial glory. But the trans- 

 port of goods of considerable bulk and weight, or 

 of such as are of a very perishable nature, would be 

 so difficult by land, as very materially to increase 

 their cost ; while land communication between coun- 



