Charms of Maritime Life. 5j 



conceals so many charms and so many hardships, where 

 the continued alternations of hope and fear, of enjoyment 

 and privation — where weariness and disappointment, and 

 yet again the new strength imparted by returning success 

 — so excitingly animate, and so gloriously manifest the innate 

 power of the human mind. 



Life on board, tlie various excitements at sea, the 

 different countries and people seen during a voyage, all 

 tend to arouse feelings and sensations which are re- 

 served for the mariner alone, and which render his life, if 

 he knows how to use it properly, happy and most enviable. 

 At sea the mental and physical eye gains strength, man 

 there seeks to unravel Nature in all her phases, and to know 

 and to admire more thoroughly her works. The seaman owes 

 his energy, his straightforwardness, and his piety, to a life 

 spent in the midst of nature, to his direct intercourse with 

 creation. Between him and the Sovereign of the Universe 

 there is, as it were, no mediator — he lives and labours un- 

 interruptedly on the steps of the throne of his Creator and 

 Preserver. In this great temple he directs to Him alone 

 his complaints, his thanks, and his prayers. At sea he 

 learns law and order from Nature herself in her constantly- 

 recurring functions; here he admires the omnipotence and 

 goodness of God in the sunrise after a stormy night, and 

 in the brightness of the moon that lights up his path ; 

 here he learns by his actual experience the truth of that 

 maxim of life, that *' God only helps him who helps himself." 



