8 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



demands so severe and constant a strain upon the moral 

 virtues of patience and fortitude. His labour is incessant, 

 his reward sHght and uncertain. He must face the chance 

 of sudden and violent end far more habitually than either 

 soldier or sailor, yet must hope for no special glory or 

 memorial as his recompense. He must be content often 

 to leave wife and children with a smiling face, and know 

 that as likely as not he may come back to them within 

 twenty-four hours only as a corpse cast up by the 

 treacherous sea. Death in its most rapid and startling 

 form is his familiar companion, but he never can suffer his 

 hardihood or his cheerfulness to be dimmed for a moment 

 by that ghastly presence. A sudden gust, a bucket thrown 

 carelessly over the side, an awkward movement at an 

 inopportune moment, may in an instant snatch him away 

 beyond recall, with no further memorial than a simple 

 inscription of " Drowned at Sea." The church at which he 

 worships is full of such records ; and from his own family 

 perhaps, a father, a brother and a son have all perished by 

 a sudden death. Yet nothing daunts his unconquerable 

 courage, or w^earies out his inexhaustible patience. This it 

 is which makes the fisheries of a nation so valuable a 

 nursery for their national defences. England is not the only 

 country which owes her greatness upon the seas in no slight 

 measure to the qualities of her fishermen. The navies of 

 Athens and Greece in the olden time, as of Holland and 

 France in modern days, were largely recruited from the 

 same ranks. Upon their calling, too, was conferred the 

 most splendid destiny that has adorned the human race. 

 From amongst the fishermen of Galilee came forth the 

 spiritual princes of the earth, and the poverty and humility 

 in which they lived is the very type of the apostolic life. 

 Such a race of men, it is evident, must form not merely an 



