NINE MONTHS IN THE ARCTIC. 229 



in the cause of seamen, both at home and abroad, 

 is sufficient to prove that there is a growing, and, 

 we trust, an increasing desire to promote the re- 

 ligious good of the sons of the ocean. 



In seaport places, it would be natural to sup- 

 pose that both the temporal and spiritual wel- 

 fare of seamen would occupy a prominent place 

 in the minds of the people generally. This is to 

 some extent true. In such localities, especially, 

 one discovers that the trains of thought, general 

 conversation, domestic arrangements, family anx- 

 ieties, prospects for years to come, all, or nearly 

 all, are shaped and controlled by the leading idea 

 of " business in great waters" 



This presiding spirit, as it may be justly termed, 

 pervades every department of life. We meet it 

 at every turn, and are reminded, wherever we go, 

 that we live in a seafaring community. We find 

 this fact verified in public resorts for trade, in the 

 family circle, in the prayer and conference meet- 

 ing, in the sanctuary, in the chamber of sickness, 

 in the house of mourning, and we read the me- 

 morials of it upon the tombstone in the silent 

 repositories of the dead. 



There is another feature to a seaport place, 

 and especially to a whaling community, which it 

 would be proper just to mention, and that is, the 

 suddenness with which sad intelligence from 



