194 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



servation of men has taught me, that familiarity 

 with danger and death seldom produces a soften- 

 ing, monitory effect, except upon the mind of a 

 Christian, but rather induces a moral hardness 

 and effrontery that steels the mind against les- 

 sons of mortality, and sheds an ominous gloom 

 upon the prospects of the soul. I have talked 

 with a good many whalemen and common 

 sailors, and have observed the conduct of irre- 

 ligious men in times of fatal epidemics and 

 more than ordinary dangers ; but I never yet 

 have met with one permanently reformed and 

 brought to repentance by seeing others drowned 

 and die before his eyes, and by what would seem 

 to be the natural consideration of danger in his 

 own case. 



So true it is, in the words of the preacher, 

 The heart of the sons of men is full of evil ; 

 madness is in their hearts while they live, and 

 after that they go to the dead. As the jishes 

 that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds 

 that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of 

 men snared in an evil time, when it cometh sud- 

 denly upon them. As an old poet hath it : 



