The mission steamer was now to run across to Ostend, Belgium, where supplies were to be taken aboard before joining the fishing fleets.

It was bitterly cold, and while they lay at Ostend taking on cargo the harbor froze over, and they found themselves so firm and fast in the ice that it became necessary to engage a steamer to go around them to break them loose.  At last, cargo loaded and ice smashed, they sailed away from Ostend and pointed their bow towards the great fleets, not again to see land for two full months, save Heligoland and Terschelling in the far distant offing.

The little vessel upon which Grenfell sailed was the first sent to the fisheries by the now famous Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen; and the young Doctor on her deck, hardly yet realizing all that was expected of him, was destined to do no small part in the development of the splendid service that the Mission has since rendered the fishermen.

On the starboard side of the vessel’s bow appeared in bold carved letters the words, “Heal the sick,” on the port side of the bow, “Preach the Word.”

“Preaching the Word” does not necessarily mean, and did not mean here, getting up into a pulpit for an hour or two and preaching orthodox sermons, sometimes as dry as dead husks, on Sundays.  Sometimes just a smile and a cheery greeting is the best sermon in the world, and the finest sort of preaching.  Just the example of living honestly and speaking truthfully and always lending a hand to the fellow who is in trouble or discouraged, is a fine sermon, for there is not a man or boy living whose life and actions do not have an influence for good or bad on some one else.  We do not always realize this, but it is true.

Grenfell little dreamed of the future that this voyage was to open to him.  He knew little or nothing at that time of Labrador or Newfoundland.  He had never seen an Eskimo nor an American Indian, unless he had chanced to visit a “wild west” show.  He had no other expectation than that he should make a single winter cruise with the mission schooner, and then return to England and settle in some promising locality to the practice of his profession, there to rise to success or fade into hum-drum obscurity, as Providence might will.

The fishermen of the North Sea fleet were as rough and ready as the old buccaneers.  They were constantly risking their lives and they had not much regard for their own lives or the lives of others.  With them life was cheap.  Night and day they faced the dangers of the sea as they worked at the trawls, and when they were not sleeping or working there was no amusement for them.  Then they were prone to resort to the grog ships, which hovered around them, and they too often drank a great deal more rum than was good for them.  They were reared to a rough and cruel life, these fishermen.  Hard punishments were dealt the men by the skippers.  It was the way of the sea, as they knew it.