“We have certainly been very fortunate thus far, Stephen, and I am now in hopes we may fill up and be off in good season to get clear of the ice,” returned Roswell.  “Our luck has been surprising, all things considered.”

“You call it luck, Captain Gar’ner; but, in my creed, there is a truer and a better word for it, sir.”

“Ay, I know well enough what you mean, Stephen; though I cannot fancy that Providence cares much whether we shall take a hundred seals to-day, or none at all.”

“Such is not my idee, sir; and I’m not ashamed to own it.  In my humble way of thinking, Captain Gar’ner, the finger of Divine Providence is in all that comes to pass; if not straight ahead like, as a body would receive a fall, still, by sartain laws that bring about everything that is to happen, just as it does happen.  I believe now, sir, that Providence does not intend we shall take any seals at all to-day, sir”

“Why not, Stimson?  It is the very finest day we have had since we have been on the island!”

“That’s true enough; and it is this glorious sunny day, glorious and sunny for sich a high latitude, that makes me feel and think that this day was not intended for work.  You probably forget it is the Sabbath, Captain Gar’ner.”

“Sure enough; I had forgotten that, Stephen; but we sealers seldom lie by for such a reason.”

“So much the worse for us sealers, then, sir.  This is my seventeenth v’y’ge into these seas, sir, and I will say that more of them have been made with officers and crews that did not keep the Sabbath, than with officers and crews that did.  Still, I have obsarved one thing, sir, that the man who takes his rest one day in seven, and freshens his mind, as it might be, with thinking of other matters than his every-day consarns, comes to his task with so much better will, when he does set about it, as to turn off greater profit than if he worked night and day, Sundays and all.”

Roswell Gardiner had no great reverence for the Christian Sabbath, and this more because it was so called, than for any sufficient reason in itself.  Pride of reason rendered him jealous of everything like a concession to the faith of those who believed in the Son of God; and he was very apt to dissent from all admission that had even the most remote bearing on its truth.  Still, as a kind-hearted commander, as well as a judicious reasoner on the economy of his fellow-creatures, he fully felt the policy of granting relaxation to labour.  Nor was he indisposed to believe in the care of a Divine Providence, or in its justice, though less believing in this respect than the illiterate but earnest-minded seaman who stood at his side.  He knew very well that “all work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy;” and he understood well enough that it was good for man, at stated seasons, to raise his mind from the cares and business of this world, to muse on those of the world that is to come.  Though inclined to Deism, Roswell worshipped in his heart the creator of all he saw and understood, as well as much that he could neither scan nor comprehend.