In returning to the subject of the church, it must be remembered that the circumstances of wind and weather will often interfere with the regularity of our Sunday service.  In some parts of an Indian voyage, for instance, it may be safely calculated that no interruption will take place; while there occur other stages of the passage when Divine service must of necessity be stopped, to shorten sail or trim the yards.  In peace-time, or in harbour, or in fine weather at sea, no such teasing interference is likely to arise; but in war, and on board a cruising ship, the public service frequently calls a ship’s company to exchange their Bibles and Prayer-books for the sponges and rammers.  The collect in which they have petitioned to be defended from the fear of their enemies, and that their time might be passed in rest and quietness, may hardly have passed their lips, before they are eagerly and joyfully scampering up the rigging to shake the reefs out in chase of an enemy, with whom, in the next hour, they will perhaps be engaged in hot fight!

I remember once in a frigate, cruising deep in the Bay of Biscay, just as the captain had finished the Litany, and the purser, whose greatest pleasure it was to officiate as clerk, had said Amen, that the man at the main royal-mast head screamed out,—­

“A strange sail, broad on the lee bow!”

The first effect of this announcement was to make the commander turn round involuntarily to the man at the wheel and exclaim, “Put the helm up!” He then closed the book, with a degree of energy of which he was made somewhat ashamed when the sound was echoed back by that of the rapidly closing volumes all around him.

“My lads,” said he quickly, but not without solemnity, “our duty to our King is our duty to God; and if, as I hope, this sail turn out to be the ship we have been so long looking after, you will not give a worse account of her to the country, I am sure, for having applied in good earnest for assistance from aloft.”  After which, suddenly changing his tone and manner, he sung out loudly and clearly,—­

“Hands, make sail!  Let go the bow-lines!  Round in the weather braces!  Mast-head, there! let me know when the strange sail is right ahead!”

Then leaping on the hammocks, and resting his glass against the after-swifter of the main-rigging, he swept the horizon impatiently for the stranger.  Meanwhile, the rattling of the chairs, capstan-bars, match-tubs, and shot-boxes, gave token of the rapid demolition of our nautical church.  The studding-sail booms shot out like spears from the yard-arms, and the sails which these spars were to expand hung dangling and flapping in the air, as if the canvas had been alive, and joined in the eagerness of the chase; while the ship herself, trembling fore and aft under these fresh and spirit-stirring impulses, dashed away at the rate of ten and a-half knots.