we, through the comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.' A crew from among his hearers were going to sail in the course of a week. He gave me a totally new view of the great trial of the seaman's life, the pining for rest. Never, among the poets of the earth, was there finer discourse of the necessity of hope to man; and never a more tremendous picture of the state of the hopeless. Father Taylor is no reader, except of his Bible, and probably never heard of any poem on the subject on which he was speaking: and he therefore went unhesitatingly into a picture of what hope is to the mariner in his midnight watches, and amidst the tossing of the storm; and, if Campbell had been there, he would have joyfully owned himself outdone. But then the preacher went off into one of his strange descriptions of what people resort to when longing for a home for their spirits, and not finding the right one. 'Some get into the stomach, and think they can make a good home of that: but the stomach is no home for the spirit,' and then followed some particular reasons why. Others nestle down into people's good opinion, and think, if they can get praise enough, they shall be at peace. But opinion is sometimes an easy trade-wind, and sometimes a contrary hurricane.' Some wait and wait upon change; but the affairs of Providence go on while such are standing still, and God's chronometer loses no time.' After a long series of pictures of forlornness, and pinings for home, he burst forth suddenly upon the promise, 'I will give you rest.' He was for the moment the wanderer finding rest; his flood of tears and gratitude, his rapturous account of the change from pining to hope and rest, were real to himself and to us for the time. The address to the departing seamen was tender and cheerful; with a fitting mention of the chances of mortality, but nothing which could be ever construed by the most superstitious of them, in the most comfortless of their watches, into a foreboding.

"Such preaching exerts prodigious power over an occasional hearer, and it is an exquisite pleasure to listen to it; but it does not, for a continuance, meet the religious wants of any but those to whom it is expressly addressed. The preacher shares the mental and moral characteristics, as well as the experience in life, of his nautical hearers; their imaginative cast of mind, their superstition, their strong capacity for friendship and love, their ease

about the future,-called recklessness in some, and faith in others. This is so unlike the common mind of landsmen, that the same expression of worship will not suit them both. So Father Taylo will continue to be the seaman's apostle; and, however admired and beloved by the landsman, not his priest. This is as it should be, and as the good man desires. His field of labour is wide enough for him. No one is more sensible than he of its extent. He told me what he tells seamen themselves,-that they are the eyes and tongues of the world, the seed-carriers of the world, -the winged seeds from which good or evil must spring up on the wildest shores of God's earth. His spirit is so possessed with this just idea of the importance of his work, that praise and even immediate sympathy are not necessary, though the last is, of course, pleasant to him. One Christmas Day there was a misunderstanding as to whether the chapel would be open, and not above twenty people were present; but never did Father Taylor preach more splendidly.

"There is one great drawback in the religious services of his chapel. There is a gallery just under the roof for persons of colour; and the seed-carriers of the world' are thus countenanced by Father Taylor in making a root of bitterness spring up beside their homes, which, under his care, a better spirit should sanctify. I think there can be no doubt that an influence so strong as his would avail to abolish this unchristian distinction of races within the walls of his own church; and it would elevate the character of his influence if the attempt were made."

Charles Dickens, landing late in 1842, found himself, Jan. 29, 1843, drifting in the crowd that steadily flowed toward the Bethel. He thus describes the hero of our tale on his field of battle:*

"The only preacher I heard in Boston was Mr. Taylor, who addresses himself peculiarly to seamen, and who was once a mariner himself. I found his chapel down among the shipping, in one of the narrow, old, water-side streets, with a gay blue flag waving freely from its roof. In the gallery opposite to the pulpit were a

• American Notes. By Charles Dickens.

little choir of male and female singers, a violoncello, and a violin. The preacher already sat in the pulpit, which was raised on pillars, and ornamented behind him with painted drapery of a lively and somewhat theatrical appearance. He looked a weather-beaten, hard-featured man, of about six or eight and fifty; with deep lines graven as it were into his face, dark hair, and a stern, keen eye. Yet the general character of his countenance was pleasant and agreeable.

"The service commenced with a hymn, to which succeeded an extemporary prayer. It had the fault of frequent repetition incidental to all such prayers; but it was plain and comprehensive in its doctrines, and breathed a tone of general sympathy and charity, which is not so commonly a characteristic of this form of address to the Deity as it might be. That done he opened his discourse, taking for his text a passage from the Song of Solomon, laid upon the desk before the commencement of the service by some unknown member of the congregation: Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on the arm of her beloved?'

"He handled his text in all kinds of ways, and twisted it into all manner of shapes; but always ingeniously, and with a rude eloquence well adapted to the comprehension of his hearers. Indeed, if I be not mistaken, he studied their sympathies and understandings much more than the display of his own powers. His imagery was all drawn from the sea, and from the incidents of a seaman's life, and was often remarkably good. He spoke to them of 'that glorious man, Lord Nelson,' and of Collingwood; and drew nothing in, as the saying is, by the head and shoulders, but brought it to bear upon his purpose naturally, and with a sharp mind to its effect. Sometimes, when much excited with his subject, he had an odd way-compounded of John Bunyan and Balfour of Burley--of taking his great quarto Bible under his arm and pacing up and down the pulpit with it; looking steadily down, meantime, into the midst of the congregation. Thus, when he applied his text to the first assemblage of his hearers, and pictured the wonder of the church at their presumption in forming a congregation among themselves, he stopped short with his Bible under his arm, in the manner I have described, and pursued his discourse after this

manner :

"Who are these—who are they—who are these fellows? Where

do they come from? Where are they going to ? Come from! What's the answer ?' leaning out of the pulpit, and pointing downward with his right hand: 'From below!' starting back again, and looking at the sailors before him: From below, my brethren. From under the hatches of sin, battened down above you by the evil one. That's where you came from ! '—a walk up and down the pulpit: ‘And where are you going?'—stopping abruptly: 'where are you going? Aloft!'-very softly, and pointing upward : ‘Aloft ! '—louder: 'Aloft!'-louder still: 'That's where you are going-with a fair wind-all taut and trim, steering direct for heaven in its glory, where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.'-Another walk: 'That's where you're going to, my friends. That's it. That's the place. That's the port. That's the haven. It's a blessed harbour-still water there, in all changes of the winds and tides; no driving ashore upon the rocks, or slipping your cables and running out to sea there: Peace-Peace - Peace-all peace!'-Another walk, and patting the Bible under his left arm : 'What! These fellows are coming from the wilderness, are they? Yes. From the dreary, blighted wilderness of Iniquity, whose only crop is Death. But do they lean upon anything-do they lean upon nothing, these poor seamen ?'-Three raps upon the Bible: 'Oh, yes- yes! They lean upon the arm of their Beloved' -three more raps: 'upon the arm of their Beloved '-three more, and a walk: 'Pilot, guiding-star and compass, all in one, to all hands-here it is -three more: 'Here it is. They can do their seamen's duty manfully, and be easy in their minds in the utmost peril and danger, with this -two more: 'They can come, even these poor fellows can come, from the wilderness leaning on the arm of their Beloved, and go up-up-up!'-raising his hand higher, and higher at every repetition of the word, so that he stood with it at last stretched above his head, regarding them in a strange, rapt manner, and pressing the book triumphantly to his breast, until he gradually subsided into some other portion of his discourse.

"I have cited this, rather as an instance of the preacher's eccentricities than his merits, though, taken in connection with his look and manner, and the character of his audience, even this was striking. It is possible, however, that my favourable impres

sion of him may have been greatly influenced and strengthened, firstly, by his impressing upon his hearers that the true observance of religion was not inconsistent with a cheerful deportment and an exact discharge of the duties of their station, which, indeed, it scrupulously required of them; and, secondly, by his cautioning them not to set up any monopoly in Paradise and its mercies. I never heard these two points so wisely touched (if, indeed, I have ever heard them touched at all) by any preacher of that kind before."

Still later comes Miss Bremer, and sets up her easel before the preacher. It is the winter of 1850, fifteen years after her elder sister, Miss Martineau, had drawn her sketch. Thus she writes:*

"I went last Sunday with Miss Sedgwick, who is come to the city for a few days, and two gentlemen, to the sailors' church to hear Father Taylor, a celebrated preacher. He is a real genius, and delighted me. What warmth, what originality, what affluence in new turns of thought and in poetical painting! He ought of a truth to be able to awaken the spiritually dead. On one occasion, when he had been speaking of the wicked and sinful man and his condition, he suddenly broke off, and began to describe a spring morning in the country; the beauty of the surrounding scene, the calmness, the odour, the dew upon grass and leaf, the uprising of the sun; then again he broke off, and returning to the wicked man, placed him amid this glorious scene of nature-but, 'the unfortunate one! He cannot enjoy it!' Another time, as it was told, he entered his church with an expression of profound sorrow, with bowed head, and without looking to the right and the left as is his custom (N.B.-He must pass through the church in order to reach the pulpit), and without nodding kindly to friends and acquaintances. All wondered what could have come to Father Taylor. He mounted the pulpit, and then bowing down, as if in the deepest affliction, exclaimed, 'Lord have mercy upon us because we are a widow!' And so saying, he pointed down to a coffin which he had had placed in the aisle below the pulpit. One of the sailors

• The Homes of the New World. By Frederika Bremer. Harper & Brothers.