prepare them for passing their examinations with credit? He thought it unjust to demand of them an examination for which they were not previously prepared. No sailor on board a ship should be inferior to any man whom he might meet on shore. But it was the spiritual condition of the seamen which it was the great object of this Society to ameliorate. The Society wanted the sympathies, the efforts, and the prayers of all true philanthropists in this cause; but how little real sympathy did it meet with? What support did it receive from the merchants of London, compared with the immense benefits it sought to confer on the sailor population? A very few hundreds, indeed, were subscribed by the merchants of London. Some few, influenced by the spirit of the Gospel, were willing to cast in their mite, but it was only a mite after all. £3000 was all they could collect for the purpose of communicating religious instruction to the seafaring population of England. That was the amount of sympathy evinced throughout the whole country. The Society was established on a broad basis, and sought the help of Churchmen and Dissenters, and men of all grades and parties. It was a matter of great difficulty to get sailors into a place of worship. But how many places of worship were provided for them? He remembered the time when a vessel floated in the Thames, where sailors might go to hear the Gospel. He did not know whether that vessel at present existed. (No, no.) It was thought at one time that if there could be only a vessel on the river Thames, sailors would be sure to go there, to listen to the words of eternal life. On shore there was, indeed, but small provision made for sailors as a class. There were two places of worship which were attended, perhaps, by a hundred or two hundred sailors every Sabbath. These were small means; but how extensive was the field! Our blessed Saviour, when he appeared on earth, planted his foot upon the seashore, and invited to his immediate counsel, and as his ambassadors for truth, the sailors that he found fishing in the waters of Galilee, and commissioned them to go preaching to the world the everlasting Gospel. Our sailors were now what they were then. They went to all parts of the world, and it was our duty to seek for them the blessing of Divine grace, that they might be brought to a knowledge of the truth; and to distribute among them the word of eternal life, and call their attention to the dying love of the Lamb of God, "that taketh away the sin of the world." God worked by means. It was our duty to put those means into execution. No ship should come into the port, where the Gospel was not preached to the men who manned it. If all the means in our power were prayerfully used, the most blessed results would follow; and soon would arrive that glorious era when "the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." (Cheers.) We owed to sailors a long-standing debt of gratitude, which we ought now to pay off. We now saw them drinking, or swearing, or rioting in all directions, but no hand was found to help, and scarcely an eye to pity them. Few, indeed, amongst them had a kind relieving hand extended towards them. We should exert all our effort-put up earnest prayer to God in the name of Christ, and seek to awaken all around us to this great and important matter. About 15,000 seamen were supposed to be daily in the port of London; but to how many of these were the means of grace afforded? There were persons employed to go to all parts of the city to hold forth the lamp of life; but who went to the sailor? Even to this day, the sailor might exclaim, "No man hath cared for my soul." Let them not lag behind any longer, but "come to the help of the Lord-the help of the Lord against the mighty." The souls of sailors were valuable, and he earnestly exhorted them that it might be their determination that night, in the strength of the ever blessed God, to lay aside all indifference, and come forward and manifest their attachment to the Lord Jesus, and to the souls of perishing sailors. (Loud applause.)

The resolution was then put, and carried unanimously.

The Rev. W. SPENCER, of Devonport, moved the next resolution :-"That this meeting contemplates with pleasure and gratitude the effective aid rendered to this Society by local and congregational auxiliaries, and also by the formation of similar new associations; and trusts that, by systematic operations, the permanent income of the Institution may be so materially enlarged as to enable it efficiently to prosecute its benevolent purpose." He said it was some years since he had had the pleasure of appearing at the anniversary of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, on a London platform. He was glad to find that the Society was not deserted by its old friends, nor forsaken by the public. He did not know that he had ever seen a greater number of persons met together on a similar occasion. Whilst looking on the platform, and at the body of the Hall, one was compelled to say, "The fathers,

where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" He was glad to find himself surrounded by some old and attached friends to the Society who were still willing to bear their part in seeking to send the Gospel over the wide world of waters. He thought the resolution which he had just read was a proper answer to a question frequently proposed, "What have we to do with sailors?" He might ask in return, what should we do, as a nation, without sailors? If we tried the experiment for a twelvemonth-if there should be a general strike amongst the sailors for the space of only a year--what a position should we be placed in! He greatly questioned whether we should not find ourselves debarred of many comforts of which we were in the habit of daily partaking. Certainly, we should suffer commercially; and we should, at once, have to break up, for a time at least, the various institutions which were the honour and glory of our land. The Society in Earl-street might close its doors; the Missionary Societies would have to break up their establishments; the Religious Tract Society would have to suspend a very considerable portion of its labours; and even our Sunday schools would suffer-if seamen, for the space of a twelvemonth, refused to navigate the waters and hold intercourse with other lands. Mr. Burnet had said this nation was but a fringe upon the world, geographically speaking. He seemed to lower the dignity and the greatness of our nation, but he did not do so. Geographically speaking he was strictly correct; but then this fringe was a noble fringe; it waved in many a graceful fold; it was embroidered in silver and in purple, and in gold, and it bore upon it many an inscription that told of kindness and benevolence, and mercy and love. (Cheers.) Britain was enabled to become a blessing to the world, and Britain had risen to her commercial, intellectual, and moral greatness through her connection with other lands-a connection that had been made to exist by the enterprise of those noble men who traded upon the mighty waters. He had many a time looked at the forest of masts that studded the river Thames: he had occasionally sailed down the river, and had now and then seen floating from a mast-head one of those flags that told that divine worship was to be conducted there. What an interesting scene would it be if every mast bore at its head the Bethel flag! How interesting would it be to contemplate, if only one tenth of the vast numbers of ships reposing there from time to time should become vessels of mercy to convey the glad tidings of salvation to the distant regions of the earth. He could anticipate the time when our naval and military establishments might be broken up; and glad as he was to have seen a Lord of the Admiralty presiding over the meeting, and fully as he sympathised in the wish that had been expressed that the other Lords of the Admiralty had been present, yet he could anticipate the time when these offices would be no more needed, in that happy day "when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and shall learn war no more." But we could not anticipate a state of things in which we could do without our seamen. So long as there was a single island to be civilised, so long as there continued a slave whose fetters were to be broken, so long as it was necessary that one portion of the world should be blessed by another portion, so long as any son or daughter of Adam was destitute of a copy of the sacred Scriptures, so long as man was dependent upon his fellow-man for the productions of the various climes and countries which studded the face of the earth-so long must we have men to plough the waters, as well as those who dwelt upon the shore. These men constituted a large and interesting class of the human family: all the sympathies that clustered around mankind generally, met in our British seamen ; whilst, from the peculiarity of their position, the dangers to which they were exposed, the privations which they were called upon to suffer, the temptations by which they were continually surrounded, their separation from home, and its scenes and society-these and a variety of other peculiarities gave them an especial claim upon the sympathies of the Christian Church. (Cheers.) There was something so generous, so noble, and so manly and honest in the character of British sailors that we could not be brought into intercourse with them without feeling that they had special claims upon our kindness and our care. He remembered some years ago, when preaching the Gospel in the open air, an attempt was made by certain individuals to create a disturbance. A young man in the garb of a sailor stepped up to them, and, putting his fist in the face of the men, dared them to say a word. They looked at him and began to utter a faint and feeble shout, but he informed them that they would find themselves somewhat belaboured in their persons by the efforts he would make to keep them quiet if they did not desist. He threatened to "dig a hole" through one man, and, in his own peculiar phrase, to

"close the blinkers" of another. (Laughter.) The men were disposed to continue their interruptions, but finding all their efforts unavailing, they were about to retire ; but the sailor, putting out his long arm, said, "Not one of you shall go till the sermon is over; I will keep you quiet, and you shall pay attention to what the preacher is saying. He comes to do you good, and, bad manners to you, you shall not leave till the sermon is finished." (Laughter, and cheers.) His favourable impression concerning sailors had been greatly strengthened by his intercourse with them. Some of them had been brought to a knowledge of the truth under his own ministry, and were members of the church over which he presided. They were consistent, fervent, God-fearing men, regularly attending the public ordinances of religion, and willing to go amongst their own class to seek to do good. In the town in which he resided there were three Bethels, where religious services were conducted twice every Lord's day and two or three times in the course of the week, and where Sunday schools were established, composed chiefly of the children of the maritime population. They had also the Royal Naval and Military Free School (of which he was secretary), instituted for the purpose of receiving the sons and daughters of those who traded upon the world of waters. He had held frequent intercourse with the parents of these children, and had witnessed the noble feelings of gratitude which they discovered when they found they had an opportunity of obtaining an education for their children. The British and Foreign Sailors' Society was a noble institution; the blessing of God had rested upon it for many years, and would smile upon it in years that were to come. He prayed God that the nation might be faithful in the discharge of her duty, and not rest satisfied until all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of the Lord, and they that go down to the sea in ships as well as those that dwell upon the shore shall raise songs of praise and glory to Him who sitteth upon the throne of God, and to the Lamb for ever. (Loud applause.)

The Rev. J. W. RICHARDSON, in seconding the resolution, said he had been exceedingly interested in the facts and statements that had been laid before the meeting. But it was easy for them to listen to speeches and to pass the resolutions that were presented to them. There was a great and momentous responsibility attaching to them in listening to such appeals as they had heard. They had had the claims of the Society clearly, distinctly, and impressively laid before them, and he hoped that they would do all in their power for the purpose of advancing the interests of so noble an Institution. There was one topic that suggested itself to his mind as specially important. He referred to the peril to which seamen were constantly exposed. As they had already been told, seamen often suddenly passed out of time into eternity. How important, therefore, was it that their minds should be enlightened, and their hearts impressed with the great truths of the everlasting Gospel! Whatever we might do for the sailor, if he was not converted, we had done comparatively nothing for him. The man who dashed into the water to rescue a fellow-creature from drowning, did a more important work for him than those who were preparing to clothe and feed him when he was rescued. A man who brought his fellow-man an antidote when he was ready to die, did more than all those who should spread tables with richest viands for him after his recovery. So he conceived that the first grand object that they should always keep before their minds was the saving of souls from death. Thousands perished upon the ocean every year, and how important was it to take to them that glorious Gospel by which they might be fitted for a sudden death, and for a glorious transition to the eternal life that awaits the repenting and the believing in a future world. Then, sailors were especially capacitated for usefulness, when they were converted. (Hear.) He had a member of his own church, who was a captain of a vessel, through whose instrumentality many of his crew had been converted to the faith of Jesus Christ. That man, too, when he went to distant lands, not only took the Gospel of Christ in his heart, but took tracts and Bibles with him to distribute where they might be most useful, and had thus been the means of saving many souls from death. He held that no man was converted for himself alone, but for others. Having received the light of the Gospel himself, he was to reflect that light around him; having been saved himself, he was to be the instrument of salvation to others. Let it be remembered that, in passing this resolution, they involved themselves in somewhat of responsibility. The resolution referred to the efforts of local and congregational auxiliaries, and to the formation of new associations. He apprehended that the Society would find itself mainly indebted to its female friends connected with these auxiliary associations. Hence he was glad to see so many of these friends present, because he knew how earnest, how energetic, how persevering, and how

successful they were. (Hear, hear.) He was persuaded that, if all the ladies present were to take with them in their minds the facts and statements that had been brought before them, and were to endeavour to interest their friends, and awaken their sympathies and prayers, great results would follow during the year upon which they had entered. (Applause.)

The Rev. JAMES SIBREE, of Hull, in supporting the resolution, said, that Providence, ever since he had commenced his ministry, had cast his lot in a large seaport town, where he had laboured for eighteen years. The best friends he had in the wide world were scamen, and it had been his happiness to welcome to the table of the Lord a vast number of this class of men. Indeed, his own congregation was of a very marine character. It contained twenty-five masters or captains of vessels, most of whom, when on shore, were very regular in their attendance on his ministry. He therefore felt, and naturally felt, a lively interest in everything concerning the spiritual welfare of seamen. In Hull, not long ago, these men were strangers to the glad tidings of redemption. Providence, however, had done much for them. They now listened with deep attention to the preaching of the Gospel; and were not only found in the floating chapel, with their families, listening to the joyful news of sal vation, but were to be seen in almost every congregation in the town. They were not now so much regarded as a distinct class; indeed, the sailor was now hardly known on the Sabbath-day by the cut of his coat. Jack now thought it his privilege and his right to throw off his blue jacket on the Sunday, and put on a respectable black coat, and occupy his place at church or chapel under a stated ministry. Hitherto they had considered themselves cut off from landsmen; and, on this account, many had supposed them to be almost incapable of conversion. The floating chapel in Hull was crowded to excess every Sabbath; and there were also four missionaries engaged in the town, constantly seeking the spiritual welfare of the seamen belonging to the port. They had also their Mariner's Church, where great things had been accomplished. A coast-missionary was employed nine months at least out of the year, in a kind of preventive service, waiting at the various bays, inlets, and rivers along the coast of Yorkshire, and the northern part of Lincolnshire, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to sailors, as they came to discharge their cargoes. In Burlington Bay, as many as 500 sailors might be sometimes seen collected together, owing to adverse winds. These the missionary visited with his Bibles and Testaments, and in the evening the Bethel flag was hoisted at some masthead, and hundreds of sailors flocked to hear the Word of God preached to them. A Sailors' Orphan Institution had been established at Hull, which had taken great hold upon the public mind, and in which 150 poor orphan children were clothed, educated, and taught. (Applause.) One of the most interesting sights that could meet the eye was to witness these children gathered together, and hear them singing their favourite song, 46 Home, sweet home!" One of his deacons, Mr. Towers, (hear, hear,) was the father and founder of that noble institution; and he felt himself honoured in having such a man connected with his church. The institution had taken a great hold, too, on the sailor population. Many a sailor could feel, as he left the port, "Well, if I never return, if the providence of God calls me away by a storm, if I meet a watery grave, there are Christians in Hull who will become fathers and mothers to my children." This had been as balm to their hearts, and had led the hardy mariner to wipe his briny tear, as he had given his warm embrace to his beloved wife and children. In addition to what he had mentioned, there was in Hull a Sailors' Institution-a noble building, in which lectures were delivered on scientific and other subjects, intended to raise and instruct the mariner. Intelligence was spreading among the seamen, and a growing love of reading and study was observable amongst them. Bibles and Testaments were sold in vast numbers to them. The rev. gentleman concluded by earnestly recommending the establishment of an Orphans' Institution, in connection with the British and Foreign Sailors' Society, as a means by which its usefulness might be enlarged, and its popularity increased.

The resolution passed unanimously.

GEO. GULL, Esq., after having announced several donations in behalf of the Society, proposed a vote of thanks to the gentlemen who had presided over the meeting. GEO. SIMMONS, Esq., briefly seconded the resolution, and expressed the strong interest he felt in the principles and operations of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society. The resolution passed unanimously; and, after a brief reply from the CHAIRMAN, the proceedings terminated, at half-past nine o'clock.

WANTS OF SEAMEN.

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THE sailor needs a Sabbath at sea. He has a body and a soul. These together constitute him a moral and immortal being. His body needs the rest of the Sabbath; his soul, its salutary checks and Divine instructions. To enjoy it is alike his privilege and his right. God gave it to him, and no man may take it from him. He who will not observe it, robs God and himself; he who, in addition, deprives his fellow of his day of rest, robs God and his neighbour. In either case the guilt is fearful: only the latter adds tyranny to folly. Perhaps among no class of men has this robbery been so prevalent as among seamen. What matters "custom," what matters the "expectation of owners," what matters the "command of an officer," what matters an apparent "loss," or a protracted voyage "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," is the unrevoked law of God. It is alike universal and perpetual. The sacred obligation rests upon all men everywhere. No class of men are excepted. No strength of temptation, no urgency of self-interest, no fear of man, no peculiarity of circumstance can justify its violation, or deliver from its penalty. As sure as the Sabbath sun dawns on the world, so surely, and as widely and unfailingly, are its sanctions binding and supreme. "The Sabbath was made for man," makes the day of rest the world's birthright. No more so is the atmosphere we breathe. Its repose, its sacred enjoyments, are ours, no less than the rains of heaven. It is as much the slave's as the master's-as much the poor man's as the rich. It is as inalienable as "life," or "liberty,' ΟΙ the "pursuit of happiness." No man may refuse the boon, none take it away. If this be true of an individual, in his personal relation to this holy day, what shall we say of the owners, or masters, or officers, who not only incur this guilt themselves, but oblige their dependents also thus to challenge the displeasure of God? A man may overtask his own body, and trample on the laws of his Maker, by labour that knows no Sabbath, and his own body and soul will exact their own "with usury," at the bar of premature old age and irretrievable ruin. But to bow others to a similar yoke and a like crime will add to his own the insupportable burden of their guilt and loss. Would that those whom it concerns could feel this. Then the fear of God and the law of God would be paramount in the hearts and lives of all. If they did not reverence and hallow the Sabbath, they would, at least, fear openly to violate it. But it is not enough that men be not compelled to desecrate the Sabbath. There should be a disgrace attached to its violation. But the Sabbath should not only be given to seamen as their right, it should also be urged upon them as their privilege. They need it. The laws of the human constitution require its rest. Facts, the world over, prove that no less than a seventh part of time is requisite for bodily repose. It is true both of man and beast. And every reason that can be urged for its observance on land, urge an equal claim at sea. It is as benevolent JULY.

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