credit amount was less than I had supposed it to be. Just about that time I had fitted up and replenished a good village medical dispensatory; and having calcu lated its annual cost, and the expenses of our schools, and other little religious and moral establishments, I looked, first at my balance-sheet, then at my dispensatory schools, and lastly at my salary as curate; and saw at once, that I could not long keep these things going myself, and I really knew not where to calculate on supplies from others. Here the demon of unbelief suggested, "Would it not have been wiser had you retained your half-pay ?" For a little while I staggered through unbelief, but I was soon enabled "to trust and not be afraid." Believing, as I did, that these things were necessary for my people, and likely to promote the divine glory, I left it with my Heavenly Father to provide the silver and the gold, if it were his will these things should go on. And now, reader, I can look back on these gone-by days, and say, that the Lord did so supply all my needs, that not one of these little undertakings was suffered to fall to the ground for lack of support! Often did help come much in the same way as on the occasion particularized, and often it came from I knew not whence, nor ever have known. Thus have I been made to see, even unto the present day, that it is a good thing to trust in the Lord. By experience I know, that He hath supplied, and by faith I do believe that "He will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

CHAPTER XXI.

"THOU SHALT REMEMBER ALL THE WAY WHICH THE LORD THY GOD LED THEE."-Deut. viii. 2.

66 IN ALL THY WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, AND HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS."-Prov. iii. 6.

IN reviewing the way by which I have been led since I quitted the navy, and the various paths of mercies and providential events through which I have been conducted, mercies at all times unmerited, and events, as to many of them, once altogether unthought of,—I am here called on to notice and praise the Lord for the privilege of having been enabled, in my quiet retreat on shore, in some measure, to serve the best interest of those men I left afloat; though I have to condemn myself for allowing much time to pass away before any efforts were made in their behalf. It is true, that the first four years of my time on the land were fully and anxiously taken up in studies for, and in the duties of the ministerial office. Yet I fear I cannot justify myself. The enemy of souls, no doubt, suggested, "that I had now no further concern with seamen, being fully engaged in other duties, and living where such men were unknown and unthought of." In entertaining these ideas, I fell into that ungrateful apathy which had so long pervaded

the hearts of almost all classes of the inland inhabitants of our nation-an apathy as criminal and disgraceful as any thing which stands on record to the discredit of a British population. For it had held back, even the people of God, from all sympathy, from all activity, and from all hope concerning those meritorious, but debased and ignorant men. At length, however, God put it into the hearts of a few of his servants to attempt various things for their moral improvement; or rather to assist and encourage that work which he himself had begun among them. Hence, in London and various sea-port and other towns, societies were formed, and various measures adopted for instructing and christianizing our seamen. Public meetings were also called to state their claims, to explain their real circumstances, and to enlist the best feelings of the nation in their moral welfare. These measures have been owned of God to the awakening of a portion of the country to a sense of their duty in this particular, as well as to the real spiritual benefit of many hundreds of our seamen themselves. So that, if the whole mass of our present maritime population be compared with that of twenty-five years ago, when I assembled a few of them in the C's wing for religious instruction, there will appear sufficient matter to justify our exclaiming. "This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." It was my privileged lot to take a small part in that day of small things when the power of God began to be known in the conversion of several, and in the awakening of many more in our fleets, to a sense of the value of their souls. This work proceeded after I left them until the general peace, at

which time more than eighty of our ships of war had a little band of praying men on board; while the people on shore, even ministers and pious characters, were unconnected with and ignorant of the matter. When these christian seamen were paid off from the navy, and scattered through the ships of our merchants, they attracted the attention of pious landsmen, who now, for the first time, began to think it not altogether in vain to attempt something in behalf of sailors: and, as was before observed, various plans and measures were adopted for their spiritual benefit. Still there was a great dearth of books of a description suited to their prejudices, habits, taste, and standard of knowledge; and knowing how difficult, or rather impossible, it is for a mere landsman to write, so as to meet these peculiarities with a good hope of success, I felt it my duty to make the attempt, and eventually wrote seven tracts, and gave them to that useful institution, the Religious Tract Society, established in London, in 1799, and one for the Church of England Tract Society, instituted in Bristol, in 1811.* By which societies considerably more than half a million copies of these humble works have been circulated; and instances of the divine blessing on their perusal have not been wanting. But as the great mass of the inhabitants of the interior were as ignorant of the real state of our seamen, as these seamen were ignorant

The Bristol tract is called "The Prayer Book at Sea." Those circulated by the London Society are "Conversation in a Boat"-" The Two Shipmates"-"The Seaman's Friend"-"The Seaman's Spy Glass"-"The Smugglers"-" The Wreckers," and "The Royal Review."

of the knowledge and fear of God, it became necessary to address them, which I was enabled to do from time to time through the medium of our religious periodicals; especially the Christian Guardian, or Church of Eng land Magazine; as well as on a few occasions to advocate their cause from platforms and pulpits. Meanwhile other and more able friends had zealously embarked in this good work, so that considerable attention was excited both among the seamen themselves, and those who hitherto had neither understood their case or interested themselves in their behalf. I shall ever consider it a great privilege to have thus been permitted and enabled to throw in my mite of services here; as it has convinced some who doubted the propriety of my leaving the navy, that I could not so effectually have served my old companions by continuing in their immediate ranks, as I have been enabled to do since I quitted them. Undoubtedly, the time I passed at sea gave me habits and experience suited to the every-day wear and tear of real life, which I could not have acquired in a college -and, on the other hand, what I have passed through since I left the sea has imparted certain advantages not to be acquired afloat: so that in the retrospect I see abundant cause to thank and praise the Lord for both these dispensations of his providence-for thus leading me by ways I once knew not-by such, as once, I never thought of being directed in.

Connected very closely with the above subject of praise and thanksgiving is another, equally unexpected by me, for many years of my life, and at every recollection of which I feel unabated surprise, namely, that I