Discipline and Other Sermons | Page 7

with the vicissitudes of climate, and the terrible and
seemingly miraculous diseases which change of climate engenders. He has had to fight
Nature; and to conquer her, if he could, by understanding her; by observing facts, and by
facing facts. He dared not, like a scholar in his study, indulge in theories and fancies
about how things ought to be. He had to find out how they really were. He dared not say,
According to my theory of the universe this current ought to run in such a direction; he
had to find out which way it did actually run, according to God's method of the universe,
lest it should run him ashore. Everywhere, I say, and all day long, the seaman has to
observe facts and to use facts, unless he intends to be drowned; and therefore, so far from
being a superstitious man, who refuses to inquire into facts, but puts vain dreams in their
stead, the sailor is for the most part a very scientific-minded man: observant, patient,
accurate, truthful; conquering Nature, as the great saying is, because he obeys her.
But if seamen have been forced to be scientific, they have been equally forced to be
religious. They that go down to the sea in ships see both the works of the Lord, and also
His wonders in the deep. They see God's works, regular, orderly, the same year by year,
voyage by voyage, and tide by tide; and they learn the laws of them, and are so far safe.
But they also see God's wonders--strange, sudden, astonishing dangers, which have, no
doubt, their laws, but none which man has found out as yet. Over them they cannot
reason and foretell; they can only pray and trust. With all their knowledge, they have still
plenty of ignorance; and therefore, with all their science, they have still room for religion.
Is there an old man in this church who has sailed the seas for many a year, who does not
know that I speak truth? Are there not men here who have had things happen to them, for
good and for evil, beyond all calculation? who have had good fortune of which they
could only say, The glory be to God, for I had no share therein? or who have been saved,
as by miracle, from dangers of which they could only say, It was of the Lord's mercies
that we were not swallowed up? who must, if they be honest men, as they are, say with
the Psalmist, We cried unto the Lord in our trouble, and he delivered us out of our
distress?
And this it is that I said at first, that no men were so fit as seamen to solve the question,
where science ends and where religion begins; because no men's calling depends so much
on science and reason, and so much, at the same time, on Providence and God's merciful
will.
Therefore, when men say, as they will,--If this world is governed by fixed laws, and if we
have no right to ask God to alter his laws for our sakes, then what use in prayer? I will
answer,--Go to the seaman, and ask him what he thinks. The puzzle may seem very great
to a comfortable landsman, sitting safe in his study at home; but it ought to be no puzzle
at all to the master mariner in his cabin, with his chart and his Bible open before him, side
by side. He ought to know well enough where reason stops and religion begins. He ought
to know when to work, and when to pray. He ought to know the laws of the sea and of the
sky. But he ought to know too how to pray, without asking God to alter those laws, as
presumptuous and superstitious men are wont to do.
Take as an instance the commonest of all--a storm. We know that storms are not caused
(as folk believed in old time) by evil spirits; that they are natural phenomena, obeying
certain fixed laws; that they are necessary from time to time; that they are probably, on
the whole, useful.

And we know two ways of facing a storm, one of which you may see too often among the
boatmen of the Mediterranean--How a man shall say, I know nothing as to how, or why,
or when, a storm should come; and I care not to know. If one falls on me, I will cry for
help to the Panagia, or St. Nicholas, or some other saint, and perhaps they will still the
storm by miracle. That is superstition, the child of ignorance and fear.
And you may have seen what comes of that temper of mind. How, when the storm comes,
instead of order, you have confusion;