THE TOILERS 
 OF THE SEA 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. NEHEMIAH BOYNTON, D. D, 
 
ANNUAL 5LRMON 
 
 BLFORL 
 
 ^American teamen’s ^ricitb Society 
 
 AT ITS 
 
 L1GHTY-5LVLNTH ANNIVLR5ARY 
 
 SUNDAY, MAY 9th, 1915 
 
 BY THL 
 
 RLV. NLHLMIAH BOYNTON, D. D. 
 
 IN THL 
 
 CLINTON AVENUE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 THE AMERICAN SEAMEN’S FRIEND SOCIETY 
 76 WALL STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 1915 
 
THE TOILERS OF THE SEA 
 
 By NEHEMIAH BOYNTON, D. D. 
 
 Ps. 77: 19. “Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and 
 thy footsteps are not known.” 
 
 The meagre appreciation of the sea which has characterized the 
 world at large is rapidly being supplanted by the knowledge of its 
 importance as “sea power.” Many people have marvelled as to 
 God’s reason for flooding three-quarters of the earth’s surface with 
 water and like the man who declared that if he had made this awk- 
 ward world, health should have been catching instead of disease, so 
 there have been others whose plan of the universe would have in- 
 cluded no more sea ; no more wonders of the deep ; no ships stag- 
 gering to and fro like a drunken man ; no quiet harbors and no mad 
 foam-crested waves. How fortunate that God Himself made the 
 world and that the “spirit of God moved upon the surface of the 
 waters,” and that God said “let there be a firmament in the midst 
 of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters !” 
 
 It is probably the unconquerable nature of the sea, which has pre- 
 judiced humanity. The inefficiency of the human instrument bat- 
 tling against its storms ; the unrelentless cruelty of it, when once 
 helpless humanity is in its grip, and the far reach of it toward the 
 unknown, with its mystery and silence. The ships which sail away, 
 but never come back ; all these lend a sombre hue to that which 
 humanity seems to enjoy calling, “the salt, unplumbed, estranging 
 sea.” But what if the sea, so far from being an enemy, was a friend ; 
 what if it were a very good friend ; so good that the world is under 
 bonds to it impossible of satisfaction ; so good that while we mitigate 
 its terrors, and control its anger by our lighthouses and buoys ; by 
 our charts and compasses; by our liners and men-of-war; by our 
 international treaties and hospitalities, we would change our old-time 
 spirit of enmity to a modern gratitude and confess our advancing 
 knowledge of the significance of His footsteps, whose ways are in 
 the sea. 
 
 The sea is a boy’s friend. Of course there are fond mammas, 
 plenty of them, who as they say “so dread the water,” but they 
 forget that while the water not seldom ducks their boys, it very 
 seldom drowns them, and they are better off, safer physically and 
 morally, in trying their strength against the sea, filling their lungs 
 
with its bracing air, beholding its wonders and hearing the music of 
 the voice of God amid its thundering billows, than in riding across 
 country in automobiles with their smelling tanks, the quacking horns, 
 and their invitation to soft luxury and inactive lassitude. The sea is 
 the finest gymnasium for an active American boy, and parents who 
 are seriously engaged in the task of making men out of their lads, 
 will not be unwise in shunting their fear and dread, giving their boys 
 a boat, and taking the sea into partnership in their man-making 
 business. 
 
 The sea is the mother’s friend. How bare most homes would look 
 if stripped of the bric-a-brac and the essential furnishings which the 
 sailor has brought. How meagre the breakfast table, too, if the 
 linen cloth, the china, the fruit, the coffee, the sugar, and all else 
 which have traveled over sea to minister to family comfort, should 
 be eliminated. 
 
 The sea is the father’s friend. When it no longer becomes a com- 
 mon carrier, as is to some extent true to-day, immediately his busi- 
 ness registers the decline. Business lives by virtue of the sea. 
 
 The sea is the artist’s friend. The imagination revels in the sea, 
 and whether it expresses itself in music, or painting, or poetry, the 
 mood, the wistfulness and the mystery of the sea, is its daily manna. 
 Subtract the sea from the imagination, and immediately it becomes 
 “as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.” Poetry and prose 
 apart, with no riparian rights, would be barren as a deserted isle. 
 The sea is a gift to the imagination, of priceless value. Every one 
 of us is in his imagination a “Sea Gypsy.” 
 
 “I am wearied with the sunset 
 I am fretful with the bay 
 For the wander thirst is on me 
 And my soul is in Cathay. 
 
 There’s a schooner in the offing 
 With her topsails shot with fire 
 And my soul has gone aboard her 
 For the Island of Desire. 
 
 I must forth again to-morrow 
 And at midnight I shall be 
 Hull down on the trail of rapture 
 In the wonder of the sea.” 
 
 We are all of us poets in a way. There is a lilt and a rhythm in 
 us, every one. Who does not recall to-day his favorite nook by the 
 sea or his boat and tug hard against the cruel fate which binds him 
 to his toil when he would seek his loved waters ? Who does not sing 
 
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“I must go down to the seas again, 
 
 To the lonely sea and the sky, 
 
 And all I ask is a tall ship 
 And a star to steer her by. 
 
 And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sails shaking 
 And a gray mist on the sea’s face 
 And a gray dawn breaking. 
 
 I must go down to the seas again, 
 
 To the vagrant gypsy life 
 
 To the gull’s way and the whale’s way. 
 
 Where the wind ’s like a whetted knife, 
 
 And all I ask is a merry yarn 
 From a laughing fellow rover. 
 
 And quiet sleep and a sweet dream 
 When the long trick’s over.” 
 
 The sea is a friend of religion. A man whose faith is an experi- 
 ence rather than an exegesis, continually uses the symbol of the sea 
 for the expression of his soul passion. Take the sea out of the Bible, 
 and what a subtraction. If Jesus had never sat by the seaside; had 
 never entered into a boat and pushed from the shore; had never 
 been in a storm ; had never uttered the solacing words “Peace, be 
 still,” would not the Gospel be shorn of something of its adequacy, 
 robustness and finer meaning? Many a man has deposited his faith 
 for its expression in the metaphors of the sea. 
 
 “Once on the raging seas I rode. 
 
 The night was dark, the storm was loud. 
 
 The ocean yawned and rudely blowed 
 The wind that tossed my foundering bark. 
 
 Deep horror then my eyelids closed ; 
 
 Death struck, I ceased the tide to stem ; 
 
 When suddenly a star arose. 
 
 It was the Star of Bethlehem. 
 
 It was my guide, my light, my all. 
 
 It bade my dark forebodings cease. 
 
 And through the storm and danger’s thrall 
 It led me to the port of peace. 
 
 Now safely moored, my trial’s o’er, 
 
 I’ll sing first in night’s royal diadem. 
 
 Forever and forever more. 
 
 The star, the Star of Bethlehem. 
 
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Religion would indeed be impoverished if there were no sea whose 
 metaphors should be the vehicles of its longing, its aspiration and its 
 hope. 
 
 The sea is the patriot’s friend. It is his friend through its natural 
 defense and per contra, through its uniting power. The ideas of our 
 forefathers could never have prevailed except for the sea. There 
 was no adequate chance for them in England, nor in Holland, but 
 on the stern and rockbound coast, with three thousand miles of open 
 water between them and those who disputed their ideal, the oppor- 
 tunity was afforded for the growth, the maturity and the strengthen- 
 ing of those ideas, which to-day are gripping the heart of the world. 
 But not only for defence, the sea is also the great purveyor of ad- 
 vancing ideas. It is as true to-day, as it has always been historically, 
 that the progressive nations have not been the inland nations, but the 
 maritime nations. “It was never a Babylon or a Timbuctoo, or any 
 'city of the inland regions that was forward to change and improve- 
 ment. But it was a Tyre, queen of the sea ; a Carthage sending out 
 her ships beyond the pillars of Hercules to Britain and the northern 
 isles ; an Athens, and Alexandria — these were the seats of art and 
 thought and learning, and liberal improvement of every sort.” 
 
 The nation which has the longest coast line has the greatest human 
 opportunity. For it is through the interchange of ideas and of in- 
 dustries, of capital and of customs, that the world advances. A 
 pent up Utica may be smug enough, but it can never develop mer- 
 chants of Venice, for “the sails of commerce are the wings of truth,” 
 and it is the interchange of great ideas "which is the condition of 
 human advancement. 
 
 The greatest question before the world to-day, probably is the 
 question of who shall command the sea. Shall it be one nation, 
 which while building itself into maritime power has unquestionably 
 been a mighty benediction to the world at large ? Or has the time 
 arrived when an international guardianship of the sea shall secure its 
 freedom and benefaction to all the nations of the earth equally? No 
 nation can be more keenly interested in the mighty question than 
 America, whose interests apparently increasingly require that the 
 friendship of the sea may be made possible to all the nations of the 
 earth. But this question of the command of the sea, whatever the 
 immediate answer may be, inevitably secures for the sea, a new 
 appraisal and a re-affirmation of the essential nature of its relation- 
 ship to developing life. In man’s great struggle to subdue nature, 
 his tools have been the plough for the land, and the ship for the sea. 
 
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By developing his plough and his ship he has gradually secured his 
 mastery over the elements, but his plough would have been a petty 
 tool, save for the reinforcement of his ship and the land would have 
 still been a wilderness but for the deliverance and the development 
 afforded by the sea. 
 
 It is evident from what has been said, that with the growing 
 appreciation of the sea, the importance of the sailor as a human asset 
 must also be confessed. He is no inconsequential or insignificant 
 member of the human society. Since steam has revolutionized ocean 
 transportation, the sailor cult has broadened, bounded no longer 
 simply by the able-bodied seaman who can hand reef and steer, but 
 must include the engineers and the oilers, the stokers and the stew- 
 ards ; in fact, all on shipboard, whose team work contributes to the 
 efficiency and safety of the ship. This means the presence of the 
 skilled mechanic with his specialized mind and his superior crafts- 
 manship, and on the whole, lifting the sailor cult in efficiency and 
 importance. It is a singular fact that while the farmer with his 
 plough has been permitted to share adequately in his conquest of 
 nature, until to-day, he belongs to the properly compensated class 
 and the sailor has been largely overlooked as sharing the wealth he 
 has created. He is poorly paid for his work. His accommodations 
 are not too luxurious, and his place in human society more humble 
 far, than his abilities and achievements would suggest. Perhaps the 
 real reason for this is, that he is a sailor, a sea rover, a detached 
 spirit, while the farmer is a man of locality with a permanent home. 
 But in any event, no man brings such contributions to the world and 
 in return receives such meagre recompense, as does the sailor. His 
 calling makes great contribution to his life. His strength is estab- 
 lished by his opposition to wind and wave and his courage by the 
 conquest of adverse surroundings. New countries bring new sights 
 and new ideas, and thus his mind becomes quick and well stored. 
 Danger enlarges his sympathies so that he is probably the most 
 generous type of humanity in existence. He could never be shrewd 
 in a trade, but he could share what he had with a stranger, in a 
 manner to compel admiration. His whole character seems to be free 
 from those astringent qualities which make landsmen so sharp and 
 cunning and exacting, while into it seems to have been put something 
 of the boundlessness, the sufficiency and the royal camaraderie of the 
 tumultous and unmeasured ocean. Even his vices, horrible as vice 
 always is, have a certain blunt and out in the open quality about 
 them, which while offering no apology for them, makes them in a 
 
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way, understandable. They are very largely the uncontrolled reac- 
 tion in society of elemental instincts released from long and tantaliz- 
 ing solitude. When religious, he is the most simple hearted and whole- 
 some of spirits. Genuineness is his essential characteristic. He is 
 the last man in the world to ask for help ashore ; his independence 
 is absolute ; but he is the first man to need help, and no man is more 
 grateful for the consideration of his fellows, if it be offered not as a 
 pious dole of oily charity, but as a warm-hearted hand of friendliness. 
 He has ashore the needs of every other man; he wants something 
 for his body, something for his mind, and something for his soul. It 
 is this man-to-man ministry which for more than four score years 
 The American Seamen’s Friend Society has been offering the sailor. 
 We have placed our representatives at various ports in the world, 
 and without ostentation, calliopes or brass bands, have been doing 
 and are still doing a most essential work of interpreting the sympathy 
 of the landsman for his brother who follows the sea. To-day in 
 New York, there are twenty-six thousand men from our Navy, 
 ashore. In their blues, they are both natty and impressive ; they 
 comprise a great company, but they do not represent one-half the 
 daily average of sailors in New York City, for we have over fifty 
 thousand every day of the year along the water-front. What can we 
 do for him? First, he wants a place to eat, to sleep, to spend his 
 leisure hours. He wants a place to trade where his disabilties in bar- 
 gaining, will not be capitalized in the interests of the greedy store- 
 keeper, and where he can write a letter home. How little the world 
 realizes what writing a letter means to Unaccustomed people. He 
 wants a place where he can play an innocent game, smoke his pipe 
 and chat with his shipmates. To furnish such a place as this under 
 inspiring auspices, is no ignoble business. It is a great undertaking. 
 There are plenty of places which will furnish these, as decoys and 
 snares, but the number is not great which afford them out of whole- 
 some sympathy. 
 
 The sailor’s mind should not be a negligible quantity. Carlyle once 
 said, that it made a great difference whether the Indian in the Rocky 
 Mountains was beating his squaw in his tepee, or hunting bears, for 
 if he was beating his wife, the price of skins and furs would steadily 
 rise in London. So it makes a great difference what the sailor is 
 thinking about; what ideas are in the forecastle and the after-hatch 
 of his mind. Noble thoughts will lift his soul as really as that of any 
 other man, and ignoble thoughts will torpedo it. Since 1859, our 
 Society has been putting libraries on shipboard. To-day we have 
 
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three thousand libraries afloat. More than a thousand libraries have 
 been made accessible to our Navy boys in blue. They include books 
 of travel and romance, of science and biography, books for laughter 
 and books for thought, books for morals and books for religion, books 
 which make their appeal to the many-sided mind of the sailor, af- 
 fording him the same recreations and inspirations which good books 
 yield to us prosaic landsmen, and with the same chance of rousing in 
 him as in us “those thoughts that wake to perish never.” It is a 
 good investment of twenty dollars to furnish the man who travels 
 around the world, with diverting, entertaining, inspiring, clean 
 thoughts. 
 
 The soul of the sailor is human, too, like any other. It isn’t safe 
 to assume that because he is not a regular church attendant through 
 the exigencies of his calling, that his soul never speaks to him, and 
 that the still small voice never falls upon his attentive ear. He knows 
 the sting of a guilty conscience as well as anybody else, and feels the 
 longing for the pardoning love of God, as keenly as any other human 
 being. Kipling’s description of the old engineer McAndrews, who 
 when not busy with his engine when the sea was glass, and the winds 
 were zephyrs, talked with his own soul, is an exhibit of that feeling 
 of sinfulness and need which is in the hold of every sailor’s heart. 
 
 “What I ha’ seen since ocean steam began 
 
 Leaves me no doot for the machine : but what about the man ? 
 
 The man that counts, wi’ all his runs, one million mile o’ sea ; 
 
 Four time the span from earth to moon 
 
 How far, O Lord, from Thee ? 
 
 Marks ! I ha’ marks o’ more than burns — deep in my soul an’ black. 
 An’ times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes 
 back. 
 
 The sins o’ four and forty years, all up an’ down the seas. 
 
 Clack an’ repeat like valves half -packed ; 
 
 Forgie’s our trespasses.” 
 
 Nor can we forget a perfectly human experience of Mulholland 
 who repaired his broken contract with God ; forgetting God in 
 pleasant weather, Mulholland, like many other people, remembered 
 Him in storm and in presence of the terror of the tempest, made 
 great promises as the price of deliverance. But the roll of the sea 
 threw him violently against a stanchion injuring him most seriously, 
 making it necessary for him to 
 
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“Lay still for seven weeks convalescing of the fall, 
 
 An’ readin’ the shiny Scripture texts in the Seamen’s Hospital. 
 
 An’ I spoke to God of our Contract, an’ He says to my prayer ; 
 
 “I never puts on My ministers no more than they can bear. 
 
 “So back you go to the cattle boats an’ preach My Gospel there. 
 
 * _ * * * * 
 
 I didn’t want to do it, for I knew what I should get. 
 
 An’ I wanted to preach Religion, handsome an’ out of the wet. 
 
 But the Word of the Lord were lain on me, an’ I done what I was set. 
 
 An’ I sign for four pound ten a month and save the money clear. 
 An’ I am in charge of the lower deck, an’ I never lose a steer ; 
 
 An’ I believe in Almighty God an’ I preach His Gospel here.’’ 
 
 The sailor’s soul has equal need with every other in the Universe 
 and should have greater sympathy because of the inevitable relation- 
 ships of his life, which detract from, and somewhat restrict, the areas 
 of his spirit’s advantage. The American Seamen’s Friend Society 
 through its Missionaries, its Institutes, and its Chapels, strives to 
 touch the whole life of the sailor and render to him his due when 
 ashore, of human friendliness and sympathy. Our Sailors’ Home 
 and Institute on the western water-front in New York is his “com- 
 fort bag’’ ashore, and stands forever as the beacon light of our in- 
 terest in and love for the men who go down to the sea in ships and 
 do business in the great waters. 
 
 As a matter of requital for value received ; as a matter of strategy 
 for bringing in the Kingdom ; as a matter of love for the elevation of 
 individual life. The American Seamen’s Friend Society is worthy of 
 increasing Christian interest and Christian investment, for the foot- 
 steps of God are increasingly known as the world advances, of God, 
 “whose way is in the sea and whose path is in the great waters.” 
 
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