PAM. 
 
 SERMt 
 
 “©he Jlht# and the JRfe. 
 
 BY 
 
 §Uv. William Utaget* pchatite, §.§. 
 

ANNUAL SERMON 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 flraepisaFi Seamen's Friend SeeiefeY, 
 
 AT ITS 
 
 EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY, 
 
 Sunday, October 4, 1908, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 Rev. WILLIAM ROGERS RICHARDS, D.D. 
 
 IN THE 
 
 BRICK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW YORK. 
 
 AMERICAN SEAMEN’S FRIEND SOCIETY, 
 
 76 WALL STREET, NEW YORK. 
 
 » 
 
 1908 . 
 
J 
 
 
“Sh* £hi|j and the pfe.” 
 
 “ And now I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of any 
 man’s life among you, but of the ship.” — Acts xxvii: 22. 
 
 What a strange estimate of values that was, that one man should 
 be held worth so much more than the whole ship ; for the ship, it ap- 
 pears, was to be lost ; but the promise is that the man shall be saved; 
 therefore “be of good cheer.” That was the speaker’s estimate ; did 
 all his hearers accept the same estimate, I wonder ? 
 
 It was a great corn ship bound for Rome ; ship of a thousand tons 
 burden, very likely, and bearing a precious cargo of wheat for that 
 hungry population. As they were sailing along the southern shore 
 of Crete, a fierce storm had fallen upon them ; and under its violence 
 they had now been drifting westward for many days, the great ship 
 leaking worse and worse, till hope of escape was nearly gone. Be- 
 sides the cargo of wheat the ship carried men, some two hundred and 
 seventy-six of them, different sorts of men ; the owner himself was 
 on board, the master, and the sailors, a centurion and company of 
 soldiers ; and besides these some prisoners bound for Rome. 
 
 It was one of these prisoners who spoke the words that I have taken 
 for a text ; and I am wondering how far his estimate of values com- 
 mended itself to his various fellow-voyagers. “ Sirs, I exhort you 
 to be of good cheer ; for there shall be no loss of any man’s life 
 among you, but of the ship.” In other words, the ship and all the pre- 
 cious cargo in it were not to be compared in value with one human 
 life. 
 
 That was how this prisoner Paul viewed the matter ; for if it had 
 been the other way, if it had been a man’s life that was to be lost 
 and the ship saved, that had been another story ; — one man’s life lost, 
 and the ship saved ; one poor fellow slipping overboard, struggling 
 in the waves, crying pitifully for help, drifting astern, gone. If 
 Paul had been looking on at such a spectacle you would not have 
 heard him saying, “ Be of good cheer, sirs, for only a life is lost, and 
 
4 
 
 the ship is safe.” Why, no ; I think we should have seen him rather 
 rushing to the rail gazing after the poor wretch, throwing out to him 
 anything he could lay his hands on that might keep him afloat ; and 
 shouting to the pilot to come about and lower the boat ; himself 
 jumping into the sea, if he knew how to swim ; anything to save that 
 one imperiled life. And if all failed, and if now all hope of saving 
 him had gone, if the man had sunk finally out of sight, then the 
 rest of the day would have been darkened, I think, for this Christian 
 Paul. But when it was only the ship that was to be lost, while every 
 soul on her would bo saved ; — that kind of loss would not trouble his 
 appetite much, or his sleep either. “ Be of good cheer, sirs,” he 
 cries. Eow I say, I wonder how far Paul’s fellow-voyagers agreed 
 with this view of the subject. The owner of the ship, for instance. 
 This would be strange doctrine for him. “ Good cheer, sir, not a 
 soul lost, only the ship.” “ Only the ship, but that is all I have in 
 the world. To lose my ship will leave me beggared ; and all this pre- 
 cious cargo of wheat that was to make my everlasting fortune in 
 hungry Home — all of it sunk ; and the fool tells me to be of good 
 cheer because a lot of good-for-nothing sailors and prisoners get safe 
 ashore. Every soul of them might go to the bottom, and welcome, 
 if only I could save my ship.” I strongly suspect that was the own- 
 er’s view of the matter. Paul’s doctrine would be strange doctrine 
 to him. 
 
 And the sailors — well we know how they felt about it. For they 
 tried to make off in the night in the lifeboat, and leave ship, and 
 owner, and soldiers, and prisoners, and every other soul on board to 
 go to the bottom together. That was the doctriae of this particular 
 crew of sailors — they cared not much for men’s lives, unless it hap- 
 pened to be their own. 
 
 And the soldiers ? Well, we know that when the ship was beached 
 a few hours later, and began to break up in the surf, the soldiers 
 proposed killing all the prisoners lest some of them escape. Accord- 
 ing to the soldiers’ doctrine a man, as such, was worth very little. It 
 would have soemod to those soldiers the height of absurdity to sug- 
 gest that one friendless prisoner might be worth moro than the whole 
 Bhip. I doubt whether Paul would have found many subscribers to 
 his novel creed in that ship’s company. 
 
 Suppose some pleasant day with fair wind blowing, everything 
 drawing, ship holding her course, some luckless passenger had slip- 
 
5 
 
 ped and gone over, and a big shark following in the wake had snap- 
 ped him up — why, those soldiers would hardly have stopped the throw- 
 ing of their dice long enough to look over and see what became of 
 him. The man at the helm gives one quick glance astern when he 
 hears the splash and then turns his eyes forward again to the sail. 
 “ Only a worthless prisoner smne. The ship is safe, thank Jove. One 
 life does not count.” But to lose the ship and her cargo, and all 
 their own personal effects ; to be spilled into the surf, and washed up 
 half drowned on the beach, and pulled ashore by a lot of barbarians ; 
 and spend the winter storm-bound on a little island. What sort of a 
 prospect was that ? I doubt whether there was another soul on board 
 — unless two or three of Paul’s fellow-Christians — who felt and be- 
 lieved, as he felt and believed, that the humblest human life was 
 worth more than the biggest ship and the richost cargo. 
 
 That would have been strange doctrine anywhere in that First Cen- 
 tury, afloat or ashore. Human life was cheap in those days. An 
 army would march over the enemy’s country and massacre the whole 
 population, if it served their purpose. One baby more or less did not 
 count for much in their estimate of values. Or if it served their pur- 
 pose better, they would sell the whole population into slavery for so 
 much gold. 
 
 It seemed quite right to a Roman of those days that a troop of 
 prisoners, or of gladiators, should be sot hacking each other to pieces 
 in the arena, to amuse the crowd on a holiday. It was a cheap show, 
 fit for a public holiday. So this was strange doctrine then anywhere 
 afloat or ashore, to say that human life was the one most precious 
 commodity in the world, the one priceless commodity — any human 
 life, every human life, “ Jew or Greek, male or female, barbarian, 
 Scythian, bond or free,” — that every such life was worthy of a king’s 
 ransom. Strange doctrine, in that First Century of the Christian 
 Era ; but it was the Christian doctrine ; and Paul, since he became 
 a Christian, had been mastering that doctrine, and now this was the 
 doctrine that he was always announcing and commending to his 
 neighbors ; — as when once he said : “ Destroy not by thy meat him 
 for whom Christ died ” ; or here in the storm when he cries : “ Good 
 cheer, the big ship is doomed, but every life shall be saved.” 
 
 This Christian doctrine concerning the value of human life was not 
 mastered at once even by all who called themselves Christians. In 
 later days armies of soldiers marching under the cross have some- 
 
times behaved chemselves as unchnstianiy as any of the old legions 
 of Rome. Not many generations ago in Christian England herself I 
 seem to have read how a mother might be hanged who had snatched 
 a loaf of bread for her starving child. “ 0 God, that bread should 
 be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap.” In the past I think it 
 must be confessed that much of our legislation, even in Christendom, 
 has been shaped with reference to the saving of the ship, irrespective 
 of what becomes of the human lives. 
 
 Indeed, is your own conscience quite easy as to your own personal 
 attitude toward this question in some of its applications ? Put your- 
 self in the place of the owner of Paul’s ship ; could you have cheer- 
 fully let the craft go to the bottom rather than sacrifice the life of 
 one of the prisoners. Or even put yourself in the place of one of the 
 passengers on that ship— could you have cheerfully let the craft go 
 to the bottom, carrying all your baggage with it, breaking up your 
 own plans for the year, imprisoning you for a dreary winter on a 
 wretched island, rather than sacrifice the life of one poor prisoner or 
 sailor. 
 
 Or suppose the ship were a railroad company or manufactory, and 
 you a stockholder in it, which do you care mo3t about, the size of 
 your own dividends, or the life of some brakeman coupling a train 
 of freight cars ; or the effect of the factory work on the lives of the 
 men and women at work in it. Tiie world has been slow in master- 
 ing this great Christian doctrine which Paul proclaimed nineteen 
 hundred years ago so clearly that it could be heard above the roar of 
 the storm concerning the relative value of ships and of men, of hu- 
 man property and human lives. Wo confess that we have not mast- 
 ered it yet. 
 
 No ; but at least we do begin to recognize it as the doctrine that 
 will have to be mastered. We do begin to grow uneasy and ashamed 
 at our stupidity over this groat losson ; and that it is something to be 
 thankful for. If we are far from knowing tho losson yet, we begin at 
 least to suspect that neither the tendencies of society about us, nor 
 the consciences that God has put within us, will over leave us at peace 
 until that great lesson has been learned. I refuse to speak on this 
 subject to-day in tho tones of a pessimist. However the old darkness 
 still surrounds and covers us, yet tho world is looking toward tho 
 light, and moving toward the light. For we do begin to feel the dig- 
 nity and sacrednoss of men over ship3 ; of human livos over material 
 
7 
 
 things. Civilized society can no longer tolerate the selling of men 
 or women for gold. A Roman Senator could calmly pay his admission 
 and go in with entire self-respect to watch mon kill each other in the 
 arena for the public amusement ; — a Roman Senator could ; a United 
 States Senator could not. Whether or not the instruction comes from 
 mon who call themselves Christians — it may come from men who re- 
 pudiate that title ; it may come from labor organizations, it may come 
 from some radical leader of social discontent; but the instruction is 
 coming, and in such a way that we cannot close our ears to it, that 
 man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he pos- 
 sessed, but rather in certain qualities inherent in the man himself ; 
 in other words, that the vital interests of this world always claim 
 precedence over any kind of property intorest3 ; that “the valuo of 
 property itself, as many are now insisting, must be reckoned in terms 
 of the human industry and human devotion that have gone into it, 
 and then of the vital human betterment that may be got out of it ; ” — 
 this last is a free quotation from Karl Marx, but, wherever it comes 
 from, it is good Christian doctrine ; — in short, that living mon be- 
 long on a plane of worth altogether above that of dead things ; that 
 the value of the ship is not to be named in the same breath with that 
 of the lives. That is the groat Christian principle — Paul’s principle, 
 which he had learned from Jesus Christ. And though few have mast- 
 ered the principle yet, though many have barely made a start at ac- 
 quiescing in it, yet the whole world begins to suspect that the prin- 
 ciple is sound, and that some day it will have to be written large into 
 all the laws of nations and all the creeds and customs of men. 
 
 I am determined this morning to speak on this entire subject hope- 
 fully. I am glad to adopt the very phrase of the apostle and cry, 
 “ Sirs, be of good cheer.” The signs about us are so many that 
 the day is breaking, the day of man’s enfranchisement. Have you 
 ever interested yourself at all in the wide-spread agitation against 
 child labor, for instance, or any of the other reforms of the hour 
 which are aimed against the tyranny of property interest over human 
 interests ? The world’s property, it is true, goes on swelling ; we 
 have bigger ships to-day than any Roman sailor ever dreamed of. 
 But we begin to see that all this property ought to be made to keep 
 its place. Let me recall a single incident reported in our newspapers 
 — perhaps a year ago — how a great liner was crossing the Atlantio, 
 her cabins full of passengers, all impatient to see the end of their 
 

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 journey. How she carried mail on the prompt delivery of which de- 
 pended the business interests of two continents. But one day in 
 mid-ocean it became known that far down in the hold of this Bhip 
 one poor stoker had been stricken with a disease of which some of us 
 know the terror ; and that nothing could save him but an immediate 
 operation ; and that the surgeon reported that it was impossible for 
 him to attempt the task while the vessel wa3 quivering under the 
 blows of the great engine that was driving her through the waves ; 
 and how by the command of the captain, and with the cheerful ac- 
 quiescence of very soul on board, that great engine stopped ; and the 
 swift liner stood still in mid-ocean, and the commercial interests of 
 two continents might wait for one full hour, while skilful brain and 
 fingers were utilizing the latest attainments of surgical science to 
 save the life of that one nameless shoveler of coal. Oh, if Paul had 
 sailed as passenger on that ship, nobody need urge him to be of good 
 cheer ; you could not suppress his exultation, for he would see his 
 own great doctrine getting itself established at last, that the man’s 
 life counts for more than the ship. 
 
 Wo come together in this place to-day to thank God for another 
 and still more significant token of the triumph of the same great 
 Christian principle. Eighty years ago there was organized in this 
 city a society of men deeply interested in the shipping of the world. 
 There had been other societies already in existence that were inter- 
 ested in the shipping of the world, and in various ways, whether as 
 builders, or owners, or insurers, or as exporters or importers of goods ; 
 — useful societies, many of them, essential in their way ; but all these 
 had been apt to concern themselves mostly with the value of the ship, 
 or else with the value of the material cargo of the ship. The society 
 organized here eighty years ago proposed to concern itself more es- 
 pecially with the value of the lives. In its view the men who man- 
 ned the ship constituted the one highest interest. This society came 
 into boing under the constraint of Paul’s doctrine that, when all is 
 
 [ said, it remains true that the highest interest of the ship is not the 
 ship itself, but rather the life ; the living man in the ship. That 
 view of the subject had been generally overlooked. There had been 
 ways of insuring the ship or its cargo, but for a long time no one 
 seemed to have thought to inquire how they should insure the ship- 
 men. Here was an organization which would make that its one aim, for 
 eighty years ago, in the year 1828, was organized a body which named 
 
 I 
 
9 
 
 itself the “ American Seamen's Friend Society,” friend of the 
 men of the sea. 
 
 I ought to say, however, that that date and that organization do 
 not mark quite the earliest beginnings of the movement which we cel- 
 ebrate. Let me read you a sentence or two from certain reports of 
 the Society itself which have been kindly put into my hands. “ In 
 the summer of 1816,” (twelve years earlier than 1828) “some of the 
 members of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City (the 
 Rev. Gardiner Spring’s) were in the habit of holding prayer meetings 
 in the lower part of the city in the hope of benefiting such classes of 
 the population as did not frequent public worship. Some of these 
 meetings in Water Street were attended by a few sailors and by other 
 persons connected with the shipping. This suggested the idea of ap- 
 pointing a specific meeting for seamen ; and the first one of the kind 
 was held in a house then standing at the corner of Front Street and 
 Old Slip. The meeting was successful and was followed by others 
 of a similar character which awakened a considerable interest, and 
 led to a participation therein by Christians of other churches and de- 
 nominations.” 
 
 That was in 1816. Two years later, in 1818, the movement re- 
 sulted in the formation of the New York Port Society, which still 
 carries on its beneficent work. Ten years later, in further develop- 
 ment of the same movement, was formed the American Seamen’s 
 Friend Society. The Brick Church esteems it an honor to have 
 had even thus much to do with the first starting of the movement ; 
 and counts it a privilege to participate in the present anniversary. 
 
 I must not detain you at this time for any rehearsal of the details 
 of later history ; how the work of the Society has gone on extending 
 till its blessed influences are felt around the world. Bat even with 
 the hastiest glance over the record of the eighty years one’s eye is 
 caught by very significant items : 
 
 1850. — “ Beginning of Sailors’ Home in New York City.” 
 
 “Agent appointed to visit the lakes.” 
 
 1831. — “ Origin of the New Orleans work.” 
 
 1832. — “ First chaplain sent to Sandwich Islands, also to Havre, 
 
 France.” 
 
 1835. — “Rev. 0. M. Johnson dispatched to Brazil.” 
 
 1837. — “Work begun in Cronstadt, Russia, Calcutta, Singapore.” 
 
 I will simply read some of the names of places to which from time 
 
10 
 
 to time the Society extended her blessed influence : Cape of Good 
 Hope, Cadiz, Australia, Gottenburg and Stockholm, Amsterdam, Can- 
 ton, Chile, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Callao, Antwerp, Shanghai, 
 Portland, Ore., Copenhagen, Hamburg. And that is only the begin- 
 ning of the list. 
 
 There is one item that I notice for the year 1893 : “ Library No. 
 10,000 sent to sea.” 
 
 One quickly catches the trend of such a history. Here at last was 
 an institution, destined to be of world-wide influence, and concerned 
 with the shipping of the world, but whose foremost interest was to 
 be not in the dead ship or cargo, but in the living shipmen ; not the 
 thing, but the man ; that by all means, and at all cost, the man 
 should be saved, body and soul, for time and for eternity. Let them 
 save the ship too, if they can, it is worth saving, when you think 
 what service it can render humanity ; — but most of all save the man. 
 That, I take it, is the motto of the American Seamen’s Friend So- 
 ciety. And so as Christians we may well come together to-day, all 
 of us, whether or not we have been closely identified with this par- 
 ticular Society, to celebrate its organization, and to thank God for 
 its many years of honorable history. It stands as one more most en- 
 couraging token of the world-wido progress of this great Christian 
 reform, the coming triumph of the great Christian principle, that 
 “the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment”; that the 
 man is worth more than all the things that he can own ; that what- 
 ever becomes of the ship the one great business of Christian society is 
 to make sure that we save the lives. That is the meaning of our cole- 
 bration to-day. Because of what has been we thank God and take 
 courage ; and we pray God that the good work may go on. 
 

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