The Whale and His Captors; or, The Whaleman's Adventures by Cheever Henry T.; Madison Robert D.; Bousquet Mark

Author:Cheever, Henry T.; Madison, Robert D.; Bousquet, Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of New England

Slacken not sail yet

At inlet or island;

Straight for the beacon steer,

Straight for the highland:

Crowd all the canvass on,

Cut through the foam—

Christian! cast anchor now—

Heaven is thy home!

XVI

A Plea in Behalf of the Sabbath for Whalemen

What says the prophet? let that day be bless’d

With holiness and consecrated rest.

Pastime and business both it should exclude,

And bar the door the moment they intrude;

Nobly distinguished above all the six,

By deeds in which the world must never mix.

Hear him again! he calls it a delight,

A day of luxury, observed aright;

When the glad soul, made heaven’s own willing guest,

Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast.

—Cowper.

The all-inclusive cause which perpetuates and lies at the bottom of Sabbath whaling, is that which upholds and furnishes the stimulus to almost all other forms of Sabbath breaking, the odious slave-trade, &c.—I mean the lust of lucre, that deified greedy Devil of gain that in the end troubleth his own house. Whaling captains and owners are seldom willing, for the honor of GOD or regard to his law, to forego the profits which they think accrue from Sabbath whaling; and therefore, once at sea on whaling ground, they are unwilling to stop and take breath for a long Lord’s day.

Oil got on the Sabbath burns as well, sells as well, and, they think, spends as well as oil got lawfully on week days. Not to use the Sabbath in their gainful business, they think, would be losing one seventh part of their time, neglecting one seventh of their chances, keeping them one seventh longer out, consuming one seventh more provisions, exhausting one seventh more of patience and spirits, and perhaps, in the end, leaving them with one seventh less of oil than ships that use all days alike, and one seventh less of every thing but a good conscience and the favor of God.

To balance these, we have only to offer, without swelling the list, as might easily be done, with other items, that keeping the Sabbath would be likely to make whalers three sevenths better and more respectable men, three sevenths more easy and peaceful in their minds, and one seventh the longer lived than those who persist in profaning God’s holy day; and it would make owners at home all the better Christians, or more likely subjects of the grace of God here, and with less to answer for at the great bar of judgment hereafter.

At present it is said by many whaling captains, that their owners absolutely require whaling on the Sabbath, as one of the conditions on which they give them command of their ships. It is also said that many of these ship-owners are members of evangelical churches in Nantucket, New Bedford, Fair Haven, Sag Harbor, New London, Warren, Newport, Stonington, and other places. Some owners say nothing to their captains on the subject; but if their ships do but return full, no inquiries are made how or on what days the oil was obtained.

Now and then a shrewd Yankee captain guesses that his pious owners have no objections to his taking oil when he can get it.

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