"That was an extraordinary spectacle we have just witnessed," observed Cousin Silas, as Jerry and I were holding on to the rails near him as the strange brig disappeared, hidden by the dark foam-topped waves which leaped up between her and us. "Never heard anything like it before, perhaps you will say, lads. Now, in my opinion, you have heard of many things exactly like it before. What is the world doing at the present moment? What has it been doing since the flood? Men have been quarrelling, and fighting, and knocking each other on the head, while ruin has been encircling them around, from that time to the present. We were sent into this world to perform certain duties--to help each other in doing them--to love God and to love each other. If we obey God, we are promised eternal happiness: if we disobey him, eternal punishment. We are told that this world must come to an end, and that all things in it will be destroyed. What do men do? They shut their eyes to all these truths. They live as if they and everything in the world were to last for ever--as if there were no God to obey and love; and, like the madmen we have just seen, they separate into parties, hating each other, and fight, and quarrel, and deface God's image in which he made man, utterly regardless of the terrible doom awaiting them--just as the people aboard that ship were doing." "The simile would not have occurred to me, Mr Brand," observed Jerry. "I see it now, though. Still, if people do as little harm as they can, it is all right." "No, no, lad. Don't for a moment indulge in such an erroneous, foolish notion, put into people's heads by the spirit of evil himself, to deceive them. I tell you we were sent into the world not only to abstain from sin, but to do as much good as we can--to actively employ ourselves--to look about us to see how we can do good,--not to wait till some opportunity occurs that may never come. But we are certain to find some good work if we look for it; and if your heart is right towards God, and you earnestly wish to serve him, and not the world, and not yourself, he will point out to you what to do."