The sailor who had let out the secret of John’s praying, was in a serious mood. He had taken a kind of sailor prejudice to Clark when he first came aboard, and manifested no disposition to be on terms of intimacy. This sailor, whom we will call Tom Halyard, (having forgotten his real name) had been sick for several days, and was neglected by his shipmates,--even those of his own mess, except Clark, who nursed him, obtained from the cook a little nourishing soup, and showed so much sympathy as to spoil all his prejudices and win his confidence. There is nothing like sympathy and kindness to work one’s way into the heart’s core of a true sailor. Taking advantage of a convenient interview in private, when he was beginning to recover, Clark had a long conversation with this man on personal religion, and the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Thomas Halyard had a pious mother, who in giving him some of the formal lessons prescribed by the English church, talked to him about his state by nature as a sinner in such a way as no one but a mother can talk. Tom’s mother died when he was a little boy. His father was a profane drunkard, and cared nothing for godliness, and hated God-fearing people. His repeated acts of outrage and abuse of the poor motherless boy, drove all filial feelings from his heart, and made him disgusted with his father’s brutal manners. He ran away while quite a youth, and went on board a ship. He soon learned the habits of a sailor, and could swear as profanely and drink as full an allowance of grog as the best of them in the ship. Yet there were moments when the image of his mother, and especially her dying words to him, and prayer and praise to God, would come with power on his memory. He had once been sick when he was a little child, and his kind mother nursed him, placed her hand on his feverish brow, and spoke words of kindness and love in his ear, which he could never forget. The kindness and conversation of Clark, during his recent illness, had broken through the crust that the world and a wicked life had encased his softer nature in, and unsealed the fountain. Tom wept like a child as he lay in his hammock, and listened to the simple teaching of his brother sailor, and heard him read lessons of instruction from the Book of God.