"I hope, Tom, things are not so bad as you fancy," said I. "We must pray to God, and trust in His mercy to save us. He has power to hold us up if He thinks fit; and I have no doubt, too, that your mother and mine are praying for us, and I feel sure that He will listen to their prayers, if He does not to those of such careless, thoughtless fellows as we are." "That's truth, Mr Hurry," put in old Grampus; "there's nothing like having a good mother to pray for one, depend on't. While my old mother lived, I always felt as how there was one who loved me, who was asking more for me than I dared ask for myself; and now she's gone aloft, I don't think she has forgotten her son, though I doubt if she would know his figure-head if she was to see him." "I cannot say exactly that. Grampus," said I, "though it looks to me like true philosophy; but one thing I do know--and that the Bible tells us plainly--that, if we will but trust and believe on Him, we have an Advocate with the Father, ever pleading for us, bad as we may have been--He who came into the world to save us, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He knows how to plead for us better than any earthly parent, either alive or in heaven, for He so loved us that He took our nature upon Him, and He knows all things, and knows our weaknesses and temptations, and want of opportunities of gaining knowledge." "That's true again, sir," observed Grampus; "that's what I calls right earnest religion--you'll pardon me for saying it, but to my mind the parsons couldn't give us better." I told Grampus I was glad of his good opinion, and we talked on for some time much in the same strain. I had gained more religious knowledge lately from poor Mercer, who, during the last weeks we had been together, had been very assiduous in impressing his own convictions on me. There are occasions like this which bring people of different ranks together, and which draw out the real feelings and thoughts of the heart, when all know that any moment may be their last; a slight increase of the gale, one heavier sea than usual, the starting of a plank may send them all to the bottom. The pride of the proudest is humbled, the fiercest man is made meek. Those who live on shore at ease, and are seldom or never exposed to danger or are in hazard of their lives, can scarcely understand these things; priding themselves on their education, rank or fortune, they look down on all beneath them as unworthy of their thoughts or care, and I verily believe that some of them fancy that a different Creator made them--that they were sent into the world for different objects, and that they will go to different heaven when they die--that is to say, if they ever think of dying, or ever trouble their heads about an hereafter. I have often wished to get those young gentlemen in just such a position as I was that night, and they could not fail to learn a lesson which they would remember to the end of their days.