With chaplains, the clerical members of the naval households, Perry’s relations were those of sympathy, cordiality and appreciation. About the opening of the century, chaplains were ranked as officers, and divine service was made part of the routine of ship life on Sundays. The average moral and intellectual grade of the men who drew pay, and were rated as “chaplains” in the United States Navy, was not very high until 1825, when a new epoch began under the Honorable Samuel L. Southard. This worthy Secretary of the Navy established the rule that none but accredited ministers of the gospel, in cordial relations with some ecclesiastical body, should be appointed naval chaplains. From this time onward, with rare exceptions, those holding sacred office on board American men-of-war have adorned and dignified their calling. Until the time of Perry’s death, there had been about eighty chaplains commissioned. With such men as Charles E. Stewart, Walter Colton, George Jones, Edmund C. Bittenger, Fitch W. Taylor, Orville Dewey, and Mason Noble,—whose literary fruits and fragrant memories still remain—Perry always entertained the highest respect, and often manifested personal regard. For those, however, in whom the clerical predominated over the human, and mercenary greed over unselfish love of duty, or who made pretensions to sacerdotal authority over intellectual freedom, or whose characters fell below their professions, the feelings of the bluff sailor were those of undisguised contempt.