"But our worship is to praise and to pray to that God who protects us equally at sea as on shore," was Mr Vernon's mild reply. "It will be such that all denominations may join in it, and surely no one on board would wish to be without God's protection and help; yet, if we do not ask for it when we have the power, how can we expect to obtain it?" The captain could make no reply to this question, and though he went away grumbling, and would afford no assistance to the arrangements, he did not prevent Mr Henley from rigging an awning on deck, or oppose the assembling together of the passengers and some very few of the crew under it. The second mate, the doctor and I, and Spratt and Tommy Bigg, were the only ones of the ship's company who took the trouble to attend. Some kept away, they said, because the captain did not encourage the movement; and others had no better reason to offer than that as they never had had to attend services at sea, they did not know why they should now begin. Broom said that he didn't come to sea to have to go to church; and Sills remarked that, as the captain did not patronise the affair, he did not think it right for the officers to do so, and he wondered how we ventured to be so mutinous. Now, strange as it may seem, these are in no degree more absurd or more contemptible than the kind of excuses offered constantly by people on shore for not attending religious worship; in other words, for not offering up their meed of adoration, for not praying to that great and good Being from whom we all receive our existence and everything we enjoy in this world, and in whose presence and sight we can alone hope to enjoy happiness in the life to come. Mr Vernon, however, persevered; and Sunday after Sunday fresh members, if not converts, were added to his little congregation, till even Sills and the rough Waller, and the still rougher boatswain, occasionally appeared among them. We had, for the sake of obtaining the north-east trade-wind, kept closer to the coast of Africa than usual; and whether it was from keeping too much to the eastward, or that for some reason the wind did not reach that point, we found the breeze fail us, and the sails began to flap lazily against the masts. There we lay day after day with the hot sun beating down on our heads, making the pitch in the seams of the decks boil and bubble, and drawing up dense masses of steam from the damp and crowded berths below. One day observing the doctor looking graver than usual, I inquired, as he was passing along the deck, "What is the matter, doctor?" "Fever has broken out among these poor people, in consequence, it is pretty evident, of the measures I advised not having been taken at Madeira; and if something is not done to get the ship to rights, one-half of them may be carried off," he replied, with some bitterness in his tone. "What ought to be done?" I asked.