The results of his three and a half years' absence from home are briefly these: the first season in the Arctic, in the Citizen, he obtained twenty-six hundred barrels of oil, which were wholly lost when the ship was cast away; seventy barrels of sperm were left at the islands, which he took on his outward-bound passage--this was saved; nine months and eight days among the natives, and taken off in July; the second season on board of other ships, in the capacity of guest and passenger; the third season in the Northern Light, in the Ochotsk Sea, where he obtained twenty-four hundred barrels of oil. Thus, in misfortune, there was still a good share of prosperity. Not only was one cargo lost, but it was nearly replaced again by another in the ordinary time for which ships are fitted out. But the greatest and crowning mercy of all was, in returning once more, with such good health, from so many dangers, exposures, and perils which have attended the present voyage. Mr. John W. Norton arrived home in October, 1855; Mr. John P. Fisher, and Mr. Abram Osborn, Jr., arrived home in April, 1856;--making the time since they sailed from New Bedford, October, 1851, four years for the first, and four and a half years for the last two. CHAPTER XIII. The Ocean.--The Seaman's Home.--Confidence of the Mariner in his Ship.--Shipwreck.--Moral and religious Claims of Seamen. --The Spirit of the Age.--Interest in the Mariners' Meeting. --Seaport Places.--Sudden Intelligence.--Seamen remembered elsewhere.--Ships supplied with Books.--Bible and Tract Societies.--Good seed sown.--Field for Usefulness.--The American Seaman.--Concert of Prayer.--All interested.--The most important Reform for Seamen. Whatever pertains to seamen in their adventures, explorations, privations, and disasters, never fails to be of interest to all classes in the community. The ocean is a vast and mysterious world in itself; a world of mighty waters, grand, sublime; an image of eternity, a scene of wonders and terrors, which no mortal tongue can adequately describe. Man, with his frail bark, borne on its ever restless and heaving bosom, is but a mere particle on the surface of the boundless expanse. Those, however, whose "home is on the deep," inured both to its smiles and frowns, are familiar with this mode of life, and thus become daily conversant with its varied phases around them. With a good ship, firm deck beneath his feet, well manned, plenty of sea room, the experienced mariner fears but little the rising wind or the surging main.