attempting to scuttle ships, it was generally concluded that the occasion being one of peril, should be allowed to pass without any stronger demonstration of reproach--as it might excite retaliation. CHAPTER V THE SEAMAN'S RELIGION Nothing is more comic than the sailor's aversion to the person nautically recognised as the "sky-pilot." I have known men risk imprisonment for desertion, on hearing that a parson was going the voyage, or that the vessel was to sail on a Friday. If any of them were asked their reason for holding such opinions, they would no doubt make a long, rambling statement of accidents that had happened, and the wild wrath that follows in the wake of a ship sailing on the forbidden day! These prejudices still survive in a modified form. The younger generation of seamen do not view the presence of the parson on board their ship with any strong objection. In many cases he is rather welcomed than otherwise. But the last generation had a strong tradition, which could not be subdued, that no clerical gentleman should be looked upon with favour as a passenger. The boycott was sometimes carried out against him during the voyage with unrelenting cruelty. Ever since the Lord commanded Jonah, the son of Amittai, to arise and go to Nineveh, and the Hebrew preacher took passage aboard the ship of Tarshish instead, there has been trouble. The senseless antipathy has been handed down the ages, and the legacy comes from a shameless gang who were cowardly assassins, from the skipper downward! Poor Jonah! The tempest did not unnerve _him_; for, while the other drivelling creatures were chucking their wares overboard, he slept peacefully, until the bully of the crowd, and no doubt the greatest funk, called out to him, "What meanest thou, O sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon _us_ that we perish not!" These creatures always want sacrifices made to save their own precious skins; and they found in the poor penitent Hebrew a willing sacrifice. He _agreed_ that they should cast him into the sea! It is not recorded what methods of torture were used in order to extract his consent; but it is pretty safe to assume that the Tarshish crew made it so hot for the poor man that he was glad to say to them, "Take me up and cast me forth into the sea!" Thus it comes to pass that the race of seamen cling to a tradition which originated in craven ignorance.