was stopped, as, receiving no news,
the Admiralty believed they were dead.
Also remember what is endured in the winter by our brave seamen
in the blinding snowstorms at sea, or by the North Sea fishermen
and trawlers who supply your table with fish. And as you have
your breakfast by the cheerful fire in the warm room, that most
of the things on the table have reached our island home by the
brave sailors, who brought them through all kinds of weather,
hot and cold, for our comfort. Our tea from China, Assam, etc.,
sugar, and coffee, and cocoa from East and West Indies, and our
bread from nearly every part of the world. Let us never forget
them, and cheerfully do all we can to contribute to their welfare.
I was glad to see a hospital ship sent to the North Sea for the
smack-men and trawlers a short time since. We have Sailors' Homes,
Lifeboats, Shipwrecked Sailors' Society, etc.
My brother once doubled Cape Horn, and their bows were covered
with snow and ice for many days. Continually are they exposed
to the dangers of storms, collisions, and shipwrecks.
"Then, 0 protect the hardy tar,
Be mindful of his merit."
And yet what wisdom is shown by God
in these cold regions. The great whale can thrive and sport amidst
the terrible icebergs, for he has a great coat of fat two feet
thick to keep him warm. Narwhals, silver foxes, walruses, Polar
bears, and musk ox supply food and warm skins for clothing, and
the reindeer can draw the Laplander in his sledge, and supply
him with butter milk and venison.
And what wonderful provision God has made for us that we may enjoy
the cold and dreary season of the year. The enormous beds of coal
that lie buried beneath the surface of our earth were once immense
forests of tree-ferns, which overspread our country in bygone
ages when the climate was tropical, and the ponds and lakes were
inhabited by enormous lizards with eyes as large as a frying-pan,
and mouths big enough to take in a dozen persons, seats and all,
which, dying, sunk down to the bottom, and their bones became
embedded in it, and in the course of ages the mud has hardened
into limestone; and in the quarries of Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire
the skeletons of these monster lizards are found, the immense
remains of which may be seen in the British Museum.
By some convulsions of Nature our earth has passed through it
has gradually become fit for the life of man, the last and noblest
of God's creation.
No one would like to inhabit a house half finished or unfurnished,
and so our heavenly Father did not place us here until He had
filled our great coal
