THE CHAPLAIN AND CHAPEL IN A MAN-OF-WAR.
The next day was Sunday; a fact set down in the almanac, spite of
merchant seamen’s maxim, that _there are no Sundays of soundings_.
_No Sundays off soundings,_ indeed! No Sundays on shipboard! You may as
well say there should be no Sundays in churches; for is not a ship
modeled after a church? has it not three spires—three steeples? yea,
and on the gun-deck, a bell and a belfry? And does not that bell
merrily peal every Sunday morning, to summon the crew to devotions?
At any rate, there were Sundays on board this particular frigate of
ours, and a clergyman also. He was a slender, middle-aged man, of an
amiable deportment and irreproachable conversation; but I must say,
that his sermons were but ill calculated to benefit the crew. He had
drank at the mystic fountain of Plato; his head had been turned by the
Germans; and this I will say, that White-Jacket himself saw him with
Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria in his hand.
Fancy, now, this transcendental divine standing behind a gun-carriage
on the main-deck, and addressing five hundred salt-sea sinners upon the
psychological phenomena of the soul, and the ontological necessity of
every sailor’s saving it at all hazards. He enlarged upon the follies
of the ancient philosophers; learnedly alluded to the Phiedon of Plato;
exposed the follies of Simplicius’s Commentary on Aristotle’s “De
Coelo,” by arraying against that clever Pagan author the admired tract
of Tertullian—_De Prascriptionibus Haereticorum_—and concluded by a
Sanscrit invocation. He was particularly hard upon the Gnostics and
Marcionites of the second century of the Christian era; but he never,
in the remotest manner, attacked the everyday vices of the nineteenth
century, as eminently illustrated in our man-of-war world. Concerning
drunkenness, fighting, flogging, and oppression—things expressly or
impliedly prohibited by Christianity—he never said aught. But the most
mighty Commodore and Captain sat before him; and in general, if, in a
monarchy, the state form the audience of the church, little evangelical
piety will be preached. Hence, the harmless, non-committal abstrusities
of our Chaplain were not to be wondered at. He was no Massillon, to
thunder forth his ecclesiastical rhetoric, even when a Louis le Grand
was enthroned among his congregation. Nor did the chaplains who
preached on the quarter-deck of Lord Nelson ever allude to the guilty
Felix, nor to Delilah, nor practically reason of righteousness,
temperance, and judgment to come, when that renowned Admiral sat,
sword-belted, before them.
During these Sunday discourses, the officers always sat in a circle
round the Chaplain, and, with a business-like air, steadily preserved
the utmost propriety. In particular, our old Commodore himself made a
point of looking intensely edified; and not a sailor on board but
believed that the Commodore, being the greatest man present, must alone
comprehend the mystic sentences that fell from our parson’s lips.
Of all the noble lords in the ward-room, this lord-spiritual, with the
exception of the Purser, was in the highest favour with the Commodore,
who frequently conversed with him in a close and confidential manner.
Nor, upon reflection, was this to be marvelled at, seeing how
efficacious, in all despotic governments, it is for the throne and
altar to go hand-in-hand.
The accommodations of our chapel were very poor. We had nothing to sit
on but the great gun-rammers and capstan-bars, placed horizontally upon
shot-boxes. These seats were exceedingly uncomfortable, wearing out our
trowsers and our tempers, and, no doubt, impeded the con-version of
many valuable souls.
To say the truth, men-of-war’s-men, in general, make but poor auditors
upon these occasions, and adopt every possible means to elude them.
Often the boatswain’s-mates were obliged to drive the men to service,
violently swearing upon these occasions, as upon every other.
“Go to prayers, d——n you! To prayers, you rascals—to prayers!” In this
clerical invitation Captain Claret would frequently unite.
At this Jack Chase would sometimes make merry. “Come, boys, don’t hang
back,” he would say; “come, let us go hear the parson talk about his
Lord High Admiral Plato, and Commodore Socrates.”
But, in one instance, grave exception was taken to this summons. A
remarkably serious, but bigoted seaman, a sheet-anchor-man—whose
private devotions may hereafter be alluded to—once touched his hat to
the Captain, and respectfully said, “Sir, I am a Baptist; the chaplain
is an Episcopalian; his form of worship is not mine; I do not believe
with him, and it is against my conscience to be under his ministry. May
I be allowed, sir, _not_ to attend service on the half-deck?”
“You will be allowed, sir!” said the Captain, haughtily, “to obey the
laws of the ship. If you absent yourself from prayers on Sunday
mornings, you know the penalty.”
According to the Articles of War, the Captain was perfectly right; but
if any law requiring an American to attend divine service against his
will be a law respecting the establishment of religion, then the
Articles of War are, in this one particular, opposed to the American
Constitution, which expressly says, “Congress shall make no law
respecting the establishment of religion, or the free exercise
thereof.” But this is only one of several things in which the Articles
of War are repugnant to that instrument. They will be glanced at in
another part of the narrative.
The motive which prompts the introduction of chaplains into the Navy
cannot but be warmly responded to by every Christian. But it does not
follow, that because chaplains are to be found in men-of-war, that,
under the present system, they achieve much good, or that, under any
other, they ever will.
How can it be expected that the religion of peace should flourish in an
oaken castle of war? How can it be expected that the clergyman, whose
pulpit is a forty-two-pounder, should convert sinners to a faith that
enjoins them to turn the right cheek when the left is smitten? How is
it to be expected that when, according to the XLII. of the Articles of
War, as they now stand unrepealed on the Statute-book, “a bounty shall
be paid” (to the officers and crew) “by the United States government of
$20 for each person on board any ship of an enemy which shall be sunk
or destroyed by any United States ship;” and when, by a subsequent
section (vii.), it is provided, among other apportionings, that the
chaplain shall receive “two twentieths” of this price paid for sinking
and destroying ships full of human beings? How is it to be expected
that a clergyman, thus provided for, should prove efficacious in
enlarging upon the criminality of Judas, who, for thirty pieces of
silver, betrayed his Master?
Although, by the regulations of the Navy, each seaman’s mess on board
the _Neversink_ was furnished with a Bible, these Bibles were seldom or
never to be seen, except on Sunday mornings, when usage demands that
they shall be exhibited by the cooks of the messes, when the
master-at-arms goes his rounds on the berth-deck. At such times, they
usually surmounted a highly-polished tin-pot placed on the lid of the
chest.
Yet, for all this, the Christianity of men-of-war’s men, and their
disposition to contribute to pious enterprises, are often relied upon.
Several times subscription papers were circulated among the crew of the
Neversink, while in harbour, under the direct patronage of the
Chaplain. One was for the purpose of building a seaman’s chapel in
China; another to pay the salary of a tract-distributor in Greece; a
third to raise a fund for the benefit of an African Colonization
Society.
Where the Captain himself is a moral man, he makes a far better
chaplain for his crew than any clergyman can be. This is sometimes
illustrated in the case of sloops of war and armed brigs, which are not
allowed a regular chaplain. I have known one crew, who were warmly
attached to a naval commander worthy of their love, who have mustered
even with alacrity to the call to prayer; and when their Captain would
read the Church of England service to them, would present a
congregation not to be surpassed for earnestness and devotion by any
Scottish Kirk. It seemed like family devotions, where the head of the
house is foremost in confessing himself before his Maker. But our own
hearts are our best prayer-rooms, and the chaplains who can most help
us are ourselves.