as a whole, they seldom premeditate evil.  Their intentions are mostly on the side of right and goodness.  Some of them stand like a rock against being tempted by the gangs of harpies that are always hovering about them.  Others allow their good intentions to vanish as soon as the predatory gentlemen with their seductive methods make their appearance.  Agencies such as the Church of England Missions to Seamen and the Wesleyan Methodist Mission are to be thanked for the hard efforts made to keep the sailor out of harm, and to reclaim those who have fallen.  They may be thanked also for having been the means of diminishing, if not altogether extirpating, a loathsome tribe of ruffians who were accustomed to feast on their blood.  These Missions are a Godsend not only to the sailor, but to the nation.  No other agency has done the work they are doing.  The Church is apt, to gather its robes round a cantish respectability, and call out “Save the people,” and the flutter falls flat on the seats.  These missions owe any success they have had to going to the people.

A few wholesome women are worth scores of men in getting at sailors—­or for that matter in getting at anybody else, and the importance of getting more of them attached to the work should not be overlooked.  The sailor is a person of moods.  Sometimes it is religion, and sometimes it is something very different, and it is only those women who have grace, comely looks and supreme tact, and who carry with them a halo of bright cheerfulness, who can deal successfully with cases of this kind.  The long-faced, too much sanctified female, doling out fixed quantities of monotonous nothings, is an abomination, and is calculated to drive man into chronic debauchery.  One look from this kind of awful female is a deadly agony, and much effort should be used to avoid her.  But there are even men engaged in religious work, whose agonising look would give any person of refined senses the “jumps.”  What earthly use are such creatures to men who crave for brightness and hope to be put into their lives, and the passion of love to be beamed into their souls?  If people would only bear in mind that it is always difficult to find a real soul behind a flinty face, a vast amount of mischief would be obviated by making more suitable selections for philanthropic and religious work.  Of course there is more needed than a pleasant look.  It is imperative that there should be combined with it knowledge, and the knack of communicating it.  All denominations have wasters thrust upon them, sometimes by the ambition of parents that their sons should be ministers, and sometimes by the unbounded belief of the young men themselves in their fitness.  But it often becomes apparent that good bricklayers or blacksmiths have been spoiled in the process of selection; whereas a little courage and frankness on the part of the selection people would have saved many souls and many reputations.

CHAPTER VI