Captain Duncan related two amusing anecdotes to illustrate the right way and the wrong way of introducing religious conversation.  In his office there was sitting one day a sort of lay preacher, who was noted for lugging in his favorite topic in the most forbidding and abrupt manner.  A sea captain came in, who was introduced to this individual.

     “Captain Porter,” said he, with awful solemnity, “are you a captain
     in Israel?”

The honest sailor was so abashed and confounded at this novel salutation, that he could only stammer out an incoherent reply; and he was evidently disposed to give the tactless zealot a piece of his mind, expressed in the language of the quarter-deck.  When the solemn man took his leave, the disgusted captain said, “If ever I should be coming to your office again, and that man should be here, I wish you would send me word, and I’ll stay away.”

A few days after another clergyman chanced to be in the office, no other than Mr. Beecher himself, and another captain came in, a roistering, swearing, good-hearted fellow.  The conversation fell upon sea-sickness, a malady to which Mr. Beecher is peculiarly liable.  The captain also was one of the few sailors who are always sea-sick in going to sea, and gave a moving account of his sufferings from that cause.  Mr. Beecher, after listening attentively to his tale, said, “Captain Duncan, if I was a preacher to such sailors as your friend here, I should represent hell as an eternal voyage, with every man on board in the agonies of sea-sickness, the crisis always imminent, but never coming.”

This ludicrous and most unprofessional picture amused the old salt exceedingly, and won his entire good will toward the author of it; so that after Mr. Beecher left, he said, “That’s a good fellow, Captain Duncan.  I like him, and I’d like to hear him talk more.”

Captain Duncan contended that this free and easy way of address was just the thing for such characters.  Mr. Beecher had shown him, to his great surprise, that a man could be a decent and comfortable human being although he was a minister, and had so gained his confidence and good will that he could say any thing to him at their next interview.  Captain Duncan finished his remarks by a decided expression of his disapproval of the canting regulation phrases so frequently employed by religious people, which are perfectly nauseous to men of the world.

This interesting conversation lasted about three-quarters of an hour, and ended, not because the theme seemed exhausted, but because the time was up.  We have only given enough of it to convey some little idea of its spirit.  The company again broke into one of their cheerful hymns, and the meeting was dismissed in the usual manner.