The captain of a man-of-war, therefore, if his influence be as well-founded as it ought, may, in this most material of all respects, essentially supply the place of a parent to young persons, who must be considered for the time virtually as orphans.  He may very possibly not be learned enough to lay before his large nautical family the historical and other external evidences of Christianity, and, perhaps, may have it still less in his power to make them fully aware of the just force of its internal evidences; but he can seldom have any doubt as to his duty in this case more than in any other department of the weighty obligations with which he is charged; and if he cannot here, as elsewhere, make the lads under his care see distinctly, in the main, what course it best becomes them to follow, he is hardly fit for his station.  I freely own that it is far beyond his power to make them pursue that line, if they choose to be perverse; but he will neglect an important, I might add, a sacred and solemn part of his business, if he leaves their minds more adrift on the score of religion than he can possibly help.  Their steering in this ticklish navigation, it is true, depends upon their own prudence; but it is his bounden duty to provide them with both a rudder and a compass, and also, as far as he is able, to instruct them, like a good pilot, in the course they ought to shape.  The eventual success of the great voyage of life lies with themselves; the captain’s duty, as a moral commander-in-chief, is done if he sets his juvenile squadron fairly under weigh.  It is in vain to conceal from ourselves, that, unless both officers and men can be embodied more or less as a permanent corps, every ship that is commissioned merely furnishes a sort of fresh experiment in naval discipline.  The officers are brought together without any previous acquaintance with one another; and many of them, after a long residence on shore, have lost most of their naval habits.  The sailors, being collected how and where we can get hold of them, are too frequently the off-scourings and scum of society.  With such a heterogeneous crew, the first year is employed in teaching them habits of cleanliness and common decency; and it is only in the third year of their service that the ship becomes really efficient.  Just as that point has been reached, all hands are turned off, to make room for another experiment.  If a few active men of the crew have become better sailors, they generally go into the merchant-service for higher wages; while the officers are again laid on the shelf.  Something has been done lately to retain the petty officers in the navy, but perhaps not enough.  It has been suggested that, instead of giving men pensions for long servitude, it might be more useful to allow their wages to increase gradually year by year, at some small rate, and at the end of fourteen years give them half-pay of the rating to which they had reached, if they chose to retire.[5]