"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