Discipline and Other Sermons | Page 8

instead of courage, cowardice; instead of a calm
and manly faith, a miserable crying of every man to his own saint, while the vessel is left
to herself to sink or swim.
But what is the temper of true religion, and of true science likewise? The seaman will say,
I dare not pray that there may be no storm. I cannot presume to interfere with God's
government. If there ought to be a storm, there will be one: if not, there will be none. But
I can forecast the signs of the weather; I can consult my barometer; I can judge, by the
new lights of science, what course the storm will probably take; and I can do my best to
avoid it.
But does that make religion needless? Does that make prayer useless? How so? The
seaman may say, I dare not pray that the storm may not come. But there is no necessity
that I should be found in its path. And I may pray, and I will pray, that God may so guide
and govern my voyage, and all its little accidents, that I may pass it by. I know that I can
forecast the storm somewhat; and if I do not try to do that, I am tempting God: but I may
pray, I will pray, that my forecast may be correct. I will pray the Spirit of God, who gives
man understanding, to give me a right judgment, a sound mind, and a calm heart, that I
may make no mistake and neglect no precaution; and if I fail, and sink--God's will be
done. It is a good will to me and all my crew; and into the hands of the good God who
has redeemed me, I commend my spirit, and their spirits likewise.
This much, therefore, we may say of prayer. We may always pray to be made better men.
We may always pray to be made wiser men. These prayers will always be answered; for
they are prayers for the very Spirit of God himself, from whom comes all goodness and
all wisdom, and it can never be wrong to ask to be made right.
There are surely, too, evils so terrible, that when they threaten us- -if God being our
Father means anything,--if Christ being our example means anything--then we have a
right to cry, like our Lord himself, 'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:' if
we only add, like our Lord, 'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'
And of dangers in general this we may say--that if we pray against known dangers which
we can avoid, we do nothing but tempt God: but that against unknown and unseen
dangers we may always pray. For instance, if a sailor needlessly lodges over a foul,
tideless harbour, or sleeps in a tropical mangrove swamp, he has no right to pray against
cholera and fever; for he has done his best to give himself cholera and fever, and has
thereby tempted God. But if he goes into a new land, of whose climate, diseases, dangers,
he is utterly ignorant, then he has surely a right to pray God to deliver him from those
dangers; and if not,--if he is doomed to suffer from them,--to pray God that he may
discover and understand the new dangers of that new land, in order to warn future
travellers against them, and so make his private suffering a benefit to mankind.
This, then, is our duty as to known dangers,--to guard ourselves against them by science,
and the reason which God has given us; and as to unknown dangers, to pray to God to
deliver us from them, if it seem good to him: but above all, to pray to him to deliver us

from them in the best way, the surest way, the most lasting way, the way in which we
may not only preserve ourselves, but our fellow-men and generations yet unborn; namely,
by giving us wisdom and understanding to discover the dangers, to comprehend them,
and to conquer them, by reason and by science.
This is the spirit of sound science and of sound religion. And it was in this spirit, and for
this very end, that this Ancient and Honourable Corporation of the Trinity House was
founded more than three hundred years ago. Not merely to pray to God and to the saints,
after the ancient fashion, to deliver all poor mariners from dangers of the seas. That was a
natural prayer, and a pious one, as far as it went: but it did not go far enough. For, as a
fact, God did not always answer it: he did not always see fit to deliver those who called
upon him. Gallant ships went down with