to this day. Such behavior is not of rare occurrence, else I should not
have related it; but even sacred history refers to similar incidents. The
wicked, it is recorded, danced and were merry even until the waters of the
flood swept them away.

A certain divine related to me a similar story concerning the behavior of
a large body of the passengers with him on the "Great Eastern," when she
was foundered at sea and obliged to return, after they had advanced 500
miles. When the storm was assailing the great ship, breaking down its
masts and tearing away its rigging, so that most of the passengers were in
despair and expected to sink any hour, they kept prayer-meetings almost
continually. Another faction found fault with these, declared that praying
was an intolerable nuisance and asked the Captain to prohibit it. The
Captain decided that he would not interfere, whereupon the party offended
took to dancing, cursing and swearing, and tried their utmost in this way
to break up the prayer-meetings,

I heard similar profanity on my return trip across the Atlantic. One night
when a storm assailed our ship, so that the waves rolled over the deck and
the fierce rocking of the vessel threw many almost out of their beds, I
heard many of them swear, even during the very time that the thunder
rolled with tremendous roarings and crashes across the heavens. It seems
almost impossible that conscious intelligent beings could behave thus, but
the fact that they do, helps us to believe other strange truths recorded
in history, without which, no correct conception of man's former depraved
condition can be formed at this advanced day. For example, few seem to
appreciate the part played by the Catholic Church with her images,
shrines, sacred relics, paid magnificent temples, in taming and civilizing
man, because they do not know who and what he was when the light of
intelligence first began to direct his footsteps, and he had not yet