and of the laws of nature, the master mariners of England took a
wiser course.

They said, God will not always help poor mariners: but he will
always teach them to deliver themselves. And so they built this
House, not in the name of the Virgin Mary or any saints in heaven,
but, with a deep understanding of what was needed, in the most awful
name of God himself. Thereby they went to the root and ground of
this matter, and of all matters. They went to the source of all law
and order; to the source of all force and life; and to the source,
likewise, of all love and mercy; when they founded their House in the
name of the Father of Lights, in whom men live and move and have
their being; from whom comes every good and perfect gift, and without
whom not a sparrow falls to the ground; in the name of the Son, who
was born on earth a man, and tasted sorrow, and trial, and death for
every man; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who inspires man with the
spirit of wisdom and understanding, and gives him a right judgment in
all things, putting into his heart good desires, and enabling him to
bring them to good effect. And so, believing that the ever-blessed
Trinity would teach them to help themselves and their fellow-
mariners, they set to work, like truly God-fearing men, not to hire
monks to sing and say masses for them, but to set up for themselves
lights and sea-marks, and to take order for the safe navigation of
these seas, like men who believed indeed that they were the children
of God, and that God would prosper his children in as far as they
used that reason which he himself had bestowed upon them.

It is for these men's sakes, as well as for our own, that we are met
together here this day. We are met to commemorate the noble dead;
not in any Popish or superstitious fashion, as if they needed our