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. This
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 a preacher to such sailors as your
friend here, I should represent hell as an eternal voyage,
with every man on board in the agonies of sea-sickness, the
crisis always imminent, but never coming."
This ludicrous and most unprofessional picture amused the old salt
exceedingly, and won his entire good-will toward the author of it; so
that, after Mr. Beecher left, he said, "That's a good fellow, Captain
Duncan.
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