"
So adjured, a man, whose wild, fanatical appearance had given rise to
the rumor that the famous "Lorenzo Dow" was on board, sprang on a
bulkhead, and commenced to exhort the crowd about him, from which a file
of pale, determined-looking men was slowly emerging to join the seamen
at the other end of the vessel in their efforts for the public weal. But
many lingered, either overcome and paralyzed by the stringency of
circumstances, or unequal to exertions from personal causes--aged men,
women, and children, chiefly--and to these the frenzied speaker
continued to address his words of exhortation and warning.
Such a tirade of terrible objurgation I felt was entirely out of place
in a scene like this, and calculated to excite the worst passions of the
human mind, instead of persuading it to serenity and submission, so
essential now; for to me the captain's last words represented the final
grace of the preacher, when, with closed eyes and outspread hands, he
dismissed his flock from the temple at the close of the services. From
that vessel and all that concerned it we were virtually enfranchised
from that moment--dismissed to destruction, so to speak, by fire or
flood, or rescue from beyond, as the case might be, to life or death, as
God willed--for the ship's mission was accomplished.
I shrank as far as possible from the wild, waving arms, the frenzied
eyes, the gaunt and wolfish aspect, the piercing, agonized voice of the
fanatic, who had assumed to himself the solemn office of soul-comforter
in a time of extremity.
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