BOOKS.

MR. BlTLLEN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.*

AITTOBIOGRAPHIES of living people are always delicate matter for criticism to handle, especially when they are written from a religious point of view, most of all when so written as to command the critic's sympathy and respect. To be obliged to write what one feels about Mr. Bullen's book is much like being called upon to praise to his face a man who has done, for the public good, a thing the doing of which involved the laying aside of some habits of reserve upon which Englishmen are apt to pride themselves as though they were part and parcel of the sentiment of honour and the principle of integrity. Ruskin wrote once : "I cannot quite see the reason of this feeling, nor analyse that cruel reticence in the hearts • With Christ at Sea : a Religious Autobiography. By Frank T. Bullen. London: Hodder awl Stouslitoia. [Ss.]

of wise men which makes them always hide their deeper thoughts." But if a fool may rush in where a philosopher has feared to tread, the opinion may be hazarded that in all probability fear of some kind or other is at the bottom of this "cruel reticence," as it is at the bottom of all other cruel attitudes of mind,—fear of ridicule at the lowest, fear of being suspected of hypocrisy not much less low, and, at a fairly respectable moral height, fear of bringing discredit on a sacred cause by falling below the expectations confes- sions of faith will inevitably raise in those who read them. Mr. Bullen has bravely set all these fears aside, and told the story of his inner life of faith as it grew amid the very real hardships and temptations of his life at sea. And by doing so, we do not doubt that he will have given to many men and boys the best help a fellow-man can give in their own struggle with like circumstance. Had he kept his book back for posthumous publication, he would probably have considerably lessened, as well as postponed, the good it is calculated to do. For the help to be got out of a biography is very much increased by the contemporaneousness of the experiences it records.

Mr. Bullen begins his narrative with some vivid reminis- cences of his childhood, spent under the care of a maiden aunt living near Paddington in circumstances humble but refined. His aunt "had a horror of the foulness of the streets," and so he was never allowed "out to play." But

there was a garden, where he found amusement in holding loud conversations, chiefly about religion, with himself. He

had no living companions, but there were books within reach, and out of these he remembers three which entered into his life,—a cookery-book, practically interesting up to a certain point, but soon exhausted; a Bible, in which he read and earned appointed tasks, without, however, liking it; and Paradise Lost," which he devoured at the age of four, and

has felt the influence of ever since:—" Let no one ever tell me of such and such a book being above or beyond a child. Only

et it be a good book, and you may safely leave it to the child's discretion."

"Paradise Lost" took hold of his imagination and con- science, making the spiritual world real to him with a vividness transcending that of all the things of sense, and became one of the most powerful factors in his religious life. But other influences co-operating with Milton in laying the foundation of Christian habits were the example and teaching of his aunt inculcating early the habit of prayer and regular attendance at church and Sunday-school. In these days, when fear of forcing the consciences of children runs to absurd extremes, it is refreshing to find Mr. Bullen declaring his conviction that "an early acquiring of the habit of prayer, even though it be only formal, must be one of the

greatest benefits that a human being can receive." Some shock of circumstance removed him suddenly from the shelter of his maiden aunt's home to the very different atmosphere of a London laundry of over thirty years ago. He was over- worked, ill-fed, and cruelly used. His companions were a dozen women, "coarse, shameless, and in their talk as lewd as any sailors I have ever been shipmate with." And in the course of three years of this misery he became "familiar with all forms of evil, all expressions that men and women use in a sort of defiance of the Unseen Powers they fear and hate." Another turn of fortune's wheel removed him from the laundry to shipboard, and at first he did not find his con-

dition improved by the change. The only point a reader can dwell on with consolation in Mr. Bullen's description of his first days at sea is his assertion that such an experience would be impossible to-day :—

" For a mere child of between eleven and twelve to be thus left to live or die, as it might chance, without any one caring, without any one coming to see, would not be permitted on board any ship now. Yet I was esteemed fortunate in being left alone. I know of cases where boys as ill as I was then have been hunted out of a lair like mine with blows and curses and driven aloft. To the throes of their sickness was added the agony of fear, clinging to the swaying rigging in the blackness of the night amid the howling of the angry wind. This was spared me."

It is contrary to ship law that boys should frequent the fo'c's'le. But the skipper was a morose and evil-tempered man, and the atmosphere of the cabin was consequently very grim. The galley was worse, the cook's conversation being • filthy and blasphemous." Young Bullen broke bounds, and found-more genial as well as wholesome companionship among the men of the fo'c's'le, who, though rough and even savage, bad enough of chivalry in their composition to tone down their stories and their oaths when the boy came among them.

These excursions brought punishment in their wake, and at last a threat of final banishment from the cabin should the

offence be repeated. The offence was repeated, punished with the rope-end, and henceforth the boy was free of the fo'c's'le. Mr. Bullen notes this emancipation as the fourth momentous, and the first happy, change in his life. "At an age when most boys are mere children, I was admitted to the real companionship of men on such terms of equality as few boys ever experience until they can rightly be called boys no longer." The happiest relations were in fact established. The child kept his simplicity, said his prayers, and sung his hymns unabashed. The men listened to the latter with delight, and to the former with a carious awe. They protected the boy against the brutal spite of the skipper, and the boy gave in return the only thing he had to give—affection, "with which he was overflowing." One big sailor, known as Yorkshire Joe, and a fervently Christian negro lad, became the boy's especial chums, and later on, when all the crew were changed except these two, they were his only friends. "Joe and I spent much time together away from the rest, and if I could recall some of our conversations, they would surprise myself in their innocent outpouring of all that was good in either of our hearts." These men, of the first crew of the Aral:elle,' represent very well the general type of rough but human British sailor, who believes in God and loves to discuss theology, swears and drinks freely, fears nothing except ghosts, and is satisfied that, whatever punish- ments may be in store for landsmen beyond death, "there is certainly no hell for sailors." But Mr. Bullen makes a great point of impressing upon his readers that this is not the only type of sailor in the merchant service. He has served with crews as rough as the men of the Arabella,' and wanting their chivalry. It is a mistake, he repeatedly tells us, to think that all sailors are God- fearing, or even God-acknowledging, men. Many of the ships he has been in have been frankly pagan; and he recognises that, in material ways, he has sometimes been better off, more kindly treated, and altogetherhappier than in some where God was acknowledged and divine service held. The Discoveec.' to which he was transferred from the Arabella,' was a pagan ship, and a very comfortable one, where he "enjoyed life as he had never done before," and lived " Godless days." An awful night ending in shipwreck startled his conscience momentarily. But the result of the wreck being a pleasant time of wild adventure on a coral reef, he soon got over the shock. And being landed at Hava.nna and plunged into a life of dissipa- tion as the hanger-on of a public billiard-room, he developed at twelve years old into "a pert boy without reverence or fear." We are told in full and interesting detail how a visitation of yellow-fever, "making death familiar," and other moving experiences troubled the lad from time to time, but made no impression strong enough to resist effectually the influence of pagan and blackguard shipmates. He was growing callous, and had quite ceased to pray, when he found himself suddenly confronted by a highly civilised Chinaman, who asked him challenging questions about his faith, in presence of heathen worship in a pagoda at Rangoon. Mr. Bullen was surprised to find how promptly he could reply in defence of Christianity to an educated man who declared- he knew all about it, and had deliberately reverted to the rites of his forefathers. And on returning to his ship he began a course of steady Bible reading, with a view to gaining further information, in case he should be challenged in like manner again. A friendship with an ex-postulant of Llauthony Abbey, making a voyage for his health, was the next help to spiritual growth. The 'postulant spoke with affection and reverence of Father Ignatius and the monastic life, and plied him also with poetry,—Tennyson's " Idylls," and Longfellow's "Golden Legend." Mr. Bullen recognises that this influence did much to break through a habit of cynicism that was 'growing upon him, and gave him back his belief in friendship. But so far his religious life had formed no core:—" I never prayed at all. MY language was very 'bad, but somehow always stopped short of blasphemy because I was afraid of God. And some forms of gross evil I shunned, also because I was afraid, not because ray desires were not evil." This fear of God, active while the love of God was in abeyance, was doubtless largely due to the deep hold taken on

the child's imagination and conecienoe by the influences of his early home and reading. The objective of faith was never lost sight of. And the taste for the better part in life attracted to him a succession of helpful friends. Indeed, there seems never to have been any period of Mr. Bullen's sea-life when, even among the most brutal surroundings, he had not at least one friend capable of helping his spiritual development. What must be called his conversion occurred very soon after the voyage with the Llanthony postulant.

Going ashore at Port Chalmers, in New Zealand, he and a shipmate were arrested in the street by the sound of hymn tunes escaping from the upper windows of a neighbouring warehouse. The "celestial sounds" were irresistible. The twc sailors went in, and found a mission meeting in progress.

What passed is very simply, yet very eloquently, described in Mr. Bullen's book. But we will only quote here that part of the narrative which defines his state of mind after be had understood and accepted the words of the preacher, which were to him the "words of eternal life" :--

"I love that description of conversion in the new birth.' No other definition touches the truth of the process at all. So help. less, so utterly knowledgless, possessing nothing but the consciousness of Life just begun, 18 the new-born Christian. For this reason I have always mistrusted frantic demonstrations of joy in those professing to have just entered into Life. Happi- ness there certainly is, but it is the happiness of one who, after long delirium of fever, awakes one morning with cool hands and head, a delicious sensation of restfulness pervading every nerve, a consciousness of serene enjoyment of the dawn smiling through the window, of the fresh cleanliness of the room, of healthy hunger presently to be satisfied."

This tone of sane conviction pervades all that Mr. Bullen has to say, not only of his individual experiences of religion, but

upon the larger question of reforming the Service. He is on his guard against excessive religions excitement and also against hypocrisy. But he does not hesitate to declare that

in Christianity lies the only hope of bettering the conditions of our mercantile marine. For— "The bettering of the sailor's conditions of life and service can only be effectively obtained by the personal elevation of his character. Laws without end may be made and only succeed in making matters worse, because those who make them do not understand the conditions of sea-life, and those who should furnish them with the required information are content to curse and growl at their lot while at sea, and, when ashore, devote all their time and money to that which holds them down in the dirt; and the decent ones, despairing of doing any good in their pro- fession, seize an early opportunity of getting out of it. But a morally and mentally uplifted personnel of tho Merchant Service would be in a position to make their needs known and get them supplied, to the great advantage of all concerned."

This hook, like everything that Mr. Bullen writes, is full of the charm, the adventure, and the wonder of the sea,—these elements of interest and attraction being carried along in. voluntarily in the main stream of religious motive.