New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-04-12
(Communicated.l

/ Seamen's Bethel and Reading Room.
A public acknowledgment is due to the
proprietors Of the REPUBLICAN,, the Times,
the Pcoy,sae, the Bulletin and the Bee for
their generous courtesy in continuing TO
send their daily issues to the Sailors Read
ing Room, Marigny buildings, free of charge.
The room was considered success in its
beginning last year, but it has been much
more SO during thecurrent season. 1t has by
no means reached our ideal of what it should
be, for personal funds are not unlimited.
But old residents inform us that there has
been nothing here in the marine department
for the last twenty-6v years that would at
all compare with it,
To assure our friends that their benefac-
lions are not misapplied, let me describe
day in my reading room. The first thing to
be done every morning is to visit all the
sailor boarding houses and lounging places.
fifteen or sixteen in number, and speak with
all those we meet on the street, pat this one
on the back, shake the hard hand of another,
say few kind words to another, give them
all q card containing an invitation to the
reading room and to the Saviour, and invite
them to ship with us, offering them AL ad-
vance if they will join the old ship Zion,
bound for the New Jerusalem. This done,
and the room being opened and set in order,
you may see one and another bronzed face
slowly rolling along like some dismantled
hulk, till perhaps twenty or thirty have
entered the room. While am now writing,
twenty eight men are present, all occupied.
One wants to see the shipping list; another
wants q pictorial paper; another wants
something in Danish, or Swedish, or German;
another chooses to look at the pictures
along the walls Of the room; another takes
the Bible in the English or some other
tongue, and sits down with that, and all are
perfectly orderly and still. Frequently one
or two will come in hardly sufficiently re-
covered from intoxication to walk straight,
and wish to sign the temperance pledge,
and few words of encouragement are ad-
dressed to them and q prayer is offered for
them. In the course of the day perhaps
dozen letters will be written to friends
eight or ten have been written to-day-and
thus many q mother receives a letter from
her prodigal or her praying son, who would
have no information respecting him if these
facilities for correspondence were not fur
nished.
A crew has shipped to leave this evening
and have come in to obtain some reading
matter to take with them. And Just now
another company appears for more reading.
And thus almost every day package is |
sent to some distant port, to be read at sea,
in a forecastle where sometimes there is |
nothing else to be read but the Bible, and |
possibly not even that. Coming and going |
frequently forty or fifty will |
find their way in before dinner. Receiving |
. brothers welcome, the place becomes a |
quasi home to them, and the John the .Bap- |
list to attendance upon religious meetings |
there, and to the blessings Of salvation.
Now, consider that these throngs, found |
every day in these haunts OF inebriatiOn |
and indulgence, are for the time thrown out |
IF employment and into the power of count |
ess temptations and tempters of both sexes,
md who can estimate the benefit which a |
we'll furnished and conducted reading room |
nay confer upon the forty thousand seamen |
who annually visit this port And in the |
lame of all that is sacred, what is there in |
,uch an institution that can warrant any |
nan, whether jew or Gentle, Catholic or |
in Withholding from it his much |
leeded pecuniary assistance and his fra |
ernal sympathies and prayers!
L. H. PEASE.