The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-26

Chicago. July 19.-The glories Of the sea and it's moving panorama of white salls furnish a theme for the preacher at tnls season. when the multitudes are leaving the heated cities for the seashore and lake. The text is Psalm civ, 26 There go the ships
 I always feel sorry for one who mas not been lullabled to sleep by the low moaning song of the sea. Fenimore Cooper loved to write about the noun tains and woods and streams and water falls and rivers. to whose deer lieks the fawns and the does came down to drink. But there is a beauty, too in the sand dunes and the seabeach and the broad expanse of the mighty deep which we can love also.
 Fascinating is the seashore on account of it's endless variety. The oceans beauty is never twice the same. Some times it's colors are a white foam or light green or a dark emerald or blue or black Sometimes its surface is eov- cred with broad highways of gold, when the light of the rising sun gilds it, or with that other highway of silver. when, in the midnight hour, the flush of the moon is reflected upon it. Sometimes the sea will do nothing but smile. Like a golden haired baby, It's cheeks are dimpled and wrnlled, as though it is trying hard to keep back a hearty laugh. It will look as some innocent lake cuddled up in the huge lap of a crooked backed mountain. Then the sea gulls, as white doves of peace, will hover over it. Then the fish erman's boat will become the cradle in which the tired merchant will have the many cares of the store gently rocked out of his over burdened mind, as he anxiously watches the line which catches the golden prize of health as well as the finny treasures.
 Sometimes the sea becomes as wrathful as the wild beasts in the Spanish arena, stung with sharp darts before which the attendants wave the red garments. It rears It piunges. It lashes itself into fury until at last 1t is crimsoned with its own blood. The blazing phosphores- cences make it look like the river Nile struck with the Mosaic rod in the famous Egyptian plague The seashore monot- onous place to pass the summer? It is unnteresting only to those whose love of nature Is so undeveloped that they cannot understand the language of the sea.
 The Human Ship.
 But after all one of the most absorb ing diversions of the summer tourists living by the seashore is to watch the passing of the ships. For over quarter of a century my privilege was to spend every summer by the Atlantic coast. My fathers country home was near the end of Long Island, at a small town called East Hampton. There, upon the sand dunes, I used to lie hour after hour, watching the great steamers and the sailing craft heading toward New York "a or efa TrfnS to the distant harbors of the world. used to watch them just as the psalmist did when he cried out in the words of my text, "There go the ships" How like those voyages are, with their unknown incidents, their calms and their storms, their successes and, alas, their wrecks, to human livesl Who can tell as he looks at an infant calmly sleeping in its cradle whether the voyage of it's life will be like the ship carefully navigated that strikes the sunken rock or by collision with an- other ship is shattered and sunk into the depths of the sea? Let us see this morn ing what those points of resemblance are what kind of a ship each human be- ing ought to be, what kind of a cargo he Is carrying and toward what kind of a port he should be heading. The ships! The shipsl There go the shipsl There go the shipsl
 Every human vessel should be distin- gushed by some flag. Going down to New York harbor and examining the shipping. you will find the name of each vessel clearly marked upon the stern. You will also find the name of the city in which that vessel is registered. Such names as these can be read John Mill ton of Glasgow, the Aurania of Liver pool, the Paris of New York. And if upon the high seas two ships approach each other, one captain will put the tfa fc md aaI1 ahn Ship ahoy! What ship is that?" Then the other captain will call back: "The Kensington of Antwerp, bound for New York! What ship is that?" The mean ing of all this? Simply that when ship is registered in a certain country that government pledges itself to protect that ship. A British ship is under British protection; a French ship is under French protection; a German ship is un- der German protection. An American ship is under American protection. Therefore. if a nation dares to molest any foreign ship upon the high seas that nation must answer for the insult to the flag which Is flying above the stern of the outraged vessel.
 The Flag of Protection.
 Many a war has been started because the saeredness of a ships deck has been violated. The war of 1872 with England really had It's origin in the English claim that she could stop any American vessel and take off her decks all the English born sailors found among the crews. The war with the dey of Algiers was started in the same way. The Mediterranean pirates demanded money from our gov ernment with the threat that otherwise they would moest our shipping. The United States government finally not only refused to pay, but sent over armed vessels to maintain the honor and power of its flag by the mouths of their can non. Had not Abraham Lincoln and William II. Seward been brave enough to defy popular clamor and surrender the Confederate commissioners. Messrs. Sli- dell and Mason, who had been taken for cibly from an English ship by an Amer ican man. -of-war they would certainly have involved this country in a war with England which would have destroyed the unity of our government. civilized nation always claims an imperial domain over the ships deck above which f1ut- ters it's flag.
 Now my brother as human vessel to what overruling power have you rem dered your allegiance? To what power do you look for protection? oh" you answer, 'I proclaim the protection of the English or the American flag. I am a native of London or of New York; An my friend, that is not enough. As a hu- man vessel, you are going to meet dan- gers from which no earthly government can protect you. Your voyage of life not onlv goes oyer the sea of time but also