It is for these men's sakes, as well as for our own, that we are met
together here this day. We are met to commemorate the noble dead;
not in any Popish or superstitious fashion, as if they needed our
prayers, or we needed their miraculous assistance: but in the good
old Protestant scriptural sense--to thank God for all his servants
departed this life in his faith and fear, and to pray that God may
give us grace to follow their good examples; and especially to thank
him for the founders of this ancient Trinity House, which stands here
as a token to all generations of Britons, that science and religion
are not contrary to each other, but twin sisters, meant to aid each
other and mankind in the battle with the brute forces of this
universe.
We are met together here to thank God for all gallant mariners, and
for all who have helped mariners toward safety and success; for all
who have made discoveries in hydrography or meteorology, in
navigation, or in commerce, adding to the safety of seamen, and to
the health and wealth of the human race; for all who have set noble
examples to their crews, facing danger manfully and dying at their
posts, as many a man has died, a martyr to his duty; for all who,
living active, and useful, and virtuous lives in their sea calling,
have ended as they lived, God-fearing Christian men.
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