THE "SWEETENING" OF A SHIP. —

"It IS with churches as it was with the ship Dimbula, whose

' sweetening ' Rupyard Kipling describes in The Day's Work. The ship, new-built and loaded with her 4,000

tons of freight, had left Liverpool, and, as soon as

she felt the lift of the open water, began to talk.

In his inimitable fashion, Kipling describes how the 4- 4

capstan and the deck beams that supported it, the

stringers, the frames, the screws, the thrust-block, the engines and

every part of the vessel, from the the garboard-strake to the smallest

rivets, were in protest against the strain and wrench ings of the waves

At last, after the long and stormy voyage, the Dimbula verified what

the captain had said,' that a ship is in no sense a reegid body closed at

both ends. She's a highly complex structure o' various and conflictin'

strains, wi' tissues that must give an' take, according to her personal

modulus of eclasteecity. . . . Even after a pretty girl's christening

a ship, it does not follow that there's seech a thing as a ship under the

men that work her. . . . She's all here, but the parts of her have

not learned to work together yet.' When the Dimbula, after crossing

the ocean, was coming up to New York harbor, suddenly all the talking

of the separate pieces ceased and melted into one deep voice, which is

the soul of the ship. She had 'found herself.' She had been 'sweet

ened,' as the sailors say. And what must happen to all good ships

must happen to all good churches. All the discordant voices of those

that compose the church must melt into one deep voice, which is the

soul of the church." — The Watchman.