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* Reprinted from the Congressional Record— Senate, 27 June 1976.
tossing sea or smooth, that ancient order to the helm links generation after generation of seafarers, keeping to their course upon the deep, pitting their purpose against the primeval power of wind and wave and unseen current.
“Keep your stem to the heading; leave u straight wake astern!” That would have been John Cabot’s instruction to his quartermaster in the tiny ship Mathew in the year 1497 as he made for what he thought would turn out to be the Oriental Isles of Spice, only to find that he and his 18 men had arrived, 52 days out of Bristol, on the foggy coast of Labrador.
A century later navigators knew a little more about geography, enough so that the little Golden Hind could make it ’round the world in two years, four months. Think of the patient courage of Francis Drake and his men that survived those watery years, and in the long mid-watch ever bade the steersman, “Steady as you go!”
Steady course, steady purpose! Have they not ever been married upon the sea?
Vessel Mayflower, 180 tons burden, setting sail in 1620 from Old England, in ques of a New, the eyes of all 100 passengers bent firmly upon the west, where God might make a fresh beginning with them, and they with God.
Constitution, Constellation, Flying Cloud- ships of war and ships of peace, whalers and clippers and coast-wise schooners; they bred all of them a sturdy race, looking to the stars by night and the horizon by day for those unswerving signs by which a mariner is guided, by which he may discern that same “Father of Lights” of whoN the Bible speaks, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
(James 1:17)
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Thus are we grateful, on this Sunday national remembrance, to all these Captains and their crews who have sailed across the rolling main and come at last to this ancient port, to remind us of our
A Bicentennial Sermon delivered on the arrival of the Tall Ships in Newport, Rhode Island, by the Very Reverend Francis B. Sayre, Jr., Dean, Washington Cathedral.
Youth, and to refresh our hope. They man o fleet of beautiful and stately grace, built like ships before them of the skill of careful artisans; and sailed by courage in the tops ar>d discipline upon the deck below, by those who have striven to embody the Plain and precious blessings with which this continent came to be endowed. Their vvord to us this morning, and to all of America, is simply that the landfall is the ®ame as it was 200 years ago. The course ls constant; the goal unchanged: “Steady as Vou go.”
So should a nation’s purpose be: fixed Qnd clear. To build in the great shipyard of this land a vessel for all of us, tall enough t0 go anywhere and everywhere the spirit Tight ordain, yet so stoutly fastened in her every timber—ribs to keel, knees to ribs, Planking on top, and masts stepped in between— that no storm should breach her hull or undo her patient plan.
Such a ship, hewn in responsibility, but jvith freedom at her prow, was the little hark that was launched to independence tlvo centuries ago. And, other men, on ether shores, watched the pennants atop her spars to see which way she would fly,
°r whether it was all just a dream. How Tany since then have followed in her train!—as now this bicentennial fleet from their several coasts across the sea.
But these sailors also know what some citizens have forgot in this latter day: that Po purpose is achieved, nor any course Tade good upon God’s ocean, until first Vou have trimmed your sails and set the helm to fit His winds and the set of His tide upon the deep.
Keen is the mariner's eye to discern those telling signs upon the clouds, at the line twixt sky and water, or on the crest of knaves where the spindrift blows; by which he might foretell the bluster or the calm, the weather God has in store for him.
And if he is so fortunate as to find a Hand that blows from Heaven exactly in the direction he would go on earth, then easy and gay the skipper who can barrel down before that wind, all canvas set, rolling along upon the bosom of the blast. This has been America in these latter times; affluent and easy, not having to work very hard to run out her log; just cruising wing and wing, tide and breeze at her back, the men lolling upon the deck, a beer in their hand.
But more often in this world it is a headwind that we face; then, though the bearing of your destination be precisely the same, you have to tack—back and forth, back and forth; close-hauled; wind in your face, spray on your legs; fingers white upon the sheet, body tensed against the bucking tiller; fine tuning your lively lady to the majestic forces of splendid Creation: and so wresting from that opposing wind the destiny of your desire.
That’s when your boat must needs be staunch and true, well braced and put together, and lithe like a living thing. And that is when the sailor too is on his mettle, no less in command for all his reverence in the presence of a power mightier than his own.
This also I take to be the message of these tall ships, coming here on freedom’s birthday: their voyage is made to demonstrate that liberty is not the toy of whim, not mere indulgence of each sailor’s dream, or any citizen’s selfish wish: hut rather is founded upon a deeper consonance with those eternal laws which God ordained to rule the universe: laws of brotherhood, laws of truth, laws of love and sacrifice and the humble integrity of self-discipline. You go by His wind! for these are the laws “whose service is perfect freedom.”
Let us remember that They are given by that “Father of Lights” “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning,” that same God whose Word to us in the centuries ahead can be naught else but simply and quietly: “Steady as you go.”