The sailor's Sabbath

The Sailor's Sabbath is an essay by Rev. Titus Coan, missionary at Hilo in the Hawaiian Islands, published at Honolulu in 1846. Its title page calls it a word from a friend to seamen. Its chosen subject is the violation of the Lord's Day by seamen, more especially by those connected with the whaling service. Coan writes that the world may be challenged to name a single nation that kept a sound morality without a Sabbath.

In one passage he describes the pastor's position when church members take work on whale ships, where, he says, the law of Jehovah has less influence than the love of money. Members who labor on the Lord's Day are cut off from fellowship, while their employers, he notes, remain in good standing in their own churches. Another passage takes up an objection about a whale caught on Saturday that cannot be processed before the Sabbath. Coan answers that such losses are more imaginary than real, after inquiries among masters and officers in the whaling service.