button to main menu  Gents Mag 1853 part 2 p.373
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Gentleman's Magazine 1853 part 2 p.373
Thus tenderly summoned, the mariner would rouse himself, but scarce could he leap forward when he saw that angelic hands were about his task. No sooner did he touch a rope than the sail ran along the yard, and stood swelling out, the mizzen was set and the ship made way. If at any time again the vessel took in water, the old man needed only once or twice to raise the handle of the pump and no longer did any trace of moisture remain on the planks, and nothing was left for the mariner to do but sit admiring while his labour was forestalled by invisible hands. Perhaps though I am wrong in calling those hands invisible whose works were so manifestly visible. Sometimes indeed it was vouchsafed him to behold an armed band - one may suppose of heavenly soldiers - who kept their watches on the deck and acted in all points as seamen. What crew indeed but a crew of angels was worthy to work that vessel which was streered by the Pilot of the world? At the helm sat our dear Lord, one while, as described in the Apocalypse, with his hair white as snow and his eyes as a flame of fire, and another while wearing the venerable aspect of His friend and Confessor Felix,* our patron saint. What wonderful good fortune was that old man's ill fortune! in the place of his mates he had for a companion the Martyr of the Lord, or the Lord of the Martyr. Tears of joy ran down his cheeks while he told me how, reclining at his feet, he dared to lay his head on those divine knees, and felt his hair scented by that divine breath.
Here Paulinus at some length points out how the goodness of God was displayed in each incident of this transaction; fortifying and illustrating his argument, as he proceeds, with numerous passages from the Scriptures. We take the opposrtunity to bring forward other passages from Coleridge:

The helmsman steer'd: the ship mov'd on:
Yet never a breeze upblew:
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes
When they were wont to do.

'Twas not these souls that fled in pain
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest.
* * * *

Till noon we silently sail'd on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Mov'd onward from beneath.
* * * *
To return once more to the narrative of Paulinus:
Devious was the course of that vessel, driven by tempests from sea to sea. First it drew near the Imperial City, where the lighthouse at the harbour caught the wanderer's eye; next, ran along the coast of Campania; then, seized by a whirlwind, was carried across to the African shore. There another whirlwind caught it and bore it back to the Sicilian coast, where the sea is made rough and boisterous by the numerous islands. Those waters indeed are dangerous even for ships steered by the most able pilots; yet this vessel, undirected save by the Holy Spirit, avoided every shoal and quicksand, and kept to the deep water, skilfully choosing each needful turn and winding. At length, after twenty-three days, by God's good grace, it made an end of its perilous course on the Lucanian shore. When now near to land the Eternal Lord did not again neglect to display His enduring mercies. Inspired by Him, some fishermen put forth from land; they were in two small boats, and seeing the ship in the offing, were in the utmost terror and attempted to fly, for it looked, as they afterwards said, just like a ship of war. With loud and repeated shouts the old man called them back; they took counsel with each other, and, the Lord inspiring them, they understood they might approach the vessel without fear. When they came alongside, though the old man assured them there were no soldiers on board, they would not believe him, and at last hardly credited the evidence of their own eyes. He set before them a breakfast which, at the Lord's bidding, he had prepared long before; besides which he presented them with a great many loaves, the provision of the men who were drowned. The fishermen took these gifts very kindly, and in requital of the favour towed it in triumph into the harbour, as if it were returning from a conflict with wind and wave, and had its prow wreathed with the garlands of victory.
We here bring forward the parallel stanzas:

O dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
* * * *

I turned my eyes upon the deck,
O, Christ! what saw I there?
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.
* Not far from Nola was the tomb of the Confessor and Martyr Felix, over which a church had been built, with a few cells attached; one of these cells formed the abode of Paulinus, and here he afterwards joined by Macarius, to whom this Epistle was addressed.
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