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For this reason he would not, even now, centre all his attention upon the great siege; he knew what a long, dispiriting business it was likely to be, and feared to fall into that comparative idleness. Soon after the incident of the Sicilian corn-ship, he was once more commanding in the north, where a few cities yet held out against him.

Give us no sermons or newspaper articles that are depressing. We know all that before you start; amid the greatest disheartenments there are hopeful things that may be said. While the Mediterranean corn-ship was going to smash, Paul told the crew to "Be of good cheer."

But the centurion, as a military officer, was superior to the captain of an Alexandrian corn-ship, and Paul had already made his force of character so felt that it is not wonderful that he took part in the discussion. Naturally the centurion was guided by the professional rather than by the amateur member of the council, and the decision was come to to push on as far and fast as possible.

Six days later a Byzantine corn-ship brought from Amorgos to Peiræus two survivors of the Solon,—the only ones to escape the swamping of the pinnace.

With that lack of courage which characterised them, the Greeks did nothing more than wave arms and shout: under their very eyes, the corn-ship was boarded by the Goths, and taken into Ostia. Of courage, indeed, as of all other soldierly virtues, little enough was exhibited, at this stage of the war, on either side.

What Paul said to the crew and passengers on the corn-ship of the Mediterranean is appropriate here: "Now I exhort you to be of good cheer!" God fit us for the day when the archangel, with one foot on the sea and the other on the land, shall swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever that time shall be no longer! Your attention is called to a Bible incident that you may not have noticed.

Only there was more movement in this picture: a splendid yacht, with the gold and ivory glittering on its prow and poop, was shooting out from the royal dockyards in front of the palace; a ponderous corn-ship was spreading her dirty sails to try to beat out against the adverse breeze, and venture on a voyage to Rome, at a season when the Italian traffic was usually suspended.

Although the northern coast of Africa had once been the granary of Carthage and Rome, cultivation had receded, and the corn-ship of antiquity had given place to the felucca of the corsair, preying upon the commerce of Europe.