I will make you fishers of men

In Edward Rutherford’s epic novel London, the story of the city from one generation to another, he describes the disappointed feelings of one of his characters in the 17th century who had dreamed for a long time of sailing to America and joining the Puritans. She finally goes and upon returning to London the author describes the following:

Truth to tell, Martha had grown a little disappointed in Massachusetts. She had hardly like to admit it even to herself while she was there; but as she confided to her friend Mrs. Wheeler: “There has been some backsliding in New England.” In Boston and Plymouth, even. And when Mrs. Wheeler gently enquired what it was that had tempted some of the colony from the path of righteusness, Martha did not hesitate. “Cod. It’s fish that have taken men from the Lord.”

The catch off the New England coast had been phenomenal, past all the settlers’ wildest dreams. “There are so many fish, ” they declared, “you can almost walk on the waters.” Every year the Massachusetts fishermen were sending between a third and half a million barrels of fish across the ocean to England. “God has granted them such abundance they do not think they need Him,” Martha complained. “They are laying up treasures on earth instead of heaven…..They speak of God but they think of money,” Martha admitted sadly. And some of the fishermen did not even trouble to do that; Martha could never forget, or quite forgive, the terrible occasion when the eldest Dogget son, now a sea captain of some wealth, had turned on her and shouted: “Damn it, woman, I came here to fish, not to pray.”