Another account of prayer-book reading on the Franklin/Richardson overland journeys, attempting to explain what kept them from total despair:
p. 212-13: Look into the house, Fort Enterprize, on the night when Richardson and Hepburn joined their famine-stricken companions. The shed gaunt and bare; the men ghostly and feeble; the prospects of the future blank and hopeless; the present full of sorrow. But there is the flickering of a small fire in the room, and the doctor takes from his pocket a Testament and a prayer-book (it will be remembered in had thrown away all his valuable collection of plants, and everything superfluous, but he had not thrown away these), and then they read aloud from the sacred page words of comfort and hope and strong assurance; and then, kneeling down, offer up the prayers written in that book of Common Prayer, which have expressed the wants of all men, in all lands, and under all circumstances. And then they retire to rest. It is surely interesting to remember how many truly Christian men were engaged in Arctic exploration, and it is not difficult in the light of this little episode to explain the calmness and resignation of the gallant band under Franklin. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.”