Him, I say, who at such a time, and under such provocations, prayed for his revilers and persecutors, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.' No, S―, I trust that your doom is not fixed, as your present troubled conscience would persuade you, but that you are still on mercy's ground; only seek the Lord, and be assured he will be found of you." Here some of the officers coming up to us broke off the conversation, and the next day, falling in with our squadron, I left the frigate and rejoined my own ship, and saw poor S- no more; but though I saw him not again, I often had him in my thoughts, and on every such occasion I could not but say, "The heart does indeed know its own bitterness,' does so know it, that a stranger intermeddles not with it, cannot feel or understand it like unto the sufferer himself, and of all bitterness of heart this must be the severest which springs from the rankling arrows of a wounded and despairing conscience, sinning against knowledge and conviction." Does the reader wish to know what ultimately became of this unhappy young man? I can give him but a short and imperfect, though I believe a gratifying account. I left the frigate, as before observed, and saw no more of the blasphemer. Years had passed over my head, and changes and providences, many, merciful, and great, had at length placed me as a minister of God's word, in a secluded village in the interior of the kingdom, where the many and multiplying objects of duty, hopes, and fears, connected with my beloved but solemn work, had at length almost obliterated the remembrance of those days I once passed in poor S -'s company on board the V-frigate. Judge then my surprise, when on returning home after a few days absence, I learnt from the servant a confused account of a Mr. Shaving sent a message by some stranger who was travelling our way, begging my pardon and forgiveness for all the pain he had once occasioned me—that he had long wished to make this apology, but had not, until very lately, been able to trace me out; such was the servant's tale. But who this messenger was, or where Mr. S- was then living, or in what state of mind, or of circumstances he was then to be found, were particulars concerning which I could gather nothing further for two or three years, when I learnt that a pious old naval friend of mine had been thrown on board the V. as a passenger, not long after I left her, and that his judicious and zealous labours were blessed by the Almighty to the establishing of poor S in the faith and hope of the Gospel; in which renewed state of heart he returned on shore in the peace of 1814, and had commenced surgical practice in London, where my informant believed he was going on well as a follower of Christ Jesus: being convinced in his own experience, that "The heart knows its own bitterness, and that a stranger intermeddles not with its joys." Further particulars I have not been able to obtain concerning him. CHAPTER XIII. "When backwards, with attentive mind, Life's labyrinths I trace, I find my God, unceasing kind, ON a review of the foregoing papers, I cannot but set my seal to the truth of the above stanza, in its fullest and most literal sense; but the circumstances particularized in Chapter VI. crowd, in a more especial manner, a host of other interesting events on the mind. Time has indeed measured out a considerable space since those events took place, but memory, faithful to her office, revives them more and more distinctly. Let me then indulge in once more turning back to the island of Minorca. It is a little spot of earth indelibly fixed on my mind, and rendered more than commonly interesting by many circumstances which occurred there. Yes, the very sight and sound of the word Minorca recalls many pleasing and many sorrowful events. Not that I assisted in any military exploits on its shores, or acquired naval fame from any thing connected with it; but it was the spot where I once lay suspended, as it were, between eternity and time; where the balance rose and fell, and the by-stander long waited in suspense whether it would predominate on the side of life or death. It was at Minorca, where sick and friendless, unknown and unknowing, I was left behind, a stranger in a strange land, while the calls of public duty directed both friends and companions elsewhere, and to return I knew not when. On these, as well as some other accounts yet to be noticed, I cannot think of this place with indifference. Six years after my first return to England from the Mediterranean, or rather nine years from my first going thither, and being left at Mahon hospital, I again visited that part of the world, and Port Mahon in particular.* What a variety of mercies, providences, and judgments, did I not witness and partake of between these two periods! Yet the events connected with my first and last visits at this moment seem to be equally distinct, and almost as the transactions of the last month! so short, so fleeting does time in the retrospect appear! and so rapidly do the various cares and enjoyments, the troubles and comforts of life, succeed each other, while their days return no more. Standing now on the downward side of the central arch of the bridge of life, and looking back on the rise as well as on the declivity already traversed, I cannot but admire the force and beauty with which the wise * Port Mahon is a principal harbour in the island of Minorca, in the centre of which is a small rocky island, whereon a naval hospital has long been built. This port has ever afforded considerable relief to our fleets employed on the blockade of Toulon, &c. The French, British, and Spaniards, have been its successive possessors. At the time of my last visit, it was, and has ever since continued, in the hands of the last unhappy people. "All man has painted the instability and fleeting nature of all sublunary things, and take up his words and say, these are passed away like a shadow, and as a post that hasteth by; and as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which, when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves; or, as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found, but the light air, being beaten with the stroke of her wings, and parted with the violent noise and motion of them, is passed through, and therein afterwards no sign where she went is to be found; or like as when an arrow is shot at a mark, it parteth the air, which immediately cometh together again, so that a man cannot know where it went through: even so we, in like manner, as soon as we were born, began to draw to our end." This however is but an additional call to devote the present hour to God, and by meditation, prayer, and praise, to endeavour to draw improvement from the exercise. We cannot recall the days of past times, whose sun is gone down, and whose seasons are for ever ended; but we may "turn back the attentive mind their labyrinths to trace," and it will be our own fault if the retrospect do not furnish abundant matter wherewith to approach the throne of God; to approach it in such a manner as may be profitable to our own souls. For myself, I may surely say, when I recollect what darkness overshadowed my mind, what carnality reigned in my heart on first visiting Port Mahon, and even when I quitted the hospital; I have on the one hand abundant cause to implore forgiveness, and equal cause on the |