recollection of my then worse than brutal insensibility and hardness of heart. For I know that not only then, but long afterwards, I lived as without God, having no saving scriptural knowledge, no gospel hope. I was truly an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger to the covenant of promise. O Lord! what shall I render unto thee for thy unnumbered mercies? How shall I, how can I, sufficiently adore that forbearance and tender compassion which spared and supported me through all the struggles and dangers connected with this my first shipwreck? Had I this day sixteen years ago been numbered among those who fell, O where, where would my immortal soul have now been? Where, but in hell! suffering the righteous judgments of abused mercy and insulted majesty!-beholding the felicity of the redeemed and the glory of the Redeemer; but myself afar off! May I never allow the return of this season to pass by without gratefully acknowledging thy mercy, and endeavouring to raise my mind to high and holy contemplations on Thee, thou Triune Jehovah, as the author of all mercies, and giver of every good and perfect gift! Should to-morrow's sun rise amidst clouds and storms, and drifting hail and snow, let it give me a realizing sense of the dangers I have passed; and while I am experiencing the

comforts of a house, a home, and a fire side, may I not forget the sufferings, the agonizing pains of those who, as at this season, fell to rise no more.* But especially when yonder leafless trees, groaning beneath the winter's blast, send forth the hollow roar, and mimic the voice of storms at sea-when the frame of my cottage occasionally trembles under the pressure of sudden squalls and gusts of wind, and the electric cloud sends forth its vivid deadly fire, O then may I in a more especial manner bear in my mind, in my heart, and in my prayers, those multitudes who still traverse the ocean, encountering all the severity of this season, and all the perils of the deep. And O! most gracious God! may all thy children, under all the variety of circumstances and situations in which they

*With respect to those who fall victims to the severity of cold, there can be no doubt but many of them go off without experiencing any other sensible pain or inconveniency than that of great fatigue and an unconquerable drowsiness, which latter seems rather to relieve them from their perceptions of cold than otherwise, and to dismiss the spirit, apparently without a struggle. But in others it is far different, as appeared in the case of more than one of my departed fellow travellers, whose drowsy fit or first sleep was followed by strong and agonizing convulsions, in which they beat themselves against the ice, so as greatly to disfigure their persons. One poor man absolutely severed the strong bone of his thumb in two between his own teeth.

are placed, call to mind thy former mercies, and laud and magnify thy holy name, until removed from this lower, this troubled and sinful world, they unite with that innumerable host around thy throne, in ascribing "blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, unto God and the Lamb for ever and ever!"

No. II.

"ONE SHALL BE TAKEN, AND THE OTHER LEFT."

In the course of my earthly pilgrimage I have witnessed many a literal fulfilment of the above prediction. But there was one in particular, which took place on the memorable second of February, an account of which may not be unacceptable to the reader. We had two females on board our frigate. The one was a robust, masculine woman, who had been at sea with her husband for more than two years, and consequently was inured to all the privations and hardships of a maritime life: the other an entire stranger to such a mode of existence. She had never been twelve hours on ship-board until the evening she came off to see her husband, whom we had impressed the last time we anchored in their port.-Scarcely had this woman, timid and full of alarm, got on our deck, ere the weather became stormy, and the night set in. There was now no alternative, but patiently waiting for the return of day, or fairer weather. But that very night, our

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destination to port, where we expected to refit and recruit after a dismal cruise off the coast of Norway, was countermanded. Some men of considerable political importance came on board, and we were ordered to sea at an hour's notice, and our visitor was thus unavoidably carried from her home and friends. She was indeed with her husband (a consolation not small to an affectionate wife): but then she was not only an entire stranger to the scenes and inconveniences of a ship at sea, but was in herself a very tender delicate woman, and, moreover, near the time of her confinement. As the weather continued rough, sea-sickness, and a thousand fears, seized on her, and in the course of the day she was delivered of a dead child.

Eighteen hours after this event, our ship struck the ground, and was stranded, notwithstanding all the efforts used to save her. Thirty hours more had barely elapsed, when our poor companion was called on to travel, or rather to stumble, through ice and snow; to set her face against the severity of such a storm of wind, and hail, and sleet, as overcame some of the apparently strongest of the crew. In short, she had to travel that journey, and to endure that weather, under which fifteen perished.

Now, my reader, figure to yourself these two females quitting the wreck; and in one behold