But, laying all figures aside, I could not but think what a vast and striking monument of human depravity the rock of Gibraltar, with its immense excavations, and works of defence, will be to those who shall see the time, when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruninghooks; when nation shall no more take up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Perchance, too, the time may come, when the very name and remembrance of war may be so lost and shrouded in the deep oblivion of remote antiquity, that the object of these excavations shall be veiled in a mystery as deep and impenetrable as now rests upon the pyramids of Egypt, or the mounds of Northern Asia and America.

I have spoken of the peculiar excitement one feels on first landing, after a long voyage. At sunset, on the day of our arrival at Gibraltar, I was standing in the Alameida, in front of the beautiful pavilion there, and near the monument to Lord Wellington. Behind me was the lofty rock, and around were a thousand various plants and shrubs which line the mazy walks, while in front was the quiet bay, and beyond rose mount Abyla, one of the pillars of Hercules, on whose summit was a golden cloud, from behind which the setting sun sent forth a flood of rich and mellow light, which spread over half the horizon. By my side was standing a Scottish soldier, to whom the waving plumes, and the tartan kilt of his native land, gave a wild and singular appearance. As he spoke of the scenes among which he had spent his youth, Scotland, with her rugged mountains and classic glens, and her stern and rigid morality, so much like our own New England, came up before the mind, and, blending their interest with that of the scene around, excited emotions of almost unearthly ecstasy.

In the evening the moon shone with uncommon splendor, and the streets were full of life and motion. While passing by a barber's shop, I heard some one say camphor, -camphor, said another, spelling it promptly. The same was done with other words. It was truly delightful, amid the jargon of foreign languages, to hear one's mother tongue, and that, too, used in a way which revived so freshly the recollections of my school-boy days. There, thought I, is some one who is doing good, and I could not resist the impulse which I felt to see him. He was about thirty years of age, genteely dressed, and was, as he told me, the head clerk in a large commercial house. Before him was standing a bright, black-eyed Spa

nish boy, about twelve years old, who was a poor orphan, and to whose instruction this gentleman devoted an hour every evening. This fact was a sufficient passport to my confidence, and I found him a very useful and intelligent friend.

It was just at night when we left Gibraltar for Mahon, and it proved a very dark and stormy one. The Rock rose behind us like a sable cloud, while the evening lights in the houses which extend far up its side, looked like so many stars shining through the thick darkness which shrouded the heavens. The next day, however, was pleasant, and the waters sank to rest. It was the Sabbath, and we moved quietly on in our floating chapel, with nothing to lessen the peculiar interest which one can hardly help feeling in religious worship at sea. All are present at such times but the officer of the deck, together with four or five at the wheel by which the ship is steered, and a few in the tops, and most of these can hear the voice of the preacher. The remark is frequently made by seamen, that the Sabbath is more often pleasant than any other day in the week, and so we, during our cruise, certainly found it to be. A ship's company on board a man-of-war are commonly a very attentive congregation, where the services are adapted to their circumstances and feelings. The monotony of a life at sea leads them to seek the variety, the social excitement, and the reviving of earlier and purer feelings, which the Sabbath, with its cleanliness and its sacred associations, brings along with it. "The good folks at home are praying for us now," they would say, when the Sabbath came; and when, too, in our united devotions, we asked the blessing of Heaven on those beloved friends from whom we were so widely severed, strange feelings came over us: and when we thought that perchance we might meet them no more on earth, emotions of peculiar sadness oppressed us, such as might yield only to those hopes of an endless and blissful union with those whom we loved, which are extended to the righteous in the volume of eternal truth. Choirs of singers are sometimes organized on board our men-of-war, but we relied wholly upon a fine band of music to give impressiveness and power to those tunes which, from our earliest years, had been associated in our minds with the words of sacred song. Our interest in public worship was heightened by the fact, that we were sailing over the same sea where Paul and the fishermen of Galilee wandered, when, in obedience to the command of Christ, they went forth into all the world, to preach the gospel to every creature;

and where, too, they doubtless often declared the message of heaven to those with whom they sailed. Our Saviour, also, from a vessel's deck preached the gospel to the multitudes who thronged the shore; thus, as it were, raising the Bethel Flag on the sea of Galilee, and furnishing a cheering example to such as are called to labor for the good of those exposed to peril on the mighty deep.

The ocean presents a thousand forms of grandeur and of beauty, all of which are peculiarly fitted to suggest and to heighten religious emotions, and with strange distinctness to stamp, in enduring characters, lessons of heavenly wisdom on the mind. Now, with feelings of high excitement, one looks around him, when tempests roar and awful thunders roll, until, as his soul rises within him, he seems himself to become the animating spirit of the scene around him; and the fierce rushing of the hurricane, and the bursting of the thunderbolt are to him but as the actings of his own mind. At such times he loves the madness of the sea, when lashed by the wrath of the tempest, and, holding high communion with God through the noblest of his works, he feels and knows that he must be immortal. He seems conscious too of the power ascribed to pure and lofty spirits, of existing and acting wherever in the wide universe their thoughts may chance to wander, and of instantly effecting any thing which the mind may will.

But not only is there grandeur and sublimity, but there is too beauty, ay, surpassing beauty, in the deep. He who hath been borne far upon its bosom, and hath closely watched it, when in its milder and more playful moods, cannot but have felt, if he had a heart to feel,—that it is truly beautiful. To have had this feeling, deep and strong, one need not have descended below the surface of the ocean, to witness the gambols of" that leviathan which God hath made to play therein, and who maketh a path to shine after him, so that one would think the deep to be hoary." He need not have looked upon the world of animated beings, which, with their thousand widely varied species, all full of life, and joy, and motion, sport and revel in the depths below. Nor need he have wandered in imagination through those fairy regions which poetic fancy, with magic wand, has called into being,

those spacious and brilliant halls, far down in the caves of the sea, which are paved and lighted by the pearls and gems of the ocean. Those regions,

"Where, with its waving blade of green,

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter:
Where, with a light and easy motion,

The fan-coral sweeps through the deep clear sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean

Are bending like corn on the upland lea."

"There's beauty in the deep," when the tempest has died away, and the long-swelling glassy billows are rolling around you, and the sun, shining forth upon the mist which rests upon the surface of the ocean, gives to it the hue of burnished gold. Or when the high waves, crested with foam and silvery spray, and extending as far as the eye can reach, seem like so many monsters of the deep, engaged in gay and sportive gambols, while the ship in which you sail is dashing boldly on, plunging amid the foam, tossing it on high, and the sunlit waves send up their joyous gleams to heaven.

One more sketch and we leave this topic. Our ship, as already noticed, had passed the straits of Gibraltar, and the dark Rock was far behind us. The air was soft and balmy as the breath of spring, while a gentle breeze, which scarcely ruffled the surface of the deep, bore us onward. Our gallant bark spread wide and high her snowy canvass, and though she marched proudly on, yet was there no more motion within her than if she had been lying in a quiet harbour. For the first time in my life I was looking out upon the Mediterranean ;

"That tideless sea,

Which changeless rolls eternally."

That sea, whose very name recalled to the mind so many rich and poetical associations of early and of riper days, - whose waves had for thousands of years washed the shores of lands where had flourished and decayed the oldest and most renowned empires on which the sun ever shone, Egypt and Carthage, sacred Palestine, and classic Italy, and Greece.

On our left rose the lofty mountains of Granada, the scene of many a trial of Moorish and of Christian valor. The highest peaks were covered with snow, which brightly glistened as the setting sun poured forth, over land and sea, one unclouded blaze of living light. Nearer to us was Malaga, with its dense mass of houses, its old Moorish wall, and its vast Cathedral, all distinctly visible. As the sun, in sinking, gave a parting smile, as if to cheer and gladden creation

around, he left behind a sky of rich and mellow softness, with dark and ragged clouds, of every varied and fantastic form, drawn in bold relief upon the brilliant back-ground. As the twilight faded away, and the moon arose, the song and the dance were heard on the forecastle, for thus the more gay and thoughtless of the crew often amused themselves after the labors of the day.

"Some rude Arion's restless hand Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love : A circle there of merry list'ners stand,

Or to some well-known measure featly move,

Thoughtless, as if, on shore, they still were free to rove."

Leaving this scene of noisy mirth, and retiring to the after part of the ship, I climbed to the mizen top, some fifty feet up from the deck. There, were ten or twelve of the crew, amusing each other by recounting their past adventures, and often have I sat for hours listening to the wild and eventful history of their by-gone days. At such times sailors relate alike the evil and the good in their characters and conduct, and where one has gained their confidence and respect, and shows a ready sympathy in their sufferings, they will kindly listen to the warnings and the counsel he may give them. So unaccustomed are they to meet with those who seek their highest good, that they are often peculiarly grateful for any interest which is shown in their religious welfare, and, when thus affected, recalling to mind the instructions of the Sabbath School, and the family circle, they will, for the time, freely yield to the tender and subduing influence of Christian sympathy.

When most of those who had been with me had descended, and all was still aloft, the scene was truly delightful. The moon was holding her silent and majestic course in the heavens, and her bright image was seen far down in the deep. The sea and the sky were both of the purest blue, and far above and below us were thickly set with brilliant stars. It seemed as if we were floating in ether, and enclosed in a vast and splendid sphere, with every part of its surface lighted by myriads of golden lamps. The air was mild and balmy, and all around was like a scene of enchantment, or a lovely dream of poetic fiction. Who, at such a time, could help exclaiming, "There 's beauty in the deep."

We were five days on our passage from Gibraltar to Mahon, in the island of Minorca, the place where our ships