caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island, which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat, which, when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. And we being exceedingly tossed with the tempest, the next day they lightened the ship, and th third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be sa ed was then taken away."

Virgil's description of a storm in the first book of an epic poem, which is the boast of ages, and the darling of criticism, may be more elaborate, yet is not more affecting than the above narrative.

But the misfortunes of these miserable mariners are by no means at an end. During the space of a fortnight, a most tremendous interval, the storm rages with unmitigated wrath. They are buffeted by all the billows of the Adriatic sea. At starless midnight, dreading the peril of hidden rocks, they cast four anchors

out of the ship, and wished for the day. Infatuated, intimidated men, how often did ye wish not only for the dawn of a serene morning, but that ye had listened to the voice of the saint and the sage, and not have loosed from Crete to have gained this harm and loss!

Though Paul had been so maltreated by these misguided men, be does not attempt to revenge himself in the height of their calamity. After calmly expostulating with them on the enormous absurdity of their conduct, his very next accents are those of comfort and consolation. He exhorts the dejected mariners to be of good cheer, and assures them that no life shall be lost, predicts, as from the beginning, the shipwreck, as a punishment for their temerity, then renews his topics of cheerfulness, and apprizes them that they will reach the island of Malta in safety.

Thus terminates the voyage of this crazy Alexandrian skiff, whose owner was self-love, whose helmsman was rashness, and whose sailors were blindness, caprice, and obstinacy. As might be expected, even by an individual of far less penetration than Paul, this ill-managed and ill-fated vessel ran aground, and

a pitiful figure she makes on the shore, with her head stuck in the sand, and her stern broken with the violence of the waves. The cargo

gluts the sea, the ship is wrecked on the strand, and on disjointed planks and broken boards, overwhelmed with fear, harassed by hunger, drenched with rain, and benumed with cold, instead of a secure haven and a comfortable home under the clement skies of their regretted Italy, the mariners find themselves on a barren rock, and among a barbarous people.

Shakspeare, somewhere, describing a herd of a similar character to the crew in the text, remarks, that "they'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk." Our rash mariners had all this facility. Without making a wry face, they swallowed every word of the owner and master of the ship, with as much ease as they would a sugared medicine, but it proved to be the bitterest pill they had ever taken, and, as we have seen, aggravated all the horrors of their sea sickness to a tenfold degree.

We have now finished a narrative of this sinister voyage, which, we are afraid, as far as our own pen has been employed, will prove as fatiguing to our readers, as it was to the remon

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strating saint, and the rebellious crew. One natural inference shall now be drawn, which may be considered as the moral of this essay.

In every country, in every age, how often has this despicable farce of human perverseness been exhibited! How obstinately do men shut their eyes against the radiance of reason, and stop their ears, to exclude the voice of truth!

In seasons of political peril, for example, how often has a sagacious statesman, whose wisdom and prescience have been tried, as it were, in a balance, and uniformly stood the test of an unerring standard, cautioned in vain, both the officer and the mariner not to embark madly in the crazy ship, Desperation. Some narrow calculation, some short-sighted policy, some giddy humour has predominated over experience, prudence, and genius. Men rush to their ruin. The Euroclydon rises. The bleak northeast of adversity howls in every ear. The fatal levanter sweeps the sea and the sky. The "fountains of the great deep are broken up," and our bark and the crew are dashed on the quicksands of destruction.

STORY OF SAMUEL.

"Moreover his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year.”—1 Sam. xi. 19.

In the initial book of the kings of Israel, which, as it records, in a very noble style, some of the most memorable events in Jewish history, deserves the profoundest attention, perhaps there is nothing more pleasing and instructive than the biography of the prophet Samuel. A circumstance, apparently trivial, which occurred in his infancy, will form the subject of our present speculation.

We deliberately adopt the phrase " apparently trivial," because the circumstance in question, though it might not be noticed by the quick glance of hasty observation, led to the most im portant results, and contributed to the formation