It is a further cause of satisfaction and joy, when after the lapse of twenty years he meets that mother and son again in the west of England, to find that God's hand has been upon them both; the prayers of the long ascended father and the living mother for their boy have been answered in his early conversion, and in the devotion of his heart and life to God; and that, blooming into manhood, he is about to offer his gifts and energies to be employed in that ministry in which it was his father's delight and honour to live and die. May the blessing of his father's God make the course of the young minister to be one eminently enriched with all the fragrant graces and beauties of Christian holiness, and abounding with the fruits of the higher wisdom that winneth souls for God!

planters. There are several from Barbadoes; one of whom, a tall, thin, elderly personage, once sympathized with the views and feelings of a wicked faction who destroyed the Wesleyan chapel in that island many years ago. But he has lived to come under better and holier influences; and he now rejoices over the downfal of a most atrocious system of slavery, which in former time he was ready to uphold, if needful, by sacrilege and murder. Another, from Jamaica, has adopted the narrow views which have long characterized his class in that island, and contributed largely to bring upon it the blighting displeasure of a righteous God, and to overspread a beautiful colony with desolation and ruin. A new class of men, influenced by nobler views, and adopting a more generous and common-sense policy, must be raised up to superintend its cultivation, ere Jamaica will arise from the dust, and share the agricultural and commercial prosperity which is revisiting other British possessions in the Caribbean Sea.—A missionary party, also, swells the number of passengers. A Baptist missionary, after a few months' absence to recruit his health, is returning to his pastoral charge in the interior of Jamaica, having left his family in England until it shall be seen whether his spare frame has, by the brief sojourn "at home," acquired sufficient vigour to endure the wasting labours of a tropical climate. The meek and quiet spirit which he breathes, together with a shrewd and discriminating knowledge of men and things, augurs well for the churches that shall be placed under his pastoral care. The other, a Wesleyan missionary, after several years' residence in England, preceded by seventeen years of interesting toil among the Negroes of the Caribbean group, is going back with his family to enter again upon that fruitful scene of labour. Sable vestments tell of recent inroads made by death upon that domestic circle. Three youthful females, not in mourning, help to make up the party, being the children of a missionary labourer still in the field, who, after seven years' absence at school, are returning to the shelter of the paternal roof.

A respectable-looking, elderly gentleman, of the true

French loquacity, exhibits at his button-hole the symbol of the legion d'honneur; and, on inquiry, it is ascertained that he is proceeding to Guadeloupe, to assume the administration of the government of that colony. Another, with wellcultivated moustache and beard, but a decided Mulatto, is on his way to the penal settlement of Cayenne, whither, under the iron rule of the Bonaparte who has grasped the reins of government with energetic hands so many unfortunate Frenchmen have been banished. He goes to fill some important judicial appointment in that region of suffering and death. A considerable company of French people of both sexes, mostly in the bloom of youth, are proceeding to California, in hope of reaping, as professors of the drama, a golden harvest in that community of treasure-seekers; and two French families, comprising three generations, are returning, after a visit to Europe, to their adopted home in the land of the Spaniard, where the kidnapped Negro, robbed of his manhood and of his liberty, is compelled to herd like the brute in barracoons, and is chased to a premature grave, often to a bloody one, by terror of the bloodhound, the brandingiron, and the scourge. Strange, that not only men, but lively, youthful, tender women, will brave all the horrors of the slave-land, when wealth is to be gained, and become familiarized with scenes of cruelty and torture which angels would shudder to behold!

Onward "La Plata " speeds, and casts behind her more than three hundred miles per day. With outspread sails, and the engines taxed to their utmost power, it is wonderful —it is fearful—to look over the stern, and behold the rapidity with which the huge ship throws aside the yielding waters, and dashes onward to the goal. By the fury of the tempest, more than two days of the fifteen allotted for her passage have been lost; and she must not lose her good name. "Keep her going," is the word; and well is the command observed. Round and round go the ponderous wheels, with untiring play; out of both her capacious funnels pour dense black continuous columns of smoke, stretching away for miles, as they unfold themselves in rolling

The tender is now alongside, appearing but a cockle-shell in comparison with her lofty principal. A scramble to get on board ensues, the stronger elbowing and thrusting aside the weaker, as if life itself depended upon being among the first to tread "La Plata's" decks. But the more timid, who have patiently waited their turn, with the nurses and children, are all in due time handed over the tender's paddlebox by polite and attentive officers. The piles of baggage are also carefully transferred to the larger vessel; the whole speedily disappearing, as porters from the shore bear it away, and deposit it in the cabins respectively apportioned to the several owners. Some mistakes have occurred in the hurry of embarkation. Cabin No 9, which, along with three others, Nos. 7, 11, and 13, has been engaged by a family party of seven persons, is found occupied by strange boxes and carpet-bags, the owner of which is beginning to uncord them, with a view of putting things in order, and making all as snug and comfortable as possible, while the vessel lies quietly at anchor. Explanation follows; when it is found that the stranger has got into "the wrong box," by mistaking No. 9 aft for No. 9 forward, where the berth to which he has a legitimate claim awaits his occupation. A word or two of good-humoured apology sets the matter. right; and on the shoulders of a sturdy porter the intruding baggage is borne away to the less sumptuous yet comfortable range of cabins before the funnels.

The large and handsome saloon, extending in length nearly seventy feet, and beautifully fitted with panels and twisted columns of bird's-eye maple and cushions of crimson velvet, presents a lively scene. Family parties, exchanging a few last words, are grouped in different directions; while the purser and the company's clerks, at separate tables, are busily engaged in rectifying mistakes, adjusting conflicting claims, or startling some of the passengers by accounts for extra baggage." Many on board are, manifestly, foreigners. At one end of the spacious apartment, a loquacious little Frenchman, whose fierce, squirrel-like eyes are almost the only part of his features not concealed by a mass of carefully

cultivated hair, is carrying on an angry dispute with one of the company's clerks, and two or three of the passengers, who appear to be interested on the other side of the question. It is impossible for those who are in the vicinity not to overhear the conversation, in which several other parties on both sides, as well as the principal disputants, take a vociferous part; and it soon becomes apparent, that the diminutive Frenchman, through some mistake of the company's Parisian agent, has obtained the occupancy of a cabin previously engaged by an English resident at Bogota, who quietly insists on having the accommodation for which he has stipulated and paid. The Frenchman has, however, the advantage of possession. With the key of the apartment in his pocket, he sets argument, entreaty, and authority alike at defiance; and, with a volubility perfectly overwhelming, persists in asserting his right.

The dispute remains unsettled, when it is announced that the tender, which had returned to Southampton, has again put off from the shore with the mails;—the well-known sign that the ship will speedily put to sea. A few minutes suffice to bring the little steamer alongside; when, under the superintendence of the agent,—an old, battered, and nearly worn-out lieutenant of the navy,-the mails are brought on board. Nearly seventy stout canvas bags, and other packages, each requiring two or three men to lift it, contain the mass of correspondence and news for transportation to the west. What a world of emotion is bound up in the contents of those packages! How much of hope and despondency, of joy and sorrow, may be latent there! When those mail bags shall have yielded their sealed treasures, what impulses will be given to the yearnings of a heartless cupidity on the one hand, and to the noble sentiments and aspirations of a self-denying benevolence on the other! As the bags are successively handed over the ship's side by "La Plata's" brawny tars, their destination may be read, printed on the canvas in large characters. The word "Havana" shows some to be designed for Cuba, where the worst horrors of slavery are still rampant, and