are to each and all of us. Perhaps we too have swelled the numbers of the congregation, and have sat beneath the ministry of faithful and devoted servants of Christ. But, alas! "the Word preached did not profit, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it:" we did not attend to the counsel of a wise and merciful God, and we would not have his dear Son to reign over us. We were like those by the wayside, for no sooner did we hear the Word, than we allowed Satan to steal it out of our hearts.

Perhaps we have served pious masters, who, sensible of the blessings obtained through attendance on the means and ordinances of grace, required their families and servants to attend, that they might hear the solemn warnings and kind invitations of mercy addressed to them. If we had listened, we should not now in all probability be amongst those who form a congregation in the Pestonjee Bomanjee.

The text for the occasion was solemnly striking, and fraught with infinite condescension and love. It was from Ezekiel, chap. xxxiii., v. 11—“ As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" Nothing could have been more applicable to us than these words of advice and encouragement. There we see the infinite God, stooping down as it were, and calling the creature sunk in guilt and misery to return to him-a God of unspotted purity and holiness reasoning with a creature that is depraved and rebellious. Oh, the love! the forbearance and the goodness of God! there is nothing to be compared to it. The gift of his eternal Son is an act of such infinite love, that description fails to convey an

idea of it. "He sent His Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved." This is love! Love that God alone could entertain! How different are God's actions to those of man! "His ways are not our ways, neither are his thoughts our thoughts."

We violate the laws of our country, and our fellow men inflict the merited punishment-and properly; for if there was no punishment, there would be no protection. But man, puny man, openly, wilfully, and repeatedly rebels against God, defies his authority, tramples on his holy laws, and yet God calls him to return and be forgiven, not willing that he should eternally perish.

Oh, may this feeble attempt of a fellow prisoner to impress on your minds the solemnity of a Sabbath day at sea, be effectual to your good, and also to my good; and may we all, when we assemble for divine service on the quarter-deck, be able earnestly to say, in the language of the Prodigal Son, "I will arise and go to my father." J. A.*

STANZAS ON A SUICIDE.

UNHAPPY one! life has for thee no sunny ray;
Through the dark caverns of thy troubled soul
Crowd wildly dismal shapes, in ominous array,—
A grisly crew-repentance, grief, despair, dismay:
A weltering hell, o'er which tenebrious vapours roll.

Silent and gloomy! without a shadowy hope;

A conscience bruised and bleeding-hunted by remorse!

* Vide Note, p. 41.

Pity a poor blind man, who tremblingly doth grope
Along the giddy verge of life, without a prop,

And staggers on the brink; no hand to guide his course.

A lurid lamp throws a funereal gloom,

'Mid flickering shadows, o'er the peopl❜d decks. 'Tis midnight; the doom'd one hastens to his doom: A handkerchief, a post, and little more than room To stand erect in. The maniac nothing recks.

A demon stands beside, and guides his hand with care
To adjust the knot, then kicks away his trembling feet
'Mid hellish glee. Did no one restless sleeper there,
Whose breath is on that livid check, start from his lair,
Roused by that yell? Not one! His cup is now complete.

A bitter cup! bitter with misery and tears,

Without one azure drop from the eternal spring
Of life, to sweeten its turbid flood of griefs and tears.
He drains it to the very dregs, amid the sneers
Of every scoffing demon and polluted thing.

Behold the parting shudder of that passing soul,

The quivering nerve, convulsed with arrowy pain. Away the murky tempest, clouds together roll, Revealing the throne of God above, the final goal,— The radiant throne, where Justice and Mercy reign.

Oh, Mercy! pity the nakedness of that one,

Of that prostrate soul that kneeleth now before thee. May not his tears, his grief, his agony have won Redemption? Here forsaken, desolate, undone ;No hope of joy remained, if not seen in Thee!

[The above was written while feeling deeply the impression produced by one of the prisoners hanging himself, about midnight, on the lower deck. Although almost touching those who were sleeping in the adjoining berths, his position was not discovered till the morning, when life had been long extinct. An inquiry made into the causes of this awful catastrophe, proved that the unfortunate man had occasionally suffered from different forms and degrees of lunacy, and that he was so affected in all probability at the time he committed the fatal act. His condition in life had been that of a labouring man; but his physical debility had probably prevented him earning a fair wage, thus in a manner forcing him to become a thief. He had been convicted of housebreaking, and sentenced to seven years' transportation, a considerable portion of which sentence he had undergone in prison at Gibraltar, and on public works. He was about fifty years of age, morose, silent, and retiring. No act of friendship or kindness had ever been sufficient to awaken confidence in him, and he therefore perished with his tale untold. One thing only was remarked by those who had been the longest associated with him, that he appeared to feel deeply his degradation. This, added to the fact that he was an uneducated man without mental resources, are probably reasons sufficient to account for his fate; at least we know of none other.]

HOBART TOWN.

THIS is to be considered the continuation of the description of the entrance to Hobart Town, inserted in a previous number; and we shall therefore commence by

saying, that however lively the expectations excited, they are not destined to be extinguished on landing. A stranger cannot but admire the completeness of the mechanism of civilised life which he sees around him. For the convenience of foreign trade, wharfs, and even basins, in which vessels of three or four hundred tons can receive or discharge their cargoes, are formed, of a size proportioned to the demand for such accommodation, and to an extent much beyond what is often observed in old commercial emporiums.

In Hobart Town, although perhaps no individual object deserves to be specially described on account of its superior architectural effect or extensive public utility, there is yet great room for praising the manner of forming, paving, and macadamising the streets. Without any regard to the original inequalities of the ground, they cross each other at right angles, running in straight lines from the cardinal points of the compass, many of them more than a mile in length. The same regularity does not, however, extend to the houses, for each proprietor has built or declined building, entirely at his own discretion. Except, then, in the principal streets, where a considerable amount of uniformity exists, every possible variety of domestic architecture is observed, corresponding to nothing often but the fantastic caprice of the builder, or the extent of his funds. This defect, however, originating to a great extent in the necessary embarrassments of an infant settlement, is in rapid course of removal.

The impulse created by the gold of the neighbouring colony has so much increased the value of house property, and, in a proportionate degree, of town allotments, as to stimulate to renewed vigour the spirit of enterprise,