how, through the curdling wreaths of the restless, crashing abyss below, the blue of the water, paled by the foam in its body, shows purer than the sky through white rain cloud: while the shuddering iris stoops in tremulous stillness over all, fading and flushing alternately through the choking spray and shattered sunshine, hiding itself at last among the thick golden leaves which toss to and fro in sympathy with the wild water; then dripping masses lifted at intervals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some stronger gush from the cataract and bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its roar died away: the dew gushing from their thick branches, through drooping clusters of emerald herbage, and sparkling in white threads along the dark rocks of the shore, feeding the lichens which chase and checker them with purple and silver.

Few people, comparatively, have even seen the effect on the sea, of a powerful gale continued without intermission for three or four days and nights; and to those who have not I believe it must be unimaginable, not from the mere force of size or surge, but from the complete annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its prolonged agitation, is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, but into masses of accumulated yeast, which hang in ropes and wreaths from wave to wave, and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like a drapery, from its edge; these are taken up by the wind, not in dissipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, hanging, coiling masses, which make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot or two long each; the surges themselves are full of foam in their very bodies, underneath, making them white all through, as the water is under a great cataract and their masses being thus half water and half air, are torn to pieces by the wind whenever they rise, and carried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its moisture by long rain, the spray of the sea is caught by it, and covers its surface, not

merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but with boiling mist; imagine also the low rain clouds brought down to the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them; whirling and flying in rags and fragments from wave to wave and finally, conceive the surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, madness and vastness, lifting themselves in precipices and peaks, furrowed with their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos and you will understand that there is indeed no distinction left between the sea and the air: that no object nor horizon, nor any landmark or natural evidence of position is left; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and that you can see no farther in any direction than you can see through a cataract. One lesson we are invariably taught by all natural things, however approached or viewed,that the work of the great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects,-that the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth and that, to the rightly perceiving mind, there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in the kindling of the day-star.

* * *

To every one of his creatures God appoints a separate mission, and if they discharge it honourably; if they quit themselves like men, and faithfully follow that light that is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its appointed mode or measure, shall shine before men, and be of service constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used will be a gift also to his race forever.

RUSKIN.

A Christian Slave.

In a recent work-"Random Shots and Southern Breezes "—is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommends the woman on the stand as a good Christian!

A CHRISTIAN-going-gone!

Who bids for God's own image? for His grace,
Which that poor victim of the market-place,
Hath, in her suffering, won?

My God! can such things be?

Hast thou not said-that whatso'er is done
Unto thy weakest and thy humblest one
Is even done to Thee?

In that sad victim, then,

Child of thy pitying love, I see Thee stand-
Once more the jest-word of a mocking band,
Bound, sold and scourged again!

A Christian up for sale!

Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame,
Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame :
Her patience shall not fail!

A heathen hand might deal

Back on your heads the gathered wrongs of years;
But her low broken prayer and nightly tears,

Ye neither heed nor feel.

Con well thy lesson o'er,

Thou prudent teacher: tell the toiling slave
No dangerous tale of Him who came to save
The outcast poor.

A CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

But wisely shut the ray

Of God's free gospel, from the simple heart;
And to her darkened mind alone impart,
One stern command-Obey.

So shalt thou deftly raise

The market price of human flesh and while,
On thee the pampered guest, the planters smile,
Thy church shall praise.

Grave, reverend men shall tell

From Northern pulpits how Thy work was blest,
While in that vile South Sodom first and best,
Thy poor disciples sell.

Oh shame! The Moslem thrall
Who with his master, to the Prophet kneels,
While turning to the sacred Kebla, feels
His fetters break and fall.

Cheers for the turbaned Bey

Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn
The dark slave dungeon open, and hath borne
The inmates into day.

But our poor slave in vain

Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes-
Its rites will only swell his market price,

And rivet on his chain.

God of all right! how long

Shall priestly robbers at thine altar stand,
Lifting in prayer to thee, the bloody hand,
And haughty brow of wrong?

325

326

A CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

Oh! from the fields of cane,

From the low rice-swamps, from the trader's cell,
From the black slave ship's foul and loathsome hell,
And Coffle's weary chain,—

Hoarse, horrible, and strong,
Rises to heaven that agonising cry,
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,

How long! Oh God! How long!

WHITTIER.

WHEN George Fox thundered in the ears of Priest and Prelate the great truths of spiritual liberty: when the eloquence of the youthful and zealous Edward Burrough awed the very mob into silence, and smote on the ear of Cromwell, like the voice of an accusing conscience, calling him back to his first love of Truth when Penn and Barclay grappled with hoary error, alike regardless whether it was clothed in the majesty of perverted law or consecrated with the baptismal sanctions of a corrupt Priesthood, until the whole land shook-there were the conservators who exclaimed-"Let us have peace in our day.” The time is, I trust, not far distant, when the slaveholder shall no longer regard the society of Friends as in any degree opposed to the Christian and well meant endeavours of the friends of emancipation but that in every heart which beats. for the suffering, whatever garb may cover it; in every prayer put up in sincerity to the Father of mercies for the deliverance of the captive, whether uttered in our own quiet gatherings, or mingling with the forms of another worship: in every voice of our common humanity pleading for the down-trodden and oppressed-whether speaking in the language of Woolman or of Clarkson-we may recognise our own precious testimony: and rejoice that the "little one has become a thousand, and that the seed sown in weakness by our worthy predecessors has been raised up in power." J. G. W..