Is there no place of rest?—no truth in the visions which haunt us as the sun declines, and the rich hues of evening fade away—when the spirits of those we have loved “sit mournfully upon their clouds,” gazing, with a chastened melancholy which refines but cannot darken the calm bliss of Paradise, upon the ceaseless, bootless turmoil of their once cherished friends? Mythology presents us with no brighter future than the wild riot of the Hall of Odin, the lethean inanity of Hades, or the sensual and unmanly luxury of the Moslem Bowers of the Blest. But hark! A manly voice, speaking of a loftier philosophy, rises upon the clear air from the very bowels of the vessel. “And the earth,” it cries, “was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Slowly and in measured cadence poured forth, from the lips of one who felt the truths he uttered, the exposition of the order of creation and the high destinies of the creature. ’Tis a layman’s effort, clothed in language suited to the rude ideas of simple-minded men:—I am not of his faith,—and cannot crowd my thoughts within the narrow compass of our wooden walls:—aloft in air, my temple is the canopy of heaven!—my hymn—the wild tone of the ocean-wind with the low rushing of the billows!—the symphony of Nature!—yet, as the words of prayer ascend upon the gale, my own thoughts follow them.—I know them for the pure aspiration of the heart,—the breathing of a contrite spirit!—They are registered above! All is still!—But, again, the harmony of many voices strikes the ear. A hymn of praise from the wide bosom of the southern ocean!—No hearer but the spirit to whose glory these sweet notes are tuned! The distance, and the deadening influence of the narrow hatches, render words inaudible; but, such as this, their tenor might have been. Being of almighty power, On the wide and stormy sea, In thy own appointed hour, Here, we bow our hearts to thee! What is man, that he should dare Ask of Thee a passing thought? Ruling ocean, earth, and air, Thou art all—and he is naught! Like a mote upon the earth! (Earth—a mote in space to Thee!) What avails his death or birth! What, his hopes or destiny? Yet, a spirit Thou hast given To thy creature of the clay, Ranging free from Earth to Heaven, Heir of an eternal day! In thy image Thou hast made, Not the body, but the mind! That shall lie defiled—decayed! This to loftier fate consigned, Shall, above the tempest roar, Viewless, gaze on all below, And, its mundane warfare o’er, Calmly watch Time’s ceaseless flow! Aid us! Father! with thy power! (Without Thee our strength is naught!) Thus, in Nature’s dreaded hour, We may own the peaceful thought,