combs had fallen from my hair, which streamed as wildly as the rent sails; and I was frequently deluged by some bursting wave, as the dip of the vessel brought me down almost to the surface. The peril of an open window was startling to those on deck, and the captain, hearing that I refused to relinquish my post, sent the mate to put up the dead-lights; so I sat down on the floor, buried my face in my hands, and strove to realize the magnificence thus rent from my sight. Yes, God's works in the great deep are indeed wonders. Nothing landward can possibly approach them: in the rudest tempest the ground remains firm, and you feel that you are a spectator; but at sea you are a part of the storm. The plank whereon you stand refuses to support you, ever shifting its inclination; while the whole of your frail tenement is now borne aloft, now dashed into the liquid furrow beneath, now struck back by a head-sea with a shock that makes every timber quiver, now flung on one side as if about to reverse itself in the bosom of the deep. No doubt the sense of personal danger, the death-pang already anticipated, the dark abyss that yawns before the sinner, and the heaven opening on a believer's soul, must each and any of them deaden the sense to what I have vainly sought to describe; and I suppose this accounts for the astonishment expressed by the whole party at my singular conduct, when the youth who was sent to warn me of the peril, described my half-angry, half-reproachful pettishness at the interruption: "Can't you let me enjoy it in peace, Mr. J----? Shall I ever see any thing like it again? Do go away." "But the captain says the window _must_ be shut." "Then take me on deck, and you may shut it." "That is utterly impossible; no lady could stand for an instant on deck, your drapery would bear you over the ship's side." "Then I wont shut the window: so go and tell Captain L---- not to tease me with messages." This was downright recklessness. I wonder when recalling it to mind, and feel that I could not have thus sported with death after I acquired a good and solid hope of everlasting life. The act of dying had always great terrors for me, until, through adverse circumstances, I seemed to have nothing worth living for, and then I could laugh at it in my own heart. Strange to say, that fearfulness of the passage through the dark valley returned with double force when I had realized a personal claim to the guiding rod and the supporting staff, and the bright inheritance beyond. But before this period of blessedness, of joy and peace in believing arrived, I had to pass through many waters of affliction, and to experience remarkable interpositions at His hand who was leading me by a path which I knew not.