written after he had mapped the Quebec reaches of the St. Lawrence under the fire of the French guns, and was a gold-medallist of the Royal Society and the most famous of eighteenth century navigators, is still fondly pointed out in a narrow street running down to the inner harbour. Sunday by the Sea, Whitby, 7th September 1888. We saw something of the industrial life of Whitby last week. The spiritual is quite as interesting, and certainly, so far as my observation goes, has a character of its own, distinct from that of any other of our popular seaside resorts. It may be the presence of so large a seagoing element; at any rate, unless appearances are quite misleading, there is an earnest and deep though quiet religious impulse working amongst the harbour-folk and townspeople, not without its influence in the new quarter which has grown on to the old town, and with its casino and large cricket and lawn tennis grounds, is becoming a popular--though, happily, not a fashionable--summer resort. This is, of course, most apparent on Sundays, on which the absence of anything like the annoyances, both religious and secular, which spoil the day of rest at so many health-resorts, is very noteworthy. Not that Whitby is without its open-air services. On the contrary, they are at least as frequent as elsewhere, on quays, shore, cliffs; but after watching them with some care I do not remember anything fanatical or startling, or in the bad taste of coarse familiarity with mysteries which so often revolts one in street and field preaching elsewhere. One of these I had never seen the like of before, and am inclined to think it may interest your readers. On my first Sunday afternoon I was watching a crowded service on the quay, at the foot of the West Cliff, from above. As it ended, and began to disperse, a man in sailor’s Sunday suit of thick blue cloth severed himself from the crowd, and came leisurely up the stone steps, with a Bible and hymn-book in his hand. At the top of the steps is a public grass-plot, some thirty by twenty yards in size, the only part of the sea-front which has escaped enclosure on this cliff. Round it are some fifteen or sixteen benches, very popular with those who will not pay to go into the casino enclosure. They were all occupied by people chatting, smoking, courting, looking at the view, when the newcomer walked into the middle of the plot, took off his fur-trimmed sailor’s cap, opened his Bible, and looked round. He was good to look at, with his strong, weather-beaten, bronzed features, short-cropped, grizzled hair, and kindly blue eye, part-owner and best man in one of the Penzance boats, I heard. On looking at him, passages in the lives of Drake and Hawkins, and Wesley and Whitfield, and Charles Kingsley’s loving enthusiasm for the Cornish sailor-folk, became clearer to me. Not a soul noticed him or moved from their seats, and the talking, smoking, courting went on just as though he were not there, standing alone on