Why was it, it is time to ask, that there was not a greater clamouring after escape, both among passengers and crew? Why was it, that when all on board knew that the ship was doomed, and that at any moment the deep might open to swallow them up, there was not that wild delirium and agony of despair which we have been accustomed to see associated with such considerations? To understand this in some measure, we must take a glance at what had transpired in the saloon of the vessel from the commencement of the voyage. The saloon of the _London_ had been constructed with the strictest regard to the comfort of her first-class passengers; nor had their tastes been disregarded if they had any admiration of what was elegant and chaste in workmanship. Here there would be throughout the voyage a common meeting ground for members of the same class amongst ladies and gentlemen; and here religious services would be conducted on the Sabbath, at which all on board might be present. On the first Sunday out there was a religious service, and Dr. Woolley associated with Mr. Draper in conducting it. Both these gentlemen were known to each other, and, although belonging to different sections of the church, had many friends in common, by some of whom, experienced in similar voyages, the steamer in which they were to return to Australia, and the cabins they had taken, were inspected and approved. From Mr. Draper’s known characteristics it may be affirmed as a certainty, although as yet no record of it has reached us, that as, on their very first Sunday out, they encountered heavy weather,--a strong wind having sprung up and a heavy sea,--he would find matter for religious instruction applicable to their circumstances. And we cannot tell how largely the divine blessing may have accompanied the religious services of the day. If it be true that before the barren fig-tree is cut down, the influences and means used to quicken it into life and fruitfulness are more than doubled, may we not say that He to whom all things were known, and who saw the end from the beginning, vouchsafed a more than ordinary blessing to the gospel declared to more than two hundred who were spending their last Sabbath on earth?