on a past occasion. During all this cold and stormy winter, scores of poor children and sailor boys have been without shoes and stockings, besides suffering hunger and other wants. Feeling interested, as I do, in all things relative to these islands, you will excuse my frequent reference to the wants of the inhabitants. But, blessed be God, they have the word of life, and the means of salvation." North Shields - Rev. J. Bilson writes, "I am well recovered from the effects of influenza, and this last month I have pursued my labours among seamen. I have preached three sermons, held three Bethel prayer-meetings, and distributed 400 tracts. Every Monday afternoon I attended the library, and exchanged and lent the books to sailors with their families; and I have shipped two libraries in vessels bound to America. On Sunday (March 9), I preached Mr. Flinn's funeral sermon, when the chapel was crowded; numbers of captains and sailors were present. O that I had a more commodious chapel!" DONATIONS AND COLLECTIONS IN THE MONTH OF MARCH, 1837. MANY of the readers of the PILOT are seamen, to whom the following notices of the extraordinary sufferings of the crew of the VIEW FORTH," cannot fail to be interesting, as they are best qualified to sympathize with their nautical brethren in their distresses. May they be increasingly influenced by a spirit of genuine scriptural piety; that in all their sufferings they may richly enjoy the consolations of the Holy Spirit, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. But probably the far greater number of those who read this periodical are landsmen; and they are especially contemplated in the present paper, that their generous sympathy may be called forth in favour of the maritime community. Their liberality ought to be exercised towards that deserving class of our countrymen; and at the expense of landsmen, every British sailor, proceeding from his own shores, has a righteous claim to be furnished with the means of grace suitable for shipboard, that he may be blessed with the knowledge of salvation by Jesus Christ. We are indebted for the following affecting particulars, to the Rev. J. Thomson, one of the ministers of Dysart, four of whose papers relating to the "VIEWFORTH," have recently appeared in successive numbers of the "ScorTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD." The Viewforth" sailed from Kirkaldy on the 2d of April, 1835, with a crew of fifty men, having been ad dressed on the eve of their departure, from the words, "The Lord is at hand." We find them, on the 11th of June, in company with forty sail, lying at an iceberg, on the north side of Hare Island, marked on the recent charts of the Arctic Sea. While there, the ice suddenly broke up, and immediately the whole fleet was under weigh, to reach the usual fishing grounds in Davis' Straits; but they could proceed no further than Four Point Island. We are now in Mr. a pious young officer, recorded in his journal, "Aug. 31. These three weeks past, we have been still using our endeavours to get to the north. Brodie's Bay, in company with the Jane and Middleton. I have been ashore on the top of a high hill, and saw nothing but ice. We are now completely hemmed in, and cannot move to any great distance." On the 30th of September, they were completely beset in latitude 68° 30', in company with the Jane of Hull, and the Middleton of Aberdeen. Supposing them, at this advanced period of the year, to cast a wistful look homewards, an unbroken field of ice, to the extent of about three hundred miles, lay between them and the navigable sea; the days were getting short, a winter of unprecedented severity was setting in; fuel and provisions were fast diminishing: what a dreary prospect must theirs have appeared-and how needful to them the consolations of the Spirit of God! Perhaps a glance at the scenery may not be improper here, as there is no place in the world where the sublime and beautiful are seen to so great an advantage as in the Arctic regions. Mr. thus describes a night scene: "Dec. 2. I have just come off the deck, after enjoying a walk, contemplating the moon-lit scenery. The evening is most beautiful; not a cloud or speck is to be seen in the serene sky. It is beyond the power of mortal man to conceive the scene that now surrounds us-the very land seems sunk in repose, and appears to rest more heavily on its foundations. Let a person conceive himself standing in the centre of an immense plain, let him look around him as far as the eye can penetrate, and he sees it filled with innumerable hills and hillocks of ice, whiter than marble, and of the most grotesque shapes imaginable. Such is our situation. Meteors are frequently beheld in those regions of surpassing variety, brilliancy, and grandeur. Mr. writes, December 18. It was my first watch to-night. 66 I went up for a moment or two on deck, and saw a remarkable phenomenon. It was pitch dark: in a moment, there was a bright luminous arch shot around the sky to the N. W. of W., brighter than a hundred moons; I could see to lift a pin off the deck. It was in the form of a rainbow, and lasted about four minutes, when it disappeared, and left nothing but darkness and gloom. It was really a grand and imposing sight; I never saw any thing equal to it. Indeed just now, when we have no moon, and the sun but only a short time, it would be a prolonged, gloomy, tedious darkness, if it were not for those luminous streaks that every now and then shoot through the wintry sky." Thus the mariner who navigates the Polar sea is constantly reminded, by what he beholds around him, that God is there, and that the command that bids him remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy, and all the other precepts of revelation, are just as binding upon his conscience, amidst those distant regions, as when it is his lot to dwell in the land of Gospel ordinances. He Mr. Thomson, speaking of the intense cold, which the seamen endured, refers to the infinite power of Jehovah, as displayed in the production of ice and snow. The passage is one of transcendent sublimity: "He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes. casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?"-Ps. cxlvii, 16, 17. These words naturally carry our thoughts to the Arctic regions, where, during the winter months, the scene here so graphically described, is realized in all its terrific grandeur and severity. There cold, unmitigated, piercing, overpowering, prevails. And when, as it was ever and anon the case, the frost was accompanied by sleet and snow, the sufferings which it occasioned were greatly increased. To this dreadful element the crew of the Viewforth were, for many months, exposed. So early as the first of October, Mr. writes, "The cold is intense, the ice on the top of my bed being one-fourth of an inch thick. Indeed, we cannot walk the deck above half an hour at a time." October 23. Ships covered with snow, and just like an iceberg; the cold is getting rather alarming, my pillow, last night, was frozen to the bed." November 30. "This has been another cold day. The frost is very intense indeed, you cannot walk the deck above a quarter of an hour, or so. 66 |
