sail, hove to, and lowered a boat; and, in a short time, which, however, the poor fellow assured me seemed to him longer almost than all that had gone before it, he was picked up, and carried on board the brig. He said he remembered very well being lifted in the boat, but from that moment all consciousness left him. He found out afterwards, however, that he had been taken to the vessel in a state of insensibility, stripped of his wet clothes, a little spirits poured down his throat, and then placed in a warm bed. It was not long before animation returned; but with life came fever and delirium. The vessel was bound for Plymouth, which port she reached on the following day, and then poor Clarke was transferred to the hospital, and under careful medical treatment was soon restored to reason and to health.

Such is the substance of John Clarke's narrative of his wonderful escape from death, and given almost in his own words. It is evident that, under Providence, he was indebted to his firm and abiding faith for his preservation,—a faith that never failed him for a moment, that cheered him under the most forlorn circumstances, and under repeated and bitter disappointment, faith which was indeed to him "the evidence of

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things not seen." It was his perfect reliance on God's power and will to save him that gave him the strength and perseverance necessary for his safety. Had his faith been less strong and lively, he would have despaired in the horrors of that long, dark, November night, and perished miserably.

"Aide toi, la ciel t'aidera," is a sound maxim. The full confidence Clarke had in God's mercy, and his sure expectancy of ultimate deliverance from his fearful and miserable situation, did not induce him to lie supine in the water without moving a muscle in his own behalf, but, on the contrary, urged him to make those almost superhuman exertions which were the secondary and ostensible causes of his preservation.

It was impossible to reflect on my shipmate's miraculous rescue from destruction, without the mind dwelling on God's infinite mercies to man at all times, and the need which man has at all times to cry, "Lord, save me."

Clarke had prayed for deliverance from temporal death-the death of the body, and he had obtained the object of his prayer. He had striven bravely for mortal life, and his exertions had been rewarded with success.

It is happily the fate of comparatively few to

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have to struggle for their lives amidst the deep waters of the ocean. It is but here and there one, who "beginning to sink," cries, "Lord, save me," save me from the “ rushing of mighty waters." But all men may say with the Psalmist, "If the Lord himself had not been on our side, when men rose up against us; they had swallowed us up quick when they were so wrathfully displeased at us. Yea, the waters had drowned us, and the stream had gone over our soul; the deep waters of the proud had gone even over our soul."

It is from "the second death" that we should pray to be delivered, "when the sea shall give up the dead which are in it."

It is when we 66 are choked with cares, and riches, and pleasures of this life," that we have more need to cry, "Lord, save me," than when choked by the waters of the great deep.

It is when we feel ourselves sinking in sin; when we are unable to bear up against "the crafts and assaults of the devil;" when "the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil," are more than we can struggle against,- that we have peculiar need to cry, "Lord, save me."

And we may be assured "that those things which we ask faithfully, we shall obtain effectually;" but our faith must be evidenced in our

actions; we must ever remember "that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

It is only "by giving up ourselves to His service, and by walking before Him in holiness and righteousness," that we may hope to be heard when we cry, "Lord, save me."

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But, nevertheless, we must carefully avoid the error of the Pharisee. We must not say with him, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are;" but remember that "when we shall have done all those things which are commanded," "we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do;" and, instead of trusting to our own merits, we must be ready at all times to exclaim, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name give the praise; for thy loving mercy, and for thy truth's sake!"

CHAP. V.

THE ASSIZE COURT.

"But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?"- MAL. iii. 2.

ON a very lovely evening in the summer of 1851, I took my road towards C, a town in Ireland, situated on the banks of the river S. I was mounted on the box of a stage-coach, one of the few then to be found in the Emerald Isle, lingering out a miserable existence on that road on which it had formerly rolled in all its "pride of place," "the observed of all observers."

It was shorn of all its ancient dignity and splendour. In place of the four blood-horses that formerly whirled it rapidly along, snorting and prancing, with manes and tails erect, and seeming to scorn the very ground they trod on, two miserable, half-starved animals, limped slowly with their load.

The shaggy, uncombed manes of the horses, their hides ignorant of curry-comb or brush; the broken, slovenly appearance of the harness,