cruelty, but he heard the executioner had been bribed to insure death the first stroke of the knife. He then proceeded to carry out the sentence, by making about fifty cuts, the term ten thousand pieces being intended to produce fear. The number of people generally executed at Canton yearly is between two and three thousand; sometimes as many as one hundred and fifty are executed at one time.

AS

XVI.

ON THE ATLANTIC.

S the sun was setting upon a lovely summer's evening, we were steaming it bravely down Channel in one of the superb "Cunard liners." We had, since the forenoon, bid farewell to our friends at Liverpool-glided slowly down the Mersey-passed the bell buoy-that eerie and lonely warning farewell and welcome, midst waves and storms, to homeward and outward bound. We were now almost "fairly out to sea.' The Welsh mountains rose like masses of clouds in the east. Westward, a mass of golden light spread over the sky and tinged the waters; while far and near were scattered sails of fishing craft and pilot-boats, with vessels of all rigs and size, on their voyage to or from every region of the globe.

I pass over, at present, any notice of the splendid vessel, and that (to me) sublime sight, the majestic engine, rolling her, with unhesitating and resistless power, upon her path of three thousand miles, against sea and storm.

Nor shall I tell you all my guesses about the country, clime, professions, &c., of the seventy male and female passengers who mustered around the dinner-table; nor all my wonder at the marvellous order and punctuality with which the sumptuous meals were served. Nor shall I burden you with all my many crowding thoughts, hopes, fears, anxieties, expectations, as I paced the deck alone, and saw the sun-and with the sun, the land-depart, and the clear stars appear, and the first night upon the deep close around, and realised that the voyage had really commenced, which, if God prospered us, was to end in a new world, and amidst a new scene of important, difficult, and highly responsible labours.

When I first entered the cabin, before getting under weigh, the first object which caught my eye was an invalid passenger, who was in a berth next the one assigned to my friend and myself. A single glance told a sad tale. The sufferer was a man apparently about thirty years of age. The sunken yet hectic cheeks, the skeleton hands, the brilliant eye, the hollow and incessant cough, were symptoms of consumption far advanced, which could not be mistaken. I sat down beside him, and expressed my sympathy for him, telling him I was a clergyman, and would be very happy to be of any service to him. He expressed his thanks, and told me he had no friend, and hardly an acquaintance on board; that his family lived in Boston; that he was in hopes the sea-voyage on his way home would be of service to him. His very hopes made his case to me more sad. I felt assured his voyage was near its end; and that whatever was to be done must be done quickly. I began as gently as possible to make

him converse upon the things belonging to his peace; and before our steamer was out of the river, he had so far unburdened his mind as to tell me that he was not indifferent to such subjects, but that he was a Unitarian. This made me the more anxious to improve every hour. Before night set in, we had many short conversations. I read and prayed with him. He was removed at night to a berth near the deck, where there was more air. My friend also read with him.

The weather has continued beautiful. The sea is calm. We have passed Cape Clear. The Irish hills are fast departing in the distance, and mingling with the clouds. . . . Now are we out on the great deep

"Nothing above and nothing below

But the sky and the ocean."

There is something very striking in this sight of the boundless sea: the horizon sweeping round and round without any interruption; the blue dome of heaven on all sides resting upon it, with the vessel and its people as the centre, and the only human-like object within the vast circumference. I do not remember having seen this before. In crossing the channel to and from the Continent, though out of sight of land, it was always hazy, and I never could realise the grandeur and loveliness of this vast ocean view. But perhaps my mind was now in a mood to receive the most sober and least-gladdening impressions of things.

My poor patient has passed a very restless night. I fear his time is not to be so long even as I anticipated. He grants the Divine authority of the New Testament,

and the perfect truthfulness of Christ and the apostles. He is an unbeliever rather than a disbeliever in Christ's Divinity. He is candid and upright; and in such truthful ground, surely truth must, if sown, sooner or later, bring forth fruit. I have, therefore, read the Scriptures to him. I tried to awaken in him, from a sense of his own wants, a sense of the need of such a Saviour as Jesus Christ. I also pointed out to him several of those passages in which the same names, titles, and attributes are ascribed to Christ as to God. I dwelt upon that marvellous combination of the Divine and human, which is seen in all the acts of Christ's life, from His cradle to His ascension. I showed to him how the Scriptures demand the same supreme love, homage, trust, and obedience to Jesus, as they do to the only living and true God; while He is held out as the only person in the universe who saves men from guilt, from ignorance, and from sin; and I asked, Who is this Jesus Christ? Who is this I am to love and serve as God himself? Who is this who invites a weary and heavy-laden world to come to Him for rest? -who promises, through faith in His blood, to pardon a world's guilt; who bids learned and unlearned to sit at His feet and receive His words as eternal life; who commands kings and nations to be subject to Him, promising to defend all who trust Him from the power of Satan, and to deliver them from the power of sin; and, finally, to receive them from the dead,-save them at the day of judgment, and give them eternal glory, and that, too, because they believed in and loved Him? Who is this into whose hands we are to commit our all, soul and body, in the hour of death, in the persuasion that He can keep