could find some way to set his conscience at ease. He had fondled the idea of making the people happy with guarded freedom, in harmony with their Sovereigns; of bringing both into harmony with the Papal See; of a Popedom presiding over the League of Italian States; of internal repose and agreement; of civilizing prosperity, and of splendour for Religion. But events, as they proceeded from day to day, shattered this design. When in the name of freedom and of Italy, and by the acts of the innovators, priests were insulted, excesses perpetrated, the Popedom or the ecclesiastical hierarchy assailed, Pius IX. ceased to trust them: then he began to regret and repent of his own work; then he doubted, whether by his mildness and liberality he had not encouraged a spirit irreverent to the Church, rebellious to the Popedom; then he complained of the ingratitude of mankind, faltered in his political designs, and prognosticated calamity.

The conclusion which all wise men will draw from these Volumes is, the utter impossibility of reforming Popery, or combining with it a political freedom. The experiment was never so fully made as by Pope Pius, and never was failure more complete. It turns out, moreover, that, from the first, the Sovereign was lost in the Priest, and that he had no other object, in trying to harmonize the antiquated, essential tyranny of the Popedom with the rising spirit of liberty which had begun to manifest itself among the Romans, than to aggrandize the Papal Chair.

WHALING ADVENTURES IN THE

SOUTHERN OCEAN.

LIKE the lion of the forest, the Whale has ever been the acknowledged monarch of ocean, and hence mankind never weary of histories and tales concerning his habits and sufferings, as inflicted by the creature man, who, for selfish purposes, invades him in his native element. The public have been recently treated to a banquet of curious facts, collected by the Rev. H. T. Cheever,-a book which has been edited by the well-known Dr. Scoresby, once himself somewhat famous for maritime operations. It is not the business of the work in question to detail. the history and statistics of the trade, at length, or to set forth a full embodiment of well-ascertained information respecting the physiology, history, and habits of the Whale, although at these points a passing glance is given-all that the bulk of readers will require; but it is the facts which will mainly interest the multitude, and a portion of these we shall now set before our readers:

CHASE AND CAPTURE.

377

"All at once," says an old whaler, in a yarn of random recollections of his youth, "All at once, a voice, clear as the lark-and, to the ear of the whaleman, far sweeter-rang through the ship, There she blows!' Again and again it is repeated, at regular intervals. Now the captain hails the mast-head: 'Where away is that whale, and what do you call her?'

"Sperm whale, sir, three points on the weather-bow; not over two miles off.'

"Get your boats ready; slack down the fires; and stand by to lower away!'

"The boats'-crews each stand by their own boat; some of the men help to put in the tub of line, others lay down the boat-tackle falls, in such a way that they will run clear. The boatsteerer bends on his harpoons, the gripes are cast clear of the boats, and now comes the word, Hoist and swing!' In a moment the boats are hanging by their tackles, and clear of the cranes, ready for the word, 'Lower away!' The mates, in the meantime, were aloft, watching the movements of the whale, in order to judge how to pull for her.

"Now comes the word, 'Lower away!' In a moment all the boats are off, and in a chase at a good speed, in order to see who will be up with the whale first.

"Down to your oars, lads!' said the captain, in whose boat I was. 'Give way hard!' Now, then, the little boat jumps again, sending the spray in rainbows from the bows. 'Spring hard, my dear fellows; if she blows a dozen times more the mate will fasten. There she blows! Oh, she's a beauty! A regular old sog! A hundred-barreller ! There she lays, like a log! Oh, what a hump! There she blows! Stand up, David! (the name of the mate's boat-steerer) There goes one iron into her, and there he gives her second one; he is fast solid! Now then, my boys, let us be up among the suds. Stand up! shouted the captain to me, as he laid his boat square on to her. In goes two more harpoons, and cur boat is fast.

"The whale settled away under water after she felt the lance, and I kept a look out for her, expecting she would break water near the head of the boat. Pretty soon I saw her whiten under water, and got my lance ready as soon as she should come to the surface; the next moment I was flying in the air, and a moment after was several fathoms under water. The whale came up head foremost, hitting the boat a tremendous knock under my feet, sending me all flying. The captain at the same time seized his steering oar, and overboard he went also. Fortunately I could swim well, and soon came up to blow; but I had hardly time to spout, before I found that I was in a very disagreeable situation. Putting out my arm to swim, I hit the whale on his head, and at the same time saw the boat three or four rods from me. I confess I did not feel exactly right; but it was no use for me to lie still, and be picked up like a squid; so I made a regular shove off with my feet against the whale's head, and struck out for the boat. I saw that all was confusion in the boat, and that the men did not notice me at all. I had on thick clothes, and found it hard swimming. Finally one of the men saw me, and stopped the boat, which some of them

were steering away from me as fast as they could.

"As I got in at the bow, I saw the captain come over the stern, Halloo!' said he, where have you been to?' After the whale,' said I. And I have been after you,' said the captain. We had a good langh; wrung our hair, and started for the whale again. She lay still, with her jaws open, and head towards the boat; the rest of her body was under water, so that she gave no chance to kill. We lay still, watching her motions. All at once she let her jaws fly back, striking the boat in the bow, and smashing a hole through her. The boat began to fill; but, fortunately, we had a jacket ready, and stopped the hole up, and so we kept from filling, and pulled up to the whale again.

"This time she headed the mate, and lay her whole length broadside toward us. We had nothing to do but pull up and in lance, the whale lying perfectly still at the time. In twenty minutes she went into her flurry, and soon after lay fin out. We took her alongside the ship, and commenced cutting her in; but it took all the next day to get her all in. She measured over seventy-five feet in length, and between fifty and sixty feet round the largest part of the body; her jaw was seventeen and a half feet long, and her flukes seventeen feet broad. She stowed us down one hundred and twenty-five barrels of sperm oil."

It is a fine thing for young people to sit at the winter fire, while the oil of the Whale yields them a brilliant light, and there, in cozy comfort, to read terrible tales of the harpoon, with the conflicts and the horrors which sometimes follow; but it is not so comfortable to proceed to the Frozen Seas, or even to the Southern Pacific, in quest of the moving mass of fat and blubber, as will appear from the following:

"In giving an account of the accident and his singular escape, he said that as soon as he discovered that the line had caught in the bow of the boat, he stooped to clear it, and attempted to throw it out from the chock,' so that it might run free. In doing this he was caught by a turn round his left wrist, and felt himself dragged overboard. He was perfectly conscious while he was rushing down, down, with unknown force and swiftness; and it appeared to him that his arm would be torn from his body, so great was the resistance of the water. He was well aware of his perilous condition, and that his only chance of life was to cut the line. But he could not remove his right arm from his side, to which it was pressed by the force of the element through which he was drawn. When he first opened his eyes, it appeared as if a stream of fire was passing before them; but as he descended it grew dark, and he felt a terrible pressure on his brain, and a roaring as of thunder in his ears. Yet he was conscious of his situation, and made several efforts to reach the knife that was in his belt. At last, as he felt his strength failing and his brain reeling, the line for an instant slackened; he reached his knife, and instantly that the line became again taut, its edge was upon it, nd by a desperate effort of his exhausted ener

gies he freed himself. After this he only remembered a feeling of suffocation, a gurgling spasm, and all was over, until he awoke to an agonized sense of pain in the boat."

We have seen a crowd of boys gathered upon a pier as some ten or a dozen whaling ships had weighed anchor to commence their adventurous voyage, while a thousand young hearts felt a sensation of envy at the well-dressed and jolly tars, who mounted the rigging and manned the yards, as, half sad, half drunk, they huzzaed, and shouted, and waved their caps, bidding adieu to friends and companions on the shore. The only cure for such enthusiasm, perhaps, is the perusal of such facts as the following:

"But the most dreadful display of the whale's strength and prowess, yet authentically recorded, was that made upon the American whale-ship Essex,' Captain Pollard, which sailed from Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean in August, 1819, Late in the fall of the same year, when in latitude 40 degrees of the South Pacific, a shoal of sperm whales were discovered, and three boats were manned and sent in pursuit. The mate's boat was struck by one of them, and he was obliged to return to the ship in order to repair the damage.

"While he was engaged in that work, a sperm whale, judged to be eighty-five feet long, broke water about twenty rods from the ship, on her weather bow. Ho was going at the rate of about three knots an hour, and the ship at nearly the same rate, when he struck the bows of the vessel just forward of her chains.

"At the shock produced by the collision of two such mighty masses of matter in motion, the ship shook like a leaf. The seemingly malicious whale dived and passed under the ship, grazing her keel, and then appeared at about the distance of a ship's length, lashing the sea with fins and tail, as if suffering the most horrible agony. He was evidently hurt by the collision, and blindly frantic with instinctive rage.

"In a few minutes he seemed to recover himself, and started with great speed directly across the vessel's course to windward. Meantime, the hands on board discovered the ship to be gradually settling down at the bows, and the pumps were ordered to be rigged. While working at them, one of the men cried out, 'God have mercy! he comes again! The whale had turned at about one hundred rods from the ship, and was making for her with double his former speed, his pathway white with foam. Rushing head on, he struck her again at the bow, and the tremendous blow stove her in. The whale dived under again and disappeared, and the ship filled and fell over on her broadside, in ten minutes from the first collision.

"After incredible hardships and sufferings in their open boats, on the 20th of December the survivors of this catastrophe reached the low island called Ducies, in latitude 24 deg. 40 min. south, longitude 124 deg. 40 min. west. It was a mere sand-bank, nearly barren, which supplied them only with water and, very scantily, sea-fowl. On this uninhabited island,

dreary as it was, three of the men chose to remain, rather than again commit themselves to the uncertainties of the sea. They have never since been heard from, the island being seldom visited.

"On the 27th of December the three boats, with the remainder of the men, put away together for the island of Juan Fernandez, at a distance of 2,000 miles. The mate's boat was taken up by the Indian,' of London, on the 19th of February, ninety-three days from the time of the catastrophe, with only three survivors.

་

"The captain's, boat was fallen in with by the 'Dauphin,' of Nantucket, on the 23rd of the same month, having only two men living, whose lives had been eked out only through that last resort of hunger in the wretched, which words shudder to relate. Out of a crew

of twenty, five only survived to make the ear of the world tingle at their strange, eventful story."

HYDE PARK: ITS THREE SPECTACLES. NIGH a century ago and London, for a refuge, fled to this spot. The cause of the panic was a slight shock of an earthquake; here, to escape the impending fall of rocking houses, the multitude were gathered together. While the metropolis was throbbing under the access of volcanic pulsations, our forefathers were summoned by that great and good man, George Whitefield, to listen to those truths which elevate man in his sublunary progress, and fit him for an existence of eternal triumph over the

"Wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." To see that holy man with out-stretched arms, and to hear his heart-thrilling tones while addressing the trembling concourse on the trembling earth, and with his strange eloquence, using Nature's mysterious rumblings and her abysmal monitions to illustrate the horrors of the "bottomless pit;" and in the terrors of the hour pointing to Calvary's Hill, as the sure refuge from the wrath to come,-this must have been a spectacle rendering the spot almost "holy ground," and on which the Court of Heaven would, with approving smiles, look down.

In 1814, the Allied Sovereigns of Europe were England's visitors. To Hyde Park did the metropolis pour out its crowds, and the provinces added their contributions to swell the hosannas of those warriors whose swords had subjugated earth's conqueror,

"The man who scourged and feasted kings!" -Yes, banquetings, revellings, fêtes, were all in requisition to celebrate the advent of peace. Earth's regal sons for awhile forget the geographical limits of empire, and 'neath London's sky joined hands in unity. Kings, emperors, and men of proudest rank clustered round the prince, "in all but name a king;" Wellington, Blucher, and Platoff trod the turf together; foreign sparkling costumes, in profusion, mingled in the wavy magnificence of English plumes,our horse-guards glittered in "pride and pomp," while, at the same time, the Cossack slept by his desert steed in our streets. Our land was drunk with joy; the Temple of Concord was reared, and on its shrine was offered the homage of the then assembled representatives of nations.

Now another temple occupies this interesting spot, and in it another spectacle gives to the pulse of the present generation a healthier bound.

Of its inauguration we are not privileged to speak, but as one of its myriad visitors we may be permitted to jot down some passing thoughts. As a designation may we not, on a first sight, say, it is London's artificial wilderness of transcendental opulence and bewildering magnificence? Yet, while the sight-seer, merely, is perfectly perplexed in the labyrinthine paths of astonishing wealth and captivating ingenuity, to the wisdom-seeking mind, in their explanation, an insensible reception of matter goes on. The mechanical mind must, as it muses on achievements strange, wonder when first the power commenced and where it will end the philosophic mind dares not, surely, as it views such reflexes, shut up its vision from the great source of light,

"In dire eclipse, grope on in darkness dread!" while the spiritual mind, in its elevation, pierces obscurity, and arrives at the only satisfactory contemplation of such a scrap of the world's grand whole! It says, while meditating the accumulated affluence, if in his ruin such evidences are afforded of intellect and skill, what was the scope ere "Man's first disobedi

ence,"―ere

"Nature gave a second groan, Sky lower'd, and muttering thunder, some sad drops

Wept, at completing of the mortal sin
Original"?

The public incident of our visit to the Crystal Palace was the looking down from the north gallery upon France's exiled family, while they were examining some of the riches of this vast emporium. To our mind the scene bore a peculiar interest, from the fact that the day before, at "The Royal Academy of Arts," we paused especially before E. M. Ward's picture of "The Royal Family of France, in the Prison of the Temple-Louis XVI., Queen Marie Antoinette, the Dauphin, Dauphiness, &c."

"The queen was obliged to mend the king's coat whilst he was asleep, in order that he might not be obliged to wear a vest in holes."-Lamartine.

The contrast of the ex-queen, her daughterin-law, the duchess of Orleans, and the grandsons, under the wing of our nation, receiving the sympathetic respect of their countrymen, had an indescribable effect on our mind, occasioned by a comparison with the Temple scene, where lies the unfortunate monarch, hushed in calm repose, perhaps dreaming of happier hours, while the beautiful Antoinette, seizing the oblivious hour to repair her husband's vesture, is, at the same time, beguiled by her son mending his shuttle-cock, "the last plaything left to him "and anguished as she sees her daughter-" watering the lily, already drooping in the glass :" to add to this extremity of regal woe she is tortured by the brutal conduct of the keepers, and finds even her prison-house affords no shelter from the insulters of "Louis Capet," and the vilifiers of " the Austrian woman."

Deep pleasure was ours that on the 13th June, 1851, while looking upon the Orleans members of the Bourbon family, in our Crystal Palace, we could most gratefully say, "Look on

this picture and then on that." Truly, while contemplating this reverse, and struck with our own predicted words,

Charles fled, and Philippe reigns: But oft across the sea come rumbling sounds, Which may betoken desolating storm;

we could not forbear the spirit of national pride that Providence had permitted our country to be their shelter from the storm. And then, with a lingering look upon this Temple of Concord, not built to celebrate war, but to emblematize peace, the hallowed words of her Majesty, in reply to her Royal Consort's address on the opening day, forcibly struck our mind. In them

we found the best exponent of our thoughts and the most becoming phraseology to close our visit to this almost bewildering scene:

"I cordially concur with you in the prayer, that by God's blessing this undertaking may conduce to the welfare of my people, and to the common interests of the human race, by encouraging the arts of peace and industry, strengthening the bonds of union among the nations of the earth, and promoting a friendly and honourable rivalry in the useful exercise of those faculties which have been conferred by a beneficent Providence for the good and happiness of mankind." G. C. Woburn, Bedfordshire, 24th June, 1851.

The

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN THE proceedings of the Synod of the United Presbyterian Body this year have been full of interest. The first point that calls for notice is that which regards their students for the ministry. number of these for the last year was no fewer than 151, being 19 more than the previous year. The manner in which the Young Men are looked after, is, in the highest degree, praiseworthy, and an incalculable improvement on the ancient comparatively negligent system. Like the Free Church, the United Presbyterians are working the scheme of Scholarships to the utmost of their power. The subject of the support of the Ministry was also taken up and entered into at considerable length, in the course of which there was a large display of good sense and right feeling. A Committee had been appointed to inquire and report upon the subject, last year, and the result was the expression of a unanimous opinion that the minimum stipend of Pastors in their Body ought not to be, in ordinary circumstances, less than £150, inclusive of manse, or as we call it, parsonage; of course, with a garden, and the usual appendages,-" and that to secure the systematic development of the resources of the congregations for the support of Gospel ordinances, and more especially of the Gospel ministry, it was necessary that congregations should have an average annual rate of contribution over the members, bearing a proportion to the amount of their expenditure, and that the members as a whole should make up this average rate among them in proportion to their means.

The sum here insisted on is equal in most parts of Scotland, to about £250, at least, without a house,- in most

SYNOD OF SCOTLAND.

parts of England, more especially in the towns and cities. It was further suggested, that means should be adopted to diffuse a cordial interest throughout the churches on this subject. We greatly like the idea of the "systematic development of the resources of congregations." This is just what is wanted: the whole of the Ministry of the United Presbyterian Body presides over considerable congregations, almost always comprising some portion of people in superior, or at least respectable circumstances, and as a matter of course, it is expected that the family of the minister shall occupy a respectable position also, and great will be the outcry if it do not, whatever may be its number, or its outgoings, or the unknown burdens which may rest upon its head. It may, therefore, be safely affirmed, that the sum here assigned is indispensable. The incomes, however, of many of these excellent men, compared with those of the ministers of the Established, and also of the Free Church, whose equals in all respects they are, as to talent, education, and official ability, are small; yet taken as a whole, in these respects they exceed those of many of the Nonconformist Pastors of the South. The consequence is, that, compared with the English Independent and Baptist ministers, there is very little removal among the Presbyterian Pastors of the North, even in the United Secession Body, and indeed in the other smaller Presbyterian Bodies. The bulk of these worthy men commence and close their labours on the same spot; and the result of this, in various ways, is beneficial to the piety of the congregation, and consequently, to the country, to an extent which, to be understood, must be seen.

The frequent removals which occur among us in the South are often the result, not of choice, but of necessity,we say necessity! Let justice be done on this point to men whose afflictions have little need to be aggravated by traduction! The cause, in the vast majority of instances, lies not with the minister, but with the churches; the bulk of the removals arise, not from instability on the part of the Pastors, from love of change, or a diminution of attachment to their flocks, but from straitened means, wholly inadequate to meet the demands of large families. A return of the statistics on this subject, would reveal a state of things, generally more honourable to ministers than to churches. Again with the Independents and the Baptists the number of pastoral charges is much too great. In the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, it is otherwise; no charge is ever allowed to be formed among them till a good case has been made out, and one element of such a case is, that the people shall be able, on, at least, a small scale, to support their minister without any external aid. Indeed, the rule was,-if it be not still,-for some two or three responsible men to be required to sign a bond to that effect an arrangement, which, of itself, is an effectual check to the rash and foolish multiplication of churches. As a rule, among all these churches, whatever the pastor receives, be it less or more, it is the exclusive result of the contributions of his own flock. There is no mendicancy of any sort among them-no Regium Donum-nor any of the various other laudable means which the bounty of English Dissent has supplied for eking out the scanty subsistence of excellent and deserving men-means, however, which are often grievously abused by persons to whose use they are improperly applied-persons placed in a position which they should never have occupied, and by whom the ground is not so much cultivated as cumbered. The multiplication of too small interests has been a sore evil to English Dissent. This subject is one full of instruction to us all, and deserves most serious consideration. If the highest desires of our people are ever to be realised, the position of the Ministry in general must be raised, and in order to this, they must be provided with reasonable support;-to furnish a superior and adequate education, is not enough. What is education, clothed in pinching poverty? The next thing that deserves particular

attention is, the Report upon Statistics, which is an interesting and instructive document. In Scotland, as well as amongst ourselves, there seems at first, to have been some squeamishness upon this point. Dr. Peddie gave in the Report of the Committee, which ran thus:

STATISTICS OF THE BODY.

After referring to the tardy manner in which the returns to the schedule of queries were sent in, and the difficulty which the Committee had therefore in making up their Report, and regretting that, notwithstanding all that they had done, the Report was not full and perfect, he was, however, happy to say that they had received a considerably larger number of returns from congregations than last year. Last year they received returns from 379 congregations, while this year they received returns from 417 congregations, which thus left only 90 defaulters this year, the number of congregations in the body amounting to 507. They had received returns from all the congregations in the Presbyteries of Brechin, Dunfermline, Edinburgh, Galloway, Kelso, Inverness, Hamilton, and (with the exception of a station), Elgin. 410 congregations had reported the number of members, which amounted to 121,150; 361 reported the number of accessions during the year, which amounted to 10,686, being an average of 29; 352 congregations reported the number of removals, which were 401, the average being 21, and consequently the average of gain on each congregation was eight on those reporting, or about 5,000 over the whole. The attendance from 375 was reported, which amounted to 140,869, or an average of 876. The seat rents in 361 congregations were reported, which amounted to £37,363 19s. 11d. The collections were reported from 368 congregations, amounting to £29,699 16s. 7d.; and the subscriptions from 177 congregations, which amounted to £11,717 138. 9d.; other resources were reported from 140 congregations, which amounted to £2,782 12s. 3d.; 382 congregations reported the stipends they gave, which amounted to £46,529; 213 congregations reported their sacramental expenses, amounting to £1,902 9s. 4d.; 220 congregations reported their interest on debt, amounting to £5,574 188. 3d. The debt liquidated on 119 congregations who had reported, was £12,805 7s. 5d. (Applause.) 340 congregations reported the general expenses, which amounted to £12,278 12s. 1d.; 198 congregations reported the annual value of manses, which amounted to £2,897 10s.; and the debt on 235 congregations who had reported, was £93,057 7s. 5d. The contributions to the United Presbyterian Missions from 342 congregations who had reported, was £9,885 5s. 7d.; and 331 congregations reported that they had contributed £2,414 38. 2d. to the Synod fund. (Mr. Peddie, W.S., here shook his head to intimate that they had not as yet received all this money). 288 congregations had reported the number of volumes in their libraries to be 121,688, being about a volume to each member of the Church.

Dr. Peddie then read the names of those congregations that had neglected to send in reports. He suggested that, so long as the Synod kept up these statistics, they should see to it that reports were received from all the congregations. The Synod, on the motion of Professor