All speak of Him whose name is Love, How sweet on this delightful spot, What deep unutterable joy Flows through my soul! how can it be That I, the sinful rebel, I, Should commune thus with Deity? Plead now my cause! O let me hear And view thee as but newly slain. Fain would I mount above those skies, And pierce that azure vault above; And, while on faith's strong wings I rise, Bask in the beams of Jesu's love. What were earth's fairest scenes to me? Around, my heart would prize it not. I shield me 'neath a Saviour's love. "The precious blood of sprinkling" still Prevails before the throne of God; O, joy unspeakable! to feel The virtue of that sprinkled blood! The solemn awe, sublime, yet sweet, The inwrought raptures of the soul, The bliss, unutterably great, The joys which like a river roll; These all from loved communion flow, Roche, Printer, 25, Hoxton-square, London. A VESSEL, taking its departure from the "Land's End," and keeping nearly a westerly course till it had passed the longitude of fifty-two and a half, (west from Greenwich,) would have before it, stretching from north to south, as staying its farther progress, a long line of high, dark-looking rocks, irregular in their outline, and apparently presenting no break through which the crew might direct their bark, and find a harbour of repose, after labouring over the long and rolling waves of the northern Atlantic. Keeping the latitude, however, of forty-seven and a half, (north,) and nearing the shore, the passenger observes on the summit of a lofty rock what is evidently a signal-station; and looking down the southern side of the almost perpendicular acclivity, he now perceives that there is an opening, through which he can see lighter-coloured and lower hills, and, by and by, the masts of numerous vessels at anchor, and beyond them, a gently-rising slope, all the lower part of which is covered with houses. That iron-bound coast is the eastern part of the island of Newfoundland, as seen by those who sail from the British Channel for the town (we should say now, for it is the see VOL. VII. Second Series. Ꮓ of a Bishop, the city) of St. John's, the capital of the island. The island itself is large, and very singularly formed, looking on the map almost like a shoulder of mutton, its broadest part being at the south. It is situated in front of the gulf into which the great river St. Lawrence empties itself. The north-western part of the island is only separated from the coast of Labrador, on the American continent, by the Straits of Belleisle, so narrow, that a vessel sailing through them, may easily see the land on both sides: indeed, in some parts, it is not more than twelve miles across. From north to south, the island is about four hundred and twenty miles long; and three hundred broad, from east to west. It is reported to have been first discovered by some Norwegians, about A.D. 1000. The memory of these explorations had, however, passed away, when the spirit of navigation and enterprise was aroused towards the close of the fifteenth century, Columbus leading the van. It was in the month of June, 1497, that Sebastian Cabot, then in the service of England, made the eastern coast of Newfoundland. Severe as are the winters of the island, its summers are warm and beautiful. Black and lofty as were the rocks of the coast, the eye of Cabot, on the look-out for a harbour, would soon see the entrance to what is now called St. John's. He would sail through a narrow passage between two high hills, (the one to the north being the highest and steepest,) for little more than a quarter of a mile, nearly east and west. This entrance is now termed, significantly, "The Narrows." He would then find himself in a capacious harbour, above half a mile broad in some parts, and three miles long. As soon as he had passed "the Narrows," he would see that the harbour, on the south side, was in a direction rather to the south of west; while, to the north, the water washed the inner base of the mountainous rock at the entrance, forming a completely sheltered cove, from the farther corner of which the shore-line turned westward and southward to the western extremity. The shape of the harbour is not much unlike that of South America on the maps, only supposing it to be |