than in England. A wide circle in both countries felt the greatness and severity of the bereavement. In America we felt it through the hand of his biographer and successor, the Rev. Dr. Raffles; in England the public felt it for what they had seen and heard, and they wept again at the recital of the story. A stranger at Liverpool, my choice of a place of public worship on the evening of this day of my arrival was controlled by these recollections of Spencer and Dr. Raffles. At six o'clock I wended my way alone and unguided to Great George-street Chapel. As the hour of commencing worship was half after six, I was in season to obtain a good seat by the kind offices of a pew-opener. Soon, however, the people began to pour in, in dense columns, till I found myself, before the services commenced, standing in the aisle with a multitude of gentlemen, to accommodate the ladies. After remaining a little in this posture, I received a beck from venerable gentleman near me, to take a seat in his pew, already crammed with a range of finelooking young men and youth, who appeared as if they might be his twelve sons, and he the patriarch. "Have you room, sir?" said I. "O yes; come in." On my right, half way the pew, a full-souled-looking young man of twenty-five showed me much civility when I first sat down and during the service.

It was a grateful hour, and grateful every circumstance, after the scenes of a sea-voyage, and after such an unsabbath-like day, to find myself seated in a modest but spacious church, and one of a congregation of two thousand in a foreign land; to hear my native tongue in its purest forms; to have opened and read the same Bible, to listen to the same hymns and the same music, as in my own country; the dress and manners of the people the same, and with no circumstance to admonish me of a change of place from one part of the globe to another. It was like a dream; for that day three weeks (and far less time in seeming) I was worshipping with a Christian congregation in New-York.

At the appointed hour a clergyman ascended the pulpit, knelt, and offered his silent prayer-a custom most befitting and impressive, but not practised in America, except by two denominations; and then opening the Bible, he read the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew with great pertinency and pathos of expression, in silvery and subduing tones. From the first opening of his lips, he seemed moved from his inmost soul. I could have imagined, though ignorant of the cause, that the deep fountains of feeling were opened within him, and that some mighty sympathies were working there. And I thought, too, that the congregation were ready to be with him in feeling; but still I knew not the occasion. "Is that Dr. Raffles ?" said I in a whisper to the gentleman on my right, as the preacher began to read.

"Yes, sir," was the answer. After the usual introductory services, and a prayer, which breathed the soul, and seemed communion with the skies, a fellowship with heaven, and fitted well to raise the heart that wished to be with God, the following text was announced:-"Therefore, be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh."

66

Nearly twenty years have rolled away since I have had the pastoral charge of this congregation," said the preacher (and these were his first words after reading the text), "and never have I been called to mingle my tears with the bereaved of my charge, in any instance, for a work of death so astounding to private and public sympathy, as in the late and ill-fated doom of the Rothsay Castle." And here, at the end of the first sentence, the secret was all opened to me, and I felt myself at once a mourner with the mourning, and was ready to claim a full part in the deploring enactment of that solemn hour. For I had passed in full view of the scene of death, and heard the story for the first time that very day. Three members of Dr. Raffles's church, Mr. Joseph Lucas, his wife, and their daughter, were of the number who perished; and that evening it had devolved on the pastor to stand up before a sympathizing people to tell the story, and try to impress them with the practical lesson of the awful event; and he did tell the story in the outsetthe simple story. He did not begin a great way off, and deliver a lecture on abstract truths, till his hearers were tired of a discussion, as is too apt to be the fashion on such occasions; but he told the simple story, as the exordium of his sermon. He briefly noticed the character of those whose sudden and awful death they lamented; traced the pathway of their spirits, through the stormy waves of the ocean to the haven of eternal rest, and then applied himself to the proper theme of his text, in application to his hearers, and in view of the mournful event which had suggested it -"Be ye also ready."

I had heard of Dr. Raffles, and entertained a high opinion of his powers. He is unquestionably an eloquent man; and a man of good sterling sense, of pure taste, and sound discretion. He is sure to be pertinent; and in these attributes, and others akin to them, great. He demonstrates a perfect honesty. It is his full soul that speaks out, and no one doubts it-all feel it; and this is eloquence. Take, then, a theme like the fate of the Rothsay Castle, and give it such a man, before an audience whose acquaintances and dear ones perished there; and let him bring heaven and earth, time and eternity, probation and the judgment, all together, as they stand connected with such a scene, in the light of Christianity-and none who hear can be indifferent. And there were none indifferent on that occasion, I dare to say.

It was not the voice of man alone. Man only gave a palpable utterance to the voice of God.

In the midst of the sermon, and at a moment when the minds and hearts of the audience were entirely captive, under the guidance of the preacher, and with him meditating on death, judgment, and eternity-abstracted from earth, and rapt in thought of a coming world—a sudden, protracted, and apparently an expiring groan came from a distant part of the galleries, reaching every part of the house, and penetrating every heart. It was a startling, thrilling expression of distress, augmented a thousand-fold by the circumstances. The self-possession of the preacher, however, in a measure quieted the apprehensions of the audience, by stating that it was a person taken in a fit; and the individual having been carried out, after a pause of two or three minutes the doctor proceeded. What was the real cause of suffering I know not. But the shock at such a moment-when the feelings of the audience were under the highest excitement, and borne away by the most powerful sympathies for the dying and the dead, and forced to think of future and eternal scenes was absolutely appalling.

Occasionally in the progress of the sermon the doctor was exceedingly powerful-his thoughts and manner, and the tones of his voice, all befitting each other. The interest of the occasion was itself intense; and when the Amen was pronounced, that perfect stillness which had reigned for the hour, excepting only the speaker's voice, was succeeded by that singular bustle, which an instantaneous change of position in every individual of a great congregation, after having been long chained by eloquence in fixed and motionless attitudes, produces.

"Did you ever hear Dr. Raffles before?" said the young man on my right, as we rose to leave the chapel. “I am only this day in England, sir," said I: "I passed this morning the scene of the wreck of the Rothsay Castle."-"Is it possible!" he replied. "I think, then, this discourse and the occasion must have been especially interesting to you."

66 Deeply, intensely so. And is Dr. Raffles ordinarily as interesting as this evening, may I ask ?"—" He is very apt to be interesting; indeed, he is always so. But the occasion, as you perceive, was special this evening, and his feelings were uncommonly excited." The acquaintance I seemed to have formed with this young man, by his polite attentions while I sat by his side, and by this little dialogue which occurred on leaving the chapel, imboldened me to ask of him the favour of directing me to the "Talbot Inn," as it was now night, and I had made a crooked course in finding the place. He offered and insisted on accompanying me. Finding, however, that his lodgings were in an opposite direction, I could not consent. He then conducted me to the

head of a principal street, and having put me in my way, took my hand, and bid me an affectionate good-night-as much so as if we had been friends for years.

The first appearance of Liverpool, as a town, in its external features, was not agreeable to me. Its general aspects, as I passed along the streets, were sombre, even dismal. Such is very generally the character of English towns; such throughout is the character of London, compared with NewYork and other American cities. There are two principal causes which make this difference:-the absence of paint, and the settling of soot, dust, and smoke on the external surface of the houses. Oils and paints are too expensive in Great Britain to be applied profusely on brick walls. They are rarely painted. Besides, the mortar with which the bricks are cemented is charged in the mixture with certain ingredients, which destroy the natural colour of unalloyed clay as it is turned out of the kiln, and leave a dead surface, like that of clay unburnt. I suppose, though I never asked, that this composition, as it ill answers the purpose of beauty, is designed to supply the office of paint in closing the pores, and excluding dampness from the walls. When time has covered these dead and cheerless walls with that sooty vestment which the burning of coal deposites everywhere, the external features of a large town in England present a dismal contrast to the rich furniture and comfort that abound within. A man naturally, or accidentally, disposed, might die of ennui, or be provoked to go and hang himself, by the mere effect of this exhibition, if he were doomed to encounter it habitually, without hope of that relief which the internal comforts of English houses afford. The princely mansions of the great and the palace of the king are alike in this particular with the ordinary habitations of the humble. Even St. Paul's in London, originally pure and white when it came from the hand of Christopher Wren, is wrapped in a drapery of blackness, as if the night and smoke of Erebus had enveloped it for centuries. But a Londoner does not see it-does not know it. Indeed, in his eyes, this dismal feature, as I suppose, constitutes one of the beauties of architecture; especially as it indicates antiquity. If St. Paul's could be washed, or its original light colour in any way restored-if the dark side of those columns could be made as white as the other, and the black drapery withdrawn from the walls-that magnificent edifice, the pride of London, would be spoiled. Time and custom make us content with all things that are not positively vicious and a torment. I had almost forgotten this accident myself, till the writing of these pages has recalled it.

An American town is light and airy compared with the feature of which I have been speaking. Every brick house

38

APPEARANCE OF BRITISH SHIPPING.

is painted and pointed, till the surface is polished and glazed with oil. It is first a matter of economy; and the second consideration is to execute it in good taste, according to the standard of the country. An Englishman says, it is fine; and there is, perhaps, some reason for it. It is, however, a matter of choice; whereas the sooty complexion of an English town is a thing which cannot be helped, and it argues at least the virtue of resignation to be content with it.

As an American is struck with the first appearance of an English town for the reasons above specified, so is he also with the first sight of English shipping. When he arrives in the British seas, he observes in all the various craft afloat a hulk disproportionate to the rigging, as would seem to him. The Americans raise one fourth or one third more canvass over the same amount of tonnage, for the reason, perhaps, that they are less prudent, and have less fear of going to the bottom. They like high-pressure engines, and blow up every now and then; but it is seldom we hear of an English steamer bursting her boiler. The build (if it be lawful to use such a term) of an English vessel is ordinarily shaped for burden rather than fast sailing. Her head rises from the water like the circle of a pumpkin. Whether this difference of construction be the reason, or whether the fact asserted be true, I cannot aver; but I have heard it said, since I have been in England, that an American ship will ride safe at anchor through a gale in the same roadstead where an English vessel will be driven ashore or to sea. The former mounts the sea as it approaches, while the latter ships it over her bows. I am constrained, however, in justice to say, that the English yachts, on which the greatest skill and pains of building and rigging have been bestowed, for the purpose of fast sailing, are the prettiest things I have ever seen afloat; and I question whether any thing of the kind in the world has ever equalled in lightness and swiftness the little rowboats of the Thames. The Indian bark canoe of North America may be lighter, but the rapidity of its flight, under the application of an equal force, bears no comparison.

Another point of difference is the snow-white canvass on the American waters-to an American a grateful sight, and naturally agreeable to anybody. He who has been used to the sight of the steamers connected with New-York, and who has observed their beauty and majesty, as they dash away on the bosom of the Hudson for Albany, or on the East River for Providence, and other places, will be sadly disappointed when he comes to observe the low, sable, plodding things in the British seas, called by the same name, and affecting to advance by the power of steam. When, however, he comes to be more acquainted, he will