still sails, and hard frozen ropes, a midnight job of this kind took longer to do. As soon as I got down on the deck again, very nearly frozen, I was ordered to lay out on the jibboom, with an able seaman, to stow a jib bellying out with wind, and occasionally flapping like boards. The vessel was pitching, and the spray flying about, as it does when a ship has more canvas than she can carry, and groans and strives to be free from the crushing force of wind and wave. We eventually got this jib, not very gracefully, but as best we could, fairly lashed to the boom. Before the last couple of turns were taken, I said to my comrade, "I feel very queer; I can't hold on." He said, “Go in on deck." I got in somehow; but when I reached the windlass on the lee side the bitter cold had done its work. I fell to the deck in a faint. A few minutes before, and I should have dropped into the foaming sea without even a cry for help. The sailor fastened his casket, came in on the weather side, and went aft to execute other orders; but in the darkness and confusion knew nothing of what had become of me. After a time I came too, with alternate shivers and sweats! Without describing pumping ship all night, expecting to be ashore every minute, seeing others do so, and sending up signals of distress for help, I would simply say she was an old coffin ship, and shortly afterwards was abandoned in the Atlantic just before she foundered. This winter in the North Sea, to say nothing of other experiences, taught me enough to appreciate the sufferings of the unfortunate crew of the "Indian Chief." 66 Look at the doomed "Indian Chief." It is Tuesday night, and in the middle watch. "Our ship," says the mate, was the 'Indian Chief,' of 1,238 tons register; our skipper's name was Fraser; and we were bound, with a general cargo, to Yokohama. There were twenty-nine souls on board, counting the north-country pilot. We were four days out from Middlesborough, but it had been thick weather ever since the afternoon of the Sunday on which we sailed. All had gone well with us, however, so far, and on Wednesday morning, at half-past two, we made the Knock Light. It was very dark, the wind breezing up sharper and sharper, and cold as death. The helm was put down, when she struck the ground broadside on. She was a soft-wood built ship, and she trembled, sir, as though she would go to pieces at once like a pack of cards. Sheets and halliards were let go, but no man durst venture aloft. Every moment threatened to bring the spars crushing about us, and the thunderings and beating of the canvas made the masts buckle and jump like fishing rods. We then kindled a great flare, and sent up rockets, and our signals were answered by the Sunk Lightship and the Knock. We could see one another's faces. in the light of the big blaze, and sung out cheerily to keep our hearts up; and, indeed, sir, although we all knew that our ship was hard and fast, and likely to leave her bones on that sand, we none of us reckoned upon dying, The hours seemed months, and at last the sun arose on Wednesday morning. For a time their spirits rose. But now the flood was making, and this was a fresh and fearful danger, as we all knew; for at sunrise the water had been too low to knock the ship out of her sandy bed, but as the tide rose it lifted the vessel, bumping and straining her frightfully. When she broke her back a sort of panic seized many of us, and the captain roared out to the men to get the boats over, and see if any use could be made of them. Three boats were launched, but the second boat, with two hands in her, went adrift, and was instantly engulphed, and the poor fellows in her vanished just as you might blow out a light. The other boats filled as soon as they touched the water. There was no help for us in that way, and again we withdrew to the cabins." WEDNESDAY NIGHT IN THE RIGGING. "A little before five o'clock in the afternoon a huge sea swept over the vessel, clearing the decks fore and aft, and leaving little but the uprights of the deck-houses standing. It was a dreadful sea, but we knew worse was behind it, and that we must climb the rigging if we wanted to prolong our lives. The hold was already 66 77 full of water, and portions of the deck had been blown out, so that everywhere great yawning gulfs met the eye, with the black water washing almost flush. Some of the men made for the fore-rigging, but the captain shouted to all hands to take to the mizenmast, as that one, in his opinion, was the securest. A number of the men who were scrambling forward returned on hearing the captain sing out, but the rest held on and gained the foretop. Seventeen of us got over the mizentop, and with our knives fell to hacking away at such running gear as we could come at to serve as lashings. None of us touched the mainmast, for we all knew, now the ship had broken her back, that that spar was doomed. He likewise handed me his watch and chain, and I put them in my pocket. The canvas streamed in ribbons from the yards, and the noise was like a continuous roll of thunder overhead. It was dreadful to look down and watch the decks ripping up, and notice how every sea that rolled over the wreck left less of her than it found." MATE CLIMBING FROM THE MIZENMAST TO THE FOREMAST. "On a sudden I took it into my head to fancy that the mizenmast wasn't so secure as the foremast. It came into my mind like a fright, and I called to the captain that I meant to make for the foretop. I don't know whether he heard me or whether he made any answer. Maybe it was a sort of craze of mine for the moment, but I was wild with eagerness to leave that mast as soon as ever I began to fear for it. I cast my lashings adrift and gave a look at the deck, and saw that I must not go that way if I did not want to be drowned. So I climbed into the crosstrees, and swung myself on to the stay, so reaching the maintop, and then I scrambled on to the main topmast crosstrees, and went hand over hand down the topmost stay into the foretop. It was now about three o'clock on Thursday morning; the air was full of the strange, dim light of the foam and the stars, and I could very plainly see the black swarm of men in the top and rigging of the mizenmast. I was looking that way, when a great sea fell upon the hull of the ship with a frightful crash; a moment after, the mainmast went. It fell quickly, and, as it fell, it bore down the mizenmast. There was a horrible noise of splintering wood and some piercing cries, and then another great sea swept over the after-deck, and we who were in the foretop looked and saw the stumps of the two masts sticking up from the bottom of the hold, the mizenmast slanting over the bulwarks into the water, and the men lashed to it drowning. There never was a more shocking sight, and the wonder is that some of us who saw it did not go raving mad. The foremast still stood, complete to the royal mast and all the yards across, but every instant I ex pected to find myself hurling through the air. By this time the ship was completely gutted, the upper part of her a mere frame of ribs, and the gale still blew furiously; indeed, I gave up hope when the mizenmast fell, and I saw my shipmates drowning on it." What agonies were pressed into the minutes and hours of that fearful night. Physical sufferings, mental sufferings, and spiritual sufferings. Paul speaks of a night and a day on the deep, clinging, probably, to a floating spar, but that was in a southern latitude. A steamboat's light is seen through the darkness to be stationary, but little did they think it was for them. At last the morning came -Thursday morning!-ED. (Continued under the Great Storms.) HE LOOKS ONE WAY AND PULLS THE OTHER.* "HE faces the shore, but he is pulling for the ship: this is the way of those who row in boats, and also of a great many who never trust themselves on the water. The boatman is all right, but the hypocrite is all wrong, whatever rites he may practice. I cannot endure Mr. Facing-both-ways, yet he has swarms of cousins. "It is ill to be saint without and a devil within, to be a servant of Christ before the world in order to serve the ends of self and the devil, while inwardly the heart hates all good things. There are good and bad of all classes, and hypocrites can be found among ploughmen as well as among parsons. It used to be so in the olden times, for I remember an old verse which draws out such a character: the man says, "I'll have a religion all of my own, Whether Papist or Protestant shall not be known; "In our Lord's day. many followed Him, but it was only for the loaves and fishes: they do say that some in our parish don't go quite so straight as the Jews did, for they go to the church for the loaves, and then go over to the Baptist chapel for the fishes. I don't want to judge, but I certainly do know some who, if they do not care much for faith, are always following after charity. "Better die than sell your soul to the highest bidder. Better be shut up in the workhouse than fatten upon hypocrisy. Whatever else we barter, let us never try to turn a penny by religion, for hypocrisy is the meanest vice a man can come to. "It is a base thing to call yourself Christ's horse and yet carry the devil's saddle. The worst kind of wolf is that which wears a sheep's skin. Jezebel was never so ugly as when she had finished painting her face. Above all things, then, brother labourers, let us be straight as an arrow, and true as a die, and never let us be time-servers, or turn-coats. Never let us carry two faces under one hat, nor blow hot and cold with the same breath." *"John Ploughman's Pictures," by C. H. Spurgeon. FIFTY LIVES LOST OFF YARMOUTH ALONE! TELEGRAMS run thus:-The barque "Edith Marion" went to pieces within an hour. All the crew jumped overboard. The unknown brig has also disappeared. The falling of her masts and the cries of her crew were plainly heard. The shipping disasters are very numerous, the principle ones occurring off Great Yarmouth. Seven vessels are driven ashore there, and nearly 50 lives lost, including six of the lifeboat crew, who were drowned when attempting to rescue the mate of the "Guiding Star." The coastguard were occu |