history, and witnessed all the miracles of telegraphs, steamboats and railroads-that our lives have been thus extended far beyond the allotted span, even to that of the patriarchs of old.

THE SHIP.

IN all ages and in all climes the Ship has been the object of interest and of wonder. No invention of man has so conduced to the great ends of human brotherhood as that which enables him to traverse the ocean, steering first by the stars, as Palinurus of old, and afterwards by compass, quadrant and the chronometer, by means of which our modern clippers traverse the wide expanse of the ocean with as much certainty as a journey is performed on land. But, although science has removed so many of the perils of navigation, the "dangers of the sea" are still the dread and terror of insurance offices. No human science or invention has been able to overcome the war of elements, and to say to the stormy waves, "Peace, be still." The ocean still demands its annual victims, and laughs to scorn all the precautions of man to secure safety on its great highway. Notwithstanding all our improvements and inventions, the confidence and daring of the present race of navigators is by no means superior to that of those who first crossed the Atlantic in the days of Queen Eliza

beth in pursuit of a new passage to India, or of new and golden lands in the far West. More than two hundred years ago, Sir Humphrey Gilbert perished in the Squirrel, a vessel of about ten tons, on his homeward voyage to England. Few sailors of the present day would care to tempt the Atlantic in a vessel of such capacity as the Squirrel.

Science had added much to the safety of navigation, but the hardy and adventurous spirit of the true sailor was never more conspicuous than when the science of navigation was in its infancy, and the polar star was the only guide of the mariner in the wide and dreary expanse of the ocean. We marvel at the difference between a California clipper of the present day and the Mayflower, that landed her precious cargo at Plymouth two hundred and thirtyseven years ago, and laid there the foundation of an empire; but we are thus the more forcibly reminded of the courage and adventurous spirit which in that rude age could venture forth, with none of the means and appliances of modern science, upon a stormy and unknown sea, with no charts to guide and no pilot to direct them on their arrival upon a desolate and stormy coast. They braved the ocean as fearlessly as any clipper leaves Boston armed with all the securities which two centuries of science and invention have accumulated, to render the voyage secure and safe. They relied not so much on the power of man

as on that of an overruling and ever-present Providence to guide and direct their course, and preserve them from the dangers which surrounded them. They arrived in safety, and anchored in the most stormy and dangerous season, on the most dangerous coast that sailors are ever compelled to encounter.

The descendants of such a race of men, as might be expected, have been distinguished as a commercial and ship-loving race. Who of those that wielded the axe and framed the timbers of the Mayflower could have dreamed that she was to be the promise of a new world, and to give rise to a mercantile nation that would send its ships into every corner of the habitable globe? She was launched with no other interest than attends the launching of any ordinary vessel into its native element; but how wonderful was her destiny, and how unlooked-for and unimagined by those who helped to knock away the blocks, and who bestowed upon her the name of a flower, known to us as that first flower of spring, and found only in the vicinity of Plymouth, where she landed her cargo of Pilgrims!

A ship under sail is a most poetical object. It excites the imagination in the highest degree, resembling, as it does, the bird with outstretched wings flying across the ocean, and winging its way by some instinct of nature to its destined port. But we know that man is there, and that he guides and directs its

course. He trims his sails to the fanning breeze, he tacks and makes the adverse winds subservient to his purpose. His vessel rises and falls with the waves, and walks the water "like a thing of life." The little helm guides all her movements. To this she is obedient as the horse to the bit. She knoweth her owner's voice, and sails in obedience to his commands. But if by some magic hand we could transfer ourselves, and step on board of the ship, we should realize how much "distance lends enchantment to the view." We should soon be relieved of our poetical fancy, by close contact with sailors' oaths, rough boards, bilge water and sea sickness. We should then look out of the ship, and not at it. We should envy those whose good fortune it was to tread the solid earth and enjoy its manifold blessings. We find ourselves cooped up in a prison, which soon becomes irksome and intolerable. We wonder that we should ever have looked with so much interest and delight upon an object so full of everything which disgusts and annoys us. Such is life. We envy always that which we do not possess. As Horace tells us, on land we wish ourselves at sea, and at sea we wish ourselves on land. Everything is delightful but our own condition. True happiness is in the mind itself, and neither the prose nor the poetry of ships or of the ocean, of rivers or mountains, can supply the want of that contentment which is satisfied with the con