our clothes. To these discomforts were added the horrible uncertainty as to whether the cables would hold until daylight, and the conviction also that if they failed us we should instantly be dashed to pieces, the wind blowing directly to the quarter in which we knew the shore must lie. Again, should they continue to hold us, we feared, by the ship's complaining so much forward, that the bits would be torn up, or that she would settle down at her anchors, overpowered by some of the tremendous seas which burst over her.

"At dawn on the 13th, thirteen minutes after four A.M., we found that the best bower cable had parted; and, as the gale now blew with terrific violence from the north, there was little reason to expect that the other anchors would hold long; or, if they did, we pitched so deeply, and lifted so great a body of water each time, that it was feared the windlass and forecastle would be torn up, or she must go down at her anchors. Although the ports were knocked out, and a considerable portion of the bulwark cut away, she could scarcely discharge one sea before shipping another, and the decks were frequently flooded to an alarming depth.

"At six A.M. all further doubts on this particular account were at an end, for, having received two overwhelming seas, both the other cables went at the same moment, and we were left helpless, without anchors or any means of saving ourselves, should the shore, as we had every reason to expect, be close astern. And here again I had the happiness of witnessing the same general tranquillity as was shown on the 1st of September. There was no outcry that the cables were gone; but my friend Mr. Manico, with Mr. Carr, the gunner, came aft as soon as they recovered their legs, and in the lowest whisper informed me that the cables had all parted. The ship, in trending to the wind, lay quite down on her broadside, and as it then became evident that nothing held her, and that she was quite helpless, each man instinctively took his station; while the seamen at the leads, having secured them as well as was in their power, repeated their soundings, on which our preservation depended, with as much composure as if we had been entering a friendly port. Here, again, that Almighty power which had before so mercifully preserved us granted us His protection." (P. 100.)

Nothing can be more interesting and moving than this

narrative; it displays great predominance of the moral sentiments, but an intellect sadly unenlightened as to the natural laws. I have quoted, in Captain Lyon's own words, his description of the Griper, loaded to such excess that she drew sixteen feet of water-that she was incapable of sailing that she was whirled round in an eddy in the Pentland Firth--and that seas broke over her which did not wet the deck of the little Snap, not half her size. Captain Lyon knew all this, and also the roughness of the climate to which he was steering; and, with these outrages of the physical law staring him in the face, he proceeded on his voyage without addressing, so far as appears from his narrative, one remonstrance to the Lords of the Admiralty on the subject of this infringement of the principles of common prudence.

My opinion is that Captain Lyon was not blind to the errors in his equipment, or to their probable consequences; but that his sentiment of veneration, combined with cautiousness and love of approbation (misdirected in this instance), deprived him of courage to complain to the Admiralty, through fear of giving offence; or that, if he did complain, they prevented him from stating the fact in his narrative. To the tempestuous North he sailed, and his greatest dangers were clearly referable to the very infringements of the physical laws which he describes.

When the tide ebbed, his ship reached to within six feet of the bottom, and in the hollow of every wave struck with great violence; but she was loaded at least four feet too deeply, by his own account; so that if he had done his duty she would have had four feet of additional water, or ten feet in all, between her and the bottom even in the hollow of the wave-a matter of the greatest importance in such a critical situation. Indeed, with four feet more water she would not have struck; besides, if she had been less loaded she would have struck less violently. Again, when pressed upon a lee-shore, her incapacity for sailing was a most obvious cause of danger. In short, if Providence is to be regarded as the cause of these calamities, there is no indiscretion which it is possible for Man to commit that may not, on the same principles, be charged against the Creator. But the moral law again shines forth in delightful splendour in the conduct of Captain Lyon and his crew when in their most forlorn condition. Piety, resignation, and manly resolution then animated them to the noblest efforts. On

the principle that the power of accommodating our conduct to the natural laws depends on the activity of the moral sentiments and the intellect, and that the more numerous the faculties that are excited the greater is the energy communicated to the whole system, I would say, that while Captain Lyon's sufferings were in a large degree brought on by his infringements of the physical laws, his escape was greatly promoted by his obedience to the moral law and that Providence in the whole occurrences proceeded on the broad and general principle which sends advantage uniformly as the reward of obedience, and evil as the punishment of infringement of every particular law of creation.

That storms and tempests have been instituted for some benevolent end may perhaps be acknowledged when their causes and effects are fully known: which at present is not the case. But even amidst all our ignorance of these, it is surprising how small a portion of evil they would occasion if men obeyed the laws which are actually ascertained. How many ships perish from being sent to sea in an old worn-out condition, and ill-equipped, through mere acquisitiveness! and how many more from captains and crews being chosen who are greatly deficient in knowledge, intelligence, and morality, in consequence of which they infringe the physical laws!

The London Courier of 29th April, 1834, contains a list of ten British brigs of war, mostly employed as packetships, which had foundered at sea within the preceding twelve years owing to bad construction and bad condition; while, it is remarked, not one American private packet-ship, out of the vast number constantly sailing between Liverpool and New York, is recollected to have perished in that manner. Such facts show how little Nature is to blame for the calamities of shipwreck, and to how great an extent they arise from human negligence and folly. We ought to look to all these matters before we complain of storms as natural institutions.

The last example of the mixed operation of the natural laws which I shall notice is the result of the mercantile distress in 1825-6. I have traced the origin of that visitation to excessive activity of acquisitiveness and to a general ascendency of the animal and selfish faculties over the moral and the intellectual powers. The punishments of these

offences were manifold. The excesses infringed the moral law, and the chastisement for this was deprivation of the tranquil enjoyment that flows only from the moral sentiments, with severe suffering in the ruin of fortune and in the blasting of hope. These disappointments produced mental anguish and depression, which occasioned an unhealthy state of the brain. The action of the brain being disturbed, a morbid nervous influence was transmitted to the whole corporeal system; bodily disease was super-added to mental sorrow and in some instances the unhappy sufferers committed suicide to escape from these aggravated evils. Under the organic law, the children produced in this period of mental depression, bodily distress, and organic derangement will inherit weak bodies and feeble and irritable minds-an hereditary chastisement for their fathers' transgressions.

In the instances now given we discover the various laws acting in perfect harmony and in subordination to the moral and intellectual laws. If our ancestors had not forsaken the supremacy of the moral sentiments, such fabrics as the houses in the Old Town of Edinburgh never would have been built; and if the modern proprietors had returned to that law, and had kept profligate and drunken inhabitants out of them, the conflagration might still have been avoided. In the case of the ships, we see that wherever intellect and morality have been relaxed, and animal motives have been permitted to assume the supremacy, evil has speedily followed; and that where the higher powers have been called forth, safety has been obtained. And finally, in the case of the merchants and manufacturers, we trace their calamities directly to placing acquisitiveness and selfesteem above intellect and moral sentiment.

Formidable and appalling, then, as these evils are, yet, when we attend to the laws under which they occur, and perceive that the object and legitimate operation of every one of those laws, when observed, is to produce happiness to Man, and that the sufferings have the tendency to force him back to happiness, we cannot, under the supremacy of the moral sentiments and the intellect, fail to bow in humility before them, as at once wise, benevolent, and just.

An important question remains for consideration-Can we evade the action of the natural laws? It appears to me that we cannot do so; but that, by intelligently obeying them, and by availing ourselves of their action, we may do what

superficial observers mistake for evading them. By employing a balloon, for example, we may rise in the air, although the law of gravitation appears to fix us to the earth; but in this case we, in point of fact, rise by the law of gravitation. The gases which compose the atmosphere are heavier than the hydrogen gas with which we fill the balloon, and the latter ascends in virtue of the same law which causes timber to float on the surface of the water.

"About three years ago," says Mr. Edwin Chadwick, "an epidemic raged in Glasgow, and there was scarcely a family, high or low, which escaped attacks from it. But at Glasgow they have an exceedingly well-appointed, well-ventilated prison, and in that prison there was not a single case of epidemic; and in consequence of the overcrowding of the hospitals, which killed some two thousand people, they took forty cases into the prison, and not one of them spread."

"

It may appear to some persons that the directors of this prison had found out the means of evading the organic law, and consequently of escaping from the infection of the fever; but this is a mistake. The organic law is, that fever infects only when the atmosphere is surcharged with noxious effluvia, and when the bodies of those exposed to it are low in tone. In the prison, good ventilation was maintained, and the prisoners were adequately fed. The spread of the infection, therefore, was warded off, not by evading, but by obeying the organic law. Captain Murray, of the Royal Navy, maintained the crew of his ship in excellent health in the West Indies when the crews of other ships were dying around him, not by evading, but by obeying the organic laws. When Lord Exmouth saved the crew of the Dutton (see p. 207), he also succeeded by obeying the physical law. He used ropes to prevent himself and them from sinking in the waves.

It is unnecessary to enlarge on this topic. God, who instituted the natural laws, and attached certain consequences to obedience and others to disobedience, is too wise to have made inconsistent arrangements, too powerful to be baffled by human ingenuity, and too benevolent to render it credible that we shall benefit ourselves more by disobeying than by complying with His laws.