praised God for having sent him into the Mission field, which he was even now quitting for a loftier and holier sphere. He spoke frequently and loudly until about half-past two o'clock on Thursday morning, when, apparently exhausted, he turned on his right side and seemed to be resting quietly. After a little while some of those around him began to hope that it was the crisis of the disease which was now beginning to take a favourable turn, that caused him to be more quiet. But the doctor, with his finger on the pulse of the patient, shook his head and whispered, "The end is near; he is dying."

He lay quiet for more than an hour, when the fatal black vomit made its appearance, oozing through his lips, and the weary wheels of life stood still. The doctor's finger was still on his wrist when the pulse ceased to beat and the happy spirit passed away. Holy angels

"Bore him to the throne of love,

Placed him at the Saviour's feet."

Absent from the body, he was present with the Lord.

A vast throng formed the funeral procession to the burial-place in the churchyard of Montego Bay, including a large number of those who had listened to his last sermon, delivered only four days before, at the blacksmith's shop. The stoutness of the deceased, the character of the fierce disease which had smitten him down so suddenly, and the climate, all combined to render it necessary that the last rites should be performed at the earliest practicable period;

and just twelve hours after the spirit passed to its heavenly home, the honoured remains were lowered into the grave, there to await the dawning of that glorious day, when all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and this " corruptible shall put on incorruption, this mortal put on immortality, and death shall be swallowed up in victory."

V.

The Pirate Captain.

The scream of rage, the groan, the strife,
The blow, the gasp, the horrid cry,
The panting, throttled prayer for life,

The dying's heaving sigh,

The murderer's curse, the dead man's fixed, still glare,
And fear's and death's cold sweat-they all are there!

DANA.

REMEMBER, Papa, once hearing you speak of a ruined tower at St. Thomas, which you said was supposed to have been built by a notorious pirate named Blackbeard. Are not pirates those who destroy vessels and commit depredations at sea?

Yes, my dear, the term "piracy" has reference to crimes committed on the ocean. Blackbeard, as he was called, was a bold murderous ruffian who had a stronghold in the Bahamas as well as at St. Thomas. He committed great ravages at the head of a band of desperadoes as unscrupulous as himself, plundering and destroying vessels at sea, and slaughtering their crews, until his name became a terror to honest mariners. The West India Islands have been noto

riously the resort of pirates and buccaneers down to a comparatively modern period, when they were exterminated by the strong arm of the law. Down to the time when I first arrived in the West Indies it was a part of the world terribly infested with those lawless rovers who made war upon all nations for the sake of plunder; and just before that time— between 1820 and 1830-several hordes of them had been broken up, and such exemplary punishment inflicted as sufficed for many years to clear those seas of pirate vessels and their crews.

Can you, Papa, tell us a story about pirates?

Yes, dear, I think I can. I will tell you of a man belonging to this class, whose name and exploits were a good deal talked about at the time of my first arrival in the West India Islands, who during a long career of crime and wickedness had captured a large number of ships, and, after plundering them of whatever he and his crew chose to take, burnt or otherwise destroyed them. His practice was to murder all the crews and passengers he found on board the vessels that fell into his power; and he confessed to having in this way wantonly sacrificed about four hundred lives. Strange to say, while thus engaged he escaped capture and the punishment due to his piracies; but he was hanged at Boston in the United States for a murder committed at sea after his iniquitous career as a pirate had been brought to an end. Some other time I will tell you the story of two gangs of pirates who were captured, and met their

well-merited doom on the gallows. One of these gangs were executed at Jamaica, the other at St. Kitt's.

During the first thirty years of the present century piracy was rampant in and about the West Indian Archipelago, where the channels through which vessels were compelled to pass were well known, and the islands themselves afforded so many facilities of concealment. Between the years 1817 and 1825 more than ninety vessels were boarded and plundered by pirates in those seas, besides a large number that were reported "missing," and were supposed to have been captured and destroyed with their crews and passengers. The dangers unavoidably connected with travelling by sea in that part of the world were fearfully augmented by those terrible rovers who under the black flag of piracy waged war without distinction with all nations, and sacrificed human life without scruple or remorse.

In November 1830, a man named Charles Gibbs was convicted and sentenced to death at Boston, Massachusetts, accused of the murder of William Roberts, mate of the brig Vineyard, on the high seas; of which vessel he, Gibbs, was one of the crew. Previous to his execution he made a confession to the authorities concerning his past life, which showed him to be a monster of depravity and cruelty, seldom equalled except in tales of fiction. He acknowledged that he had been for some years the captain of a pirate vessel, and had shared largely in the atrocities and murders which were committed in the