touch the verge of her mountain, and her wrath might involve the whole island in fiery destruction. At length, however, the islanders were delivered from their bondage of terror into a clearer light. Missionaries came among them, and intercourse with Europeans made them ashamed of their own superstitious fancies. Very gradually the faith of the people detatched itself from the savage deities they had worshipped, and they began to revere the One true Maker of Heaven and earth. But still their superstitions hung around Kilauea. There the fiery goddess still revelled in her fearful gambols, there the terrible sights and sounds, and the desolating streams that might at any moment burst from her reservoir of flame were as tokens of anger that the nation feared to provoke. And after the young King Liholiho, with all his court, had made up their minds to abandon their idols, give up their superstitious practices, and seek instruction from Christian teachers, still the priests of Pele, on her flaming mountain, kept their stronghold of heathenism, and threatened her wrath upon those who should forsake the ancient worship. Then it was that a brave Christian woman, strong in faith and courage, resolved to defy the goddess in her fastness, and break the spell that bound the trembling people to her worship. Her name was Kapiolani, wife of Naihe, the public orator of Hawaii. There was no common trust and resolution needed to enable her to carry out her undertaking. Not only was she outraging the old notions that fearful consequences must follow the transgression of the tabu, or setting apart. Not only was the ascent toilsome, and leading into cold regions, which were dreadful to a delicate Hawaiian, but the actual danger of the ascent was great. Wild crags, and slippery sheets of lava, or slopes of crumbling cinders, were strangers to the feet of the tender coast-bred woman. And the heated soil, the groanings, the lurid atmosphere, the vapor that oozed up from the crevices of the half-cooled lava, must have filled any mind with awe and terror, above all, one that had been bred up in the faith that these were the tokens of the fury of a vindictive and powerful deity, whose precincts she was transgressing. Very recently a large body of men had been suffocated on the mountain-side by the mephitic gases of the volcano-struck dead, as it must have seemed, by the breath of the goddess. But Kapiolani, strong in the faith that He, as whose champion she came, was all-sufficient to guard her from the perils she confronted, climbed resolutely on, bearing in her hand the sacred berries which it was sacrilege for one of her sex to touch. The enraged priests of Pele came forth from their sanctuary among the crags, and endeavored to bar her way with threats of the rage of their mistress; but she heeded them not. She made her way to the sum mit, and gazed into the fiery gulf below, then descended the side of the terrible crater, even to the margin of the boiling sea of fire, and hurling into it the sacred berries, exclaimed: "If I perish by the anger of Pele, then dread her power; but, behold, I defy her wrath. I have broken her tabus; I live and am safe, for Jehovah the Almighty is my God. His was the breath that kindled these flames; His is the Hand which restrains their fury! O, all ye people, behold how vain are the gods of Hawaii, and turn and serve the Lord!" Safely the brave woman descended the mountain, having won her cause, the cause of Faith. In classic times, the philosopher_Empedocles had leapt into the burning crater of Mount Etna, thereby to obtain an imperishable name. How much more noble is the name that Kapiolani gained for herself, by the deed that showed forth at whose command alone it is that the mountains quake and flow down, and the hills melt like wax. P DISCIPLINE. ERHAPS there never have been occasions, when the habit of instantaneous obedience to the voice of duty has produced more touching instances of forbearance and unselfishness, than in the confusion and despair of a shipwreck. What a wreck can be without such qualities, has been but too well proved by the horrible scenes that took place after the loss of the French ship Meduse, when brutal selfishness was followed by savage violence and cannibalism too shocking to be dwelt upon; though memorable as an example, that " every man for himself," is the most fatal of all policies, even were self-preservation the primary object. In British ships of war, unshrinking obedience, heeding nothing but the one matter in hand, is the rule. "As a landsman," says Colonel Fisher, an engineer-officer, who was on board the Plover gun-boat in the hottest fire on the Peiho river, "I was much struck with the coolness with which the navigation of the vessel was attended to; the man in the chains cries the soundings, the master gives his orders to the man at the helm and the engineers below; the helmsman has no eyes or ears but for the master's directions and signals. . . . All seem intent on what is their duty at the time being, and utterly unmindful of the struggle raging round them." And this when not only were they being shot down every moment, but when each comparatively harmless ball rocked the gun-boat, sent splinters flying, or brought the yards down upon their heads. Where such conduct is regarded as a mere matter of course, from the grey-headed admiral down to the cadet and the cabin-boy, no wonder that multitudes of deeds have been done, glorious because they placed duty far above self, and proved that Nelson's signal is indeed true to the strongest instinct of the English sailor. The only difficulty is to choose among the instances of patient obedience on record; and how many more are there, unknown to all but to Him who treasures up the record, until the day when “the sea shall give up her dead!" Let us cast a glance at the Atalante, bewildered in a fog upon the coast of Nova Scotia, and deceived by the signal-guns of another ship in distress, till she struck upon the formidable reefs, known by the name of the Sisters Rocks, off Sambro Island. The wreck was complete and hopeless, and a number of men scrambled at once into the pinnace; but the captain, seeing that she could never float so loaded, ordered twenty of them out, and was implicitly obeyed, so entirely without a murmur, that as the men hung clinging to the weather-gunwale of the ship, they drowned the crashing of the falling masts with their cheers. As soon as the pinnace was lightened, she floated off, but immediately turned bottom upwards. Still the crew never lost their self-possession for one moment, but succeeded in righting her, and resuming their places, without the loss of a man. They then waited beyond the dash of the breakers on the reef, for Captain Hickey and their companions, who were still clinging to the remains of the ship. There were two other boats, but too smail to hold the whole number, and an attempt was made to construct a raft, but the beating of the waves rendered this impossible, so the men already in the pinnace were directed to lie down in the bottom, and pack themselves like herrings in a barrel, while the lesser boats returned through the surf to pick off the rest, a most difficult matter, and indeed some had to be dragged off on ropes, and others to swim, but not one was lost. The captain was of course the last man to quit the wreck, though several of the officers were most unwilling to precede him even for a moment, and by the time he reached the boat, the last timbers had almost entirely disappeared, amid the loud cheers of the brave-hearted crew. Nothing was saved but the admiral's despatches, which the captain had secured at the first moment, and the chronometer. This last was the special charge of the captain's clerk, who had been directed always to hold it in his hand when the guns were fired, or the ship underwent any shock, so as to prevent the works from being injured. On the first alarm he had caught up the chronometer and run on deck, but being unable to swim, was forced to cling to the mizzen-mast. When the ship fell over, and the mast became nearly horizontal, he crawled out to the mizzen-top, and sat there till the spar gave way and plunged him into the waves. whence he was dragged into one of the boats, half-drowned, but grasping tight his precious trust. poor merry negro, who held fast to his fiddle to the last moment, as he clung to the main-chains, was obliged to let his instrument go, amid the laughter and fun of his messmates, who seem to have found food for merriment in every occurrence. No one had a full suit of clothes but an old quartermaster, named Samuel Shanks, who had comported himself throughout as composedly as if shipwrecks befell him every day, and did not even take off his hat, except for a last cheer to the Atalante as she sunk. He recollected that he had a small compass seal hanging to his watch, and this being handed to the captain, in his gig, and placed on the top of the chronometer, it proved steady enough to steer by, as the three boats crept carefully along in the dense fog. They landed, after a few hours, on the coast, about twenty miles from Halifax, at a fishing station, where they were warmed and fed. Thence the captain took the most exhausted and least clothed of the party in the boats to Halifax, leaving the others to march through the half-cleared country. Before night the whole ship's company assembled, without one man missing, in as complete order as if nothing had happened. Here perfect discipline had proved the means of safety, and hope had never failed for a moment; but we have still fresh in our memories an occasion where such forbearing obedience led to a willing self-sacrifice, when safety might have been possible to the strong at the expense of certain destruction to the weak. The Birkenhead, a war steamer used as a transport, was on her way to Algoa Bay with about 630 persons on board, 132 being her own crew, the rest being detachments from the 12th, 74th, and 91st regiments, and the wives and children of the soldiers. In the dead of the night, between the 25th and 28th of February, the vessel struck on a reef of sunken rocks on the African coast, and from the rapidity with which she was moving, and the violence of the waves, became rapidly a hopeless wreck. On the shock, the whole of the men and officers hurried on deck, and the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Seton, calling the other officers about him, impressed on them the necessity of preserving order and silence among the men, and placed them at the disposal of the commander of the vessel. Sixty were placed at the pumps, others to disengage the boats, and others to throw the poor horses overboard, so as to lighten the ship, while the rest were sent to the poop to ease the fore part of the ship. Every one did as directed, and not a murmur nor cry was heard. They were as steady as if on parade, as ready as though embarking in a British harbor. The largest boat was unhappily too much encumbered to be got at quickly enough, but the cutter was filled with the At the women and children, and pushed off, as did two other small boats. Of the other two large ones, one was capsized, the other stove in by the fall of the funnel, which took place Immediately after the cutter was clear of the ship, only twelve or fifteen minutes after the ship had struck. same time the whole vessel broke in two parts, crosswise, and the stern part began to sink and fill with water. The commander called out, "All those that can swim jump overboard and swim for the boats." But Colonel Seton and the officers with him besought their men to forbear, showing them that if they did so the boats with the women must be swamped. And they stood still. Not more than three made the attempt. Officers and men alike waited to face almost certain death rather than endanger the women and children. Young soldiers, mostly but a short time in the service, were as patiently resolute as their elders. In a few moments the whole of these brave men were washed into the sea, some sinking, some swimming, some clinging to spars. The boats picked up as many as was possible without overloading them, and then made for the shore, which was only two miles off, hoping to land these and return for more, but the surf ran so high that landing was impossible, and after seeking till daylight for a safe landing place, they were at last picked up by a schooner, which then made for the wreck, where thirty or forty were still hanging to the masts in a dreadful state of exbaustion. A few, both of men and horses, had succeeded in swimming to the shore, but some were devoured by the sharks on the way, and out of the whole number in the ship, ouly 192 were saved. But those who were lost, both sailors and soldiers, have left behind them a memory of calm, self-denying courage as heroic as ever was shown on the battle-field. W THE RESCUERS. E have had a glimpse of the horrors on board a wrecked ship, and the resolution with which they can be endured and conquered. Let us now look at the shore, and at the spirit that has prompted even women to become their rescuers. Here, then, is a portion of a "Night Scene by the Sea," namely, the dangerous coast near Cromer, in the county of Norfolk. It was taken from a poem by Joanna Baillie, and is literally and exactly true. There amid "The roar of winds and waves |