ated by three or four motives I can rest tolerably well satisfied; namely, 1st. That exhausted or shattered health may be recruited. 2nd. That distant friends may be entertained and profited by my observations. 3rd. That faith and prayer for the salvation of the world may be stimulated. 4th. That I may thereby be prepared for future usefulness in the cause of God. If successful in the first, it subdues me into a liking for new scenes and varieties, though called to make a considerable sacrifice. The second serves as an agreeable spur to ambition, and doubles my pleasure from the consideration, that others who are near and dear to me are to share in it. The third keeps my eyes open to the priceless value of the souls of men. The sight of "much people," their ignorance, sin, and superstition, while it excites pity and commiseration, renders me grateful also to my gracious God for an education in a Christian land, for early conversion, and thankful for the superior light and advantages of genuine Protestantism. And although precluded, while among this people, by the difficulties of their language, from doing them good, by preaching and free conversation,yet I may think, and feel, and pray. The God of the spirits of all flesh, who gave his own Son to die for the whole world, may hear, and raise up "native instruments," or foreign, to overturn error, and spread light, and knowledge, and holiness, over all these lands. The fourth motive for " travelling" adds a zest to observations and speculations which otherwise they would not, perhaps, possess. There are particular points, bearings, and aspects, in a landscape, which may excite a series of beautiful and startling imagery. Historical recollections are no mean auxiliaries to the effective announcement of truth; and they have also an allpowerful influence upon one's own mind, when contemplated upon "the spots and places" with which they must stand forever identified." The birth-places of literary men, of kings, great men, chief captains, and mighty men, and the places where they have figured in science, legislation, and battle, call forth many instructive associations. Painting, poetry, architecture, and sculpture, are all rich repositories of imagery, and offer to an inquisitive and observing mind many facts, figures, and similes, which may throw a charm over truth, while they contribute to give it edge and point. Frequently has it happened, when pressing home truth upon the minds of sinners or believers, that I have been assisted in this way. Something that I have seen or learned in my travels, and which was made no use of at the time, has come in to my aid, and, by the blessing of God, has enabled me to carry my point, storm the citadel, and rule victoriously for Christ and truth over the encampment of sinners. There is not, however, anything that so reconciles me to the inconveniences of a tour of this kind as does the presence of God. His presence makes a paradise of every scene; where he is, there is my heaven. This is the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night. Without this, the fairest scene is but an Arabian desert, the most instructive localities are no more to me than the swamps of Canada. Cheered and comforted by his smiles: "The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, Yours in Jesus, J. C. LETTER XXXIII. MY DEAR SIR, TO THE SAME. Marseilles, September, 1844. 66 WE arrived here this morning, after a long and tedious night's ride from Avignon. 'Night is no man's friend, at least not in a diligence," said a soliloquizing traveller, and none were disposed to dispute the matter with him. The night, however, was fine; so much so, indeed, as to induce the market people of a quiet town through which we passed to sleep out of doors, in the market-place. We stopped for a few minutes to change horses, about one or two o'clock in the morning, and what a scene! Whole families of market people, who had come from a distance, with their wares, lay spread around upon their respective beds, soundly asleep, "under the bright silence of the stars." "The gliding moon through heaven serene And shed o'er all the sleeping scene To-day we have been rambling about in all directions through this great city. Marseilles is beautifully situated at the head of a small gulf of the Mediterranean, covered and defended by islands. The harbour, an oval basin, is considered the finest in France; and it is questionable if the entire coast of the Mediterranean could boast a better. One thousand ships, I should suppose, might ride there in safety. Here are to be seen the ships of all nations; and sailors, in all the costumes of our round world, are seen upon their rigging and decks, or perambulating the quays. I shall never forget my sensations to-day, on seeing the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. "The sea! the sea!" cried the troops of Xenophon, in the famous retreat of the ten thousand, when they descried it from the lofty summit of Tecqua. "The sea! the sea!" exclaimed the strangers as they viewed it from a commanding eminence on the sea-ward verge of Marseilles,-blue, beautiful, and smooth as a sea of glass." Adieu. 66 J. C. LETTER XXXIV. TO THE SAME. MY DEAR SIR, Genoa, September, 1844. AFTER spending an agreeable day at Marseilles, and paying one hundred and fifty francs each for our passage to Naples, and seventeen francs each besides for having our passports signed by several consuls,— which was the second time we had been compelled to pay for the same purpose, having been deceived by a rogue in Paris, as we ought not to have troubled ourselves about such signatures till our arrival at the seaport from whence we were to depart from France,—we went on board a steamer, and about dark sailed for this city. Morning came,-one of the most beautiful decreed to our world,-and we were on deck betimes. Not a breath disturbed the vast expanse of waters, which was "intensely blue, and clear as the sublime o'erarching sky." "The deep that like a cradled child In breathing slumber lay; More warmly blush'd, more sweetly smiled, "the We could not forget, too, that we were not on ocean of commerce," but on the sea of the Odyssey and the Æneid. To our left were shores immortalized by the historians of antiquity. The brilliant and beautiful blue of the waters, and the striking outlines of the shadowy mountains, and the pure transparency of the heavens which repose above them, had lost nothing, we thought, by the flight of centuries. A large chart, politely furnished us by the captain, afforded us considerable amusement and information. The passengers seemed all very happy; to us they were nearly all foreigners, and chattered away in their different languages. A company of young painters, with their master at their head, bound for southern Italy, for the completion of their studies, employed themselves most of the day in sketching the beautiful scenery of the coast. The mountains, dark with olive trees, in which are clustered towns and villages, white as marble, resembling gems inserted in an emerald ground, each surmounted by the spire of a church, presented a noble picture. We counted thirteen of these towns seated within the several indentations of a single mountain. Here and there a quiet dell presented itself, remarkable for its wild and romantic solitudes. It has been supposed, that it was to some particular part of these shores Claudian referred in the following lines : "A place there lies on Gallia's utmost bounds, : |