Communicated for the Methodist Magazine. under whose government all enjoy liberty and happiness, beyond the power of the human heart to conceive, or the tongue to express. Human life is one continued warfare; one unceasing struggle between truth and falsehood, light and darkness, righteousness and wickedness. These encourage man to go forward in the faithful discharge of every duty and obligation; those to harrass, perplex, and if possible, prevent the performance of any duty or obligation. These hold out a reward of countless value, permanent rest, eternal life, and unfading glory to such as are actuated thereby; those lead down to punishment, unceasing disquietude, never ending misery, and eternal death. These insure the possession of every blessing heart can desire, every pleasure that refined sense can enjoy, and every beauty and perfection that God wills his children to have; those bring upon miserable man eve ry curse that the imagination can conceive, every torment that the keenest sense can feel, every deformity and horror that a just and angry God sentences and inflicts. HUMAN life in its best estate is but labour and sorrow, so soon passeth it away, and we are gone; and such is the opinion and experience of the best and wisest men, in all ages, and in all countries. Human life, abstract from religion, is ofttimes drudgery almost intolerable. Riches, honours, attainments, are but fleeting shadows; like vivid corruscations they are seen for a moment-they are gone, and leave wretched man in darkness and despair. This life is but a preparatory state, an antichamber, where by the help of a friend, who sticketh closer than a brother, the poor and naked, blind and destitute, are fitted and prepared to gain admittance into a mansion wide and beautiful, where darkness and doubt are for ever removed-light and truth are seen and felt where they are clothed with purity and innocence as with the Judge discloses to innume In this state of existence all is imperfect, obscure, difficult, and uncertain. But when the drama of life is brought to a close, the curtain of death like a dark and impenetrable cloud suddenly rolls up, and discovers to us eternity. We stand before the judgment seat of Christ-solemn and awful stillness rests upon the assembled nations a garment-where brotherly love rable multitudes of men and angels, and charity predominate-where the secrets of all hearts, and gives the great Master of Israel, light to each individual that just reward and truth, and life and love; and to which his preparatory life shall VOL. X. January, 1827. 4 The entitle him. The righteous are these complicated distresses, losses taken to the bosom of God. and evils, if we have Job's faith wicked are turned into hell. and hope, we are safe, and comparatively happy-a tempest may rage around our dwelling, but within there shall be peace. Like righteous Job, from the highest state of prosperity, happiness, and health, we may be suddenly cast down, reduced to poverty, and trodden under foot. Like Job we may have our cattle stolen, and our servants slain-lightning may fall upon our flocks and consume them and their keepers-our camels may be carried off, and their drivers killed by the edge of the sword-a whirlwind from the desert may throw down our houses, and destroy our sons and daughters therein Satan may be permitted to afflict us with a sore disease from head to foot-our wives may be foolish enough to turn against us-our friends may be inconsiderate enough to accuse us of folly and crimes, and our enemies may persecute, afflict, and speak all manner of evil of us falsely, and bring us before the judgment seat of our country for crimes never committed; yet in the midst of all CAPTAIN PARRY'S THE following extract is from a quarto volume, lately published, entitled, "Journal of a Third Voyage for the Discovery of a NorthWest Passage, &c. By Captain Parry." It is not to be expected that this work, which is confined to a description of a forlorn and desolate region, and its scanty productions, can abound with any great variety. Ice, snow, darkness, danger, silence, and solitude, together with the scarcity of animal and vegetable life, render the narrative, however, peculiarly interesting, and it has accordingly engrossed no small share of public attention. The passages which Each of us in such case can say, "I know that my Redeemer liveth; and that hereafter he shall stand up as the judge of all the earth, and the dust to which this body shall be reduced, shall be reanimated; and in that day my skin shall again surround this body, and from this flesh, purified and spiritualized by the word of his power, shall I gaze upon God with wonder, love, and praise; whom I shall gaze upon with intense desire, and these eyes now swollen with tears and bitter weeping, shall be wiped from all sorrow, and behold him, not as a God now for the first time known, but with whom I have been long acquainted, not as an alien, but as a citizen of heaven, a coheir with my Redeemer in glory. Natchez, 26th May, 1826. THIRD VOYAGE. Н. Т. follow, contain his concluding remarks on the important object of his voyage : "Having now brought to a close my narrative of this our third unsuccessful attempt to decide the question of a northwest passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I shall here beg to offer, in conclusion, a few remarks on this and one or two other subjects, which have engaged much of my attention during eight successive summers that I have been employed in this service. "I shall first mention a circumstance which has particularly forced itself upon my notice in the course trate through the ice in these regions; which is, that the eastern coast of any portion of land, or, what is the same thing, the western sides of seas or inlets, having a trending at all approaching to north and south, are, at a given season of the year, generally more encumbered with ice than the shores which have an opposite aspect. The four following instances may be adduced in illustration of this fact, and they cannot but appear somewhat striking, when considered, in viewing a map which exhibits the relative position of the shores in question. of our various attempts to pene- to make the navigation extremely wards Southampton island, instead sorily alluded to it in the course of of being carried in the direction opposite to a strong wind; and how closely the packed ice was found to cling to the same land, even against a fresh breeze blow ing directly off the shore. During the time of our 'besetment' in Baffin's bay, in the month of August, 1824, a set to the westward, even against a strong breeze in that direction, has already been noticed in the present narrative, (p. 19,) and a similar circumstance occurred on our last return. In all these instances, the opportunities were as favourable for detecting a current as can ever occur at sea, the daily observations for latitude and longitude not admitting the possibility of any material error in our actual place, and the ships being, in three instances out of four, either immoveably 'beset' in the ice, or firmly attached to it, and therefore wholly independent of dead reckoning. "It is well known, that, in the extensive northern seas, reaching from latitude 60° to 80°, bounded on the east by Lapland and Spitzbergen, and on the west by Greenland, the whole of the latter coast is blocked up by ice throughout the summer, so as to make it at least a matter of no easy enterprise to approach it; while the navigation of the eastern portion of that sea may be annually performed without difficulty, even to a very high latitude, and at an early part of the season. A second equally well known instance occurs in the navigation of Davis's strait, which, from Resolution island, in latitude 61, to the parallel of at least 70°, is usually inaccessible as late as the month of August, and a great deal of it some summers not accessible at all; while a broad and navigable channel is found open on the eastern side of the strait (that is, on the western coast of Greenland) many weeks before that time. We experienced a third and very striking example of this kind in coasting the eastern shore of Melville peninsula, in the years 1822 and 1823, the whole of that coast being so loaded with ice as difficult and dangerous. Now, on the eastern side of Fox channel, there is reason to believe, as well from the account of that navigator in 1631, and that of Baffin in 1615, as from our own observation, that there is little or no ice during the summer season. In the course of Fox's progress along the shore, from the Trinity islands to his farthest north, no mention whatever is made in his journal of any obstruction from ice, which would hardly have been the case had he met with any; and in our own passage, as well as in that of Baffin, from Trinity islands towards the middle of Southampton island, little or no obstruction was met with from it till well within sight of the latter coast. The last instance of the same kind which I shall mention, is that of Prince Regent's inlet, and of which the events of this voyage furnish too striking a proof, the ice appearing always to cling to the western shore in a very remarkable manner, while the opposite coast is comparatively free from it. "These facts when taken together, have long ago impressed me with an idea, that there must exist in the polar regions some general motion of the sea towards the west, causing the ice to set in that direction, when not impelled by contrary winds, or local and occasional currents, until it butts against those shores which are actually found to be most encumbered by it. In confirmation of this idea, I am enabled to adduce some more definite observations, which would appear to tend to the same result. In the narrative of the voyage of 1821 to 1823, I have shown in how remarkable a manner the ships were, in two separate instances, set to the westward, to So my narratives, yet, as I have never met with any explanation of it, I am desirous of once more drawing to this subject the attention of those who are competent judges of the cause of this phenomenon. The fact to which I allude is, the decrease of wind which invariably takes place in passing under the lee, not merely of a close and extensive body of high and heavy ice, but even of a stream of small pieces, so loose as almost to allow a ship to pass between them, and not one of them reaching a foot above the surface of the sea. immediate, indeed, is this effect, that the moment a ship comes under the lee of such a stream, if under a press of sail, she rights considerably, the difference being at least equal to what seamen 'would estimate a 'reef in the topsails,' or sometimes more. Any thing like mere mechanical shelter must of course, in such a case, be wholly out of the question; which is still more apparent from the fact, that even a coat of 'sludge,' of the consistence of honey, covering the surface of the sea, will, though in a less degree, produce a similar effect. I have several times, under these circumstances, watched "Whether the circumstances I have above stated may have any reference to the well known fact, of the western shores of lands enjoying a climate considerably more temperate than the eastern ones in a corresponding latitude, I do not presume even to conjecture; nor indeed do I feel myself competent the thermometer, to see if any to offer any decided opinion as to sensible change took place in the the cause of the phenomena in temperature of the atmosphere; question. Having stated the facts precisely as they occurred to my notice, I shall only, therefore, add to these remarks by suggesting, for the consideration of others, whether such a tendency of the sea as that above noticed, may not have some connexion with the motion of the earth on its axis. but if the phenomenon be in any respect due to this cause, its amount is certainly too small to be thus detected. "Another remarkable feature observable in the Polar regions, at least in those parts which are encumbered with ice, is, the total absence of heavy or dangerous squalls of wind. There is, of " In the effect produced by the ice upon the strength of the wind, course, an exception to this in the there is something so remarkable, neighbourhood of land, especially that although I have already cur- such as is intersected by valleys and ravines; but in a ship fairly at sea, I cannot call to my recollection a single instance, in the Polar regions, of such squalls as, in other climates, oblige the seaman to lower his topsails during their continuance. The same accuracy is observable in their accounts of the tides, soundings, and bearings, phenomena in which the lapse of two hundred years can have wrought but little change. It is, indeed, impossible for any one, personally acquainted with the phenomena of the icy seas, to peruse the plain and unpretending narratives of these navigators, without recognising, in almost every event they relate, some circumstance familiar to his own recollection and experience, and " In revisiting many of the spots discovered by our early British navigators in the Polar regions, and in traversing the same tracks which they originally pursued, I have now and then, in the course of my narratives, had occasion to speak of the faithfulness of their accounts, meeting with numberless remarks and the accuracy of their hydro- which bear most unequivocally graphical information. I should, about them the impress of truth. however, be doing but imperfect justice to the memory of these extraordinary men, as well as to my own sense of their merits, if I permitted the present opportunity to pass without offering a still more explicit and decided testimony to the value of their labours. The accounts of Hudson, Baffin, and Davis, are the productions of men of no common stamp. They evidently relate things just as they have seen them, dwelling on such nautical and hydrographical notices, as, even at this day, are vaJuable to any seaman going over the same ground, and describing every appearance of nature, whether on the land, the sea, or the ice, with a degree of faithfulness which can alone perhaps be duly appreciated by those who succeed them in the same regions, and under similar circumstances. The general outline of the lands they discovered was laid by themselves approaching to humiliation on the with such extraordinary precision, even in longitude, as scarcely to require correction in modern times; of which fact, the oldest maps now extant of Baffin's bay, and the straits of Hudson and Davis, constructed from the original materials, will afford sufficient proof. "While thus doing justice to the faithfulness and accuracy with which they recorded their discoveries, one cannot less admire the intrepidity, perseverance, and skill with which, inadequately furnished as they were, those discoveries were effected, and every difficulty and danger braved. That any man, in a single frail vessel of five and twenty tons, ill found in many respects, and wholly unprovided for wintering, having to contend with a thousand real difficulties, as well as with numberless imaginary ones, which the superstitions then existing among sailors would not fail to conjure up,-that any man under such circumstances, should, two hundred years ago, have persevered in accomplishing what our old navigators did accomplish, is, I confess, sufficient to create in my mind a feeling of the highest pride on the one hand, and almost other of pride, in remembering that it was our countrymen who performed these exploits; of humiliation, when I consider how little, with all our advantages, we have succeeded in going beyond them. "Indeed, the longer our experience has been in the navigation |