324

RELIGIOUS EXERCISES.

language, that we may be qualified for more extensiveusefulness in the stations we occupy. At nine o’clock,we turn to the Bible , which we are studying with Scottand Henry’s Commentaries, and, after an hour spent inreading, and in passing an examination on the portionwhich occupied our attention on the preceding night, weagain have family worship, and retire to rest usuallybetween ten and eleven o’clock.

Our regular public duties with the natives are, twosermons on the Sabbath: a weekly lecture every Wed-nesday ; a meeting for conversation and prayer everyFriday afternoon; and the monthly concert on the firstMonday of every month. We have worship in English eveiy Sabbath, but only read a sermon, unless there areships at the anchorage. Such is the employment ofour time in this heathen land, and such the routine ofduty which our little cottage in a greater or less degreedaily witnesses; and had we, in addition to our presentsources of happiness, only a ready, were it but an oc-casional, access to the society of those friends, aroundwhom, far as they are from us, our warm affections aredaily hovering, I could most sincerely exclaim,

“ O blest seclusion from a jarring world,

Which we, thus occupied, enjoy !—

Had we the choice of sublunary good,

What could we wish that we possess not here !”

Jan. 7. We cannot write even at this season, fromthese mild latitudes, of “ nipping frosts" and “ driftingsnow still, even here winter comes

- “ to rule the varied year,

Sullen and sad, with all her rising trainOf vapours, clouds, and storms.”