THE ADVENTURES OF A SWIMMER. water) and as I was really getting quite stiff from cold and fatigue, I at length reluctantly made up my mind to resort to a plan which I had often meditated, and which, though somewhat unpleasant, was not likely to prove unsuccessful. We were alone-not a creature was in the neighborhood; it was already growing dusk; there could be no hope of assistance from any quarter; it was therefore no time for trifling. Accordingly, I forthwith began by "planting a blow" with my hand that was free, and in the true milling style, This of course called between his two eyes. forth all his frenzy; I felt the arm that had held him growing benumbed and powerless, so I "planted" another, and another, and another, as quickly as possible. The fourth or fifth was scarcely given, when he lay unresistingly in my arms. tained, I made the best of my way with him towards the jetty. The icy water had a very revivifying effect upon him, for by the time we were reaching land, he was again beginning to struggle. I got him on shore, nevertheless, and then into the boat, much to my relief and his own after satisfaction. 1 need hardly say that he did not "demand an explanation" for my having struck him. the "mouths of the ocean;" and I was by no means anxious to be carried, by such a channel, literally to the bosom of my mother earth. We all, in fact, I imagine, contented ourselves with diving down, peeping in, and cruising about as long as breath lasted, and then, when we could hold under no longer, we would return to the surface, resolved not to be out-done by each other in the most circumstantial description of the formation of the cavern, and of the strange and unaccountable sights that, with a little stretch of imagination, we might reasonably be supposed to have witnessed within it-for in truth we were sad braggers. One day, however, the matter was brought to a test. Ta friend of mine, and one of the boldest and best swimmers that I had ever known, mainThis end obtained that he had entered the cavern, that he had explored it thoroughly, that he had ascertained that the stories of its depth were quite unfounded, and that, in fact, it was nothing more than a large and unusual hollow in the rock. We were, of course, all very indignant at such an assertion. In fact, it was a complete refutation of all our own imaginary descriptions of its depths, horrors, and immensity. T persevered in his I may as well relate here from what a assertion; and as we looked incredulous, casual accident the above somewhat vigorous challenged any of us who dared to follow but very efficient plan of saving a man from him into it. I accepted the challenge; and The plan itself allowing a moment's start, I dived after him. drowning occurred to me. is simple enough; it is perhaps the only one As I came to the dark mouth of the cavern, that is certain of success in like circum- T's feet were just disappearing into it -a little to my dismay, I confess, for I half Howstances; but I do not think I should even have thought of it, had it not been suggested doubted his being really in earnest. to me by the merest chance. A few months ever, I followed slowly after him, taking a previous to the incident I have just described, slightly different direction, so as not to come I was bathing with some friends near a large into contact with him. I had not been very and lofty rock, under which, it was asserted, far before I begun not at all to like the there was a deep marine cavern. Numerous, sensation. I had quite lost sight of T—, it was said, had been the deaths by drowning for the water, though limpid to the touch, at this particular spot, for many swimmers had at different periods attempted, by diving down, to explore the cavern, and had been drowned in the attempt. The very danger of the place made us like it. Man is a danger-loving animal; and here there was something of that zest derived from peril, which many amusements, when passionately followed, take in the minds of some their principal charm from. There was an excitement in it, and we used frequently to attempt an entrance into the cavern, but none of us, I suspect, ever had the courage to proceed to any distance in the dark waters under the rock. To speak for myself at least, I may say that I was indeed fond enough of diving down and looking into the palpable obscure before me, but I never relished the idea of trusting myself within it; for though I felt no current, somehow or other we had persuaded ourselves that this might be one of was perfectly dark, owing to the total exclu- the mouth of the cavern, and it was with no small relief that I emerged into clearer and more translucid water. My decomposure was considerably increased, when, as I was springing upwards to the surface, I noticed a thin streak of blood tracked perpendicularly in the water, from the mouth of the cavern to the surface. This was soon explained, for on reaching the air I saw, to my horror, T-floating powerlessly, and faintly struggling on the water, his head and shoulders bathed in blood. Before I could render him any assistance, one of our friends was already helping him to the shore. Thad fainted from loss of blood, and a baby could not have been more easily drawn to the land. It appeared, that in the dark he had struck his head against a sharp corner of the interior of the rock, but that he had still sufficient strength and presence of mind to make for the mouth of the cavern, which he had some difficulty in reaching. But it was this incident that first suggested to me the plan I afterwards adopted. Perceiving how easily he was extricated from the water when powerless, I reflected that it might be possible to render powerless a man whom it was necessary to save from drowning, if I adopted the harsh but only available mode of stunning him. I still think that in many cases this is the only means that can be adopted; but then, too, it is not every man that will be stunned. I remember an amusing instance of this. Once, when the rest of us were swimming at some distance from the shore, a good-natured but simple Frenchman, to whom I had imparted my specific for saving a drowning man, perceiving that an Irish gentleman was going through some peculiarly strange evolutions in the water, which the Frenchman took for drowning, the latter got into a boat we had with us, shoved it towards the Irishman, and began belaboring him with a cane. Our Irish friend, of course, did not understand this, and having hunted his persecutor out of the boat, had given him the better part of the thrashing, before any of us who could understand the languages of both, were able to interfere. He was one, in fact, who wouldn't be stunned. But, as a general rule, I say the stunning plan is a good one, as, indeed, must be evident, from the facility of saving a man to whom has occurred an accident, similar to that which I have just stated happened to 'T Poor T! His was a melancholy, a mysterious fate. He was scarcely thirty, he had received a capital college education, (at Cambridge, I believe,) and he was one of the pleasantest fellows you could have at a bachelor's party. He could "sing a good song," possessed an abundance of classic and lively quotations in conversation, was exten sively informed, witty, and very often eloquent. He was an excellent shot, a bold rider, and the swiftest of swimmers. In a word, he might have been a great man, or a pleasant man; he might have been a distinguished politician, or a capital boon companion. He rather inclined to the latter of the two characters, having spent the first years of his youth in an idle kind of life about London. He there got some money on the death of a relation, and forthwith went travelling about the continent with a shooting jacket and a gun, spending his life in that healthy, harmless, but desultory manner, which is agreeable to many young Englishmen. In the summer following the accident of the rock, a small party of us (T- was one) made an excursion in a boat to the island of Belleisle, so well known in the annals of English prowess. The day was warm, the sea was calm, and on our return across to the equally notorious place of Quiberon, T expressed a wish to have a swim. No one offered to join him, but we all readily consented to reef the sail and wait for him. Into the water he went accordingly, whilst we availed ourselves of the pretext of delay, to have a kind of supplementary luncheon. Our boat drifted with the ripple and the tide, and there was soon a considerable distance between T and us. His head would occasionally be seen on the top of a wave, and then he would disappear in a hollow, and then again appear, and so on, but no thoughts of danger, of course, ever entered our minds. Some of us dozed, some smoked, some eat, some drank, some extemporized on the scenery. Belleisle stood up grim and stern far off on one side, Quiberon lay indistinct and flat, at about an equal distance on the other. At length some one took up a gun to have a shot at a seagull; off went the gun, and down came the sea-gull, badly wounded, at some forty yards from us. We pulled towards it. It was no easy matter to get hold of it. After a good deal of delay, we succeeded. And spending a little time in looking at it, feeding it, and binding up its broken wing, we began to think of T, and that it was time to get on towards Quiberon. We looked out for T-, but we could not see him. We were sure, at first, that he must be concealed behind the rising of the waves. We pulled towards where we had seen him last, but could not see him. We pulled about and about; he was nowhere; he was there but a few minutes before. For an hour or two we continued beating about in every direction; it was all in vain. Was it possible-could we credit our senses? Had we seen him sink it would have been, as it were, a conso lation; but that he should thus sink and vanish, and "make no sign," was more horrible than can be expressed. We bore away at length, sadly and sorrowfully, from where the friend, so full of joy in the morning, lay now "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." INFIDELITY OF THE PRESENT TIME To the dangers of the crisis thus graphically portrayed, we are not, says the London Recorder, insensible. But we are more alarmed on account of "bewildered friends" than open enemies. We are, above all, eager to resist that species of theology so popular among scholars and men of learning, which is based on intellect, rather than on the teaching of the Holy Spirit; which strives to reduce christianity to the level of human philosophy, and pursues its researches by the same lights which guide the bootless speculations of the metaphysician. The basis of true theology is the Word of God revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and it is under the guidance of the promised Comforter, that we seek to know and to do the Lord's will. It is, however, against the written word that modern philo sophizers have most arrogantly rebelled. Many fire things they may say of the Bible, but their Bible is not that of the humble christian, whose simple faith takes God at his word, like the poor cottager of whom Cowper so beautifully says: "Just knows, and knows no more! her Bible true, A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew!" tians as Bibliolaters, who know nothing of On the contrary, they sneer at simple christhe history of the canon, who imagine that the books of the sacred volume were issued just like modern books, and believe that every word was dictated by the Almighty. Such a mode of dealing with religion may gratify the pride of reason, inasmuch as it tends to bring the Bible to the bar of human criticism, in order that its component parts may be judged, censured, commended, altered, improved, or rejected at pleasure. Well may we exclaim in the words of the Tuscan advocate, quoted by Captain Packenham in his effective speech at a meeting of the Bible Society, "Absurdity! Contradictions! Impiety!" Such conduct is calculated to precipitate a crisis; but let the collision come when it may, we feel that the Bible and the faith of Christianity are strong in the invincible power of their Almighty Author. The shock may be violent, but it is better than the deadly poison of that system of half and half christianity, in the Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, which betrays the faith at the moment it appears to salute it; which is constantly making admissions as to the imperfections of the Bible, but hinting that these mnst not be publicly talked of; which intimates that plenary inspiration is a 'dead idol,' and that the canon of Scripture cannot be defended. When we are warned by the abettors of such philosophical christianity not to provoke a collision, we are almost tempted to say to them, in the words of a great christian orator: "Give me the hurricane rather than the pestilence. Give me the hurricane, with its thunder and its lightning and its partial and temporary devastation, awful though they be-give me the hurricane, with its purifying, healthful, salutary effects—give me that hurricane infinitely rather than the noisome pestilence, whose path is never crossed, whose silence is never disturbed, whose progress is never arrested by one sweeping blast from the heavens-which walks peacefully and sullenly through the length and breadth of the land, breathing poison into every heart, carrying havoc into every home-enervating all that is strong, defacing all that is beautiful, and casting its blight over the fairest and happiest scenes of human life-and which, from day to day, and from year to year, with intolerant and interminable malig nity, sends its thousands of hapless victims or moral persecution that the truth is endaninto the ever yawning and never satisfied gered-it is by the lukewarmness of its timid grave." friends, or the treachery of its professed deIt is not by the violence either of physical fenders. In the middle of the seventeenth century, an extraordinary train of events enabled a private English gentleman to rise over the heads of his fellows, as well as of all who were his superiors, and establish himself in the undisputed sovereignty of three kingdoms. There must, of course, have been an uncommon degree of mental power and force in such a man, and accordingly we find, in his portraits, the appearance of a large brain, and of a vigorous though somewhat coarse character. As, till the forty-second year of his age, he remained in a private station, we must of course suppose that, but for the occurrence of a civil war, he would never have risen much above that station, although we should always be disposed to expect in such a man, even in the most obscure condition, some manifestations of an extraordinary intellect and temper-such, indeed, as Cromwell did display while an ordinary citizen of Huntingdon. A case like his shows in a very striking manner how far accidental circumstances are of avail in advancing even the most remarkably endowed men; for, from all that we know of Cromwell, it appears that he did not so much act under an ambitious impulse, as he was drawn on from step to step by opportunities and temptations which arose in his course. His mind, it may be said, was a great one, and fitted by nature for a grand position; he was, by his native powers, calculated to take advantage of the circumstances which came before him: but still he could not have created the circumstances necessary for his advancement; CROMWELL AND HIS POSTERITY. he was not disposed to do so; and he would have been content with the situation of a village Hampden, if he had not had the opportunity presented to him of rising to be the protector of a republic. This man, who though of gentlemanly birth, had been a brewer, resided for six years in the palace of Whitehall, as the inaugurated sovereign of England, Ireland, and Scotland. He received embassages; he carried on foreign wars, and caused the name of England to be more respected than it had been under the greatest of its kings. He had his family established in palaces. He appointed his second and most talented son to be deputy of Ireland. The exiled monarch whose throne he usurped, so far acknowledged his power and dignity, as to sue for the hand of one of his daughters, with a view to regaining by that means a crown which he could obtain by no other. There can be no doubt that, if he had been pleased to accede to the proposals made to him from this quarter, he might have obtained, in exchange for a precarious sovereignty, permanent honors and emoluments of the most splendid kind, which he might have transmitted to his posterity. But he refused all these offers, and died in the possession of his throne, and was buried amongst the kings of England. England might, from that accident, have Addresses, by which the people of Eng- When we see what a man of powerful mind can do in certain circumstances for the elevation of himself and his family, it becomes an interesting study to observe how, when he is removed, and the favoring circumstances no longer exist, that family stands with the world. Here, of course, the splendor of the father's name, and the unspent force of his authority, give a little advantage; yet it is impossible for such a family long to hold its place. With all the certainty of the most familiar natural laws, we see it gravitate from the accidental place to that which it is fitted by nature to hold under the new circumstances. 66 widow, who is said to have been an ordinary During the year which elapsed before the Restoration, these men had almost become Henry formally forgotten, so that no inquiry was made for them on that occasion." made his peace with the new government through Lord Clarendon. In the summer of |