his life, that
they, seeing his good works, may be led, by the divine blessing, to
acknowledge the reality and power and beauty of religion, and be induced
in like manner to glorify his heavenly Father. In short, in comparison
with his thoughtless comrades, he must not only aspire to become a
better man, but, from the constraining motives of the gospel, struggle
to be also in every essential respect a better soldier.

In conclusion, I would observe that if any class of men, more than
another, ought to be struck with awe and gratitude by the goodness and
providence of God, it is they who go down to the sea in ships, and see
His wonders in the great deep; or if any ought to familiarize their
minds with death and its solemn consequences, it is surely soldiers,
"whose very business it is to die." May all those then, especially, who
thus possessed the privilege, but rarely granted, of being allowed, in
the full vigour of health, and in the absence of all the bustle and
excitement of battle, to contemplate, from the very brink of eternity,
the awful realities that reign within it, as many of their departing
comrades were hurried through its dreadful portals, be now led, in the
respite which has been given them, to remember that this alone is the
accepted time, and this the day of salvation; for while some may defer
the subject "to a more convenient season," the message may come forth,
at an hour when it is least expected, "This night thy soul shall be
required of thee." The foregoing narrative may be fitly supplemented by
some particulars[17] of the events occurring after the departure of the
_Cambria_ from the scene of the wreck:--

"About twelve o'clock the watch of the barque _Caroline_, on her passage
from Alexandria to Liverpool, observed a light on the horizon, and knew
it at once to be a ship on fire. There was a heavy sea on, but the
captain, instantly setting his maintop-gallant-sail, ran down towards
the spot. About one, the sky becoming brighter, a sudden jet of vivid
light shot up; but they were too distant to hear the explosion. In
half-an-hour the _Caroline_ could see the wreck of a large vessel lying
head to the wind. The ribs and frame timbers, marking the outlines of
double ports and quarter-galleries, showed that the burning skeleton was
that of a first-class Indiaman. Every other external feature was gone;
she was burnt nearly to the water's edge, but still floated, pitching
majestically as she rose and fe