Connecticut western news., 1889-11-20

cape safe to land. The Scandinavian war riors used to drink wine out of the skull of the enemies they had slain. Even so, God will help us, out of the conquered ills and disasters of life, to drink sweetness and strength for our souls.
 You have, my friends, had illustrations in your own life of how God delivers his peo- pie. have had illustrations in my own life of the same truth. was once in what on your Mediterranean you call 8 euroclydon, but what on the Atlantic we call a cyclone, but the same storm. The steamer Greece of the National line swung out into the river Mersey at Liverpool, bound for New York We had on board 700, crew and passengers. We came together strangers Italians, Irish men, Englishmen, ssweeds, Norwegians, masts-British and American ensigns. We had new vessel, or one so thoroughly re- modelled that the voyage had around it all the uncertainties of trial trip. The great sea. The pilot was discharged, and, commit ting ourselves to the mercy of Him who holdeth the winds in his fist, we were fairly started on our voyage of 5000 miles. It was rough nearly all the way-the sea with strong bufeting disputing our path. But one night, at Il o'clock, after the lights had been put out, cyclone-a wind just made to tear ships to pieces-caught us in it's clutches.
 It came down so suddenly that we had not time to take in the sails or to fasten the matches. You may know that the bottom of the Atlantic is strewn with the ghastly work of cyclones. Oh! they are cruel winds. They have hot breath, as though they came up from internal furnaces. Their merriment is the cry of affrighted passengers. Their play is the laundering of steamers. And when a ship goes down they laugh until both conti- nents hear them: They go in circles, or as I describe them with my hand-rolling on roll ing on with finger of terror writing on the white sheet of the wave this sentence of doom: "Let all that come within this circle perish! Brigantines, go down! Clippers, go down! Steamships, go down!'
 And the vessel, hearing the terrible voice, crouches in the surf, and as the waters gurgle through the matches and porthoes, it lowers away thousands of feet down, farther and farther, until at last it strikes the bottom; and all is peace, for they have landed. Helms man, dead at the wheel! Engineer, dead among the extinguished furnaces! Captain, dead in the .gangway! Passengers, dead in dead steamers, beside the City of Boston, the Lexington, the President, the Cambria-wait- ing for the archangeps trumpet to split up the decks and wrench open the cabin doors, and unfasten the hatches.
 I thought that I had seen storms on the sea before; but all of them together might have come under one wing of that cyclone. We were only eight or nine hundred miles from home, and in high expectation of soon seeing our friends, for there was no one on board so poor as not to have friend. But it seemed as if we were to be disappointed. The most of us expected then and there to die. There were none who made light of the peril, save two. One was an English man, and he was drunk, the other was an American, and he was a fool! Oh! what a ir1o nio f0 r,osc ho;,, %,,. white. We came out of the berths and stood in the gangWay, and looked into the steerage, and sat in the cabin. While seated there, we heard overhead something like minute guns.
 It was the bursting of the sails. We held on with both hands to keep our places. Those who attempted to cross the floor came back bruised and gashed. Cups and glasses were dashed to fragments; pieces of the table getting loose swung across the that great ship of thousands of tons and stood it on end, and said s'Shall sink it or let it go this onceT' Then it came down with such force that the pillows trampled over it. each mounted of a fury. We felt that everything depended on the propelling screw. if that stopped for an instant we knew the vessel would fall off into the trough of the sea and sink, and so we prayed that the screw, which three times since leaving Liverpool had already stopped,
 
 we listened for the regular thump of the machinery on which our lives seemed to depend. After while some one said 1.-The screw is stopped!" No; it's sound had only been overpowered by the uproar ot the tempest, and we breathed easier again l of the overtaskcd machinery going thump, thump, thump.
 At o'clock in the morning the water cov- cred the ship from prov to stern, and the skylights gave way! The deluge rushed in, and we felt that one or two more waves like l that must swamp us forever. As the water rolled back and forward in the cabins, and dashed against the wall, it sprang halfway up to the ceiling. Rushing through the sky lights as it came in with such terrific roar, l there went up from the cabin shriek of hor- l TOT which pray God l may never hear l again. I have dreamed the whole scene over l again, but God has mercifully kept me from | hearing that one cry. Into it seemed to be compressed the agony of expected shipwreck It seemed to say: ''I shall never get home again! My children shall be orphaned and my wife shall be widowed! I am launching now into eternity! In two minutes I shal meet my Godw
 There were about $50 passengers in the steerage, and as the water rushed in and l touched the furnaces, and began violently tC hiss, the poor creatures ill the steerage imag ined that the boilers were giving way. Those passengers Writhed in the water and ill the mud some praying, some crying. all terri l fled. They made a rush for the deck. An officer stood on deck and beat them back with blow after blow. It was necessary l They could not have stood an instant or l the deck. Oh! how they begged to get out of the hold of the shipl One woman, with { child in her arms, rushed up and caught holc of one of the officers and cried: ''Do let me out! I will help you! Do let me out! cannot die here!'' Some got down and prayed to the Virgin Mary, saying: 'C blessed mother! keep us! Have mercy or l usE'
 Some stood with white lips and fixed gaze l silent ill their terror. Some wrung theil hands and cried out: 70 God! what shall do? What shall dow The time came wher the crew could DO longer stay on the deck and the cry of the officers was: ''Below! al hands belown' Our brave and sympathetic Capt. AndreWs-whose praise I shall no cease to speak while live-had been swep by the hurricane from his bridge, and had escaped very narrowly with his life. Tht cyclone seemed to stand on the deck, wavins its wing, crying: "This ship is mine! havl captured it! Ha! ha! will command it! God will permit, I will sink it here and now
 By thousand shipWrecks, 1 swear the doom of this vessel!'
 Meanwhile, the ocean became phosphores cent. The whole scene looked like fire. Th' water dripping from the rigging, there wer' ropes of fire; and there were masts of fire and there was deck of fire. A ship of fire May never see anything like it again!
 Everybody prayed. A lad of 12 years of ag got down and prayed for his mother. 'If
 should give up," he said, ''I do not know what would become of mother" There wer men who, think, had not prayed for 8
 years, who then got down on their knees
 When a man who has neglected God all hi l fa fhafh ha hQa fo 1ocf