d, through the senses, as forcibly as this. For near a month,
Mark almost passed the nights' gazing at the stars, and reflecting on
their origin and uses. He had no expectations of making discoveries, or
of even adding to his own stores of knowledge: but his thoughts were
brought nearer to his Divine Creator by investigations of this sort; for
where a zealous mathematician might have merely exulted in the
confirmation of some theory by means of a fact, he saw the hand of God
instead of the solution of a problem. Thrice happy would it be for the
man of science, could he ever thus hold his powers in subjection to the
great object for which they were brought into existence; and, instead of
exulting in, and quarrelling about the pride of human reason, be brought
to humble himself and his utmost learning, at the feet of Infinite
Knowledge and power, and wisdom, as they are thus to be traced in the
path of the Ancient of Days!

By the time his strength returned, Mark had given up, altogether, the
hope of ever seeing Betts again. It was just possible that the poor
fellow might fall in with a ship, or find his way to some of the
islands; but, if he did so, it would be the result of chance and not of
calculations. The pinnace was well provisioned, had plenty of water,
and, tempests excepted, was quite equal to navigating the Pacific; and
there was a faint hope that Bob might continue his course to the
eastward, with a certainty of reaching some part of South America in
time. If he should lake this course, and succeed, what would be the
consequence? Who would put sufficient faith in the story of a simple
seaman, like Robert Betts, and send a ship to look for Mark Woolston? In
these later times, the government would doubtless despatch a vessel of
war on such an errand, did no other means of rescuing the man offer;
but, at the close of the last century, government did not exercise that
much of power. It scarcely protected its seamen from the English
press-gang and the Algerine slave-driver; much less did it think of
rescuing a solitary individual from a rock in the midst of the Pacific.
American vessels did then roam over that distant ocean, but it was
comparatively in small numbers, and under circumstances that promised
but little to the hopes of the hermit. It was a subject he did not like
to dwell on, and he kept his thoughts as much diverted from it as it was
in his power so to do.

The season had now advanced into as much of