rom childhood, and every day he read
a portion; and often as he lay on his couch, he recalled to mind those
holy words of comfort, "If I should take the wings of the morning, and
remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there should Thy hand
lead me, and Thy right hand should hold me."

These sublime words of faith were on his lips as he closed his eyes,
when sleep came to him, and dreams with sleep--busy, swift-winged
dreams, proving that though the body may rest, the soul must ever be
awake. First he seemed to hear the melodies of songs dear to him in his
home; a mild summer breeze seemed to breathe upon him, and a light shone
upon his couch, as though the snowy dome above him had become
transparent; he lifted his head, and behold! the dazzling white light
was not the white of a snow wall, it came from the large wings of an
angel stooping over him, an angel with eyes beaming with love. The
angel's form seemed to spring from the pages of the Bible, as from the
pitcher of a lily-blossom; he extended his arms, and lo! the narrow
walls of the snow-hut sank back like a mist melting before the daylight.
Once again the green meadows and autumnal-tinted woods of the sailor's
home lay around him, bathed in quiet sunshine; the stork's nest was
empty, but the apples still clung to the wild apple-tree; though leaves
had fallen, the red hips glistened, and the blackbird whistled in the
little green cage that hung in the lowly window of his childhood's home;
the blackbird whistled the tune he had taught him, and the old
grandmother wound chickweed about the bars of the cage, as her grandson
had been wont to do. And the smith's pretty young daughter stood drawing
water from the well, and as she nodded to the grandmother, the latter
beckoned to her, and held up a letter to show her, a letter that had
come that morning from the cold northern lands, from the North Pole
itself, where the old woman's grandson now was--safe under God's
protecting hand. And the two women, old and young, laughed and wept by
turns--and he the while, the young sailor whose body was sleeping amid
ice and snow, his spirit roaming in the world of dreams, under the
angel's wings, saw and heard it all, and laughed and wept with them. And
from the letter these words were read aloud, "Even in the uttermost
parts of the sea, His right hand shall hold me fast": and a sweet,
solemn music was wafted round him, and the angel drooped his wings; like
a soft protectin