Jump to content

Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/312

From Wikisource
This page needs to be proofread.

72 THE c HATER; Heaton s relatives was a young man of the name of Horri- blower, no bad appellation, by the way, for one who had to sound so many notes of warning, who had received priest s orders from the hands of the well-known Dr. White, so long the presiding Bishop of America, and whose constitution imperiously demanded a milder climate than that in which he then lived. As respects him, it be came a question purely of humanity, the divine being too poor to travel on his own account, and he was received on board the Rancocus, with his wife, his sister, and two children, that he might have the benefit of living within the tropics. The matter was fully explained to the other emigrants, who could not raise objections if they would, but who really were not disposed to do so in a case of such obvious motives. A good portion of them, probably, came to the conclusion that Episcopalian ministrations were better than none, though, to own the truth, the liturgy gave a good deal of scandal to a certain portion of their number. Reading prayers was so profane a thing, that these individuals could scarcely consent to be present at such a vain ceremony ; nor was the discontent, on this preliminary point, fully disposed of until the governor once asked the principal objector how he got along with the Lord s Prayer, which was not only written and printed, but which usually was committed to memory ! Notwith standing this difficulty, the emigrants did get along with it without many qualms, and most of them dropped quietly into the habit of worshipping agreeably to a liturgy, just as if it were not the terrible profanity that some of them had imagined. In this way, many of our most intense pre judices get lost in new communications. It is not our intention to accompany the Rancocus, day by day, in her route. She touched at Rio, and sailed again at the end of eight and forty hours. The passage round the Horn was favourable, and having got well to the westward, away the ship went for her port. One of the cows got down, and died before it could be re lieved, in a gale off the cape; but no other accident worth mentioning occurred. A child died with convulsions, in consequence of teething, a few days later ; but this did not diminish the number on board, as three were born the