On her passage, Mrs. Newell kept an interesting journal, not only of her
own feelings, but also of the incidents that rendered the voyage pleasant
or painful and checkered it with evil or good. And such incidents there are
always. When on the ocean, far from land, for the first time, the dullest
and most stupid mind cannot fail of being aroused to new and awful
emotions. Man learns of God at such an hour, and finds new proof of his
grandeur and glory in every dashing wave and every whistling blast. With
but a single inch between him and a watery death, he gazes from his narrow
deck upon the boundless expanse of tossing, foam-crested billows; while, as
far as his eye can stretch, not a foot of land appears. His vessel may be
on fire, she may fill with water, she may be riven by lightning; but there
is no friendly sail to which wrecked man may fly and be safe. His ship will
founder in mid ocean, while not a single form appears to lend the helping
hand, and not an eye is seen flowing with tears of pity; nothing is heard
but the moan of ocean; nothing is seen but the sweeping surge, as it passes
on, leaving no track of the submerged vessel.
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