OFF TO CHINA: JOTTINGS ON THE WAY. BY REV. J. MACGOWAN. FTER an absence of upwards of a year in England, spent chiefly in visiting the Churches throughout the country, it was decided by the Directors that I should return to China, not by the long journey round the Cape of Good Hope, as was originally intended, but by the more direct way of the overland route. In travelling by this way I shall have to pass through many places and scenes of a very interesting character, rendered so not simply because of the strange peoples and peculiar customs that strike the attention of the traveller, but because of the prominent position that some of them have occupied in the history of the past, and the wonderful and momentous dramas that have been enacted in them in days long gone by. I propose, therefore, to write a few brief and hurried notes of the various localities through which I shall have to travel; and I have no doubt that many of the children who read the pages of the " Juvenile Missionary Magazine" will be interested in the description that may be given, especially as many of them may remember the writer's having been amongst them, and spoken to them of the progress of Missionary work in China. EARLY MORNING IN LONDON. As the steamer by which I was to sail left Southampton about midday, it was very early on the morning of the 4th of April that I started for the Waterloo station. As I passed through the streets of London, everything was almost so unnaturally still, and had such a sombre aspect in the dark light of the early morning, that it seemed a lonely and cheerless commencement of so long a journey. The blinds were everywhere drawn down, the shutters were still up, and the noise and bustle of London life had hardly commenced, except in some of the more public thoroughfares through which we passed. THE RAILWAY STATION. Arrived at the station, I found the platform occupied only by a few drowsy, sleepy-looking porters, who seemed to have wandered in some mysterious way from their beds; and, judging from the abstracted and indefinite kind of look that each one had, they appeared as though they had hardly so far waked up as to be fully conscious of what special duty necessitated their being there at all. As the time for departure drew near, as if by some enchanter's wand the whole scene became in a few minutes completely changed. As cab after cab drew up and deposited its freight, the bustle became as exciting as the previous stillness had been dreary and oppressive, and the torpor which had seemed to paralyze the energies of the porters was exchanged, as if by magic, for the intensest activity. Amongst the numerous passengers that thronged the platform there were a good many that, in common with myself, were evidently prepared for a much longer journey than that simply from London to Southampton. Huge portmanteaus and a goodly assortment of packages of various sizes, all marked with curious foreign names, indicated the different directions in which the owners were destined to travel. It is wonderful, in starting upon a long journey, how soon one can detect, amongst a crowd of passengers, the individuals who are most likely to be one's fellowtravellers. Whether it be in the bearing, or in some slight peculiarity of the dress, in anticipation of the journey, or an unusually excited manner, such as one would hardly expect to find in a person who intends travelling but a few miles from London, I cannot say; but there is an indescribable something by which one's mind is made up; and, as I found in my own case, one or two whom I had mentally set down as going in the same direction as myself, I discovered to be fellow-passengers with me after the steamer left Southampton. Punctual to the minute the bell was rung as the signal for the train to start; and although hands had been shaken and good-byes given many a time over, in anticipation of the coming separation, it seemed as though all the sorrow of heart and bitterness of parting were concentrated in the few seconds that elapsed whilst the carriage doors were being finally closed, THE START. At last the shrill whistle of the guard sounded, and the usual scream from the engine having given its accustomed warning, the train moved off in a steady persistent way, as if to free itself from the embarrassment of the last few moments, leaving many a sorrowing heart behind; and by. and-by we were rushing away out of the smoke of London into the quiet country beyond, As we moved along in our journey, I could not help reflecting upon what I had just so recently witnessed, and thinking what a wonderful place, in spite of all its matter-of-factness, the platform of a railway station is. Whilst utterly isolated from the great world outside, and whilst the tide of human life ebbs and flows in every direction around it, there are scenes being enacted there of the most varied possible description. Here men gather to set off for the most distant regions of the world, under the influence of a thousand different motives. The hopes of the young, and the joyful anticipations of future success, seem to become more definite and real from this starting-point at least; for is not the actual race to commence which is to end, as they firmly believe, in the possession of the coveted prize? Here, too, may be seen many moments when the anguish and sorrow at parting seem too great to be restrained within ordinary limits; and when, as the iron car, with its remorseless tramp, whirls away from each other dear ones that may probably never meet again, the hearts of each become desolate and sad. I could not help thinking that here, too, is witnessed, on a larger scale than in most other places, the exhibition of some of the finest emotions of our nature; for in these almost daily separations do we not see the manifestations of some of the finest feelings by which humanity is distinguished, and the very repression of which tends to make the world so unlovely and unamiable ? I have often wondered what those sedate matter-of-fact porters must think of these frequent displays; whether their own hearts become more tender in consequence, or whether they have become so accustomed to them as to look upon them as something in connection with the ordinary routine of their duty. Surely they must be made of sterner materials than most men, if they can entirely resist the influence of such scenes as these they have so frequent an opportunity of witnessing. (To be continued.) LINES BY THE MARTYR OF ERROMANGA! Written in a Lady's Album, October 17th, 1834. I'VE travelled round the world, Seen many a heathen clan, The wretchedness of man. Salubrious though the clime, And nature's products good, In darkest gloom they live, To guide them to the sky. How grateful we should be Where every one may hear The Gospel's joyful sound! How much we all should feel REV. JOHN WILLIAMS. |