"LETTERS FROM THE DEEP.
"To the Editor of the 'Times.'
"Sir,—As attention has been drawn to the letters written on board the ship London, and washed ashore, it may be interesting to notice the following remarkable incident respecting a letter from another ship wrecked in the Bay of Biscay. In March, 1825, the Kent, East Indiaman, took fire in the Bay of Biscay during a storm while 641 persons were on board, most of them soldiers of the 31st Regiment. When all hope was gone, and before a little vessel was seen which ultimately saved more than 500 people from the Kent, Major —— wrote a few lines and enclosed the paper in a bottle, which was left in the cabin. Nineteen months after this the writer of the paper arrived in the island of Barbadoes, in command of another Regiment, and he was amazed to find that the bottle (cast into the sea by the explosion that destroyed the Kent) had been washed ashore on that very island. The paper, with its faint pencil lines expressing Christian faith, is still preserved; and this account of it can be authenticated by those who were saved.
"I am, your obedient servant,
"One of Them."
The bottle, after its long immersion, was thickly covered with weeds and barnacles. The following are the words of the "Letter from the Deep," which it contained:—
"The ship the Kent, Indiaman, is on fire—Elizabeth Joanna and myself commit our spirits into the hands of our blessed Redeemer—His grace enables us to be quite composed in the awful prospect of entering eternity.
"D. M'Gregor.
"1st March, 1825, Bay of Biscay."
The writer of that letter lives now with blessings on his venerable head, while he who records it anew is humbly grateful to God for his own preservation. And may we not say of every one who reads such words, written in such an hour, that his life would be unspeakably happy if he could lay hold now of so firm a Surety, and be certain to keep fast hold to the end?