The volcanoes which threw up these mountain-masses have long since rested from their labors; the flames which lit the savage grandeur of their craters are extinct; dim ages have swept over them, and only the bleak monuments of their terrific energy remain; but Christian philanthropy, without pomp and parade, and in the silence of that love which seeks only to solace and save, has here kindled a light that shall never wane. Centuries may come and go, and night rest upon other isles of the wide sea, but this light will still stream on in undying splendor. Beneath its beams generations will here go untremblingly down to the unbreathing sepulchre, and as this world darkens on their vision, discern those objects of faith which loom to light in the spirit-land. With the good, a shadow only falls between this world and the next.
Wednesday, June 24. We have been for the last twenty-four hours on our starboard tack, with the wind from the northeast. The jagged steeps of Kanie sunk this morning in the sea over our larboard quarter. We are again upon the wide ocean without an object on which the eye can rest. Our frigate has a heavy roll; she has in her six months’ provisions, and lies too deep for the greatest speed. The heat is oppressive, but has been relieved by several refreshing showers. Our men jumped around in them like wild ducks in the foam of the cascade.
The wardroom of the Congress presents an orderly, well-regulated table. It has been so from the commencement of our cruise. Grace is said at our meals; not a glass of spirits has entered our mess; not a word of discord, petulance, or anger, has been heard. The officers are within the circle of that religious sentiment which more or less pervades the crew. It is religion alone that can bind passion, harmonize the elements of society, and render the obligations of mutual forbearance and love the abiding rules of action.
Thursday, June 25. We left at Honolulu the American ship Brooklyn, with one hundred and seventy-five Mormon emigrants on board, bound to Monterey and San Francisco, where they propose to settle. They look to us for protection, and expect to land, if necessary, under our batteries. I spent the greater part of a day among them, and must say, I was much pleased with their deportment. The greater portion of them are young, and have been trained to habits of industry, frugality, and enterprise. Some have been recently married, and are accompanied by their parents. They are mostly from the Methodist and Baptist persuasions. Their Mormonism, so far as they have any, has been superinduced on their previous faith, as Millerism on the belief of some Christians. They are rigidly strict in their domestic morals; have their morning and evening prayers; and the wind and the weather have never suspended, during their long voyage, their exercises of devotion.
Friday, June 26. We have had since we left port a head wind; but we are constantly working our way north through the trades into the variables; a few weeks since we were very anxious to get out of the variables, we are now equally anxious to get into them. But we were then sailing northwest; our course now lies northeast: such is the occupation of the sailor. He is forever crossing and retracing his own track, and well would it be for him if this crossing and retracing were confined to his track on the deep, but unhappily it enters into the pathway of his moral being. He plods back in penitence and remorse the space over which folly and passion blindly whirled him. “Facilis descensus averni, sed revocare his labor, hoc opus est.”
Saturday, June 27. We have at last a slant of wind which has put us on our course. The Mormon ship must make haste if she expects to overtake us before we reach Monterey. It is a little singular that with a company of one hundred and seventy emigrants, confined in a vessel of only four hundred tons, depending on each other’s activity and forbearence for comfort, unbroken harmony should have prevailed. They may have had their momentary jars, but I was assured by the captain, who is not of their persuasion, that no serious discord had occurred. They put their money into a joint stock, laid in their own provisions, and have every thing in common. They chartered their vessel, for which they pay twelve hundred dollars per month. It will cost them for their passage alone some ten thousand dollars before they disembark in California.
Sunday, June 28. We had divine service at the usual hour. The subject of the sermon was the aversion of the world to the meekness, humility, and forbearance which enter into the Christian character. Men of the world are too apt to consider these qualities incompatible with courage, resolution, firmness, and self-respect. But the most heroic virtues have been displayed in dungeons, on the rack, and at the stake, by martyrs to truth. He who suffered on the cross, triumphed over not only the malice of his foes, but the terrors of death. After service I met my Bible class, and spent an hour with them. Among them are some of the first seamen in the ship; men whose influence extend through the whole crew; several of these, there is reason to believe, have experienced religion since we started on the present cruise. God grant they may persevere with unshaken firmness.
I applied to-day to Captain Du Pont and Mr. Livingston for the apartment leading to the store-room, in which to hold our evening prayer-meeting. It was granted without any hesitation. This prayer-meeting commenced with three or four individuals; it now embraces some fifteen or twenty, and it will not stop here.
Monday, June 29. We have been in a dead calm all day,—the ocean slumbering about us without a ripple, and our dog-vane not lifting a feather. The lazy clouds piled themselves up in pyramids and castles on the sea, without a wave or breath to disturb their fantastic forms. The rays of the sun were quenched in their veils, and twilight spread over their summits her rosy charm. As night in her sable hues advanced, the moon came up and poured on turret and tower her tender light. Man rears his structures amid weariness and tumult; nature erects hers in silence. When the monuments of man decay, ages may sigh over their unreviving relics, but when those of nature are dissolved, others emerge from the ruin in more exulting beauty, as the bird of flame from the ashes of its parent.
Tuesday, June 30. When an aquatic fowl appears for which the sailor has no other name, he always calls it a sea-hen. Several of this brood have been about our ship to-day, circling through the air, and resting on the sleeping sea. The head is large, the neck strong, the wings long and arching, and the plumage dark brown. We tried to hook one of them with a tempting bait, but the fellow was too cunning. The only purpose they seemingly serve is to relieve the monotony of a sea-life.