NINE MONTHS IN THE ARCTIC. 223 



was indeed hailed with joyous emotions, and 

 profound gratitude to God. It at once lifted off 

 a ponderous load of anxiety, solicitude, and sor- 

 row from many hearts. 



Spring and summer, with their singing birds, 

 radiant suns, balmy air, refreshing showers, ver- 

 dant landscapes, and placid waters, had come 

 and gone ; Nature had put off the freshness and 

 beauty of a renewed creation, and once more 

 dressed in her autumnal robes, yet this single 

 item of news, brought from a distant ocean, was 

 the dawn of a brighter day, and the precursor of 

 higher happiness than all the outward world 

 could furnish ! It chased away the sorrows of 

 the mind ; it breathed new life into the spirits ; 

 it taught the hitherto disconsolate ones that the 

 hand of a delivering God should now be recog- 

 nized and adored. Public sympathy flowed in 

 the same channel with those who could now re- 

 joice, as it was heretofore expressed with those 

 who wept. 



November news from the islands confirmed 

 the report of the preceding month, cleared away 

 every doubt which distrust might venture to cre- 

 ate, and reassured the wife that her husband was 

 safe, and parents and members of the respective 

 families that their sons and brothers had survived 

 the untold severities of an arctic winter. 



