Western Reserve Aux. Soc. by Rev. S. G. Clark. Hudson, Wes Res. col. 14,50; Rev. C. Pitkin, 20; Johnson, 5; Vienna, 4;

of smoke ascended, and hung like a vast in its hoary mantle, and Mauna Loa, vomiting canopy over the mountain, or rolled off out floods of liquid fire. "All night," he says, upon the wings of the wind. They were "we watched the fantastic play of these fires, murky, blue, white, purple, scarlet, as and listened to their unearthly sounds, with the they were more or less illuminated from exception of occasional dozings, which nature the fiery abyss below. At times they would have." At noon of the following day Mr. assumed the figure and the hue of a Coan came to a tract of scoria, "intolerably burning mountain inverted, with its apex sharp and jagged;" and the remainder of his pointing to the orifice over which it route lay over fields of lava of indescribable hung; and at times, after shooting up roughness, and through awful ravines or pits, several degrees vertically, the illumined &c.; so that it was not till half past three pillar made a graceful curve, and swept o'clock in the afternoon that he came to the craoff, like the tail of a comet, farther than ter, and "stood alone in the light of its fires." the eye could reach.

A Near View of the Crater.

The whole atmosphere of Hilo assumed a lurid appearance; and the sun's rays fell upon us with a yellow and sickly light. Clouds It was a moment of unutterable interof smoke careered over the ocean, carry-est. I seemed to be before the burning ing with them ashes, cinders, &c., which throne of the Eternal; and I felt that, fell upon the decks of ships approach- while every other sound was hushed, he ing our coast. Filamentous vitrifactions, called "Pele's hair," fell thick in our streets and upon the roofs of our houses; and while I write, the atmosphere is in the same sallow and dingy state; and every object looks pale and sickly. Showers of vitrified filaments are falling around us; and our children and the natives are gathering them up.

Visit to the Eruption.

alone spake. I was ten thousand feet above the sea, in a vast solitude untrodden by the foot of man or beast, and amid a silence unbroken by the voice of any created being. Here I stood, almost blinded by the insufferable brightness, almost deafened by the clangor of this fearful trumpet, and almost petrified by the terrific scene. The heat was so intense that the crater could not be approached within forty or fifty yards from the windward side; and probably it would not have been safe to go within two miles of it from the leeward.

The eruption, as before stated, commenced on the very summit of the mountain; but the central pressure became so great as to force itself through a depression in the side, cracking and rending the mighty mass all the way from the summit to the point where it burst forth. The mountain seemed to be siphuncu

this lateral crater; and, being pressed vated some three thousand feet above down an inclined subterranean tube, the lava was ejected with such power as to

throw it from one hundred to five hundred

Mr. Coan and Dr. Wetmore resolved to visit the crater; and they set out accordingly, February 23, accompanied by four natives. Their way led through a dense forest, thirty miles in breadth, and "so completely intertangled with ferns, vines, brambles, &c., that no animal but man had ever attempted to penetrate it ;" and they could only advance at the rate of about one mile an hour. They were charmed with the variety and luxuriance of vegetable life in those wild regions. Many of the trees were of gigan-lated, the fountain of fusion being eletic size; and the shrubs and plants were correspondingly large. One fern measured nine feet in circumference. "At noon of the second day," Mr. Coan says, "we gained a more elevated ridge, from which we could overlook a portion of the surrounding country; and to our surprise we saw that the lava current had already swept half through the forest towards Hilo, and was now exactly opposite to us on the left, distant about six miles. The fiery flood was rolling steadily onward, sweeping the trees before it, and sending up volume after volume of lurid smoke. Like an immense serpent it moved relentlessly along its sinuous way, overcoming all obstacles, and devouring all forms of life in its track." At this point Dr. Wetmore determined to return to the station; but Mr. Coan went forward. At the close of the next day he encamped on a hill, from which he had a noble view of Mauna Kea, robed

feet in the air.

I approached as near as I could bear the heat, and stood amidst the ashes, cinders, scoria and pumice, which were scattered widely and wildly around. There had been already formed a rim of from one hundred to two hundred feet in height, surrounding the orifice in the form of a truncated hollow cone, perhaps half a mile in circumference at its base, and three hundred feet in diameter at the top. From this horrid throat vast and continuous columns of red-hot and white-hot matter were ejected, with a voice which was almost deafening, and

a force which threatened to rend the rocky ribs of old Mauna Loa. The sounds often seemed deep, subterranean and infernal; first a rumbling, muttering, hissing, with deep and premonitory surging;

and then an awful explosion, like the roar of broad-sides in a battle at sea, or the quick discharge of park after park of artillery on the field of carnage. Sometimes the sound resembled that of ten thousand furnaces in full blast; sometimes it was like the rattling fire of a regiment of small arms; sometimes like the roar of the ocean along a rock-bound shore; and sometimes like the booming of distant thunder.

The eruptions were not intermittent, but continuous; and the force by which the columns were expelled, shivered them into millions of fragments of multiform size, some rising, some falling back in vertical lines into the mouth of the crater. Every particle shone with the brilliancy of Sirius; and the creation and breaking up of every kind of geometrical figure was constantly going

on.

No tongue, no pen, no pencil can portray the beauty, the grandeur, and the terrible sublimity of the scene. It was something to be felt, not described.

Zulus.

JOURNAL OF MR. TYLER.

MR. TYLER has copied a few incidents from his journal, for the purpose of illustrating the sorrows and the pleasures of missionary life in Southern Africa. It will be seen, however, that no strange thing has happened to our young brother; and the time is far distant when there will be no such records of disappointment and hope, of sadness and joy in heathen lands. Happy are they who are permitted to see any heraldings of the approach of the Sun of Righteousness! And thrice happy are such as watch for that hour, ❝ more than they that watch for the morning!

Hardened Depravity.

1852, January 8.-When I visit the natives in their kraals, I am obliged to see many things which are truly heartsickening, such as filth, poverty, licentious dances, &c.; but the low cunning and barefaced deception practiced by the old and young, of both sexes, excite even greater disgust and pity. I called this morning on a man who has attended our Sabbath services almost constantly; Night coming on, we retired about a and when I inquired, "How is your heart mile from the crater, having still a per- to-day," he replied, "All right, very nice, fect view of the whole; and here we very white." I then said, "What does your took our station for the night; not, in- | heart tell you in respect to God?" "My deed, to sleep, for that was impossible; heart tells me that God is very good. but to listen to the awful roar of this He gives us all the good we need, rain, great furnace of Jehovah. During the grass, corn and cows. He made the night the scene surpassed all my powers heavens and the earth, our bodies and of description. Vast columns of lava, our souls. He made the first man and fused to a white heat, were going up his wife, and placed them in a garden." continually in the form of pillars, pyra- He was about to repeat, as fast as his mids, cones, towers, turrets, spires, scim- tongue would allow, all he remembered itars, &c.; while the descending show-of my sermons, when I suddenly interers poured a constant cataract of fire rupted him, telling him I could not listen upon the rim of the crater and the sur-to his heartless words; that I knew he rounding area, each containing matter enough to force the proudest ship far down into the ocean's depths.

A large fissure, through the lower side of the rim of the crater, allowed the molten flood to flow constantly down the mountain in a broad channel, at the rate, probably, of ten miles an hour. This fiery stream we could trace all the way for twenty or thirty miles, until it was lost from the eye by reason of its own windings in the wood lying between us and Hilo.

The next morning Mr. Coan set out on his return; and he arrived at the station on the following Monday,

made no self-application of the truth which he heard; and, moreover, that he was bitterly opposed to it, having just prohibited his daughters from coming to the station to learn.

Having endeavored to apply to his conscience the truth which he so well remembered, I left him, and proceeded to an adjacent kraal. Here I found an old man, who had been for some time apparently wasting away of consumption. He has ten wives, and a large herd of cattle; and these are his idols. I began to converse with him in regard to his health, expressing my sympathy, &c. I then talked about his gardens, the numerous showers which had lately de

scended, &c.; but when I alluded to ly remembered that he had heard the Jehovah, he inquired, "What is that you missionary say, "We are all travelers; say? I do not understand." A repeti- we are all going to some place." The tion was of no avail. Every thing I had question suddenly rushed into his mind, to communicate respecting spiritual "Am not I a traveler? Where is my things, was unpalatable. I pointed out soul bound?" He could not proceed to him the great Physician, who could until he had resolved to learn more of heal a disease far more fearful than that the way which leads to life, and to enof his body; but when he understood that deavor to walk in it. With this determiI referred to Jesus Christ, his interest nation he hastened his steps, and caine suddenly abated, and he could hear no directly to the station. He had previmore. I left him, realizing more forcibly ously lived with us a short time; and he than ever the truth of Matthew xiii. 14, now requested that we would take him "By hearing, ye shall hear, and shall not again, but without communicating to us understand," &c. Going in another di- any thing concerning his new purpose. rection, I soon met a man who is always Every day he went into the "bush" to ready to converse with me on religious pray, and felt that it was good to be subjects with considerable candor. As there. And one day, as it seemed to usual he assented to all I said, and re- him, his heart was made "white" by plied that it was true and right; but prayer. Thus he went on for about two when I began to apply the truth to his weeks, encouraged by the inward peace own case, and to specify some of his which he enjoyed, and strengthened by own prominent sins, he remarked, "I religious conversation with pious natives am an old man. My heart is, indeed, from other stations, until he felt that he hard. I love the customs of my fathers had really dedicated himself to God; too strongly. I cannot give up my six after which he made a full disclosure to wives; but there are my two young us of his feelings. sons. You may teach them, and they may believe." He said this with great apparent seriousness and sincerity; but I felt that it was an attempt to deceive the borders of Africa, is illustrated in the followme; for only the Sabbath previous heing extract, threatened to whip one of these boys severely, in case he should manifest any disposition to repent.

Light in Darkness.

These are the darker shades of the picture. The following extract gives us a different view.

March 1. It is just three months since our hearts were first cheered by evident tokens of the divine presence among the natives at our station. I had previously noticed an increased interest in our educational efforts; and I was greatly encouraged by it, remembering that prior to the existence of religious interest at other stations, there had always been a greater love for study.

I was not quite prepared to hear that
of the members of our family were seek-
ing the Savior. Judge then of my sur-
prise, when two natives came to converse
with me particularly respecting the sal-
vation of their souls. I was much af-
fected by their simple recital of the way
in which they had been led by the Holy
Spirit, as it seemed to me.

such depravity and pollution as reign through all The sufficiency of divine grace, even amid

23. The young man of whom I have written above, is severely tried by his heathen relatives and friends. Before his conversion he had contracted for a wife in a neighboring kraal, and had paid some of the cows demanded by her father, according to the custom of the people. But the father of the girl now refuses to have her marry a believer; and she does not feel inclined to leave her heathen home, and live at the station. But Unobeka says with much determination, "I cannot serve God in a kraal, where all is opposition, uncleanness and confusion; and if she persists in refusing to come here, and her father will not permit her to come, I must abandon her."

But He also meets with opposition from any his parents. When he made known to them his desire to live according to the gospel, his mother spat in his face, howling most hideously; and his father threatened to disown him. For two or three weeks they tried by threats, ridicule, and in many other ways, to frighten him and induce him to return; but finding this mode of treatment ineffecOne of them, the eldest, was returning tual, they are now full of flattery, and from a short visit to a friend not far dis- make large promises, obviously thinktant; and while walking alone he sudden-ing that if they can once bring him back