IN the year 1821, the Rev. DANIEL TYERMAN and GEORGE BENNET, Esq. were deputed by the London Missionary Society, to visit the Missionary Stations in the uttermost parts of the sea, both for the purpose of cheering the hearts and strengthening the hands of the Missionaries, and, as representatives of the christian community at home, to witness and report what great things the Lord had done for the heathen here. From their Journal, recently published in three volumes being the first of the series of the " Library of Religious Knowledge" we make the following interesting extracts.

Dec. 23, 1822. We left Raiatea in a boat, at eight o'clock in the morning, and before noon were landed at the missionary station in Tahaa, (one of the south sea islands,) where Mr. Bourne resides, and has assembled round him a considerable number of native dwellings. For himself he has built a commodious house-a palace for this small island-sixty feet long, containing a double suite of rooms, seven in all, with a handsome veranda in front, commanding a most enchanting view of Raiatea across the smooth lagoon, and Huahine, more distant, towering in mountain grandeur from the deep, and breathing, it might seem, the atmosphere of the upper sky, so aerial are the eminences, and so exquisitely harmonizing with the blue firmament and white clouds that surround them. Several pretty villages adjacent to the missionary's abode adorn the openings between the steep hills, that come down almost to the beach. A patu

or pier, of huge unwrought stones, has been built to facilitate the landing of boats and canoes here, as in other islands which we havevisited. This connects with another structure of the same kind, crossing a small arm of the sea, and forming a chain of communication with the various groups of houses scattered along the strand. The present place of worship is in the obsolete native style-purau-stakes supporting a long roof; but a new square pier is now in the course of being laid down in shoal water, which reaches a hundred and forty feet in length beyond the shore; and on this stable foundation, according to the favorite practice in other places, a substantial chapel, well walled and plastered, is to be erected with all convenient despatch.

We were much struck with the personal appearance and dress of the natives of Tahaa, in which they seem superior to all their neighbors. They were assembled, indeed, in their best attire to welcome us, in the chapel, when their countenances not only expressed unfeigned pleasure on beholding us as their visiters, but showed remarkable signs of health, intelligence and good-nature.

Jan. 15, 1823. We have just concluded a tour of this island during the past week. In general features, both of sublimity and loveliness, Tahaa appears so much akin, if the phrase may be allowed, to her beauteous sisters which have been already delineated, that we need not dwell on any topographical particulars. It is distinguished, perhaps, by the number, breadth and commodiousness of its harbors, with which the whole coast is indented, some running quite into the heart of the country. These are generally screened by precipitous eminences, which slope down to the water's edge in many places. and are luxuriantly clad with vegetation, herbage of the rankest growth, impenetrable thickets, or superb forests. Between the mountains and the beach, here, as elsewhere, there is, for the most part, a line of rich, flat land, while all the fruits found in corresponding regions are abundant on the various soils most congenial to them, from the marshy borders of the lagoon to the bare rocks on the highest hills. Comparatively, little of the soil is yet under cultivation; disease, drunkenness, debauchery, wars, assassinations, and infanticide, having awfully

reduced the population antecedent to the introduction of Christianity with its humanizing and regenerating influ

ences.

EXTRAORDINARY ROCK.

The inhabitants of Tahaa were esteemed among the bravest and the fiercest warriors of the west, but, from their proximity, were especially the terror of their neighbors the Raiateans. At the head of a bay, called Taata-luai, a singular rock was pointed out to us, the surface of which exhibits an inclined plane, between four and five hundred feet in ascent, at an angle of about 45 degrees. Here the youth of Tahaa used to exercise their limbs and their breath by running, at full stretch, from the bottom to the top without stumbling, stopping, or touching any thing except the ground with their feet. Those who could accomplish this were reckoned first-rate men for the feast or the fray. Champions from other islands frequently came hither to vie with the natives in performing the same feat, though few succeeded. Several of our native boat's company tried the experiment, but, though active able bodied-men, there was only one who could scale two-thirds of the elevation without having recourse to his hands. The rock itself, in a geological view, is the greatest curiosity of the kind that we have seen for a long time. It is an agglomeration of basaltic columns, of different shapes and dimensions, some triangular, others four-sided. The shafts, which are about twenty feet long, all lie horizontally, and being exposed at one end, towards the valley, it is manifest that they are fragments which have probably been disruptured from the superior mountain, and, having slidden down the slope, remain in bulk at its base like a mass of sculptured ruins dislodged from the cornice of an ancient temple, whose walls, though dilapidated, still stand, in defiance of earthquake, war, and wasting elements-time's ministers of destruction.

WATER-SPOUT.

From the declivity of another mountain, of far greater elevation, as we were cautiously descending, we were gratified with the appearance of a water-spout, in rapid motion, sweeping athwart the horizon, from Huahine directly towards Tahaa, and pouring down its contents

At first it resembled

with great violence upon the sea. a slender tube, depending from the cloud, but soon enlarged into a broad volume of dark, dense rain, which, though it threatened to come over our heads, was happily turned aside, and roared along the flank of the hill, drenching us with its skirts, and accompanied by so furious a gust of wind that we could scarcely stand upon our legs before it.

REMARKABLE CORAL-REEF.

The islands of Tahaa and Raiatea lie within the inclosure of the same reef, in which there are only a few narrow openings that will admit the passage of large vessels. The water within this rocky circumvallation is generally shallow, affording good anchorage; without the depth is unfathomable. The reef is from forty to fifty yards in breadth, and stands a little above the level of the sea, of which the breakers are continually foaming upon it. This amazing mole is one mass of dead coral-as the material of which it is composed is called when the insects that wrought it have finished their labors, and die sepulchred in their own dwellings. For, as no successors can carry the masonry above their native element, when these cities of the deep (more populous than the world itself, reckoning man and the nobler animals only) reach the surface, the generation of builders either becomes extinct, or thenceforth extends the edifices laterally to unimaginable depths and breadths beneath the abyss. It has been indeed asserted, that the coral-insects always commence their operations in shoal water, or on the tops of submarine mountains, which may be higher from the bottom of the ocean than the Andes or Himalayans rise through the atmosphere; but unless those regions could be explored, ten thousand fathoms lower than plummet ever sounded, it must remain a mys1 tery, whence such minute agents begin their accumulations, how they carry them on without substantial materials, and where (except within the washing of the waves) it has been said to them, "Thus far shall ye go, and no farther."

THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFI

CULTIES;

ILLUSTRATED BY ANECDOTES.

Pursuits of Knowledge and Business united. Sully; De Thou; More; Selden; Hale; Grotius.

It would be easy to select from the catalogue of those who have made the greatest stir in the world, either as conquerors or legislators, or borne the most active and conspicuous parts in any other way in the conduct of human affairs, many names equally famous in the annals of literature, as in those of war or politics. In former times, indeed, a taste for science or general literature, and a familiarity with it, was somewhat more common among European statesmen, and professional men of all descriptions, than it now is. There is no greater name among those of the statesmen of France than that of the celebrated Duke of SULLY, the writer of the wellknown Memoirs, as well as of a variety of other works; and equally distinguished as a soldier, a financier, and an author. This great man used to find time for the multiplied avocations of every day, by the most undeviating economy in the distribution of his hours. He rose all the year round at four o'clock in the morning, and was always ready to appear at the council by seven. His hour of dining was at noon, after which he gave audience to all, without distinction, who sought to be admitted to him. The business of the day was always finished in this way before supper, and at ten he regularly retired to bed. Sully's illustrious countryman and contemporary, the President DE THOU, affords us another instance of the same sort. During the greater part of his life, De Thou was actively employed, in one capacity or another, in the management of affairs of state; and yet he found time to write one of the greatest and most elaborate historical works in existence, his celebrated 'History of his own Times,' extending to one hundred and thirty-eight books, in Latin, besides various poetical pieces in the same language. In England, none were ever more mixed up with the political transactions of their times, or led busier lives from their earliest years, than Sir THOMAS MORE, the great BACON, and Lord CLARENDON. And yet these are three of the most