When the storm descends
        From an angry sky,
      Ah! where from the winds
        Shall the vessel fly?
      [Away, then—­oh, fly
        From the joys of earth! 
      Her smile is a lie—­
        There’s a sting in her mirth.]*

      When stars are concealed,
        And rudder gone,
      And heaven is sealed
        To the wandering one

      The whirlpool opes
        For the gallant prize;
      And, with all her hopes,
        To the deep she hies! 
      But who may tell
        Of the place of woe,
      Where the wicked dwell,
        Where the worldlings go?

      For the human heart
        Can ne’er conceive
      What joys are the part
        Of them who believe;
      Nor can justly think
        Of the cup of death,
      Which all must drink
        Who despise the faith.

      Come, leave the dreams
        Of this transient night,
      And bask in the beams
        Of an endless light.

    TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:  In the original “Memoirs and Remains of
     the Reverend Robert Murray McCheyne”, the passage in brackets
     was the first half of the last, eight-line stanza, and the
     following quartet was part of the eight-line stanza beginning
     “When the storm descends”.

“March 6.—­Wild wind and rain all day long.  Hebrew class—­Psalms.  New beauty in the original every time I read.  Dr. Welsh—­lecture on Pliny’s letter about the Christians of Bithynia.  Professor Jameson on quartz.  Dr. Chalmers grappling with Hume’s arguments.  Evening—­Notes, and little else.  Mind and body dull.”  This is a specimen of his register of daily study.

March 20.—­After a few sentences in Latin, concluding with “In meam animam veni, Domine Deus omnipotens,” he writes, “Leaning on a staff of my own devising, it betrayed me, and broke under me.  It was not thy staff.  Resolving to be a god, Thou showedst me that I was but a man.  But my own staff being broken, why may I not lay hold of thine?—­Read part of the Life of Jonathan Edwards.  How feeble does my spark of Christianity appear beside such a sun!  But even his was a borrowed light, and the same source is still open to enlighten me.”

“April 8.—­Have found much rest in Him who bore all our burdens for us.”

“April 26.—­To-night I ventured to break the ice of unchristian silence.  Why should not selfishness be buried beneath the Atlantic in matters so sacred?”

May 6, Saturday evening.—­This was the evening previous to the Communion; and in prospect of again declaring himself the Lord’s at his table, he enters into a brief review of his state.  He had partaken of the ordinance in May of the year before for the first time; but he was then living at ease, and saw not the solemn nature of the step he took.  He now sits down and reviews the past:—­