cultivation of the science, but at this time there was something strange
and pleasant in the quick chaunting strain they raised, so different
from the solemn sounds of sacred melody usual in other countries; and
even Grace, accustomed to the organ's pealing grandeur and lofty
anthems of her own church, was pleased with it. Still singing the
minister entered the water, the converts one by one joining him, and
singly became encircled in the shining waves: many of them were aged and
bowed with time, and now took up the cross in their declining days; and
others of the young and fair, who sought their creator in youth. It was
wondrous now to think of this once lonely stream of the western world,
the Indian's own Ounagandy. A few years since no voice had broke on its
solitude save the red man's war-whoop, or his shrieking death song--no
form been shadowed on its depths but the wild bird's wing, or the savage
speeding on the blood chase. Now its living pictures told the holy
records of the blessed east, and its waters typed the healing stream of
Jordan. After some more singing and prayers offered for the
newly-baptized, the ceremony was finished. 'Tis strange that on these
dipping occasions no cold is caught by the converts. I suppose the
excitement of the mind sustains the body; but persons are often baptised
in winter, in an opening made through the ice for the purpose, and walk
with their garments frozen around them without inconvenience, seeming to
prove the efficacy of hydropathy, by declaring how happy and comfortable
they feel. We, at the conclusion of the prayers, left the place, and
proceeded homewards in a canoe; this is a mode of locomotion much liked
by the river settlers, but to a stranger anything but agreeable. They
glide along the waters swift and smooth, but a slight cause upsets them,
and as perhaps you are not exactly certain about being born to be
hanged, you must sit perfectly still--you are warned to do this, but if
you are the least nervous, you will hardly dare to breathe, much less
move, and this, in a journey of any length, is not so pleasant. This