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Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 91, 2 October 1852, Page 7

It needs no concurrence in the special enterprise of the Patagonian missionaries to witness with something more than admiration the heroism of Commander Gardiner and his companions—their devotion, their patience, their faithful kindness to each other. Even the cry that is raised against such missions, because in this case they have proved wasteful of human life, is but partially true. The very astonishment betrayed by so many " gentlemen of England, who stay at home at ease," shows how much we require a memento that the power of heroic endurance on behalf of conviction has not died out of the blood of our r?ce. But besides accidental examples like that of the Birkenhead at the Southern extremity of Africa, we may cite Franklin and his companions, lust in Arctic America, wandering in search of facts to round off scientific truth ; and now Gardiner and his companions perish at the other end of the vast double continent, carrying the gospel of their faith. The spectacle of the religious zeal which sustained them, which lifted them above their sufferings, made them rejoice in the very midst of death, is not altogether unknown to us even here ; but displayed on such a scene, it acquires a grandeur, an emphasis, a reality, that must have, to our worldly-wise, the moral effect of a novelty and a surprise not uniustructive. Surely the spirit which incites such men to raise glorious monuments in the most distant quarters of the globe is not " waste'? Nor is every mission to be judged by its first failure. Many a flitch before a beleaguered fort has been filled with the bodies of those who were first amongst the victors : were such sol-r diers defeated P No doubt, the conduct of the missionaries is a gross violation of the economical-moral aphorism, " Each for himself and God for us all": the devoted band held that a trust in Divine Power was not incompatible with service under that Power; they held that each should work for the rest, not excepting even the Patagonian : and we have an idea that such v^vs belong to a faith not altogether unknown iv this country, though chiefly by name —Christianity. It may be surprising, indeed, that whatever convictions they had, they should have acted upon them—that they should have persevered, in spite of " difficulties"—nay, against their own " interest" ! Such heroic devotion must seem obsolete in the view of the new philosophy ; but one great fact proves that it sti:l possesses a stronger hold over the hearts even of the "gentlemen of England" than that selfsufficient philosophy, and that fact is the instant irresistible burst of sympathy. They buried themselves on the desert shore, but the whole people of England attends theiv funeral. — Spectator. An American Love Sosg.—l've seen her out a walking iv her habit ile la rue, and it ain't no use a talking, she pumpkins and a lew. She glides along in 'beauty, like a duck upon a lake ;O, I'd be"all love and duty, if I only was, her drake.