MISERABLE SINNERS. Among the "Sea Notes," in the correspondence of a religious paper, we find the following: "There has been church service on board, of course. The ship's company met together to say with the litany, 'Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners'- -a prayer in which I could not join. Perhaps if I had been seasick I might, with zest, have rolled out 'miserable' sinner. But being well and sound, and a saved sinner, and rejoicing in God's abounding love, the miserable' was not appropriate. If I should adopt a ragged, abandoned child from the street and make him my own child, feeding him at my table, and giving him daily every evidence of my great love for him, I should not be honored by hearing him day by day go through the form of calling himself a miserable wretch. Give me rather the sparkling eye and bounding step at my approach, which tell of the heart made happy in my love. I read in God's word that he has given to us the spirit of adoption, has made us his children, and has called us not to be miserable sinners,' but to be saints."" that the reading of sermons in private by those who can attend church is not in the divine plan, is enough to condemn it as a substitute. There is no substitute for the preaching of the word, as the effectual, and ordinary means of conversion and Christian confirmation. No one who expects to die the death of the righteous can simply leave this, and resort to meditations upon the divine goodness in the fields and woods, or to the quietude of his own spirit at home, or to the oracle of reason, or to the printed sermons As an opinion upon the Christian's duty of gifted authors. A printed sermon as read of confessing sin, the language of this para- at home may be better written, may be more graph is defective. We cannot help think-profound, finished, or spiritual, but the fact ing that, though meaning well, those who write in this way belong to the "happy-golucky sort of Christians," whose good fortune, or fault, consists in too feeble a sense of sin. We prefer to hear the confession, "Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners;" that is, sinners needing pity, as we have often heard it, in an extempore prayer, but in whatever form it is solemnly offered, it must be always appropriate. As long as we believe that sin is a bad thing, and that there is no man that sinneth not," we shall find the confession good for the soul. Though a child forgiven, and permitted to say with affection and confidence, "Our Father," it is ever becoming to the Christian to say, "Forgive us our trespasses." The more we take God at his word, and rejoice, the more we shall be enlightened in regard to the depths of sin, and shall see the meaning of that command, so comprehensive as including the whole round of devout affec No matter who preaches. The ambassador whom a European sovereign may send to our national capital, cannot be ignored because he may be a third-rate or a tenthrate statesman; if he have the seal of his royal master to his commission, he is received and his dispatches considered. And so, without allowing personal considerations to obtrude, we should concern ourselves chiefly with the overtures which our Divine Sovereign makes to us, under his own seal, sending by whom He will. In these days, when Zion is no more, and the Jerusalem of old has fallen into decay, how shall we apprehend the inner meaning of such expressions as "beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion;" "blessed are they that dwell in thy house;" "out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined"? How shall the gate of the temple be again called "beautiful"? How shall the charms of temple architecture, the triumph of form and color, the external loveliness of the sanctuary of the Old dispensation, have their realization in the New? Can the shadows glide into their living substance, those dumb prophecies into their eloquent fulfilment? They seek to unbury the germ that has unfolded, and to wrap the shadows about them again, who return to a showy ritual, and entertain the taste with things called sacred, and flatter the soft sentiment of the mind, and then call it religion. Not by these means do we find significance for us in the Psalms of David, written in praise of the tabernacle and temple, but by hearing, believing and praising, in our own sanctuary; by yielding the soul to the power of the word as preached; by conversing in the congregation with the God of Jacob, who met his servant at a place where the stones lay about him in the wildness of nature, and permitted him to call it Bethel. The beautiful things of nature and art, though devised by the Creator, can no more compare with this uncreated excellence on which the Christian spirit feeds, the grace and the glory of God as revealed by the Holy Spirit to the humble worshipper, and as seen in the face of Jesus Christ, than can the by-play sketches of an artist compare with his inner life and his creative spirit, or what we call himself, as known and loved at home. Why to-day is Zion beautiful, do you ask? Because the moral and religious effects of her ordinances upon the believing soul are blessed. For those physically able to attend church, but spiritually languid, and in practice irregular or neglectful, we say turn over a new leaf. Go to church. You will find a providence in it, for God's word and providence go together. What a providence may do, making great things of feeble beginnings, is illustrated by a familiar incident. A Scotch innkeeper resolved that no minister should ever again preach or pray in his hearing. One Sunday, contrary to his custom, he went to church to hear the music, but declared that he would not hear any thing else. The music ceased; the minister said: Let us pray," and the man put his fingers in his ears. The prayer over, he listened again to the singing, but when the preacher rose to begin his sermon, he closed his ears once more. As if to baffle him in his foolish undertaking, the Lord sent a little fly to alight upon his face. The man tried to blow it away, as it sat upon his nose, but without success. Then he withdrew the hand that closed one ear, and in that moment heard the preacher say, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Wonderstruck, he listened further, was interested, and came to church again; next time to hear the preaching. He became a regular attendant and a hopeful convert. A CHAPTER OF MISTAKES. (Concluded.) Mistakes in action, when they have the facetious element, are generally more diverting than spoken errors. The latter often display wit, the former humor; but both are the more laughable, because not intended. To effect the joke, however, some intention may be necessary on the part of one of the performers. Of this the following is a good example: Mr. Thomas Gill, a veteran newspaper reporter, who died at Boston not long ago, in his lifetime was very fond of a joke, and possessed a keen sense of humor. The Washington Chronicle gives an amusing instance of this drollery. The Hon. Robert Rantoul, Jr., was delivering to an immense audience an oration at a celebration on Bunker Hill, in the course of which he described with great pathos and effect the famous battle which had occurred on the very spot where they were assembled. As he resumed his seat, Gill, who was seated near him, carelessly remarked, "My father was in that battle." Rantoul immediately sprang to his feet and announced this fact, whereupon there were vehement calls from the crowd for the son of the revolutionary hero. Mr. Gill modestly rose, and after acknowledging the vociferous cheers which greeted him, quietly informed his hearers that it was true that his father was in the and phaeton?" To the astonished doctor it battle of Bunker Hill, but-he was fighting was then revealed that he had by mistake on the other side!" The scene that followed taken the establishment of a newly married "beggared description." Mr. Gill was an Episcopal clergyman, who had come to call Englishman by birth, and one of the first upon the doctor's host, and who was astonprofessional reporters who came to America. ished, on leaving, to find his beautiful turnAmong losing blunders we have the fol- out, a wedding present,-gone, and relowing. The wife of a gentleman who at placed by an old worn out horse and chaise, considerable expense had purchased for him that had been brought there by the livery self an India rubber air-bed, concluded that stable keeper for Dr. Stowe. A stern chase it was not healthy to sleep on it unless it ensued; but the doctor was not captured was ventilated. She accordingly punched a until he had reached his destination, as number of holes in it, only to find, to her stated, whence, after mutual explanations, dismay, that the bed was no more. he drove home in the old chaise. ment of the Episcopal clergyman on the case was: "This comes, Dr. Stowe, of not attending a church where the commandments are read every Sunday." The editor of a journal published in Antwerp sent a reporter to Brussels for the king's speech, and with him a couple of carrier pigeons to take back the news speedily. At Brussels he gave the pigeons in charge to a waiter, and called for breakfast. He was kept waiting some time, but a very delicate fricassee atoned for the delay. After breakfast he paid his bill and called for his carrier pigeons. "Pigeons!" exclaimed the waiter; "why, you have eaten them." The com Among the most curious blunders are those of painters. Tintoret, an Italian painter, in a picture of the children of Israel gathering manna, has taken the precaution to arm them with the modern invention of guns. Cigola painted the aged Simeon at the circumcision of the infant Saviour; and as aged men in these days wear spectacles, the artist has shown his sagacity by placing them on Simeon's nose. In a picture by Verrio, of Christ healing the sick, the lookers-on are represented as standing with periwigs on their heads. To match or rather to exceed this ludicrous representation, Durer has painted the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden by an angel in a dress fashionably trimmed with flounces. The same painter in his scene of Peter denying Christ, represents a Roman soldier very comfortably smoking a pipe of tobacco. A Dutch painter, in a picture of the Wise Men worshipping the holy child, has drawn one of them in a large white surplice, and in boots and spurs, and he is in the act of pre A good story is told of Professor Stowe, the husband of Harriet Beecher. While visiting a little town in Massachusetts one summer, Prof. Stowe desired a friend to secure a horse and vehicle to take himself and wife to a town nine miles distant, where he desired to consult some genealogical records. His friend said he would do his best, but there were no decent turnouts in the village. A little in advance of the hour appointed, Dr. Stowe noticed a phaeton at the door of his host, and, hastily summoning his wife, entered it, and started on his journey. To his surprise the horse was a very fleet one, and the phaeton exquisite, with its silk and satin linings, ivory finishings, and easy springs. Bowling along on his journey, the doctor expressed great delight, and an-senting to the child a model of a Dutch mannounced his intention of securing the estab- of-war. In a Dutch picture of Abraham lishment for the season. Arriving at his offering up his son, instead of the patriarch's destination, he fastened the horse and went 'stretching forth his hand and taking the to work upon the dusty records at the town knife," as the Scriptures inform us, he is hall. He had been thus engaged for nearly represented as using a more effectual and an hour, when he was suddenly interrupted modern instrument; he is holding to Isaac's by the abrupt entrance of his host at the head a blunderbuss. Berlin represents in a town whence he started, who exclaimed, picture the Virgin and Child listening to a "Dr. Stowe, have you been stealing a horse | violin; and in another picture he has drawn King David playing the harp at the marriage of Christ with St. Catherine. A French artist has drawn, with true French taste, the Lord's Supper, with the table ornamented with tumblers filled with cigar-lighters; and, as if to crown the list of these absurd and ludicrous anachronisms, the garden of Eden has been drawn with Adam and Eve in all their primeval simplicity and virtue, while near them, in full costume, is seen a hunter with a gun shooting ducks. The titles of books are often very deceptive. Rain on the Mown Grass was once ordered by a farmer, who hoped to find therein counsels pertinent to the hay harvest, and found sermons instead. An agricultural club bought a large number of Mr. Ruskin's Notes on Sheepfolds, and were grievously disappointed to receive a treatise on churches, instead of an essay on the construction of cattle-pens. A worthy minister, selecting with great care volumes of devout reading for his village library, sent for Christian's Mistake, and opened, not a homily on religious experience, but a threevolumed novel. There is a story of an English tourist who entered a restaurant, and by a few scraps of French was able to order a dinner. He wished some mushrooms, very delicious and rare. Not knowing the name, he demanded a sheet of paper, and sketched one. The waiter understood him in a second, disappeared for ten minutes, and returned with a splendid-umbrella! Few need to be reminded of the mistake of the druggist's clerk, who put up a prescription of castor oil for a young lady friend. She innocently inquired how it could be taken without tasting. He put her off with a promise to explain it, and in the meantime proposed to drink a glass of soda water with her. She drank it down, and the clerk said, "Well, you have taken your oil, and did not know it." In a great state of excitement the young lady said, "O, dear! it wasn't for myself I wanted the oil, it was for my mother!" It would be well if the mistakes of druggists' clerks resulted as harmlessly as this one. A joke with the point of it left out is sometimes better than the original. A story is told of a man who was a plagiarizer of jokes. He was a guest at a party one evening, where a servant let fall a plate of tongue. The company started up in confusion, but the host wittily remarked: "Sit still, gentlemen, it's only a slip of the tongue." The plagiarist, smitten with the idea of imitating this joke and winning like applause, soon after made an entertainment, inviting a different set of guests, and arranged his occasion by instructing his servant to let a plate of meat fall. But his guests only stared in blank amazement when he smilingly assured them that the fall of the leg of mutton was only "a slip of the tongue." Typographical errors might be called slips of the type. An editor clipped from an exchange an obituary poem, which he sent to the composing room with some introductory remarks. He said: " We publish below a very touching poem from the pen of Miss M. It was written by her at the deathbed of her sainted mother, and it overwhich are the natural outgrowth of a pure flows with those expressions of filial affection untutored genius that has developed beneath the sheltering influences of a mother's love. The reader will observe how each line glows with ardent affection and tenderest regret." Somehow, in attaching this introduction to the poem, the editor turned up the wrong side of the clipping, and the consequence was that the editor's lines led the reader During the Franco-Prussian war one of our country editors read in a dispatch that 'Bazaine had moved twenty kilometres out of Metz." He thereupon sat down and wrote an editorial, in which he said he was delighted to hear that all the kilometres had been removed, and that the innocent people of Metz were no longer endangered by the presence of those horrible engines of war; standing upon a volcano, as it were. And then he went on to describe some experiments made with kilometres in the Crimea, in which one of them exploded and blew a frigate out of water. AN INTERESTING RELIC. A curious and interesting papyrus has lately been interpreted in England, found in a mummy pit in Egypt, which throws new light on the Mosaic narrative. It was found by Mr. A. C. Harris, who is one of the decipherers of hieroglyphic inscriptions of the day. It is said to be the finest, longest, best written, and best preserved of all papyri ever yet discovered. Dating from the end of the reign of Rhamses III-the Rhamsinitus of Herodotus-it is at least three thousand years old, and contains important revelations touching the political, religious and literary history of that time. It is a proclamation or address to his own people and all the world, reciting his own deeds and those of his father and grandfather, and notably concerning the religious revolution of their times, which he had himself ended by the reestablishment of the temples of the ancient Egyptian worship. The revolution in religion in question agrees in point of time with the earlier residence of Moses in Egypt, and was probably his attempt to establish or revive the worship of One God. The resistance to this innovation, and its final abolition, agrees with the time of the Exodus. The Scripture narrative derives from this papyrus both confirmation, illustration, and explanation. Dr. Eisenlohr, the professor of Egyptology at Heidelberg, who went to England expressly to examine the papyrus, has published at Leipsic a paper containing a translation of the historical results of his examination, entitled "The Great Harris Papyrus, containing an important contribution to Egyptian history, and a testimony three thousand years old to the religion established by Moses." We trust we shall soon see this important work in English. A very good and characteristic story is told of a Boston lady, who obtained an introduction to the Pope. Etiquette requires that the party thus honored should bow low upon bended knees when his Holiness appears. Evidently our New England friend was ignorant of or ignored the custom, for she walked bravely up to Pius IX, grasped him by the hand, and said: "My dear sir, I'm delighted to see you; how do you do?" American!" muttered his Holiness, as he slightly inclined his venerable head and moved towards a group of Italian ladies assembled in the centre of the salon. The following is the motto of the German Anti-Jesuit Society: Si cum Jesuitis Non cum Jesu itis. OUR SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. NEW MODE OF MAKING STEEL.-A new | standing a greater strain than ordinary carprocess of manufacturing steel has recently bon steel, and can be made in any quantity. been introduced, consisting in the combination of chrome ore, in the place of carbon, with iron. The metal is melted in crucibles in a furnace, gas being used for producing heat. The iron bars are put into the crucibles, into which a powdered preparation of chrome ore is introduced. Steel made by this process is asserted to be capable of with TO KEEP GUM ARABIC FROM MOULDING.Solutions of gum arabic soon mould and sour, and finally lose their adhesive property. It is said that sulphate of quinine will prevent this, while it imparts no bad odor of its own. The addition of a solution of a few crystals of this salt to gum arabic will pre |