devour his substance and "hunt for the precious life;" he drinks in iniquity like water; he is robbed alike of his money and his raiment, and is flung forth a degraded and penniless outcast, to beg or to starve.

Many years ago, a friend of mine put into my hand a letter written to him by Admiral Nelson, wherein, speaking of sailors, the Admiral quoted these lines:

"God and our sailor we alike adore,

In times of fear and danger, not before;
The danger o'er, both are alike requited,

God is forgotten, and the sailor slighted."

And, truly, there is much point and truth in the quotation. What has been done for the welfare of sailors is creditable to the doers, but it will not excuse you and me. To our reproach will it be, if we find not out some means to do them good. I shall have sadly missed my object in noting down these feeble remarks on "Missing Ships," if I have not moved you to think more kindly of seamen, and worked up your philanthropy to some practical expression of goodwill to sailors.

ON UNPROMISING SCENES.

THOUGH the country, to a lover of nature, is ever fair to look upon, yet there are moods of mind when the heart yearns with more than common desire for mountains and moors, green fields, and woods and waters. It was when in a mood of this kind that I found myself, the other day, in a spot which had very few attractions.

Had the prospect around me been a lovely one, which was far from the case, the dull, thick, heavy atmosphere would have prevented me from revelling in its beauties. I stood, as it were, cooped up between two low banks of earth, each of them having a ditch on the far side, and a flat field beyond; one of these ditches was dry. Thus circumstanced, being weary, I sat me down on the brow of one of the banks, and having no distant object of interest to gaze on, I seemed of necessity constrained to look down into the dry ditch for a subject of speculation. You will readily admit that this presented me with only an unpromising scene.

There is nothing, however, like an inclination to turn "all occurrences to the best advantage." An enterprising spirit and a grateful heart will seize upon some favourable point in the most forbidding landscape, and gild the gloomiest prospect under heaven. I soon discovered an abundant source of reflection in the following objects that lay scattered in the dry ditch before me, within the space of a few yards: an old hat, a broken flower-pot, the bowl of a tobacco pipe halffull of tobacco, an oyster shell, a dead cat, a piece of a letter on which was plainly written the word "Farewell!" a Dutch tile, a corroded tin kettle, the neck of a wine bottle, and a large bone. You shall have, as correctly as I can give `them, my musings on the curious catalogue I have laid before you.

"It would not be an easy thing to trace that well-worn, crownless, and almost brimless old hat to its original owner; nor should I be able to make out, without much trouble, whether it was sold by Christie, or bought at a slop shop in Leadenhall-street, Aldgate, or IIounsditch; but as it matters not two pins who was the buyer or who was the seller of it, I am content to leave the point unascertained. The history of a hat may be soon given from the moment it has passed through the necessary battening, hardening, work

ing, blocking, napping, dyeing, stiffening, finishing, lining, and binding, and been exposed for sale in the window, till it lies, like the useless remnant there in the ditch, too tattered to defend, and too worthless to cover the brow of the meanest mendicant. It is for a time worn with pride and preserved with care, and not discarded, perhaps, till after its first renovation. It then has a second proprietor, loses grade, and passes rapidly on its downward career. The old clothesman, the coachman, cabman, and potboy, in their turns, become its possessors, till worn, drenched, crushed, and cuffed out of its propriety, it becomes, at last, the football of the idler, and the truant, and is kicked into the muddy ditch, the inglorious receptacle of all that is valueless and vile.

"It may be that the old worn-out beaver, there, in its better days adorned a banker's brows, and in its decline covered the uncombed locks of the bricklayer and the beggar. Now, if it could tell only one-half of the worldly schemes and vain desires which dwelt in the heads of its several owners, a full-sized book might be written about it, though, perhaps, not of the most edifying character. There it lies, and there it is likely to lie, till its separated atoms are scattered abroad as manure to fertilize the ground.

"The broken flower-pot brings before me some pleasant pictures. It may have contained mignionette; and the setting of the seed, the watching, the watering, and the springing up of the sweet-scented plant, may all have afforded pleasure to one who had no other garden. It may have stood in

'Some pretty window, that commands

Fair meadows green and wooded lands,
So sunny, that the latest ray

Its panes receive of parting day.'

Or it may have held a rose tree, a geranium, or a myrtle, the gift of a friend; and I can imagine the bright eyes of the young, and the furrowed brows of the old, bending over it with interest. Oh, what an amount of quiet joy and peaceful delight has the Giver of all good conferred upon the human race in the green leaves, of plants and the painted petals of flowers!

"The tobacco-pipe bowl, half-full of tobacco, at once sets the smoker before me. I see his unwashed face and uncombed hair, his dirty and ragged attire, and his hat on his head, set on one side. I hear, too, his immoral jest and infidel laugh, as he pursues his sabbath-breaking course, with an ugly cur yelping before him. And now, am I not ashamed to have drawn such a picture