There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that silent prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts his spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room here, brother!” pointing to a seat _in the pulpit_. Jack don’t know about _that_! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his fiercest blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart, when creaking timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the _pulpit_!--Jack doubts his qualifications, and blushes through his mask of bronze. “Room enough, brother!” again reässures him; and, with a litle extra fumbling at his tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband, he is soon as much at home as though he were on his vessel’s deck. The hymn is read with a _heart-tone_. There is no mistaking either the poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a “scientific musical ear,” (which, thank heaven, I have not,) you may criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal down my face, as I mark the effect of good _Old Hundred_ (minus trills and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons. --The text is announced. There follows no arrangement of dickys, or bracelets, or eye-glasses. You forget your ledger and the fashions, the last prima donna, and that your neighbor is not one of the “upper ten,” as you fix your eye on that good old man, and are swept away from worldly moorings by the flowing tide of his simple, earnest eloquence. You marvel that these uttered truths of his, never struck your thoughtless mind before. My pen fails to convey to you the play of expression on that earnest face--those emphatic gestures--the starting tear or the thrilling voice;--but they all _tell_ on “Jack.” And now an infant is presented for baptism. The pastor takes it on one arm. O, surely he is himself a father, else it would not be poised so gently. Now he holds it up, that all may view its dimpled beauty, and says: “Is there one here who doubts, should this child die to-day, its right among the blessed?” One murmured, spontaneous _No!_ bursts from Jacks’ lips, as the baptismal drops lave its sinless temples. Lovingly the little lamb is folded, with a kiss and a blessing, to the heart of the earthly shepherd, ere the maternal arms receive it. Jack looks on and weeps! And how can he help weeping? _He_ was once as pure as that blessed innocent! His _mother_--the sod now covers her--often invoked heaven’s blessing on _her_ son; and well he remembers the touch of her gentle hand and the sound of her loving voice, as she murmured the imploring prayer for him: and how has her sailor boy redeemed his youthful promise? He dashes away his scalding tears, with his horny palm; but, please God, that Sabbath--that scene--shall be a talisman upon which memory shall ineffaceably inscribe, “Go, and sin no more.” SIGNS OF THE TIMES.