good--then we shall escape "the extreme malediction which shall light upon them that shall be set on the left hand." On the whole, brave men and women will prefer to do rightly and justly here, caring much about serving man, and nothing about glorifying such a God, and leaving the malediction alone, very sure that no punishment can befal a man for living nobly, and that no fear need cloud the death-bed of him who has made his life a blessing to mankind. Of course, after all this preface, come cringing confessions of sin. The 51st Psalm leads the way, the congregation having by this time become so thoroughly confused that they see no incongruity in saying that when God has built the walls of Jerusalem, he will be pleased with burnt offerings and oblations, and that "then shall they offer young bullocks upon thy altar." As a matter of fact, they have no intention of offering young bullocks at all--bullocks having become too useful to be wasted in that fashion, but they have so thoroughly left the realm of common sense that they have become unconscious of the absurdities which they repeat. The gross exaggeration of the concluding prayers must be patent to everyone; they are full of the hysteria which passes for piety. "We are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sins," although most of the congregation will forget all about the burden before they leave the church: we are "vile earth and miserable sinners;" we "meekly acknowledge our vileness." One longs to shake them all, and tell them to stand up like men and women, instead of cringing there like cowards, whining about their vileness. If they are vile, why don't they mend, instead of saying the same thing every year? They should be ashamed to tell God of their miserable condition year after year, when his grace is sufficient for them, and they might be perfect as their Father in heaven. The Church in all this service reminds one of nothing so much as a wicked old crone, who whines to the parson and scolds all the children. In days gone by the old woman has been the terror of the village, and her sturdy arm has been shown on many a black eye and bruised face; now she can no longer strike, she can only curse; she can no longer tyrannise, she can only scowl; her palsied tongue still mutters the curses which her shrivelled arm can no longer translate into act, and in her bleared eye, in her wrinkled cheeks, in her shaking frame, we read the record of an evil youth, wherein she abused her strength, and we see descending upon her the gloom of a dishonoured age, and the night of a fathomless despair. FORMS OF PRAYER TO BE USED AT SEA.