--WHO EVER GAVE A SATISFACTORY EXCUSE FOR AN INOPPORTUNE LAUGH? Certainly, no child transgressing in this particular ever failed to receive less than ten-fold its due of punishment therefor, as many grown persons will join me in testifying. Especially is this true in instances of church cachinnation. I solemnly aver that I have felt a stronger tendency to hearty laughter in a church than I ever experienced in a theatre, and yet I could not and can not give any satisfactory reason for the inclination. I wanted to laugh for the child's reason, 'Because.' Not many months since, in a land thousands of miles hence, I was stretched upon a bed of sickness. In pursuance of the humane duties of his calling, the minister of the Episcopal Church called upon me, and after a short conversation, proposed addressing the throne of grace. This he did in a few eloquent extemporaneous phrases, closing with the Lord's prayer. Now, from the outset, I felt an uncontrollable inclination to laugh; but for a time succeeded in restraining it. But when, in close succession upon the minister's words, there arose from the next room (separated from us by a thin board partition) a sepulchral echo in the voice of my room-mate, a grim and swarthy miner, who probably had not heard the prayer since he repeated it after his mother at her knee, and from the still potent though long dormant force of habit, now joined in its utterance, the incongruity of my surroundings overcame me, and I electrified the worthy priest by bursting into a guffaw. Looking back on the scene, I can see far more pathos than humor in it; but at the time, the scene was to me irresistibly ludicrous. And oh! the paltry excuse that I raked up. 'Nervousness,' I think. No matter, I had 'spoiled the whole party and broke up the ball!' 'Tis always the way. * * * * *