MAY.—The fault lies with yourself if you “hold back,” and be “unable to raise yourself from sin to a certain extent,” because our Divine Lord has promised to “give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” It most certainly is not our Father’s will that we should not “attain grace for a little while.” The evil will that keeps you back is that of your own heart and of the arch-tempter and deceiver. In reciting to uneducated people or children, select what they can comprehend, but what is good, though simple. MISS DAYNS.—Persons requiring any publication issued by the Religious Tract Society, whether a number of this paper or otherwise, should apply to the publisher (as we are always telling our correspondents), as the Editor has nothing to do with that department. He regrets that he has no knowledge of what Miss Dayns’s question was, nor in which number it may yet be answered. The number of answers inserted depends on the amount of space. CHRISTABEL.—Ash Wednesday is the first day in Lent in the English and Roman Church. In the latter the priest makes the sign of the cross on the foreheads of the people, saying, “Remember thou art but dust and ashes, and to dust thou shalt return.” Shrove Tuesday is the day preceding Lent, when in the latter church the people go to confess and be shriven. UNA.—1. We think the process of hardening, as carried out by exposure to cold, is of questionable wisdom in most cases. 2. We have made no personal trial of the instrument you name, but heard a friend commend its utility. VIVIAN KATE.—1. A young man who presumed to introduce himself to a girl could know nothing of common propriety nor of the respect due to an unprotected woman. Any knowledge of etiquette in such an individual is, of course, out of the question. In the circles of society where the rules of etiquette obtain, such impertinent intrusion on the part of a man would not be tolerated. 2. Wash the blue sateen in tepid water. HOPEFULL.—The water takes up all the camphor requisite, and will last for some time in the wash. You can use it again when you make it fresh. DORA (Aged 13) sends a poem, written when confined to the house by indisposition one Sunday, from which we can only quote one verse— “And one, though pale, yet _beautiful_, Lay in a darkened room, But the sweet texts she uttered Seemed to dispel the gloom.” Did she mean this description of an invalid to apply to herself? MARY.—1. The town named by you, Altrincham, in Cheshire, is usually spelt “Altringham,” and pronounced accordingly. 2. We say “crocuses,” not “croci.” LONELY GIRL writes her _nom de plume_ so illegibly that we cannot decipher it, so do not know what she wrote about on the first occasion that she addressed us; but she may feel happy in the assurance that we do not think, judging from her second letter, that she could have written anything needing the apology she now makes on the chance of having done so.