NIL DESPERANDUM.—1. It would be cheaper and more satisfactory to buy a sixpenny bottle of lemon kali, than attempt to make it yourself. 2. An account of all the old castles in England could be obtained by your bookseller. HIGHLAND LASS.—1. To cover a bedroom mantelpiece, you can employ the ordinary furniture brocade sold for that purpose. A yard and a half will suffice. They have a woven flower design in the centre, and are finished with a fringe of the same material. The colours are rich in hue, and gold threads are usually run through the pattern. 2. Dec. 3rd, 1873, was a Wednesday. PHŒBE.—1. The sect of the Epicureans (according to St. Gregory of Nyssa) believed that all things moved on accidentally, without any Providence. A very remarkable regularity, we must admit, of times and seasons, causes and results, are for mere accidents! Such accidents are as full of apparent method as there was in Hamlet’s madness. Alas! there are many silly epicureans in the present day, only known by a different name. 2. The name Shiloh means the peacemaker, and Messiah the anointed. The word catechism is derived from the Greek, signifying to instruct by oral teaching. A SUBSCRIBER’S BROTHER.—You will spoil your gaselier if you attempt to lacquer it yourself. Send it to a lamp shop. NYMPHÆ ALBA.—You might procure botanists’ portable collecting presses at Swiss wood-carving shops. For drying and preserving flowers refer to vol. iii., page 80. R. E. W.—You say that, when you pray, you seem to speak to the air, and feel quite discouraged. You probably think of your Heavenly Father as far away above the heavens, instead of close at your side and in your chamber, knowing all your thoughts and desires before you utter them. Try to realise this. See Psalm cxxxix., and all our Lord’s words as to being in the midst of two or three praying in His name, etc. Then, again, you pray amiss even when asking for such spiritual grace and such temporal mercies as are agreeable to His will, because you do not fulfil all the conditions He has imposed on you. “When ye pray, believe that ye have the things, and ye shall have them.” “If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.” If you ask in His name, therefore, and do not accept and believe in His promise, you cannot expect to receive what you need with any degree of confidence. “All things are possible to him that believeth.” “Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” MARY.—1. We regret that we cannot promise any special competitions. The time they exact from an editor is far greater than our competitors can realise. 2. It is very ungrammatical to divide the verb from the preposition “to.” You should not say “to accordingly act,” but “to act accordingly.” There is no such verb as “to accordingly.” The adverb should end the sentence.