greater includes the less. He who so lives, | sympathies; nothing that so much purifies so thinks, so speaks, so works, in his daily and elevates his hopes, as this preparation for the coming of the Lord. life, as to be ready for the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, will not be found unready when the summons is heard in a softer tone, and comes with more previous warning. If he can meet the Lord amidst the flaming heavens and the gathering dead, he will not be loath to obey his call when its dread reality is tempered with all gentle and kindly alleviation-with the gradual approaches of sickness and infirmity, and the tender solaces of loving friends and watchful attendants. But, on the other hand, he who has forgotten his Lord's coming, and has simply been careful about readiness for his own dismissal, will ever be too liable in the lesser thing to have neglected care for the greater; and he will also be wellnigh certain to have lowered his standard of attainment, and narrowed his sympathies, unworthily; in taking thought for himself, to have forgotten the great Body of which he is a member; in minding his own safety, to have forgotten the glory of his Lord-nay, his very Lord himself. For-and with this thought we will draw to a close-there is nothing that so much takes a man out of himself; nothing that so much raises and widens his thoughts and One word more. And it is on words occurring in a text already more than once referred to, "Yet a little while." I said it was not good to speculate, not good to give scope to the roving fancy, as to the great event, its manner, or its time. Still these words, "Yet a little while," should be impressed on every mind. Could we look at the future as we do on the past,-could we estimate the interval of time between the Lord's first and second coming, as we shall do when we look back on it from the eternal state,-how short it it would seem! And how short it really is to Him who inhabiteth eternity! "Yet a little while,"-long perhaps to us, distracted with our petty interests, harassed with our unresting cares, biassed by our cherished prejudices; but in itself, and in our real lifetime, short indeed. And if but a little while, how much the more important! How full should it be of life's work, life's seed-time, life's decision! Oh let us live it for God and for good; let us live it for the day which shall end it; let us live it as we shall wish we had done when we see the Son of man on his Throne, come to judge the world! would not have made us repent of having merely addressed reproaches to him which were only intended for his good. On the twelfth moon of last year-that is to say, six months ago-we THE GREAT TIEnn-Ching-Chow.-The Em- | thus repaired his faults. If he had acted so, he peror of China, it seems, like Mr. Lincoln, has been troubled with an inefficient general. He says in a late imperial edict, that Tienn-ChingChow, commander-in-chief in the Kouel Tcheou, "has been accused of presenting us incorrect re-ordered him to take the field to punish the brig ports, and of not having opposed with sufficient energy, through negligence, the brigands who were devastating our provinces." He examined the charges, found them more or less true, but as the great Tienn-Ching-Chow had performed some services, "silence was observed as to the accusations against him, for we still hoped to have reason to be pleased with his conduct." The edict proceeds : "We decided that this general should be informed of our desire of seeing him change his conduct. If he had understood all the greatness of our clemency, he would have endeavored to have only merited our praises, and to have ands who infest Tong-Tchenn and Che-Tsiem, towns of the first order. We did not expect to hear that not a single soldier was sent there. This general, now idle, lives quietly in the chief town of his province, without thinking of any thing but his own comfort, and no longer shows himself on the fields of battle. He sets at naught our will. Too confident in our mag nanimity, he completely forgets himself. He is young, and his conduct is nearly at an end." In other words, we presume that the emperor meant to chop his head off, which would doubtless "serve him right."-N. Y. Evening Post. From Punch. THE TWO GEORGES. SCENE-The Elysian Fields. Shade of King George III. What-what -what? Yes-yes-yes. It is Mr. Washington. Don't avoid me, don't avoid me, don't avoid me. No ill feelings here, you know. Shade of Mr. George Washington. I beg your majesty's pardon. I was, I believe, lost in thought, and did not observe whom I was approaching. I offer your majesty my best new-year congratulations on the prosperity of your illustrious descendants. Sh. Geo. W. I mean, your majesty, that if like Englishmen, the Americans had taken a few revolutions quietly and by instalments, they would not now be murdering one another by the thousand. Sh. Geo. III. I don't see, I don't see. Sh. Geo. W. Your majesty was good enough to come among us about forty years ago. Since that time England has emancipated the Dissenters Sh. Geo. III. Yes, yes, bad fellows, Disand Quakeresses-bad people, Dissenters. senters, no doubt of that, except Quakers Sh. Geo. W. Has emancipated the Papists. Sh. Geo. III. Yes, yes, very wicked thing to do sooner have lost my head at White Sh. Geo. III. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Very genteel of you, I am sure, but you were always a gentleman. Yes, all goes well in the tight little island-my granddaughter is the best of queens, my great-granddaughters are the best of princesses, and my great- ment. hall. Sh. Geo. W. Has reformed her Parlia great-grandbabies are the best of babies. Sh. Geo. III. Yes, yes, and quite needNothing to say against that, nothing, noth-less; great mistake, let in the mob, ruined ing, nothing, nothing. the country. in America. Sh. Geo. W. It is so, sire, and to avail myself of your majesty's very graceful and elegant illustration, I fear there is no fairy to step out of the wall and say, "Fish, fish, fish, art thou in thy duty." Sh. Geo. III. Ha! Very good, very good. Remember that story-saw it in a pantomime with Charlotte at Old Drury-we were very fond of pantomimes, Charlotte and Igreat fun to see the clown burn his friend with the hot_poker-very good, very good, very good. Suppose you didn't care about pantomimes, eh, Mr. Washington? Too clever for such things. But what's all your cleverness done for America, eh, eh, eh? Sh. Geo. W. I own myself disappointed with results, your majesty, and I wish that *the American people had not been such obstinate Tories. Sh. Geo. III. Eh! what? Eh! what? Eh! what? American Tories? Come, come, come, come, a little too good that. American Tories ? No, no, that wont do, Jacobins, radicals, levellers, atheists, destructives, what you like, but not Tories, everybody knows that, everybody knows that. Sh. Geo. W. I must, at the risk of being charged with obstinacy, a quality very repug nant to your majesty, adhere to my words. Sh. Geo. III. What? what? Tories, To ries. What d'ye mean, Master George? Sh. Geo. W. Has abolished the Corn Laws. farmers. I was a farmer myself, they should Sh. Geo. III. Yes, yes, cruel thing to the never have done it if I had been alive. Sh. Geo. W. Has adopted Free Trade. Sh. Geo. III. Yes, yes. Awful error, find it out some day. Sh. Geo. W. And has ceased to admit that she did anything wrong in removing the head of a king who forgot his duty. Come, your majesty, those little matters, spread neatly over forty years, seem to me to make up a series of revolutions in Church and State affairs. Sh. Geo. III. Well, well, well. Yes, yes, yes. If you put it that way, I don't know that you haven't got something to say for yourself; Yes, you hinted that I was obstinate, I understood you, Mr. George, but I don't mind allowing that you have something to say. Sh. Geo. W. 'Yes, sire, and perhaps I may say one thing more while you are in an astions, I might not have had the honor of consenting temper. But for all these revolugratulating your majesty just now upon the prosperity and security of your Royal House. As for America-we must wait and see. [Vanishes. Sh. Geo. III. Eh? eh? eh? He's bolted. Thought I was going to have a victory over him, and he has turned the tables and gained one over me. I don't mind owning that, as there's nobody to hear me. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, there's a good deal to be said on that side. Very rude of him, though, Billy Pitt what he says. Six revolutions in now I come to think of it. I'll go and ask forty years. A disagreeable way of putting the matter-very disagreeable-so I'll go and tell it to Charlotte. [Exit. NAVAL ORDNANCE. THE elaborate and able report of Capt. Dahlgren, Chief of the Naval Bureau of Ordnance, has appeared in the Northern papers, but its great length and the pressure of departmental reports on our attention have not permitted us either to find room at present for this important report or time for a careful perusal of it. A friend, however, very conversant with the subject, and feeling much interest in it, has furnished us with the annexed notice of the report.-National Intelligencer. that of any other gun ever made-as to their efficiency, durability, and safety; and with tenacity to the metal in its treatment by the the improved method of giving greater founder, it is believed that if the British Government will put aside prejudice, and be willing to follow a little in our track, it will ere long, with the approval even of Sir Wm. Armstrong and Sir Howard Douglas, discard wrought iron guns, breech-loaders, and all, the latest experience, and Capt. Dahlgren, from the service. Such is the tendency of with his practical skill and unsurpassed facilities for experimental researches on the largest scale, cannot fail to bring out many new facts in furtherance of such a result. "The Report of the Chief of the Ordnance Some statements may have been expected Bureau of the Navy, Capt. Dahlgren, is a from him in relation to the wrought iron very able paper, and presents a most thor- guns of large calibre recently manufactured ough and comprehensive summary of the in this country, some of which had shown history and present condition of our naval great powers of endurance. But it is probarmament and defences. No such document able the experiments have not been suffihas ever before emanated from the Ordnance ciently carried out to lead to any well-auDepartment, embodying so much informa- thorized deductions, such as the fabricators tion, in language so brief and simple that it themselves might desire to make public, may be characterized as the very concentra- until they have further improved their proction of written thought. esses, and are enabled to produce guns of uniform quality. Nothing could be more unexpected than the results obtained in the use of wrought and cast iron shot of large calibre. It was said on high authority that had the wrought iron shot been used by the Monitor, the Merrimac could easily have been sunk. Capt. Dahlgren has demonstrated, by recent trials of the best kind of projectiles in the 11-inch guns, that the theory promulgated is directly at variance with the facts,' and that, although the cast iron shot breaks, and the wrought iron is only crushed, the latter lodges in the fourand-a-half inch plate, while the former passes completely through the plate and nearly through the wooden backing of twenty inches, making a large hole, and badly cracking the plate.' "It discusses the subject of iron-clad vessels, of cast and wrought guns and projectiles, of rifle and round shot, and the comparative destructive effects of these projectiles upon the iron armor. It decides that, if penetration alone be the paramount consideration, rifle shot will have the advantage; but if the concussion and shattering of the plates and wood casing behind them (vastly more destructive to the ship, and likely to end in a short engagement) be the object desired, then the swift heavy round shot will give the direct penetrating blow best adapted to do the work. It shows, what is especially important, that his own model gun of 11-' inch calibre, weighing only 16,000 lbs., has proved superior in relative endurance, as to weight of metal and charges of powder, when brought into comparison with the celebrated wrought iron gun of Sir Wm. Armstrong, which weighed 27,000 lbs; that is, it will do greater comparative execution, and carry a shot 80 lbs. heavier than it should be relatively, and 13 lbs. absolutely, than the British gun. The Armstrong under these circumstances has burst, whilst the Dahlgren, with nearly the same number of rounds, exhibited no signs of failure. The projectile of the former weighs 156 lbs. and of the latter 169 lbs. No better argument can be brought in favor of cast iron guns, whose material is distributed in the manner adopted by Capt. Dahlgren-combining the elements of ordnance power to a greater extent than "We have had time and space to allude to only a few of the important statements of Capt. Dahlgren's report. The whole is deserving the most careful consideration, and we commend it to all as the most concise, thorough, but plain and practical narration of all the important facts connected with the present condition of naval armaments of the United States, as well as of other maritime nations. No one can doubt that in the selection of the chief officer of the Bureau of Ordnance a man of the most eminent qualifications has been found; one who has introduced many improvements into the service, and has acquired a wide reputation as an author." CANADIAN OPINION. I has attended the Proclamation of Freedom, A DISTINGUISHED Canadian writes to a and may reasonably be expected to result gentleman in this country as follows:- therefrom. "This is the Great Revolution of the century, and upon it hangs the fate of civilization. The great statesmen and the philosophers of 1776 spoke to humanity at large of the inalienable rights of all, and founded on the virgin soil, almost a wilderness, not a nation merely, on the Old World pattern, but a Continental Republic,' a' Continental Union.' The field was broad and unoccupied, and upon it was to be tried the grand experiment of fusing all races of men into one universal family of peaceable, unarmed, unguarded, unshackled, self-governing and industrious freemen. The sad and barbarous history of Asiatic and European continents, with their confusion of tongues and multiplicity of petty, jealous, rival and everwarring neighboring nations, periodically decimated by tyrants and conquerors, and famished by the daily spoiler, was to be shunned with horror, and the blessings of a higher and more perfect civilization secured to myriads of fellow-men throughout the whole extent of this new continent by the instrumentality of uniting many into oneE Pluribus Unum, Nova Constellatio. These and other instances suggest how much light and warmth the Union cause may draw from the records of the past; and especially from the history of our own Revolution. A course of lectures on this subbefore the Lowell Institute, by Professor ject is in process of delivery at Boston, George W. Greene. They have been eminently successful, riveting the attention and eliciting the applause of large and discriminating audiences. Familiar as the subject is in its general aspects and character, few, except historical students, are acquainted with its most significant details or aware of its philosophical scope. Perhaps there is no man in the country better fitted to expound and illustrate the history of the American Revolution than Professor Greene. It has been the study of his life; abroad and at home he has had rare facilities for investigation; moreover, he has in his possession the correspondence, journals, and other papers of his grandfather, General Greene, "Is there a man who has read the history which are the most valuable and authentic of the Old World, who has studied the course documents as regards the military history of of events in North America, ay, and of South the war, in existence, and they have never America, too, for a couple of centuries, and been published. These advantages, comyet can believe that God has not ordained a bined with his ability as a writer and his new system for human society, or who can doubt the issue, or who would allow this wide attainments as a student of general crisis to stop at its threshold and cry Enough? history, render Professor Greene not only Perish, I say emphatically, a million, two master of his subject, but peculiarly able to millions, any amount of this generation, and give it fresh, interesting, and complete in a its dirt of gold, if Divine Justice requires series of lectures. He wisely ignores the that amount of sacrifice to wash away the formal and chronological method, and takes sins of the nations; but let Humanity and each branch or department by itself-the Liberty triumph, and the unity of the free military history, the diplomatic history, the continent be secured and perpetuated!" congressional history, etc., each forming the theme of a distinct and elaborate discourse. LECTURES ON THE AMERICAN REVOLU TION. Our object in referring to this course of lectures is to suggest their delivery in this city. It is too evident that we need, here WE directed attention recently to the ex- and now, to have our pride and principle, as American citizens, renewed; levity, impacellent tract of Mr. Stillé wherein he draws tience, and treason itself too often breathes an historical parallel between the Peninsular from the lips of the timid or reckless, while War and the American Rebellion; deriving those of the loyal, who are destitute of therefrom encouragement, based on histori- moral courage, exhibit a faint heart or a cal truth, for the ultimate success of the na- compromising spirit. Now we can imagine tional cause. We also gave a synopsis, a no better tonic for these social maladies few days since, of a sermon by Mr. Staples those of the American Revolution ably enthan the lessons of history; and especially of Brooklyn, wherein he points out a re- forced; while all intelligent citizens would markable coincidence between the first re- find therein an intellectual treat and moral ception and the subsequent influence of the encouragement in the present crisis.-N. Y. Declaration of Independence, and that which | Evening Post, 26 Jan. THE RED SEA CANAL-DISCOVERY OF ANTIQUITIES NEAR ALEXANDRIA. A PRIVATE letter from Alexandria, in Egypt, which has been put into our hands, gives the view taken by an intelligent American of the practicability and importance of the great enterprise, now auspiciously begun, of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez. We copy a passage or two relating to that subject, and also to certain antiquities lately discovered in the vicinity of Alexandria : "I have lately returned from the works on the Suez Canal. It is, as President Lincoln says, 'a big job;' but it is certain to succeed, and it will bring back the trade of the world near the channel from which it was diverted by the discovery of the passage of Good Hope. A volume would be necessary to describe what I saw. All the eminent living engineers who have examined the work are unanimous in favor of its practicability. A vast amount of work has been done. The company has surmounted the political and intriguing opposition of England, which hindered them a long time; it has built scores of miles of fresh water canals to serve Nile water to laborers and irrigate and fertilize their lands; it has built its foundries, workshops, storehouses and dwellings at different stations; it has built up towns along the route; it has finished a canal half-way across the isthmus, and next year it will complete a canal large enough to transport all the coal which the steamship companies have now to carry at so great an expense around the Cape of Good Hope, or by rail across Egypt to Suez. After this preliminary canal, the larger canal for ships will be finished in three or four years. The objections to the practicability of a harbor on the Mediterranean, and as to the encroachment of sand on the channel, are, in the judgment of engineers, pure fudge. Nor does there seem any embarrassment in regard to money. The Viceroy, who is probably the richest sovereign in the world, is its strongest supporter, and will not, in my opinion, permit the enterprise to fail. The estimated cost for the entire work is $40,000,000. They have just been laying what is called an American railway between here and Ramleh, a seaside suburb of the city. The excavations have disinterred a large quantity of remains of the era of the Ptolemies and the Romans; massive substructions of brick and stone, long and well-preserved Roman granite blocks, like the Russ pavement, marble and granite pillars, mutilated busts and statues, big water pipes in good order, a foot and a half in diameter, etc. The extent of the old city's rubbish is vast. I can well believe Pliny, who says that the circumference of Alexandria was fifteen miles, including a population of over 600,000. The Saracen captain who burned the big library said he could not describe its richness and beauty, that it had four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, and four hundred theatres and places of amusement. Even the Romans only placed it second to their great capital, the eternal city. "About two years since an underground chapel of the second or third century was found here, hewn from solid rock. It was evidently designed for secret funeral service. It has a passage with a row of catacombs on each side. There was a well covered with a stone. At one end of the chapel, opposite catacomb passage, the wall was scooped, and a stone bench was cut out, evidently for the priest, behind whom was painted, in rude Byzantine style, a picture of the Lord's Supper. On other parts of the wall were full-length portraits of the apostles and prophets, and over all the paintings were crabbed Greek inscriptions, mentioning the subjects. In one place, I observed, it was a passage from the Evangelists. The Arab stone-hewers who discovered the chapel were about breaking it up for building materials, when the Russian consul-general, as the representative of the Greek Church, interfered and saved it, though considerably damaged. In fact they have almost obliterated the features of the portraits. This chapel, which has been opened since the guide-books were published, is not generally known by travellers. It is in the same hill on which stands Pompey's Pillar."-N. Y. Evening Post. THE POPE AND ITALY. A NUMBER of diplomatic documents relating to Italy have been published in France. It appears that M. Pasolini, when pressed on the subject of Rome, did reply that the Italian Government would not re-open negotiations, as the French Government seemed by its last resolution to leave them no hope of a satisfactory arrangement. He added, however, that Italy intended to remain "hand in hand" with France. It also appears that the British ministry during the Christmas fêtes strongly pressed the Pope to leave Rome, and even offered him, as an asylum, the Governor's Palace in Malta. They expressed, moreover, through Mr. Odo Russell, their belief that the Pope might speedily be obliged to regret that he had not accepted the offer. It was a curious |