touch the hands of the fishermen they will be instantly blistered and inflamed. The particulars related of this animal would be incredible were they not attested upon oath, and confirmed by many witnesses. Egede informs us, that it had been seen by many hundreds of persons, mariners, fishermen, and others. In the year 1746, Captain Lawrence de Ferry, of Bergen, shot at a sea-snake, which immediately disappeared, and when the boat was rowed near the place, the water was tinged with blood. The head of this animal, which is held at least two feet above the surface of the water, was of a greyish colour, and resembled the head of a horse. The mouth was large and black, the eyes were of the same colour, and a long white mane hung down from its neck, and floated on the sea. Besides the head, they saw seven or eight coils of this snake about the distance of a fathom one from another. In 1756, it is upon record that another was shot at and wounded also, which is described as being of an enormous length, from one to two hundred yards, by the different beholders. This sea-serpent does not seem to be a creature prepared for carnage and devastation, and whether it may possess venom of any kind, probably was not examined by those who discovered it. We think it to be slow, languid, and quiet like the whale, which it also resembles in its power of ejecting water through its blow-holes. 114 PRAYERS of a sailor'S MOTHER ANswered. PRAYERS OF A SAILOR'S MOTHER ANSWERED. A WOMAN who was left a widow with eight children, seven daughters and one son, bestowed all her care in educating them in the fear of God. She was successful with her daughters; but the young man closed his ears against all her exhortations. From his association with companions in pleasure he was led so deeply into vice, as to be obliged to leave his country. His poor mother, at the time of his embarkation, gave him a New Testament, in which she had written her own name and that of her son, and begged him in the most solemn terms to read the book, if he still had any affection remaining for his mother. The young man departed, and for many years they received no account of him. Troubled and desolate, the widow applied to every commander of a vessel, to learn something of her son. At length she met with one who assured her that the ship, in which the young man had embarked, had been wrecked. "And what of my boy Charles?" asked the agonized mother. 66 Ah, that Charles, I knew him well," replied the sailor with great roughness, "he was a bad character; and, if all who are like him were at the bottom of the sea, it would not much matter." She returned home overwhelmed with grief, and often said, "I shall go down to the grave mourning for my unhappy son." Some years rolled away, when a sailor, shabbily dressed, knocked at her door and asked for relief. The sight of a sailor had always a peculiar interest for the widow, PRAYERS OF A SAILOR'S MOther answered. 115 and she heard his story with much emotion. He had encountered many dangers, and been shipwrecked several times. "But I never was in so wretched a condition, he proceeded, as at the time when a companion and myself-it is now long ago-were the only ones in the crew who escaped. We were cast upon an uninhabited island; and, at the end of seven days and seven nights, I had the pain of closing my companion's eyes. Poor young man! I shall never forget him. (And here tears flowed down his weather-beaten cheeks.) He constantly was reading a little book which his mother had given him, and which was the only thing he saved from the sea. It was his great consolation; he mourned over his sins: he prayed; he pressed the book to his heart: he spoke of nothing but his book and his mother, and, at last, he gave it me, as he thanked me for my poor services; Take it, James,' he said to me, 'take this book, be careful of it, forget not to read it; and may the Lord bless that reading to you, as he has to myself!' Then he pressed my hand and died in piece.' "Can all this be true?" asked the mother, trembling with surprise and emotion. "Yes, ma'am, to the very letter." And taking a little well-worn book from his pocket, he showed it to her and said, See here is the book I speak of." The mother took it, recognized her handwriting, and read the name of her son beside her own. She wept, she rejoiced, she almost went out of her senses; she seemed to hear a voice from heaven proclaiming "thy son is alive." "Would you sell me this book my worthy friend?" said she. cr "No, ma'am," answered the sailor, "not for any sum you could name; not for the whole world. He gave it me with his dying hand. I have since then more than once lost every thing else; but I have preserved this book, whose value I appreciate for myself, and I will not separate myself from it until my soul is separated from my body." NOTES OF NATURAL HISTORY. Danger from the Sea Worm. We have seen a specimen of the voracity of the salt-water worm. It is a piece of wood eaten so as to resemble a honeycomb-or rather, it looked like a piece of a hornet's nest. It was sent to Washington from the Brazos; and so piercing is the hard mouth of this little insect, and so active when it penetrates the fibre, that the wood was reduced to its present appearance in the course of thirty days. It was not the part of a vessel, but a piece of the ways laid to bring articles to the shore. It is scarcely possible for a vessel to lie in those waters, if it be unsheathed with copper, without serious damage. One or two steamboats, which were without copper bottoms, haye sunk in those waters-all the others have been sheathed. The insect is said to be at first laid upon the timber in the form of a nit; and when it is hatched, it pierces the wood, making a very small whole; but as the worm increases in size, in passing through it, it eats a large aperture into it. When it has gone through a piece of timber, instead of penetrating the opposite surface, it turns around and eats its way back. SEAMEN'S CHAPLAIN FOR CHINA. MR. EDITOR,-Having found the following in the Last Sabbath evening the Rev. George Loomis, Chaplain of the American Seamen's Friend Society for the port of Canton, received the instructions of the Board, by Mr. Spaulding, one of the Secretaries, in the Allen Street M. E. church, New York. It was an occasion of deep interest. The Rev. Dr. Peck preached from Matthew ix. 36, 37, 38. His general theme-the compassion of Christ; the objects which excited it, and its practical exercise. In reply to the instructions, the chaplain made an impressive response. He had left the home and friends of his youth to minister to the faint and scattered and shepherdless, sailors in the port of Canton. He had entered upon this work impressed with its importance, not only to the seamen themselves, but to the 360 millions of that vast empire. Beneficent and far-reaching in its influence, it involved responsibilities that might make Paul himself tremble, and his cheek turn pale. Well, then, might he urge the Apostle's request, "Pray for us." Additional interest was imparted to the occasion by the presence of twenty-six Chinese sailors, about to return to their native land in the same ship with the chaplain. For the last month they have been the inmates and under the Christian influence of the Sailors' Home in this city. There |