A silver tomb, all starry lit,
With jewelled lamps hung over it;

Saints that you take for gods, astride
Of pedestals, with pagan pride;

Huge coloured webs of pictures hung,
Where the white-clad eunuchs sung;—

Christ everywhere thrust clean aside,
By Mammon, Priestcraft, Pomp, and Pride.

Procession!—silks and peacock plumes,
Banners upborne by crimson grooms.

And one throned 'neath a canopy—
"God's regent," shout the crowd, "'tis he!"—

No humble fisherman, but now
A bad man, with a conqueror's brow.

The nets are torn and lost; 'tis said
A sword waves in his hand instead.

"Oh, ill," the hermit cried, "I fare,
Seeking Christ's footsteps everywhere—

"From Cæsar's palace to his prison:
He is not HERE: Lo! he is risen."

AN EQUINOCTIAL TRIP IN THE GREAT
EASTERN.

ON the morning of the 10th of September
last, all Liverpool was astir to see the great
ship off. Arriving in a cab at the pier, I wedged
myself through the dense crowd of passengers,
sailors, and lookers-on, to the tender which was
to convey us to the leviathan, lying off some
few miles up the Mersey.

We arrived very soon under the shadow of
the monster, and, looking up to her four stories
high black wall, our little steamer appeared to
me like a King Charles dog at the side of a giant
on horseback. A large square hole in the side of
the leviathan was connected, by means of very
insecure bridges, with the deck of our tender.
These bridges consisted partly of a small board
without railings. Standing in the middle of this
board, trunk in hand, some officer called out,
"Show your ticket!" and in attempting to obey
him I was nearly thrown into the Mersey. At
last I succeeded in entering the ship safely.

Another tender arrived and disgorged its
freight of passengers, boxes, and trunks.

By-and-by, the general confusion which
distracted me when I arrived on board became more
settled, and the crew collected in knots, or were
marshalled in a line. They were, for the greater
part, good weatherbeaten sturdy sailors, whose
i'aces tilled me with satisfaction, although I was
rather displeased with their clothes. They had
not the trim look of British sailors; but were,
for the greater part, black, greasy, and oily.
In the centre of them I saw two portly
gentlemen, with complacent after-dinner faces, and
red geraniums in their button-holes. They
were directors of the Great Ship Company
—Limited; and I had a suspicion that their
knowledge of nautical matters might be as
limited as their legal liability. Close at their
elbows were standing the captain and the
purser, handling very unwieldy fluttering books,
from which they read out the names of the
crew. Whilst this mustering was going on,
small steamers, filled with gentlemen and ladies,
sported round the leviathan like so many dolphins
admiring a whale. Most of these steamers had
bands on board, playing Yankee Doodle and
God save the Queen, their passengers now and
then cheering and waving handkerchiefs.

At last, all was ready; the captain on the
bridge, and officers standing along the whole
ship on the roofs of the different houses on
deck, acting as telegraphs, conveying the orders
of the captain to the officer at the helm. When
I read about the magnetic wires by the means
of which the leviathan was to be commanded,
I did not imagine such a primitive telegraph.
The benignant gentlemen with the geraniums,
who had inspected the ship and declared everything
to be exceedingly comfortable and complete,
left our ship in the tender along with the
pilots.

When we passed Liverpool, we saw all the
wharfs crowded by people. All the steeples and
tops of houses, every place where a human
being could perch, was occupied. The sailors
of the ships we passed were in their respective
riggings, and saluted us by cheers, flags,
and guns, and we answered in the same manner.
It was a fine day, and all the passengers were
in good spirits. The large ship glided along
like a Rhine steamer, and none of us felt the
slightest inconvenience. We all enjoyed the
beauty of the coast of Wales, and anticipated a
very pleasant voyage. Some passengers who
had come over in the Great Eastern from Quebec,
and were now returning home, said their passage
had been delightful, and that they all regretted
its being so short.

There were about four hundred of us; a great
number of ladies and children, who had been
anxious to cross the Atlantic without sea-sickness.
I had a snug cabin to myself, but with
the inconvenience that the occupants of two
other cabins had to pass through mine. Two
of my neighbours were Frenchmen from Louisiana;
secessionists, and, I believe, slave-owners.
They were sensible and agreeable men, and
we went on very well together. They had a
young girl under their charge, who had been
educated at Rouen, and was returning to the
United States. Two other neighbours were,
one a thorough-bred Yankee, the other a young
Oxonian, whose curled hair was parted in the
middle with painful accuracy. Just opposite to me
was a jolly nest of Frenchmen, who all day long,
and even during a great part of the night, were
were chatting and singing.  There were three of them.
The the most conspicuous and most noisy of that
French colony was the commercial traveller from
Paris, whom I recognised by his close
resemblance to the commercial travellers painted
by Paul de Kock.  He was a man of about thirty-five
years of age, rather tall and stout.  His round
bullet-shaped head, sparingly covered with hair,
and his good-humoured face, together with his
jolly round eyes, told many tales of merry nights.
Another of these Frenchman was very young,
and innocent beyond belief. He had been educated