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LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Mrs. SARAH P. WALS WORTH. 
 
 Received October, 1894. 
 Accessions No.^^/L [ . Class No. 
 
THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN. 
 
 From a Block Print in the British Mit. 
 15th Century. 
 
 - 
 
MYSTERIES 
 
 LIFE, DEATH, AND FUTURITY: 
 
 ILLUSTRATED PROM 
 
 THE BEST AND LATEST AUTHORITIES. 
 
 BY HOEACE WELBY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 KENT & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1861. 
 
BDf 
 
 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 FEW of those persons who are accustomed to watch the 
 religious tendencies of the age, need be reminded that its 
 characteristics are freedom of inquiry, thought, and dis- 
 cussion, and these with greater latitude than can be 
 traced in the history of any former period. The adage 
 that " thinking nurseth thinking " is every day strongly 
 exemplified; and if it be hard to estimate the actual 
 results at their true value to society, it must be allowed 
 that in the conflict of opinions, Truths may be abundantly 
 garnered the wheat gathered from the enemy's tares ; 
 and their importance and interest of the good part incul- 
 cated with greater effect than by ordinary means. 
 
 To bring the consideration of the three paramount 
 subjects named in the annexed title-page within the limits 
 of a single volume may appear a pretentious object for a 
 Layman to attempt ; more especially when we remember 
 how many splendid intellects have, through countless ages, 
 been devoted to the rearing of the safeguards of our 
 belief, and the eternal interests of mankind. In compa- 
 rison with such labours, which are the highest aspirations 
 of the human mind, the present work has very humble 
 claim to notice. It has been undertaken with the view of 
 concentrating within its focus the views and opinions of 
 some of the leading writers of the present day, and placing 
 them before the reader in so popular a form and setting as 
 to adapt them for a larger class than would be likely to 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 consult the authorities themselves, whence the substance of 
 this volume has been derived. Facts, anecdotes, personal 
 traits of character, and well-grounded arguments and 
 opinions, are the staple of the work ; and special care 
 being taken to give each statement its mint-mark of its 
 authority. In virtue of the Scriptural character of the 
 subjects, the rewards will be a special blessing on those 
 who read and understand them ; the interpretations and 
 inferences, in many instances, being the deductions of men 
 venerated for their piety and learning in ministering the 
 most precious of all knowledge the inestimable comfort 
 of the Hope that is in us. 
 
 The writer has employed the word MYSTERY in its 
 ordinary acceptation a thing unintelligible or concealed^ 
 as well as in the Scriptural meaning something that 
 had been unknown, but in due time was revealed by the 
 inspiration of God. Thus it is applied to the principles 
 of the Gospel, and to the circumstances of the General 
 Resurrection ; as well as to denote an emblem of revealed 
 truth.* 
 
 Surrounded as we are by Mysteries, (says a contem- 
 porary,) and helpless as we find ourselves amid them, we 
 are irresistibly prompted to seek an explanation of them. 
 The applications of natural science for this purpose are 
 too striking a characteristic of this age of inquiry to have 
 been neglected throughout the following pages ; the writer 
 having endeavoured to profit by the sound opinions of 
 Dr. Whewell, who has set the service of science, in this 
 case, in the proper light : " Science/' he tells us, " teaches 
 us our ignorance, as well as the elevation of our nature. 
 Those misrepresent it much who describe it in other 
 terms ; for the lessons of science implant reverence and 
 
 * See A Scripture and Prayer-look Glossary, By the Rev. John 
 Booker, M. A. 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 gratitude for the past, hope for the future, and humility 
 in our own estimation/' 
 
 As the aim of the writer is to render his book accept- 
 able to a wide number of readers, he has endeavoured to 
 make it attractive by the notes and comments of expo- 
 sitors of our own time, as well as from those sacred 
 treasures of learning, and those studies of Scripture, which 
 strongly reveal to us the relation of God to man. The 
 most reverential regard for things sacred has been fostered 
 throughout the work ; and although the stores of classic 
 thought and fancy have been occasionally resorted to for 
 embellishment and illustration, these have been employed 
 as subsidiary to the Spirit and the Truth. 
 
 In conclusion, it may be remarked that although the 
 reader may receive from these pages many impressions of 
 the transitory nature of man's life, it is hoped that they 
 will lead him to thoughts of "the Great Mystery of 
 Godliness," and fill his heart with " a gracious composition 
 of love, and joy, and wonder ; " thus to induce him to the 
 meditation of the infinitely glorious work of our Eedemp- 
 tion and so make him both the happier and the better 
 man.* 
 
 H. W. 
 
 * Addison says : " Will any man be so impertinently officious as to 
 tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion ? Is 
 there any merit in being the messenger of ill news ? If it is a dream, 
 let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and the better 
 man." 
 
 a 2 
 
Vlll 
 
 EXISTENCE OF MAN UPON THE EARTH. 
 (See page 10.) 
 
 The following note will be read with interest in connexion with 
 " the discovery of flint implements " mentioned at page 10, in the 
 article on the Mosaic and Geologic Creation. It appears that 
 weapons of flint have since been found near Abbeville in beds of 
 gravel lying in chalk, and mingled with the remains of elephants. 
 This, if the age of the gravel and chalk be accepted as incontro- 
 vertible facts, gives a remote antiquity to the race whose imple- 
 ments they have entombed. The following decision has been 
 given by Sir Charles Lyell, and is considered to be an authorita- 
 tive conclusion : 
 
 "Although the accompanying shells are of living species, I believe 
 the antiquity of the Abbeville and Amiens flint instruments to be 
 great indeed, if compared to the times of history or tradition. I con- 
 sider the gravel to be of fluviatile origin, but I could detect nothing in 
 the structure of its several parts indicating cataclysmal action, nothing 
 that might not be due to such river-floods as we have witnessed in 
 Scotland during the last half-century. It must have required a long 
 period for the wearing down of the chalk which supplied the broken 
 flints for the formation of so much gravel at various heights, sometimes 
 100 feet above the present level of the Somme, for the deposition of 
 fine sediment including entire shells, both terrestrial and aquatic, and 
 also for the denudation which the entire mass of stratified drift has 
 undergone, portions having been swept away, so that what remains of 
 it often terminates abruptly in old river-cliffs, besides being covered by 
 a newer unstratified drift. To explain these changes I should infer 
 considerable oscillations in the level of the land in that part of France 
 slow movements of upheaval and subsidence, deranging but not wholly 
 displacing the course of the ancient rivers. Lastly, the disappearance 
 of the elephant, rhinoceros, and other genera of quadrupeds now foreign 
 to Europe implies, in like manner, a vast lapse of ages, separating the 
 era in which the fossil implements were framed and that of the invasion 
 of Gaul by the Romans. 
 
 CHAIN OF BEING. 
 
 (See page 21.) 
 
 See an interesting paper on " The Golden Chain of Homer 
 The Hermetic or Mercurial Chain," in Curiosities of Science, 
 Second Series, (Things not generally Known) pp. 32 38. The 
 idea of the " Chain of Being " extends beyond the views held as 
 to the Typical Forms in the Animal Kingdom, which show that 
 while RO single plan of combination is applicable to all animals, 
 there is, nevertheless, a certain uniformity of organization ob- 
 servable in each primary division.] 
 
IX 
 
 THE SEVEX AGES OF MAX. 
 
 (826 the Frontispiece .) 
 
 Before we describe this quaint Illustration of the progress of 
 the Life of Man, it may be as well to say a few words of the 
 Division of Man's Life into Stages, which appears to have been 
 treated by various authors through a period of two thousand 
 years. 
 
 The subject has long occupied the thoughts of the physician, 
 the moralist, the speculative philosopher, and the poet. Instances 
 may be found in the literature and art of all countries, and from 
 the earliest periods. In Rosellini's Monumenti dell' Egitto e detta 
 Nubia, a very curious instance occurs of a date far anterior to any 
 previously mentioned. 
 
 The earliest instance which Mr. John Winter Jones could find 
 of the division of human life into stages occurs in the Greek 
 verses attributed to Solon, who nourished about six hundred years 
 before Christ, and which are introduced by Philo-Judseus into his 
 Liber de mnndi opificio ; wherein also occurs, " Hippocrates says 
 that there are seven ages ; " and we find this division in the Mid- 
 rach or Ecclesiastes, written about the ninth century, where, in 
 six stages, man is compared to some animal. 
 
 In a beautiful Hebrew poem of the twelfth century, we find 
 man's life divided into ten stages. Mr. Winter Jones describes 
 two curious illustrations in ten stages, from Germany and Holland. 
 
 Sir Thomas More, when a boy, designed for his father's house 
 in London, a hanging of painted cloths, with Man's Life in nine 
 pageants, and verses over. 
 
 The division into seven years is suspected to have been derived 
 from the speculations of cabalistic philosophers upon the secret 
 powers of numbers, and upon the climacterical year. 
 
 Lady Calcott described in the cathedral of Sienna, in one of the 
 side chapels, seven figures, each in a compartment, inlaid in the 
 pavement, representing the Seven Ages of Man, supposed to have 
 been executed by Antonio Frederighi, in 1476. 
 
x The Frontispiece. 
 
 Shakspeare's charming illustration of Man's Seven Ages in the 
 mouth of the melancholy Jaques, in As you like it, have become 
 familiar as "household words." 
 
 We now come to the original of our Frontispiece a coarse but 
 spirited woodcut, of about the middle of the fifteenth century, and 
 roughly coloured : it was found pasted inside what had been the 
 covers of an old edition or manuscript of the Moralia super 
 Bibliam, of N. de Lyra ; and was purchased for the library of the 
 British Museum by M. Panizzi. 
 
 The centre is occupied by a large wheel, on the inner circle of 
 which are the words (in Latin), "The wheel of life, which is 
 called fortune." Between this and the outer circle is the form of 
 a naked man; the arms extended, and grasping two of the upper 
 spokes, and the legs apart against two corresponding spokes 
 below. (The several inscriptions are in Latin : we give only the 
 English translation.) On the outer circle of the wheel are the 
 words : " Thus adorned, they are born in this mortal life. Life 
 decaying, they glide away like water." 
 
 Around the wheel are the figures of a man in his seven stages. 
 Commencing on the left side, and proceeding upward, there is a 
 label with the word " Generation " upon it. 
 
 Immediately above this is a cradle, in or rather upon which lies 
 an infant in swaddling clothes; and at the foot of the cradle 
 stands a little naked boy clapping his hands. 
 
 Next in order is a naked child, holding a toy-windmill, such as 
 amuses children to the present day : a rudely drawn dog, (more 
 like a pig) stands on its hind feet, and rests against the child's 
 leg. Underneath is a scroll, inscribed "An infant to seven 
 years." 
 
 Immediately above is a label inscribed " Childhood to Fifteen 
 years," illustrated by a youth holding a falcon on his right fist, 
 and what appears to be a bag of money in his left hand emblems 
 of the love of pleasure and enjoyment natural to this stage of 
 man's life. Above the head of this youth, and perhaps with 
 reference to the same figure, there is another label, with the 
 words, " Adolescence to twenty-five years." 
 
 This brings us to the top of the print, at the left-hand side. 
 In the upper centre, and sitting astride upon the wheel, there is 
 
The Frontispiece. xi 
 
 a figure with a feather in his cap, and armed with spear and 
 shield: on a label above him are the words, "Youth to thirty- 
 five years." 
 
 At the top of the right side of the print is a label inscribed 
 "Manhood to fifty years :" beneath is a figure seated at a table, 
 counting money, evidently the worldly man, who, having passed 
 through the stages of pleasure and war, is now occupied with the 
 acquisition of wealth. Under his feet is a label with the words, 
 "Old age to seventy years." 
 
 The next figure, descending, is that of an old man leaning on a 
 staff, under which is a label inscribed "Decrepit until death.".; 
 
 The dead body is next represented, lying in a coffin, under 
 which is a label with the word " Corruption." 
 
 In the centre, at the foot of the print, is a winged figure with 
 flowing drapery, the wings expanded, and the hands resting upon 
 the two labels, bearing the inscriptions, " Generation " and " Cor- 
 ruption." Under the left hand of this figure is the name of the 
 artist, " Clau ; " with this punning device, three claws on a shield. 
 At the bottom are eight lines in monkish verse, (omitted in the 
 Frontispiece,) which may be thus rendered into plain prose : 
 " The state of man is exemplified in a flower : 
 
 The flower falls and perishes, so shall man also become ashes. 
 
 If thou couldst know who thou art, and whence thou comest, 
 
 Thou wouldst never smile, but ever weep. 
 
 There are three things which often make me lament : 
 
 Eirst, it is a hard thing to know that I must die ; 
 
 Secondly, I fear because I do not know when I shall die ; 
 
 Thirdly, I weep because I do not know what will become of 
 me hereafter."* 
 
 Such are the details of this curious print : the design is supe- 
 rior to the execution, and is a very interesting Illustration of 
 Man's Progress from the Cradle to the Grave. 
 
 * See the paper by Mr. Thomas Winter Jones, of the British Museum, 
 . in Arckceologia, vol.xxxv., pp. 167 189, 1853. The whole is extremely 
 interesting. 
 
A HYMN. 
 
 Oh, thou great Power ! in whom I move : 
 
 For whom I live, to whom I die, 
 
 Behold me through thy beams of love, 
 
 Whilst on this couch of tears I lie ; 
 And cleanse my sordid soul within, 
 By thy Christ's blood, the bath of sin. 
 
 No hallow'd oyls, no grains I need, 
 No rays of saints, no purging fire ; 
 One rosie drop from David's seed 
 Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire : 
 
 precious ransome ! which once paid, 
 
 That Consummatum est was said. 
 
 And said by Him that said no more, 
 
 But seal'd it with his sacred breath : 
 
 Thou, then, that has dispong'd my score, 
 
 And dying wast the death of Death, 
 Be to me now, on thee I call, 
 My life, my strength, my joy, my all ! 
 
 SIR HENRY WOTTON. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LIFE AND TIME 1 35 
 
 What is Life?!. The Author of our Being, 2. The Divine Eternity, 3. 
 The Divine Perfections, 4. Change-bearing Laws of Nature ; the 
 Creation of Matter, 5. The Mosaic and Geologic Creation, 7. 
 Origin of Life Darwin's Theory, 11. Unity of the Human Race, 13 
 The Embryo under the Microscope, 15. The Development Theory 
 Chemistry cannot create an Organism, 16. Man and his Dwelling- 
 place, 17. Plurality of Worlds, 18. Identity of the Vital Principles 
 of Animals and Vegetables, 19. Chain of Being, 20. The King- 
 doms of Nature, 21. Numbers in Nature, 22. Adaptation of 
 Colour to the Wants of the Animal, 23. The Tree of Life, 24. 
 Eve's Apple-tree, 26. How Cain killed Abel ; Family Likenesses, 
 27 ; Average of Human Life, 28 Space and Time ; Climacterics, 
 29. Fragments of Time, 31. Curious Statistical Results, 32. 
 Life Assurance ; Sir William Hamilton on Phrenology, 33. Con- 
 sumption and Longevity ; Man's proper Place in Creation, 35. 
 
 NATURE OF THE SOUL 3649 
 
 On the Soul, by the Ancients, 36. The Imprisoned Soul, 38. Th 
 Soul and the Magnetic Needle, 39. Symbols of the Soul, 41. 
 Personality of God the Soul God's great Organ, 42. Pre-exist- 
 ence of Souls, 43. Transmigration of Souls and Sacredness o 
 Animals, 49. , 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE 5063 
 
 Spiritual Reclamation; "Excelsior," 50. Notions of Angels, 51. 
 Spiritual Natures, 55. Permanent Impressions by Spiritual Powers, 
 57. Materialism and Spiritualism Personal Identity, 59. 
 Mesmerism and Somnambulism, 61. Clairvoyance, 63. ^ ..-, 
 
 MENTAL OPERATIONS 6493 
 
 Mind and Body, 64. Mental Processes, of which we are unconscious, 
 65. The Voltaic Battery, Electric Eel, and Brain of Man ; A 
 Galvanized Human Body, 66. Changes in the Nervous System, 
 67. Working of the Brain, 68. What is Memory ? 69. How does 
 the Function of Memory take place? 71. Persistence of Impres- 
 sions, 71. Value of Memory Registration, 73. Decay of Memory, 
 74. Intuitions, 75. What is Genius ? 76. Mental Abstraction, 77. 
 Effect of Emotion on the Intellect, 78. Melancholy or Poetic 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 Feeling, 79. Gay Melancholy, 80. Insane Impulses, 83. Keep 
 the Brain fallow in Childhood, 84. Perverted Reason ; What is 
 Madness ? 85. Intellectuality and Insanity, 86. How the Egyp- 
 tians treated their Insane, 89. Operation of Mind "the Great 
 Book," 90. Discipline of the Intellect, 91. The Child Father to 
 the Man ; Life not greater than its Reflex, 92. 
 
 BELIEF AND SCEPTICISM 94-106 
 
 What is Faith? 94. What is Revelation? Childish Devices, 95. 
 Weak Belief, 96. -Real Growth, 98. Experience Fallible ; Intoler- 
 ance and Unbelief, 99. How men become Sceptics ; Infidelity 
 Irrational, 100. Confessions of Sceptics, 101. Materialism of the 
 Development Theory, 104. Combustion the Metempsychosis, 105. 
 
 WHAT IS SUPERSTITION? 107113 
 
 "To die childless," 107. " Thirteen to Dinner," 112. What is 
 Chance? 113. 
 
 PREMATURE INTERMENT 114 
 
 France, 114. 
 
 PHENOMENA OF DEATH 120174 
 
 Hours fatal to Life, 120. Premonitions of Death Death of Lord 
 Lyttelton, 130. Death of Archbishop Leighton, 132. Old Age 
 and Death, 133. Death at Will ; Sleep and Death, 134. Does 
 the Soul Sleep ? Contrition of the Antients at the point of Death, 
 136. Man's Reluctance to think of God, 137. State of Mind pre- 
 ceding Death, 140. How Man dies, 141. Death from Heart 
 Disease, 148. Broken Hearts, 149. The Death-bed, by Owen 
 Feltham, 150. Death-bed Repentance, 151. The Last Moments 
 and Words of Distinguished Persons, 153. The Soul going forth 
 from the Body, 158. The Passing Bell, 160. Beauty of Death, 
 162. Grief for the Dead, 163. Interferences of the Dead with the 
 Living, 164. Death Customs ; Antiquity of Burial Clubs, 165. 
 " God's Acre," 167. Emblems on Tombs ; Antiseptic Burial Soils, 
 167. Decay of the Human Body, 168. Emblem of the Resurrec- 
 tion, 169. Flowers on Graves, 170. 
 
 SIN AND PUNISHMENT 174181 
 
 The Earliest Sin ; the Great Sin, 174. Special Providences, 175. 
 Nemesis, or Retribution, 176. Representations of "the Devil," 
 178. Picture of Hell Utter Darkness, 179. The Wheel of Eternal 
 Punishment, 181. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD 182189 
 
 Crucifixion, 183. Knowledge of God before the time of Christ, 187. 
 " Christ the Moral Saviour," 188. 
 
 THE END OF THE WORLD FORETOLD 190194 
 
 Epidemic Terrors, 190. Geological Future of the Universe, 193. 
 
 MAN AFTER DEATH 195202 
 
 The Dead know not anything, 195. Prayers for the Dead, 195. 
 Condition of Man after Death, 196 "To the Holy Spirit," 200. 
 Life after Death Re-union of the Soul and Body, 201. 
 
Contents. 
 
 xv 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE STATE 203211 
 
 What is the Intermediate State, 203. Opinions concerning the State 
 of the Dead, 205. Paradise and Heaven, 207. Heathen Philosophy 
 of the Immortality of the Soul, 209. That Man must be Immortal, 
 210. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN RESURRECTION 212217 
 
 The Resurrection, 212. Resurrection of the same Body, 216. 
 
 THE FUTURE STATES 218219 
 
 The Day of Judgment, 218. Happiness of the Blessed, 219. : 
 
 THE RECOGNITION OF EACH OTHER BY THE BLESSED, * 
 
 220230 
 
 Bishops King and Mant, 220. David, St. Paul, the Transfiguration, 
 Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, 221. Ulysses, Achilles, Agamemnon, 
 Antigone, Darius, Socrates, 222. JSneas and Anchises, Cicero, 
 223. American Chiefs, Hindoos, Kings of Dahomey and Guinea ; 
 Love of the Dead ; Cyprian at Carthage, 224. Translation of 
 Enoch, 225. "Marriages are made in Heaven ;" " Business of the 
 Saints in Heaven," 226. The New Heavens and the Earth ; 
 Bishop Mant, 227. Bishop Courtenay, 228 and 229 ; Abodes of 
 the Blest, 230. 
 
 ADVERSARIA 231257 
 
 Study of the Bible, 231. Serpent Worship, 233. Symbolical Figures 
 from Nineveh, 234. Evidences of Christianity ; Changes in Opinion, 
 235. Christian Revelation, why first given to the West ; Holy 
 Thorn at Glastonbury, 236. The Christian Mission, 238. The 
 True Course of Christian Life ; True and False Buddhism, 240. 
 Platonic Love, 243. Platonism and Christianity, 244. Religion 
 happily adapted to the Mind of Man, 245. Power of Religion over 
 Difficulties, 247. Attributes of the Deity, 248. On Atheism, by 
 South ; Preparing for another World, 249. Remoteness of Uni- 
 versal Christianity, 251. Eternal Punishment, 252. Boyish or 
 Manly Happiness ; God's Ancient People, 253. Latin or Mediaeval 
 Christianity, 255. Origin of the Litany; Vital Force; What is 
 Materialism? 256. 
 
 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, THE . . ' . . ~ 258261 
 
 Authorship of, 25. Bunyan's Vindication, 258. Dr. Adam Clarke ; 
 Voyage of the Wandering Knight, 260 ; Bunyan's Escapes, 261. 
 
 APPENDIX ... . .- ..>'.... 262272 
 
 Lambton Family Tradition. Lord Bacon's Dream. Last Sonnet 
 Mrs. Hemans'. Chartley Tradition. Lord Chesterfield. Dr. John- 
 son on Death. Latin Hymn. Capt. Kidd and Lord Byron. 
 Grimaldi's dread of Friday. Cawnpore, Death at. Watching for 
 the Dead. Dirge by Faber. 
 
 LITERARY HISTORY OF MADMEN 267272 
 
"There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in 
 storm and tempest ; and there are those whom it has summoned 
 amid scenes of revelry and idle vanity ; there are those who have 
 heard its ' still small voice ' amid rural leisure and placid content- 
 ment. But perhaps the knowlege which cometh not to err is 
 most frequently impressed upon the mind during seasons of afflic- 
 tion ; and tears are the softening showers which cause the seed of 
 heaven to spring and take root in the human heart." Sir Walter 
 Scott. 
 

 MYSTERIES, 
 
 WHAT IS LIFE ? 
 
 We're ill by these Grammarians us'd ; 
 We are abus'd by Words, grossly abus'd ; 
 
 From the Maternal Tomb, 
 
 To the Grave's fruitful Womb, 
 We ca]l her Life, but Life's a name 
 That nothing here can truly claim. 
 
 COWLEY, in a note to his Pindaric Ode, whence the above lines 
 are quoted, says : 
 
 Plato, in Timteus, makes this distinction : " That which is, but 
 is not generated ; and that which is generated, but is not." This 
 he took from Trismegistus, whose sentence of God was written 
 in the Egyptian temples, " I am all that was, is, or shall be." 
 This doctrine of Plato, that nothing truly ^ is but God, is approved 
 by all the Fathers. Simplicius explains it thus : That which has 
 more degrees of privation, or not- being than of being, (which is 
 the case of all creatures,) is not properly said to be ; and again, 
 that which is a perpetual/m', or making, never is quite made, 
 and therefore, never properly is. 
 
 Leaving the old " Grammarian," we pass to the science of our 
 own times. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, in his Histoire Naturelle 
 generate des Uegnes Organiques, in the chapter on the definitions 
 of Life, refutes the common mistake of supposing that vital force 
 suspends or destroys physical action. If these vitalists had but 
 taken the trouble of decomposing each complex question into its 
 elements, instead of cutting the knot which they could not loosen, 
 they would have seen their error. Thus, an animal, while living, 
 " resists " cold, does not " obey " the physical laws of tempera- 
 ture, but keeps constantly above the temperature of the surround- 
 ing medium. When dead, this resistance ceases. Does this 
 B 
 
2 Life and Time. 
 
 prove that vital force destroys physical action ? Does it prove 
 that the living animal is enfranchised from those physical laws 
 which regulate the transmission of heat ? Not in the least. The 
 more complex conditions have produced a phenomenon different 
 from that witnessed under simpler conditions ; but an inorganic 
 substance may manifest an analogous independence (or what 
 seems such) of these laws of transmission, if it be heated by a 
 galvanic current, or by an internal chemical reaction. Again, 
 when we see an animal leap into the air, has he enfranchised him- 
 self from the laws of gravitation? Not more than the needle 
 when it leaps to the magnet. * 
 
 Physiologists appear to have made this mistake in speaking of 
 Life: they have enumerated certain functions, and have called 
 such enumeration life ; now function is not life, but the result of 
 life ; it is vital organ in action. Bichat denned life as " the sum- 
 total of the functions which resist death : " which amounts merely 
 to this that life is life. Bichat's definition of life is manifestly 
 faulty in this that it ignores the essential co-operation of the 
 medium or surrounding circumstances in which organization is 
 placed, and is, therefore, as one-sided and useless as any definition 
 would be which might ignore the organism, and enumerate the 
 circumstances as life ; circumstances and individual are correlative, 
 both in psychical and organic life; and man's life, mental and 
 organic, is the result of such correlation. This is what Coleridge 
 indicated, when, in his Hints towards the formation of a more com- 
 prehensive theory of Life, he defined life as " the Principle of In- 
 dividuation." This is a plagiarism from the Germans, (in this 
 case from Schelling,) as was most of Coleridge's philosophy. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF OUR BEING. 
 
 Dr. Thomas Woods, of Parsonstown, observes : " If we look at 
 the constitution of matter, the impossibility of a mass being 
 formed, even though atoms might have been in existence, without 
 the interference of some agency different from any at present 
 operating ; viewing its arrangements, measured out and bounded 
 with mathematical precision, we must admit that some Being 
 greater than any on this earth, and more powerful than the sup- 
 posed laws of nature, has formed it. Seeing, also, that in all 
 departments ef creation, the object pre-eminently provided for is 
 the welfare and preservation of man, and that the same method is 
 everywhere manifested in carrying it out, we must likewise con- 
 clude that the same power which made the arrangements in 
 matter is also the Author of OUT being. 
 
 " As in the animate creation, the organization of every living 
 thing is made from one type, so in creation generally, one plan is 
 * Saturday Review, April 25, 1857. 
 
The Divine Eternity. 3 
 
 taken for the working out of all its details ; and whether we exa- 
 mine the combustion of coal, the growth of the living body, or 
 the final destination of the soul throughout eternity, we see the 
 same principle followed out in the accomplishment of each, and 
 we are forced to ascribe a common authorship to all. It is 
 abundantly evident that one mind, and at one time, conceived and 
 set in motion the entire fabric of creation ; and that everything, 
 from the smallest particle of matter to the highest organization 
 and disposition of life and power in every stage of its existence, 
 depends for its continuance on Him, and that in everything we 
 do or think we do, we only use the power He has given ; and 
 therefore, in all our ways we are indebted to Him, and in all our 
 works, however unconsciously, we worship Him. Whether we 
 pride ourselves on the power of our steam-engines, the rapidity 
 of the telegraph, or the beauty and excellence of photography, 
 the results of Heat, Light, and Electricity we only declare" the 
 wonder of the mechanism He has provided, and the perfection 
 of the arrangements He has made. And as, by virtue of these 
 arrangements, the coal and air when favourably placed together 
 evolve heat, the zinc and acid electricity, and the sunbeam and 
 sensible salt the photograph, so does food taken into the body by 
 virtue of the vital power continue life, and enable the animal to 
 move ; and so the blood of Christ applied to the soul, makes also 
 that alive and capable of acting. 
 
 " In every word we speak, we praise Him, in everything we do, 
 we must acknowledge Him ; we trace in all creation the same 
 hand, in all its arrangements the same mind, and therefore in 
 everything we think or act, to Him be all the Glory." The Exis- 
 tence of the Deity evidenced by Power and Unity in Creation ; 
 from the Results of Modern Science. 
 
 THE DIVINE ETERNITY. 
 
 There are many passages in the Bible, the tendency of which 
 is to give us a view of the Divine Existence, far elevated above 
 any successive duration similar to our own. The self- existent 
 Jehovah* revealed his name to Moses as the "I AM," the abiding, 
 not the on-moving existence. Our Divine Redeemer, during his 
 mission on earth, spoke sometimes as man, other times as God. 
 When He spoke from his manhood, He spoke as a being of time, 
 having a past, a present, a future. But when He spoke from his 
 Godhead, He repeated the language of Jehovah to Moses : " Be- 
 fore Abraham was, I AM," not I was. 
 
 St. Peter's words, " One day is with the Lord as a thousand 
 years, and a thousand years as one day," seem to be more than 
 
 * In Baron Bunsen's Bible for the People, the word JEHOVAH has its 
 deep significance brought out by being rendered THE ETERNAL. 
 B2 
 
4 Life and Time. 
 
 relative, in regard to the inadequacy of all periods of time, the 
 longest as well as the shortest, to measure the Divine duration. 
 May we not consider them absolute^ as implying the entire absence 
 of succession in that sublime existence which has neither begin- 
 ning nor end ? The same observation is applicable to the words 
 of Moses in the 90th Psalm : " For a thousand years in thy sight 
 are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the 
 night.'; 
 
 As in God there can neither be past nor future, nor any succes- 
 sion of duration, it follows that in HIM there can be no series, or 
 sequency of actions. Eor if in HIM there could be one act after 
 another, then to Himself would some of his acts be past, and 
 others future : and we should thus relapse into the misconception 
 of attributing to Him a successive duration like our own. 
 
 What, as regards ourselves, is truly a series of acts or dispen- 
 sations, the Creation of Man, the Deluge, the call of Abraham, 
 the birth of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead, the final 
 judgment, all these must be to God, not a series of acts or dis- 
 pensations, but one eternal, simultaneous energy. His perception 
 of the successive development of his dispensations, as apprehended 
 by his creatures, does not make them successive as regards 
 Himself. 
 
 But these contemplations of the Divine Eternity reach no 
 further than the negation of the limits and imperfections of all 
 created minds. We can form no conception of the HOW of that 
 
 florious existence which transcends the relations of Time and 
 pace. If the Cherubim themselves veil their eyes before the 
 HOLY ONE, bow much more must his glory be incomprehensible 
 to man ! Cronhelm on Predestination. 
 
 THE DIVINE PERFECTIONS. 
 
 The "metaphysical qualms" entertained in the present day at 
 our partial conceptions of the Divine Perfections are strangely 
 contrasted with the language of the inspired Writers. They 
 expatiate in wonder and praise on the little we can conceive in 
 awe and adoration on the much beyond our conception. 
 
 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament 
 showeth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and 
 night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor 
 language where their voice is not heard. In them hath he set a 
 tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of 
 his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His 
 going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto 
 the ends of it ; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." 
 
 And then the Psalmist turns from the wonders of Creation to 
 those of Revelation. " The law of the Lord is perfect, convert- 
 
The Creation of Matter. 5 
 
 ing the soul : the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the 
 simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart : 
 the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." 
 
 So, after a sublime effusion on the power and wisdom of the 
 great Creator, Job concludes : " Lo, these are parts of his ways ; 
 but -how little a portion is heard of him ? but the thunder of his 
 power who can understand ? " 
 
 So also St. Paul : "For we know in part, and we prophesy in 
 part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which 
 is in part shall be done away. . . . For now we see through a 
 glass, darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in part ; but 
 then shall I know even as also I am known." 
 
 Far from denying the truth of our partial conceptions in this 
 life, the Apostle points to their progressive development hereafter. 
 The metaphor borrowed from the semi-opaque glass of the an- 
 cients, and the indistinct vision which it afforded, is singularly 
 appropriate and instructive. Cronhelm on Predestination. 
 
 CHANGE-BEARING LAWS OE NATURE. 
 
 Mr. Owen* thus ingeniously advocates the probability of the 
 existence of what he terms "change-bearing laws of nature" In 
 a world whose characteristic is change, " and which, for aught we 
 know, may continue to endure for countless ages, laws of such a 
 character, self-adapted to a changeful state of things, may be 
 regarded as of likely occurrence. 
 
 " Modern science is revealing to us glimpses that may brighten 
 into positive proof of this hypothesis." Sir John Herschel, 
 writing to Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, and alluding to what 
 he calls " that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct 
 species by others," says: 
 
 For my own part, I cannot but think it an inadequate conception of 
 the Creator, to assume it as granted that His combinations are expanded 
 upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise : though, in this, 
 as all his other works, we are led by all analogy to suppose that He 
 operates through a series of intermediate causes, and that, in conse- 
 quence, the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our 
 cognizance, would be found to be a natural, in contradistinction to a 
 miraculous, process ; although we may perceive no indication of any 
 process, actually in progress, which is likely to issue in such a result. 
 Sir John Herschel' s Letter, Feb. 20, 1836 : Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, 
 
 THE CREATION OF MATTER. 
 
 The Atomic Theory of Democritus, as defined by Boscovich, 
 and since more fully developed by that eminent philosopher, the 
 late Dr. Samuel Brown, offers an hypothesis for the Creation of 
 * In his Footfalls on the Boundary of another World. 1860. 
 
6 Life and Time. 
 
 Matter, which, in a subject so far beyond the region of certainty, 
 possesses many features of probability; particularly in getting 
 rid of the vexed question of the substratum. 
 
 That the primary atoms are merely centres of force, i.e. mathe- 
 matical points encircled with powers of repulsion and attraction, 
 and that from the endless variety of combinations of repulsive 
 and attractive forces the whole material universe is constructed 
 is a theory alike simple, comprehensive, and sublime. To accom- 
 plish the dissolution of Nature, her Almighty Creator would only 
 have to cancel the repulsive and attractive forces that encircle 
 the Atomic centres; and instantaneously, without an audible 
 crash, without a visible wreck, the glorious fabric of the earth 
 and the heavens would disappear from existence ! * 
 
 "When, in past ages, it was supposed that matter was perishable, 
 it became a difficulty of belief that such material origin could 
 escape material extinction. The discoveries of chemistryf have, 
 however, gradually dissipated these fears. We are now satisfied 
 of the indestructibility of matter, and that although substances 
 may be decomposed and disappear, they do not cease to be, but 
 pass into other forms of existence. 
 
 Whatever incredulity remained resolved itself into a question- 
 ing of His ability to raise the Human Dead : but 
 
 Sure the same power 
 
 That reared the piece at first, and took it down, 
 Can re-assemble the loose scattered parts, 
 And put them as they were. 
 
 There is ONE, "in whom we live, and move, and have our 
 being," and who works, on our behalf, this standing miracle ; and 
 can we suppose Him incapable of resuscitating after death what- 
 ever he had once made actively and consciously existent ? " Is 
 anything too hard for God ?" 
 
 But matter, it may be said, if indestructible, by its changes, 
 loses its identity, and how can the substance remain the same in 
 the lapse of ages which may intervene between death and the 
 described resurrection ? But the Humanity which rises again will 
 be the same Humanity with that which ran on earth its mortal 
 career; but only as the man of fourscore years and upwards, 
 committed to the tomb, is the same with him who commenced 
 life as an infant. Though a corporeity still, it will then be a 
 
 * Cronhelm on Predestination. 
 
 f 1 As a first principle of all chemistry, it is to be kept in mind that 
 %o matter is either created or lost, whatever the changes or combinations 
 taking place. In clearly fixing this principle, which was imperfectly 
 apprehended before, Lavoisier rendered an invaluable service to science. 
 Plutarch ascribes to Empedocles a passage which is well descriptive of 
 this great principle of chemistry. Quarterly Review, vol. Ixxxiii. 
 
The Mosaic and Geologic Creation. 7 
 
 celestial corporeity. " St. Paul, it is plain/' says Cromwell, " re- 
 garded this change as the one passport of the Humanity that 
 had lived in' this world to unending life in the world to prove as 
 endless, when the Author of Life shall be pleased to consummate 
 His eternal plan." * 
 
 THE MOSAIC AND GEOLOGIC CREATION. 
 
 The freedom with which the Biblical account of the Creation 
 is discussed in these scientific times, presents a striking contrast 
 with the fate of those who, in a former age, ventured to discuss 
 such vital questions. One instance must suffice. About two 
 centuries since, one Isaac la Peyrere, a French Protestant, pub- 
 lished, in Latin, anonymously, a book entitled: "Man before 
 Adam, or a Discourse upon Romans v. 12 14, by which are 
 proved that the first Men were created before Adam, with a 
 Theological System upon that Presupposition." 8vo. London. 
 1656. The author was discovered, and thrown into prison on 
 account of his book : it caused considerable sensation, and several 
 answers to it were published. 
 
 The school-books of the present day, while they teach the child 
 that the earth moves, yet assure him that it is a little less than 
 six thousand years old, and that it was made in six days. On the 
 other hand, geologists of all creeds are agreed that the earth has 
 existed for an immense series of years to be counted by millions 
 rather than by thousands; and that indubitably more than six 
 days elapsed from its first creation to the appearance of man upon 
 its surface. By this broad discrepancy between old and new 
 doctrine is the modern mind startled, as were the men of the 
 sixteenth century when told that the earth moved.f 
 
 The great object of the writers of our time is to show that the 
 Biblical account of the Creation is strictly in accordance with the 
 teachings of modern science. The notion put forth by Dr. Kurtz, 
 Coleridge, Hugh Miller, and some others, is that the process of 
 Creation was revealed to Moses in a series of visions. About seven 
 years since, Dr. J. C.Eisher proved that Hugh Miller, in his lecture, 
 " The Two Records the Mosaic and the Geologic," so far from 
 using the classification by geologists of the rocks on the earth's 
 surface into " palaeozoic, secondary, and tertiary," to illustrate the 
 striking coincidence between the two records, in an unauthorized 
 manner, was perfectly justified in showing that this classification, 
 made without any reference to the Scriptures whatever, in a most 
 wonderful manner, agrees with them. By taking the most pro- 
 minent fact in each of these periods, Mr. Miller only followed the 
 course which Moses has taken with each of the other so-called 
 
 * The Soul and the Future Life the Philosophic Argument. 1859. 
 j* Professor Baden Powell. 
 
8 Life and Time. 
 
 days ; while he does not state that these are the only facts, but 
 the most prominent and characteristic. 
 
 Theologians and geologists have sought to reconcile Miller's 
 Testimony of the Rocks and our version of the first chapter of 
 Genesis, by two or perhaps three general schemes. The first one 
 supposes that between the first verse and the second there was 
 an undefined and enormous interval of time, in which the various 
 geological changes, such as we now find upon the earth, took 
 place; that the earth was then brought into the chaotic state 
 described in the second verse ; and then it was, in six days of 
 twenty-four hours each, prepared for the habitation of man, who 
 was at that time placed upon it. This was the plan of reconcilia- 
 tion of Dr. Chalmers, and with a single exception, that of Dr. John 
 Pye Smith, who thought that the chaos described in the second 
 verse, and the work of creation in the rest of the chapter, ex- 
 tended over but a small part of the earth's surface ; and that out- 
 side of that area, the rest of the earth continued to enjoy the light 
 of the sun, and plants and animals lived, and grew, and have 
 continued by an unbroken series of generations to our own times. 
 The progress of geological discovery has caused the scheme of 
 Dr. Chalmers to be laid aside, for it does not meet the wants of 
 the case; and that of Dr. Smith is opposed to the record of 
 Moses, in making no provision for the creation of the heavens. 
 
 The second method supposes, that the days were periods of 
 great and indefinite extent, each embracing vast ages, in which 
 the various geological changes occurred. With some few modi- 
 fications, this is now adopted by the great majority of modern 
 geologists. There is little, if any, doubt that so far at least as 
 the length of the days is concerned, this scheme is strictly in 
 consonance with the meaning of the Scriptures. Almost all geo- 
 logists and theologians, however, commit the mistake of confining 
 this description of the creation to the earth alone, although the 
 sacred narrative as plainly asserts that "in the beginning God 
 created the heavens and the earth," and at its close declares, 
 " thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host 
 of them." 
 
 Dr. Eisner's proofs extend through some half-dozen pages of 
 argument, in which the translation of certain words is a distinc- 
 tive feature. At the close, he proceeds to recapitulate the work 
 of the several days, and shows how they agree with the teachings 
 of the works of God. 
 
 In the beginning,* God created the substance of the heavens 
 
 * "The word beginning," says Dr. Buckland, adopting the mode 
 originally brought into vogue by Dr. Chalmers, "as applied by Moses in 
 the first verse of the book of Genesis, expresses an undefined period of 
 time, which was antecedent to the last great change that affected 
 the surface of the earth, and to the creation of its present animal and 
 vegetable inhabitants ; during which period a long series of operations 
 
The Mosaic and Geologic Creation. 9 
 
 and the earth, and this substance was without form and void, or 
 diffused throughout space, it was dark, and the Spirit of God caused 
 a motion to commence in it. God endued a part of it with 
 luminous properties, and a part He left dark ; He then caused 
 the light to separate from the dark matter, and named the light 
 matter day, or the warmth-producing matter ; and the dark He 
 called night, or the moving- around matter. This constituted the 
 first day. On the second day. He caused the matter of the heavens 
 and the earth, or of the universe, to separate and divide into dis- 
 tinct masses; and to the space which contained these masses, 
 together with the masses themselves, He gave the name of heaven. 
 This was the work of the second day. On the third day, He 
 caused the masses of matter to become consolidated, and gave to 
 the one which we inhabit the specific name of earth, and to its 
 collections of waters, seas. He then clothed the earth abun- 
 dantly with verdure of all kinds, and commenced its preparation 
 for the residence of man upon it ; this was the work of the third 
 day. On the fourth day, He arranged the motions of the hea- 
 venly bodies, both with reference to the earth and to each other. 
 On \hsfifth and sixth days, the preparation of the earth for the 
 residence of man was completed, and man was placed upon it. 
 We have thus a clear, definite, and intelligible narrative, which 
 agrees throughout with the teachings of the most perfect science. 
 We have not space now to review the various phenomena of 
 nature which bear us out in the assertion ; but those who have 
 studied the subject will understand the full force of the declara- 
 tion, that if one should seek to give a sketch in the fewest words 
 of the Celestial Mechanism of, Laplace, the Cosmos of Humboldt, 
 and the geology of the latest and best authorities, he would do it 
 in the very language of Moses. Here, then, we have presented 
 to us the wonderful spectacle of all the grandest conclusions of 
 science epitomized, arranged, and accounted for ages ago, at a 
 time when we are accustomed to look upon the world as in its 
 infancy ; and when all nations, except the one to which this won- 
 derful writer belonged, were plunged in the darkest and most 
 degrading idolatry. Where did Moses get this knowledge so 
 absolutely perfect ? Was it not from God ? and is not this chap- 
 ter, over which such a premature shout of triumph has been sent 
 up, the most convincing proof of the inspiration of the Scriptures ? 
 
 may have been going on, and which, as they are wholly unconnected 
 with the history of the human race, are passed over in silence by the 
 sacred historian." . . . " This beginning may have been an epoch at an 
 
 _ ._ years may have occupie _ 
 interval, between the beginning in which God created the heaven and 
 the earth, and the evening or commencement of the first day of the 
 Mosaic narrative." 
 
10 Life and Time. 
 
 In the Genesis of the ~Earth and of Man, second edition, 1860, 
 the Editor, Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole, in his ably written Preface, 
 thus treats this much disputed question. 
 
 The common opinion that man was first created six or seven thousand 
 years ago is considered by all who have in any degree mastered the sub- 
 ject to be no longer tenable. Two new theories have been offered in its 
 place. One clings to the one origin of our race, but assigns to it an 
 enormous antiquity. The other suggests the existence of a Pre-Adamite 
 race, and supposes the Biblical narrative to refer especially to a higher 
 and later stock. No third theory seems possible. 
 
 The two theories have one thing in common : they both assert the 
 great antiquity of man, the fact upon which the rejection of the current 
 opinion depends. I advisedly call it a fact, since it is proved in a con- 
 clusive manner, by evidence of a very various character, the most im- 
 portant point of which is the discovery of flint-implements in tracts of 
 drift, and in bone-caves ; in both cases with the bones of animals now 
 extinct. What we may consider certain is the immense antiquity of 
 man, and his having been in the remoter age of his existence in a state 
 of great barbarism. 
 
 Baron Bunsen, who may be considered the representative of a school, 
 takes, apparently on grounds of sentiment, the unity of origin of the 
 human race as the basis of his theory. He then examines the relation 
 of languages on the supposition of their original unity, and roughly 
 determines the length of man's dwelling on the earth by the time 
 required for the origination and growth of the many varieties of human 
 speech. He defines this period as about twenty thousand years B.C., 
 divided midway by the Flood ; and it is probable that those who belong 
 to his school would not greatly shorten this vast space of time. Yet 
 even this scheme is not sufficient without nullifying the Flood as de- 
 structive of the descendants of Adam ; for ten thousand years is not 
 enough, in his opinion, for the development of language. But it is a 
 serious question whether any space of time would meet the difficulties 
 of the case. 
 
 The author of the above work, taking up the subject with entire free- 
 dom from bias, first examines the Biblical data. In them he finds strong 
 evidence of the existence of a non-Adamite race both before and after 
 the Flood. The reader must see in the book itself how he reconciles 
 this inference with the statements in the Bible supposed to declare 
 the unity of our race in origin, upon which one point the whole 
 difficulty rests. Passing from the Bible to human knowledge, the 
 author examines ethnology, chronology, history, and philology, each 
 independently, in illustration of the controversy. From ethnology, he 
 finds that the varieties of our species may be reduced to two stocks, 
 but scarcely, except on the supposition of an unrecorded miracle, to 
 one. In history, he sees that every civilized race tells us of a bar- 
 barous race expelled or subdued by its ancestors. In Pagan religions, 
 when all traces of primeval revelation have been set aside, he perceives, 
 in the case of nearly every one, two distinct elements ; one intellectually 
 very low, the other always much higher ; the worship of stones and 
 trees, combined with the adoration of the great luminaries, or of 
 intelligences. Philology, in like manner, leads him to the conclusion 
 that many languages exhibit traces more or less clear of two sources 
 of human speech widely distinct in character. In the case of the ancient 
 Egyptians, which is of great importance from our having specimens of 
 it four thousand years old, he discovers an example of the first contact 
 
Origin of Life Darwin s Theory. 11 
 
 of these two elements, which, mixed but not fused, like oil and water, 
 compose this very ancient form of speech. This duality has never yet 
 been explained in connexion with the theory of the unity of our race. 
 
 There is yet another view. The late M. D'Orbigny has demon- 
 strated, in his Podrome de Paloeontologie, after an elaborate exami- 
 nation of a vast number of fossils, that there have been at least 
 twenty-nine distinct periods of animal and vegetable existence that 
 is, twenty-nine creations separated one from another by catastrophes 
 which have swept away the species existing at the time, with very 
 few solitary exceptions, never exceeding one and a-half per cent, of the 
 whole number discovered, which have either survived the catastrophe, 
 or have been erroneously designated. But not a single species of the 
 preceding period survived the last of these catastrophes, and this closed 
 the Tertiary period and ushered in the Human period. The evidence 
 adduced by M. D'Orbigny shows that both plants and animals appeared 
 in every one of those twenty-nine periods. The notion, therefore, that 
 the "days" of Genesis represent periods of creation from the beginning 
 of things is at once refuted. The parallel is destroyed, both in the 
 number of the periods (thirty, including the Azoic, instead of six), and 
 also in the character of the things created. No argument could be 
 more complete ; and yet the writer of the Prce- Adamite Earth, in 
 Dr. Lardner's Museum of Science, sums up the above lucid sketch of 
 M. D'Orbigny's researches, by referring the account in the first chapter 
 of Genesis to the whole Creation from the .beginning of all things, a 
 selection of epochs being made, as he imagines, for the six days or 
 periods. Archdeacon Pratt' s Science and Scripture not at Variance. 
 
 ORIGIN OE LIFE DARWIN'S THEORY. 
 
 For nearly a quarter of a century, Mr. Charles Darwin, favour- 
 ably known to the public by more than one published work of 
 natural history and science, has been engaged upon a most im- 
 portant inquiry, " On the Origin of Species by means of Natural 
 Selection, or the Preservation of Eavoured Races in the Struggle 
 for Life." A portion or summary of this work has appeared; 
 and the author's conclusions, if established by the completing 
 section, will cause an entire revolution in the fundamental doc- 
 trines of natural history, and trench upon the territory of esta- 
 blished religious belief. With regard to the origin of the human 
 race, he attempts to prove that the moral and spiritual faculties 
 of man have been gradually developed by the working of matter 
 upon matter ; but, says an acute critic, " no conceivable amount 
 of evidence derived from the growth of the structure of animals 
 and plants would have the slightest bearing upon our convictions 
 in regard to the origin of conscience, or man's belief in a Supreme 
 Being and the immortality of his own soul." 
 
 Mr. Darwin's theory may be stated in a few words. All organic 
 beings are liable to Vary in some degree, and tend to transmit 
 such variations to their offspring. All at the same time tend to 
 increase at a very rapid rate, and their increase is kept in check 
 by the excessive competition of other individuals of the same 
 
12 Life and Time. 
 
 "- 
 
 species ; or by physical conditions injurious to each organism ; or 
 to its power of bearing healthy offspring. Whatever variation 
 occurring among the individuals of the same species of animals 
 or plants is in any way advantageous in the struggle for existence 
 will give to these individuals an advantage over their fellows, 
 which will be inherited by their offspring until the modified variety 
 supplants the parent species. This process, which is termed 
 natural selection, is incessantly at work, and all organized beings 
 are undergoing its operation. By the steady accumulation, during 
 long ages of time, of slight differences, each in some way bene- 
 ficial to the individual, arise the various modifications of structure 
 by which the countless forms of animal and vegetable life are dis- 
 tinguished from each other. All existing animals have descended 
 from at most four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal 
 or lesser number. Analogy, (which Mr. Darwin admits to be a 
 deceitful judge,) would even lead him to infer that "all the 
 organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have de- 
 scended from some one primordial form, into which life was at 
 first breathed." * 
 
 Archbishop Whately has reduced this " transmutation theory " 
 as he terms it, to a skeleton, as follows : 
 
 1st. Species are not permanent; varieties are the beginning of new 
 species. 
 
 2nd. Nature began from the simplest forms probably from one form 
 the primaeval monad, the parent of all organic life. 
 
 3rd. There has been a continual ascent on the organic scale, till 
 organic nature became what it is, by one continued and unbroken 
 stream of onward movement. 
 
 4th. The organic ascent is secured by a Malthusian principle through 
 nature, by a battle of life, in which the best in organisation (the best 
 varieties of plants and animals) encroach upon and drive off the less 
 perfect. This is called the theory of Natural Selection. . . . 
 
 5th. We do not mark any great organic changes now, because they 
 are so slow that even a few thousand years may produce no changes that 
 have fixed the notice of naturalists. 
 
 6th. But time is the agent, and we can mark the effects of time by 
 the organic changes on the great geological scale. And on ever} 7 " part 
 of that scale, where the organic changes are great in two contiguous 
 deposits of the scale, there must have been a corresponding lapse of time 
 between the periods of their deposition perhaps millions of years. 
 
 The foregoing heads give the substance of Darwin's theory ; and the 
 great broad facts of geology are directly opposed to it. 
 
 Dr. Whately objects that this new theory is not 
 not based on a series of acknowledged facts pointing to a general 
 conclusion^ not a proposition evolved Out of the facts, logically, 
 and of course including them. The theory is as a vast pyramid 
 resting on its apex, and that apex a mathematical point. The only 
 facts Darwin pretends to adduce, as true elements of proof, are 
 
 t * Abridged from the Saturday Review. 
 
Unity of the Human Race. 13 
 
 the varieties produced by domestication, or the human artifice of 
 cross-breeding, which in the old world could have had no exist- 
 ence ; whilst the varieties of domestication and human design are 
 insufficient to undermine the continuity of true species. Species 
 have been constant for thousands of years, and time would never 
 change them, as long as the conditions remained constant. 
 
 In endeavouring to fit his principles to the facts of geology, 
 Mr. Darwin urges, first, the extremely imperfect character of the 
 geological record, in the organic remains found in each successive 
 formation ; secondly, the enormous lapse of time that must be 
 allowed for each formation, and for the intervals between them. 
 In this part of his case he fails: he enormously overrates the 
 amount of time which can be legitimately demanded to account 
 for the geological phenomena ; and to obtain the space which he 
 requires to account for the existence of an enormous mass of 
 formations, he points to a period as far removed from the com- 
 mencement of organic life in the earliest known palaeozoic rocks 
 as these are from our era. His witnesses, he admits, are drowned ; 
 they are the successive forms of primitive fauna and flora, which 
 have been silently entombed throughout millions of ages ; through 
 which, however, no volcano, or other elevatory force, has ever 
 brought a single fragment of these buried continents to the light 
 of day ! 
 
 Dr. Whately acutely observes, in conclusion : 
 
 The pretended physical philosophy of modern days strips Man of all 
 his moral attributes, or holds them of no account in the estimate of his 
 origin and place in the created world. A cold atheistical materialism 
 is the tendency of the so-called material philosophy of the present day. 
 Not that I believe that Darwin is an atheist ; though I cannot but 
 regard his materialism as atheistical ; because it ignores all rational 
 conception of a final cause. I think it untrue, because opposed to the 
 obvious course of Nature, and the very opposite of inductive truth. I 
 therefore think it intensely mischievous. 
 
 Any startling and (supposed) novel paradox maintained very boldly 
 and with an imposing plausibility, derived from a great array of facts 
 all interpreted hypothetically produces, in some minds, a kind of 
 pleasing excitement, which predisposes them in its favour ; and if they 
 are unused to careful reflection, and averse to the labour of accurate 
 investigation, they will be likely to conclude that what is (apparently) 
 original must be a production of original genius, and that anything very 
 much opposed to prevailing notions must be a grand discovery, in 
 short, that whatever comes from "the bottom of a well" must be the 
 "truth" which has been long hidden there. 
 
 UNITY OF THE HUMAN HACK 
 
 Blumenbach is the father of Ethnology. Before his labours 
 this science had no existence. In various verse men murmured 
 
 The noblest study of mankind is man 
 but they had not yet hit upon the proper method of studying him. 
 
14 Life and Time. 
 
 The history of the human race was far less accurately known than 
 the history of dogs and horses. It was perplexed with errors of 
 three kinds physical, social, and moral. Blumenbach appeared, 
 banished the physical errors, or at any rate destroyed our confi- 
 dence in them ; and by that one service he destroyed our confi- 
 dence in all the others. The question of races was opened. 
 Ethnology grew to be a science. 
 
 Blumenbach died on the 18th of January, 1840, having lived 
 nearly a century, and having left his name for ever marked in the 
 history of science as that of the man who first proved the unity 
 of the human race. Pliny seriously speaks of men with but one 
 leg, with eyes on their shoulders, and 
 
 Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, Rondelet, the excellent naturalist, 
 gravely described marine men, living in the sea, with beards of 
 seaweed and coverings of scales. In the eighteenth century, 
 Maupertuis is eloquent on Patagonian giants, whose conceptions 
 are as vast as their bodies. Even Linna3us classed the orang- 
 outang in the same family as man. It was reserved for Blumen- 
 bach to prove the physical unity of the whole human race, and to 
 demarcate the human from all other races. 
 
 The human race, as is well known, consists of a considerable 
 number of varieties, differing from one another in personal appear- 
 ance, character, language ; in their average degree of moral and 
 intellectual powers, and in their geographical distribution. Those 
 whose observations have been mainly confined to the extremes of 
 form and colour, and who have not reflected on the wonderful 
 changes to which all organized beings are subject by various 
 external physical causes, have viewed the differences observed 
 among the members of the human family, not as characteristics 
 of so many varieties of a single species, but as marks distinguish- 
 ing different species of the same genus. We have, however, the 
 authority of the greatest observer of nature, as developed in the 
 animal kingdom, m opposition to this doctrine. 
 
 " The permanence of certain types, in the midst of most oppo- 
 site influences," says Humboldt, " especially of climate, appeared 
 to favour this view, notwithstanding the shortness of the time to 
 which the historical evidence applied ; but in my opinion more 
 powerful reasons lend their weight to the other side of the ques- 
 tion, and corroborate the unity of the human race." Humboldt 
 refers to the many intermediate gradations of the tint of the skin 
 and the form of the skull; and adds, "the greater part of the 
 supposed contrasts, to which so much weight was formerly as- 
 signed, have disappeared before the laborious investigations of 
 Tiedmann on the brain of negroes and Europeans, and of the 
 
The Embryo under the Microscope. 15 
 
 anatomical researches of Vrolik and Weber, on the form of the 
 pelvis. 33 " If we compare the dark-coloured African nations with 
 the natives of the Australasian Islands, and with the Papuas and 
 Alfarous, we see that a black tint of skin, woolly hair, and negro 
 features, are by no means invariably associated. So long as the 
 western nations were acquainted with only a small part of the 
 earth's surface, partial views almost necessarily prevailed. Tropical 
 heat, and a black colour of the skin, appeared inseparable. The 
 campaigns of Alexander, in which so many subjects connected 
 with physical geography were originally brought into notice, 
 occasioned the first discussion on the problematical influence of 
 climate on nations and races. 33 (Cosmos.) 
 
 Thus, it appears that according to the principles admitted by 
 the most eminent physiologists and naturalists, whether assenting 
 or not to the doctrines of Christianity, there is nothing in the 
 natural differences observable between different parts of the 
 human race distributed over the globe, which is incompatible 
 with the part of the origin of mankind, consigned to the Hebrew 
 Scriptures, which traces the whole human race to a single pair, and 
 constitutes them therefore as members of a common family. 
 
 THE EMBRYO UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 
 
 How thrilling is the revelation of an embryo moving inside the 
 egg, when placed under a microscope. There lie hundreds of eggs, 
 which, to the naked eye, present the aspect of a single body, about 
 the size of a pin 3 s head. Every one of these eggs contains an em- 
 bryo in process of development. In one we see nothing but a mass 
 of granules. In another, something is moving. At first it moves 
 with pendulum motion, afterwards it moves round and round in 
 the egg by means of long hairs which are vibrating with great 
 activity we are watching the beginnings of Life ! Or take up 
 this globule of jelly under the Microscope you see a long worm- 
 like body coiled round the globule, the head being very large in 
 proportion. It is a young vertebrate animal, still in the egg ; and 
 as you watch, you observe a rustling current in one direction, and 
 a pulsating current in another. This is the circulation of the 
 blood ; and if you are fortunate, you will see the heart, or pulsa- 
 ting sac, in incessant action. Can a planet be a finer sight than 
 this ? (Saturday Review, No. 40.) 
 
 Nevertheless, we must remember that, in the words of Sir 
 Benjamin Brodie, "neither our unassisted vision, nor the micro- 
 scope, nor chemical analysis, nor any analogy, nor any other 
 means at our disposal, enable us to form any kind of notion as to 
 the actual changes in the brain or spinal chord on which any other 
 nervous phenomena depend. 3 ' 
 
1 6 Life and Time. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT THEOIIY CHEMISTRY CANNOT CREATE 
 
 The amateurs of this theory maintain that in the course of an 
 infinite series of years, the vast variety presented in the organic 
 creation, was gradually developed from the lowest form of organiza- 
 tion, a simple cell. Plants and animals formed an unbroken chain, 
 and transitions from the one to the other could not be disputed. 
 
 But, whence is the origin of the first organic cell ? This one 
 cell, they tell us, was called into existence by the fiat of the 
 Creator, and all others were developed from it. This school of 
 physiologists thus presume that it was more conformable to the 
 purposes of the Creator to bestow vitality on this one cell than 
 on many ; and having created it, to leave to time and chance the 
 full unfolding and development of organic nature from this one 
 cell. Exact scientific investigation, however, ignores the exist- 
 ence of a connected chain of organic life. What then becomes 
 of the first created cell ? 
 
 Superficial inquirers reply, that organic nature is formed of 
 carbon, water, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur; that in the con- 
 stant interchange taking place among these elements, it may 
 possibly so have happened that by their own inherent power, they 
 united and formed the cell, and so the organic structure. The 
 chemist can in his laboratory prepare a number of substances, 
 formerly obtained only from living plants and animals. He can 
 make sugar from wood, he can prepare urea and the taurine of 
 bile : why then may carbon, water, and other elements not unite 
 of their own accord, and produce a germ ? 
 
 But what these superficial observers designate organic sub- 
 stances are only chemical compounds containing organic elements. 
 The taurine extracted from bile cannot be distinguished from that 
 made in the laboratory : they are both formed by a chemical not 
 by an organic force. It is self-evident, that chemical forces are 
 in operation in the living body. Chemistry now proves what she 
 asserted thirty years ago without the ability to offer proof. 
 Under the influence of a cause which is not chemical, we see 
 
 * "The Development Theory" of Lamarck, it will be remembered, 
 formed the basis of the theory of the author of the Vestiges of Creation, 
 the publication of which produced great effect, a few years since. Two 
 arbitrary hypotheses were added : that " the creation of life, wherever 
 it takes place, is a chemico-electric operation, by which simple germinal 
 vesicles are produced;" and that all animated beings, " from the 
 simplest and oldest up to the highest and most recent, are the results, 
 first, of an inherent impulse in the forms of life to advance, in definite 
 times, through grades of organization terminating in the highest 
 dicotyledons and mammalia : secondly, of external physical circum- 
 stances, operating reactively upon the central impulse to produce the 
 requisite peculiarities of exterior organization." 
 
Man and his Dwelling-Place. 17 
 
 chemical forces acting in the living organism. As the intelligent 
 will of the chemist forces the elements external to the body to 
 combine into the products urea, taurine, &c., so within the body 
 those same elements unite to form those same products, not by 
 any inherent power of their own, but by the controlling action of 
 this vital cause. It will be within the chemist's power to form 
 quinine, caffeine, the colouring matter of plants, and all other 
 compounds which possess chemical but not vital properties, the 
 smallest particles of which, in arranging themselves into a crystal- 
 line form, are not under the influence of an organic force ; but 
 he will never succeed in constructing in the laboratory a cell, a 
 muscular fibre, a nerve, or in short any one single portion of the 
 organic frame possessed of vital properties. Whoever has seen 
 carbonate of ammonia, carbonate and phosphate of lime, an iron- 
 ore, an alkaline mineral, will at once pronounce, that it is impos- 
 sible by means of heat, electricity, or any other natural force, to 
 form from these substances an organic germ, capable of further 
 development and propagation. 
 
 Inorganic bodies produce only inorganic substances ; but organic 
 bodies, with their peculiar forms so different from crystals, and 
 endowed with vital properties, owe their origin to" a higher 
 force acting in the living body, and which presses into its service 
 the inorganic forces. 
 
 A hundred years ago, it was believed that fishes and frogs were 
 spontaneously produced in bogs, and that plants and all kinds of 
 insects were formed in fermenting and putrifying mixtures, and in 
 moist saw-dust. Had this been true, then doubtless might a man 
 under similar circumstances have been also spontaneously pro- 
 duced ; inquiry, however, proved that all these opinions regarded 
 as facts were based upon false and frivolous observations. In 
 every^ well-investigated case, germs and seeds of plants, and eggs 
 of animals, were discovered, which were developed in mould ; but 
 an egg, a seed, has its origin in a living organism. 
 
 Many philosophers have asserted, that life, like matter, has 
 existed from all eternity. Exact inquiry has, however, proved, 
 that at a certain period, the earth possessed a temperature which 
 was incompatible with organic life ; for congelation of the blood 
 takes place at 172 Eahr. Organic life must, therefore, have had 
 a beginning. Liebig*s Familiar Letters. 
 
 MAN AND HIS DWELLING-PLACE. 
 
 In 1859, there appeared a remarkable book with this title, with 
 certain new views, or views which, if old, have a new face. The 
 author understands by "Man" the human race, and by his 
 "Dwelling-place" what we usually call the material universe. 
 He claims to have hit upon a hypothesis relating to the world 
 
 
 
18 Life and Time. 
 
 in which we live which will supply the key to its various perplexi- 
 ties. His fundamental proposition is, that man is in a defective 
 condition, so that he does not feel things as they are, but other- 
 wise than they are. Hence he argues that that enormous number 
 of phenomena, the aggregate of which makes up what we call the 
 external world including, we suppose, our own bodies are 
 merely such a manifestation of certain -unspeakable spiritual or 
 living entities as our defective condition enables us to perceive. 
 What those entities may be he does not pretend to say ; but he 
 thinks it possible that, if we once realize the fact that the inert- 
 ness, or as he prefers to describe it, the deadness which we are 
 accustomed to ascribe to all natural objects is in ourselves, and 
 not in them that we are looking at living beings through dead 
 spectacles we may ultimately be able, by the ordinary processes 
 of reasoning, to arrive at some sort of conception of them not 
 altogether inadequate. The unreality of the world of phenomena 
 is of course a very old doctrine ; nor can it surprise any one who 
 is familiar with Plato, with Berkeley, with Mr. Mill, or even with 
 Comte. Probably no one who has any claims to accuracy of 
 thought believes in matter at the present day in the sense in 
 which its existence was denied by Berkeley.* 
 
 The peculiarity of the view maintained in the work before us 
 lies in its theory about man. The author repeats over and over 
 again that man is dead that it is our deadness which colours all 
 our view of nature, and makes us think that nature is dead and 
 physical, instead of being, as he says it is, living and spiritual. 
 We are like people on a railway, who see the landscape flying 
 past them like our ancestors when they refused to believe that 
 the earth moved, and that the sun stood still like any one who 
 transfers conditions affecting himself to what is outside of him. 
 Man being dead, and that which we call the world being the 
 shadow of some ineffably glorious spiritual being, which our in- 
 capacity only allows us to see and feel in that dead shape in 
 which it appears to us, Christianity is a wakening of man to his 
 proper life. The isolated event usually called death is falsely so 
 called. It is comparatively unimportant, and has little or no 
 moral significance. If we could only see it, we are in heaven now, 
 and need no other change than the change from death to life to 
 realise the fact. 
 
 Such, in a very compressed shape indeed, is the doctrine of this 
 curious book. We may say shortly, that the author considers 
 that it embraces the various truths partially perceived by the 
 
 * It has been stated that " a person possessed with a hallucination 
 realises up to a certain point the supposition of the Berkeleians, who 
 pretend to decide that it is not positively necessary that the existence of 
 the universe should be real, in order that we should perceive it as it 
 appears to our senses." Octave Delepierre. 
 
Plurality of Worlds. 1 9 
 
 idealist who denied that phenomena were realities by the disci- 
 ple of Reid, who maintained that the world was not an assem- 
 blage of ideas by the Positivist, who denied that we have any 
 knowledge of Being properly so called and by the Mystic, who 
 maintained that if consciousness conld prove the existence of a 
 dead material substratum to natural objects, it could prove any- 
 thing and everything, in the assertions that phenomena, being 
 unreal in themselves, imply the existence of an external and sub- 
 stantial, but immaterial and spiritual world, of which we have no 
 knowledge, though we may hereafter attain to it and that our 
 consciousness which falsely asserted the existence of a natural 
 substratum, is the very first element which we must correct in all 
 our speculations on these subjects. Abridged from tlie Saturday 
 Review, Feb. 5, 1859. 
 
 PLURALITY OF WORLDS. 
 
 The doctrine that there are more worlds than one has been 
 maintained by nearly all the distinguished astronomers and writers 
 who have nourished since the true figure of the earth was deter- 
 mined. Giordano Bruna of Nola, Kepler, and Tycho Brahe, 
 believed in it ; and Cardinal Cusa and Bruno, before the discovery 
 of binary systems among the stars, believed also that the stars 
 were inhabited. Sir Isaac Newton likewise adopted the belief ; 
 and Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, ably 
 maintained the same doctrine. In our day, we number among 
 its supporters the distinguished names of La Place, Sir William 
 and Sir John Herschel, Dr. Chalmers, Isaac Taylor, and M. Arago. 
 It has been opposed by Dr. Whewell on theological as well as 
 scientific grounds; he does not pretend to disprove the plu- 
 rality of worlds; but he denies that any argument makes the 
 doctrine probable, adding that " it is too remote from knowledge to 
 be either proved or disproved." 
 
 The great advocate of the doctrine which has been revived of 
 late years, is Sir David Brewster, who has replied to Dr. Whewell, 
 emphatically maintaining that analogy strongly countenances the 
 idea of all the solar planets, if not all worlds in the universe, 
 being peopled with creatures not dissimilar in being and nature 
 to the inhabitants of the earth. This view is supported in Scien- 
 tific Certainties of Planetary Life, by T. C. Simon, who well 
 treats one point of the argument that mere distance of the 
 planets from the central sun does not determine the condition as 
 to light and heat, but that the density of the ethereal medium 
 enters largely into the calculation. Mr. Simon's general conclu- 
 sion is, that " neither on account of deficient or excessive heat, 
 nor with regard to the density of the materials, nor with regard 
 to the force of gravity on the surface, is there the slightest pre- 
 c 2 
 
20 Life and Time. 
 
 text for supposing that all the planets of our system are not in- 
 habited by intellectual creatures with animal bodies like ourselves, 
 moral beings, who know and love their great Maker, and who 
 wait, like the rest of His creation, upon His providence and upon 
 His care. 33 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton, in a conversation with Conduitt, said he 
 took " all the planets to be composed of the same matter with the 
 earth, viz. earth, water, and stone, but variously concocted. 33 
 
 IDENTITY OF THE VITAL PRINCIPLE OF ANIMALS AND 
 VEGETABLES. 
 
 Sir J. E. Smith, the distinguished botanist, advocates this 
 hypothesis upon heat, both in animals and plants, seeming to have 
 the closest possible connexion with the vital principle, "as 
 evident in every organized body, from our own elaborate frame 
 to the humblest moss or fungus. Those different fluids, so 
 fine and transparent, separated from each other by membranes 
 as fine, which compose the eye, all retain their proper situa- 
 tions (though each fluid individually is perpetually removed 
 and renewed) for sixty, eighty, or a hundred years, or more, 
 while life remains. So do the infinitely small vessels of an 
 almost invisible insect, the fine and pellucid tubes of a plant, 
 all hold their destined fluids, conveying or changing them 
 according to fixed laws, but never permitting them to run into 
 confusion, so long as the vital principle animates their various 
 forms. But no sooner does death happen, than, without any 
 alteration of structure, any apparent change in their material 
 configuration, all is reversed. The eye loses its form and bright- 
 ness, its membranes let go their contents, which mix in confusion, 
 and thenceforth yield to the laws of chemistry alone. Just so it 
 happens, sooner or later, to the other parts of the animal as well 
 as vegetable frame. Chemical changes, putrefaction and destruc- 
 tion, immediately follow the total privation of life, the importance 
 of which becomes instantly evident when it is no more. 1 humbly 
 conceive, therefore, that if the human understanding can, in any 
 case, flatter itself with obtaining, in the natural world, a glimpse 
 of the immediate agency of the Deity, it is in the contemplation 
 of this vital principle, which seems independent of material or- 
 ganization, and an impulse of its own divine energy. Nor am I 
 ashamed to confess, that I can no more explain the physiology of 
 vegetables, than of animals, without this hypothesis, as I allow it 
 to DC, of a living principle in both. 33 
 
 CHAIN OF BEING. 
 
 The doctrine of one gradual scale, one unbroken chain in 
 Nature, extending from Infinite being to Nonentity, was held by 
 
Chain of Being. 21 
 
 all Antiquity. The Ancients regarded the World as a Cosmos or 
 Orderly System in which there was no vacuum, but all the parts 
 of which were linked closely together, and each link subordinate, 
 fixed, and necessary. To this doctrine in great measure we owe 
 the belief in Elemental Spirits, Genii, Nymphs, Sylphs, and 
 Fairies. 
 
 The admirable pietist, John Arndt says : 
 
 God so disposes and orders things that the inferior creatures receive 
 of the superior, and all Nature hangs together as it were in One Chain. 
 And this connexion of Nature and Providence is finely described by the 
 prophet Hosea, ii. 21, 22. "It shall come to pass in that day, saith 
 the Lord, I will hear the Heavens, and they shall hear the Earth ; and 
 the Earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil ; and they 
 shall hear Jezreel." In this place the Prophet presents us with the 
 entire Order of Nature, beginning at the First Cause, which is God, 
 & c. True Christianity. 
 
 It was the opinion of Wesley, (says Southey,) that there is a 
 Chain of Being advancing by degrees from the lowest to the highest 
 point from an atom of organized matter to the highest of the 
 Archangels : an opinion consonant to the philosophy of the Bards, 
 and confirmed by Science as far as our physiological knowledge 
 extends. 
 
 As to this Chain of Nature, Professor Sedgwick observes : 
 
 " Independently of any evidence we derive from palaeontology, 
 a conception of this kin(J is so grateful to the imagination, and is 
 so obviously suggested by the clear gradations of living Nature, 
 that our Ideal Organic Scale has been for ages past a subject of 
 speculation. I profess not to trace its history ; but Dr. Johnson 
 tells us that it took its rise among the Oriental metaphysicians 
 and physiologists. In the former half of last century it was a 
 favourite theme with our moralists and poets. It was adorned 
 by the beautiful prose of Addison, and the glittering poetry of 
 Pope ; and it was tortured into the service of infidelity by Boling- 
 broke. Lastly, it was taken up by Soame Jenyns, in his acute 
 and elegant, but very unsatisfactory, Inquiry into the Nature and 
 Origin of Evil. 
 
 " In the hypothetical scheme of the Authors just alluded to, 
 * The Universe is a system whose very essence consists in subor- 
 dination a Scale of Beings descending by insensible degrees 
 from infinite perfection to absolute nothing ; in which, though we 
 may justly expect to find perfection in the Whole, could we pos- 
 sibly comprehend it; yet would it be the highest absurdity to 
 hope for it in all its parts, because the beauty and happiness of 
 the whole depend altogether on the just inferiority of its parts, 
 
 &c 'It is, moreover, highly probable (we are told) that there 
 
 is such a connexion between all ranks and orders by subordinate 
 degrees, that they mutually support eact other's existence ; and 
 
22 Life and Time. 
 
 every one in its place is absolutely necessary towards sustaining 
 the whole magnificent fabric." 
 
 THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE. 
 
 Did it ever occur to the reader to inquire into the origin of 
 that distribution of Nature into three Kingdoms, Mineral, Vege- 
 table, and Animal ? Naturalists have been scrupulous in record- 
 ing the date of the establishment of each class in the animal and 
 vegetable world ; and beside the names of the species they have 
 frequently recorded the names of the discoverers of these species. 
 But scruples stopped there. The men who tell you the history 
 of every genus, nay, of every species, of insects, polypes, and 
 mosses, do not, because they cannot, tell you to whom the great 
 primary groupings those familiar " Kingdoms " are due. Who 
 first divided nature into three Kingdoms ? Who first gave the 
 name of Kingdom ? Linnseus is silent Cuvier has no word of 
 explanation for his Uegne Animal. Daubenton, indeed, did once 
 intimate that our knowledge on this point was a blank ; and a 
 blank he left it. We are so familiarized with the division into 
 Mineral, Plant, and Animal, that it is with difficulty we can con- 
 ceive the division not to have always been accepted. But open 
 Aristotle, who represents the whole science of antiquity, and you 
 find him making the division to be that of animate and inanimate 
 a division accepted by all his followers and, let us add, a divi- 
 sion which, in spite 01 M. St. Hilaire, seems to us by far the 
 most philosophical, seeing that the phenomena of organic sub- 
 stances are so intimately allied, and so broadly demarcated from 
 those of inorganic substances, as to demand being grouped toge- 
 ther in one division. 
 
 Where, then, is this division into three kingdoms to be found ? 
 To the surprise of M. St. Hilaire, and doubtless to that of all his 
 readers, it is found in the writings of the alchemists. In the 
 hermetical philosophy there is a strange combination of Pytha- 
 gorean and Christian doctrines, and hence the employment of 
 septenary and ternary divisions the septenary, because of the 
 seven days spoken of in Genesis, whence the seven planets, seven 
 meteors, seven metals, seven precious stones, seven vital parts of 
 man, seven notes of music, and so on the ternary, because every- 
 where in creation the image of the Creator, the Three in One, the 
 tri-unitas is impressed. Hence the three kingdoms. 
 
 But whence the name kingdom ? The alchemists seem to have 
 been royalists quand meme. They always spoke of the sun as the 
 king of the stars ; of gold as the king of metals ; of man as the 
 king of animals. How these names became repeated until fami- 
 liarity forced them into scientific use, and how they gradually 
 became adopted in systematic treatises, must be read in M. St. 
 
Adaptation of Colour to Wants of Animal. 23 
 
 Hilaire's curious chapter, where also will be found an account of 
 the various divisions since proposed by eminent authors Dau- 
 benton, Oken, Cams, and De Candolle advocating four, Bory de 
 Saint Vincent y#, and Bischoff seven. Abridged from the Saturday 
 Review, April 25, 1857. 
 
 NUMBERS IN NATURE. 
 
 Physical science shows that numbers have a significancy in 
 every department of nature. Two appears as the typical number 
 in the lowest class of plants, and regulates that pairing or mar- 
 riage of plants and animals which is one of the fundamental laws 
 of the organic kingdoms. Three is the characteristic number of 
 that class of plants which has parallel veined leaves, and is the 
 number of joints in the typical digit. Four is the significant 
 number of those beautiful crystals which show that minerals (as 
 well as stars) have their geometry. Five is the model number of 
 the highest class of plants, those with reticulated veins and 
 branches, is the typical number of the fingers and toes of verte- 
 brated animals, and is of frequent occurrence among star-fishes. 
 Six is the proportional number of carbon in chemistry, and 3x2 
 is a common number in the floral organs of monocotyledonous 
 plants, such as lilies. Seven appears as significant only in a single 
 order of plants, (Heptandria,) but has an importance in the animal 
 kingdom, where it is the number of vertebrae in the neck of mam- 
 malia; and according to Mr. Edwards, the typical number of 
 rings in the head, in the thorax, and the abdomen of Crustacea. 
 Eight is the definite number in chemical composition for oxygen, 
 the most universal element in nature, and is very common in the 
 organs of sea-jellies. Nine seems to be rare in the organic king- 
 dom. Ten, or 5x2, is found in star-fishes, and is the number of 
 digits on the fore and hind limbs of animals. 
 
 Without going over any more individual numbers, we find 
 multiple numbers acting an important part in chemical composi- 
 tions, and in the organs of flowers; for the elements unite in 
 multiple relations, and the stamens are often the multiples of the 
 petals. In the arrangement of the appendages of the plant we 
 have a strange series, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, which was supposed 
 to possess virtues of an old date, and before it was discovered in 
 the plant. 
 
 ADAPTATION OF COLOUR TO THE WANTS OF THE ANIMAL. 
 
 Upon this interesting inquiry, Mr. Broderip adduces the follow- 
 ing evidences : 
 
 Throughout the animal creation, the adaptation of the colour of the 
 creature to its haunts is worthy of admiration, as tending to its pre- 
 
24 Life and Time. 
 
 servation. The colours of insects, of a multitude of the smaller animals, 
 contribute to their concealment. Caterpillars which feed on leaves, 
 are generally either green, or have a large proportion of that hue in the 
 colour of their coats. As long as they remain still, how difficult it is to 
 distinguish a grasshopper or young locust from the herbage or leaf on 
 which it rests. The butterflies that flit about among flowers are coloured 
 like them. The small birds which frequent hedges have backs of a 
 brownish or brownish-green hue, and their bellies are generally whitish, 
 or light-coloured, so as to harmonize with the sky. Thus, they become 
 less visible to the hawk or cat that passes above or below them. The 
 wayfarer across the fields almost treads upon the skylark before he sees 
 it warbling to heaven's gate. The goldfinch or thistle-finch passes much 
 of its time among flowers, and is vividly coloured accordingly. The 
 partridge can hardly be distinguished from the fallow or stubble upon 
 or among which it crouches ; and it is considered an accomplishment 
 among sportsmen to have a good eye for finding a hare sitting. In 
 northern countries, the winter dress of the hares and ptarmigans is 
 white, to prevent detection among the snows of those inclement 
 regions. 
 
 If we turn to the waters, the same design is evident. Frogs even 
 vary their colour according to that of the mud or sand that forms the 
 bottoms of the ponds or streams which they frequent ; nay, the tree- 
 frog (Hyla mridis) takes its specific name from the colour, which 
 renders it so difficult to see among the leaves, where it adheres by the 
 cupping-glass-like processes at the end of its toes. It is the same with 
 fish, especially those which inhabit the fresh waters. Their backs, with 
 the exception of gold and silver fish, and a few others, are comparatively 
 dark ; and some practice is required before they are satisfactorily made 
 out. It is difficult to detect ' the ravenous hue," as old Izaak calls the 
 pike, with its dark green and mottled back and sides, from the similarly 
 tinted weeds among which that fresh-water shark lies at the watch, as 
 motionless as they. Even when a tearing old trout, a six or seven 
 pounder, sails in his wantonness, leisurely up the stream, with his back- 
 fin partly above the surface, on the look-out for a fly, few, except a 
 well-entered fisherman, can tell what shadowy form it is that ripples the 
 whimpling water. 
 
 Nor is this design less manifest in the colour and appearance of some 
 of the largest terrestrial animals ; for the same principle seems to be 
 kept in view, whether regard be had to the smallest insects, or the 
 quadrupedal giants of the land. 
 
 THE TREE OF LIFE. 
 
 The correspondence of religions symbols nsed by some of the 
 ancient nations with those found on Christian monuments, and 
 still more or less employed, would induce one to believe as much 
 in the original unity of religious doctrine as in the unity of the 
 human species. In illustration of this Dr. Barlow, in a communi- 
 cation to The Builder, Oct. 30, 1858, takes the palm-tree (Phoenix 
 dactylifera), the sacred tree, the tree of life, among the Egyptians, 
 the Assyrians, and the Jews. That the Egyptians, at a compara- 
 tively early period of their monumental history, represented the 
 date-palm in this sense, we have a most interesting illustration on 
 a stele in the Berlin Museum, which Dr. Lepsius found in the 
 
The Tree of Life. 25 
 
 village of Abousir, near the great Pyramid. From the stem of 
 the tree proceed two arms, one administering, to a figure kneel- 
 ing below, the fruit or bread of life ; the other pouring from a 
 vase the water of life, which the recipient guides to his mouth. 
 This stele is at least anterior to the fifteenth century before 
 Christ. On a more recent stele the tree of life, among the Egyp- 
 tians, is figured by the Ficiis sycamorus, the sycamore-tree of the 
 Bible; or, occasionally, by the persica, among the boughs of 
 which the goddess Nutpe appears with her hieroglyphical name, 
 "Abyss of Heaven," administering to immortal souls the food 
 and drink of the celestial regions. 
 
 The date-pa] in was largely introduced by the Jews in the deco- 
 ration of Solomon's Temple, being represented on the walls, fur- 
 niture, and vessels. In the last chapter of the Apocalypse there 
 is a distinct reference to the palm-tree as the tree of life in the 
 heavenly Jerusalem. Eor the tree here described (Rev. xxii. 1, 2), 
 " which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every 
 month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the 
 nations," is evidently intended for the palm-tree, popularly be- 
 lieved to put forth a shoot every month, and the leaves of which 
 were used for writing on. Accordingly^ we find the palm-tree 
 figuring in Christian mosaics as the tree of life in Paradise. A 
 very good illustration of this is found in the Apsis of S. Giovanni 
 Laterano. We have here an enclosure, the entrance to which is 
 guarded by an angel ; and within appears the palm-tree, on which 
 is perched the phrenix, with a glory of rays, God the Father 
 standing on one side of the tree, God the Son on the other. The 
 palm-tree was also represented as synonymous with the cross, and 
 with Christ. This may be seen in the illuminated frontispiece to 
 an Evangeli um, probably of the ninth century, in the library of 
 the British Museum. Here the symbols of the four Evangelists, 
 placed over corresponding columns of lessons from their gospels, 
 are shown looking up to a palm-tree that rises from the centre, 
 and on the top of which is placed a cross, having suspended from 
 its arms the symbolical letters, Alpha and Omega. 
 
 In Christian ichnography the cross is considered as identical 
 with Christ. So we have here the source of the Divine life sym- 
 bolized by the palm-tree as among the ancient Egyptians before 
 their system had degenerated into idolatry. 
 
 These remarks were necessary in order to illustrate the mean- 
 ing of the pine cone in the hands of the Assyrian winged figures, 
 or personified symbolical principles of Deity, placed on each side 
 of the Assyrian sacred tree on our Nineveh monuments. 
 
 It will be observed that the tree here represented is a conven- 
 tional form of the palm-tree, and it is surrounded by an enclosure 
 of palmettes, or abbreviated forms of this tree, as in a garden of 
 Paradise. The pine cones are held towards the tree as having a 
 
26 Life and Time. 
 
 significant connexion with it, symbolizing the Divine principle of 
 eternal life ; and they are held towards the tree of life to indicate 
 the source from whence that life is derived. 
 
 The Evangelist St. John has sometimes been represented with 
 wings and an eagle's head, not unlike the Assyrian figures on the 
 Nineveh marbles, apropos of which might be quoted the curious 
 fragment of the Zoroastrian oracles preserved by Eusebius (Prsep. 
 Evang. 1. 1, c. x.) : " God is he that has the head of a hawk. He 
 is the first indestructible, eternal, unbegotten," &c. According 
 to Dr. Layard, Nisroch, in whose temple Sennacherib was slain 
 by his sons, was neither more nor less than such a symbolical 
 personified Deity, as Nisr, we are told, signifies an eagle in all the 
 Semitic languages, and the graver's tool might easily confound the 
 head of an eagle with that of a hawk. 
 
 Pine-cones, it may be remarked, are also held in the hands of 
 the Assyrian winged figures in situations corresponding to those 
 in which the symbolical divinities of the Egyptian theology hold 
 the crux-ansata, the well-known symbol of eternal life, with which 
 the pine-cone is shown to be synonymous. 
 
 Thus we find the same fundamental truth lying at the root of 
 all religious teaching, as indicated by the remains of art and its 
 records, among Egyptians, Assyrians, Jews, and Christians. 
 
 EVE'S APPLE-TREE. 
 
 It has been asked, What is the origin of the common mistake 
 of calling the fruit of the forbidden tree an apple ? No such phrase 
 occurs in the Scripture. The mistake is, probably, due in part 
 to a not very correct translation of the Latin WQfdjMMDMBX. From 
 pomum Adami we get Adam's apple. Other circumstances have 
 helped the error. The idea that the fruit of Eden was an apple 
 seems also to have found countenance in former days among the 
 learned Jews. Thus, in the Song of Solomon, (ii. 5,) " comfort 
 me with apples" The Targum has " apples of the garden of 
 Eden. 33 (See also Song viii. 5.) 
 
 It has long been known that there grows in parts of Palestine 
 a tree supposed to bear the identical kind of fruit by eating which 
 our first parents fell. Dr. Robinson, in his Biblical Researches, 
 describes this tree as the Asclepias gigantea, the fruit of which, 
 though beautiful to the eye, is a mere puff-ball, and collapses on 
 being touched ; and this fruit, says the learned Doctor, externally 
 resembles a large smooth apple or orange. May not the deceptive 
 appearance of this fruit have caused it to be associated with the 
 forbidden fruit of Paradise, by which deceit, sin, and suffering 
 were brought into the world ? 
 
 We find, however, the tree more exactly described as one of 
 the plants of Ceylon. Its native name is Diuri Kaduru ; Kaduru 
 
How Cain Killed Abel. 27 
 
 signifying "forbidden," and Diuri " tigers." It is found near 
 Colombo : the flower emits a fine scent ; the colour of the fruit is 
 very beautiful, being orange on the outside, and a deep crimson 
 within; the fruit itself presenting the singular appearance of 
 having a piece bitten out of it. This circumstance, together with 
 the fact of its being a deadly poison, led the Mohammedans, on 
 their first discovery of Ceylon, (which they assigned as the site of 
 Paradise,) to represent it as "the forbidden fruit" of the garden 
 of Eden ; for although the finest and most tempting in appearance 
 of any, it had been impressed, such was their idea, with the mark 
 of Eve's having bitten it, to warn men from meddling with a sub- 
 stance possessing such noxious properties. These particulars are 
 stated by Sir Alexander Johnston, who has so ably illustrated 
 the history of Ceylon. 
 
 The traditions which connect the history of our first parents 
 with various localities in Ceylon, are of very ancient date. Adam 
 is represented by the Moormen or Mohammedans of Ceylon, on 
 his expulsion from Paradise, to have lamented his offence, stand- 
 ing with one foot on the summit of the mountain which now bears 
 his name. The figure of afoot is still to be traced there ; but this, 
 the Buddhists claim as a relic of their deity. Again, the reef of 
 rocks connecting Ceylon with the island of Kamiseram, is usually 
 called Adam's Bridge ; and the two large monuments, like Mo- 
 hammedan tombs, on the island of Eamiseram, are represented 
 by the Mohammedans to be the tombs of Cain and Abel. 
 
 HOW CAIN KILLED ABEL. 
 
 I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant 
 At once his murder and his monument. 
 
 Cowley, in whose sacred poem of Davideis the above lines occur, 
 notes that Cain was the first and greatest example of envy in this 
 world ; who slew his brother because his sacrifice was more ac- 
 ceptable to God than his own ; at which, the Scripture says, He 
 was sorely angered, and his countenance cast down. It is hard 
 to guess what it was in Cain's sacrifice that displeased God. The 
 Septuagint makes it to be a defect in the quality or quantity of 
 the offering : if thou hast offered right, but not rightly divided, 
 hast thou not sinned? But this translation neither the Vulgar 
 edition, nor ours, nor almost any follows. We must, therefore, 
 be content to be ignorant of the cause, since it hath pleased God 
 not to declare it. Neither is it declared in what manner he slew 
 his brother ; and, therefore, I had the liberty to choose that which 
 I thought most probable ; which is, that he knocked him on the 
 head with some great stone, which was one of the most ordinary 
 and most natural weapons of anger ; that this stone was big 
 
28 
 
 enough to be the monument or tombstone of Abel is not so 
 hyperbolical as what Virgil says of Turnus : 
 
 Then, as he roll'd his troubled eyes around, 
 An antique stone he saw ; the common bound 
 Of neighb'ring fields ; and barrier of the ground : 
 So vast, that twelve strong men of modern days, 
 Th' enormous weight from earth cou'd hardly raise. 
 He heav'd it at a lift : and pois'd on high, 
 Ban stagg'ring on, against his enemy. 
 
 JEneid xii. Dry den trans. 
 
 FAMILY LIKENESSES. 
 
 Southey, in a letter to Sir Egerton Brydges, says : " Did you 
 ever observe how remarkably old age brings out family likenesses, 
 which, having been kept, as it were, in abeyance while the 
 passions and business of the world engrossed the parties, come 
 forth again in age (as in infancy), the features settling into their 
 primary characters before dissolution ? I have seen some affect- 
 ing instances of this ; a brother and sister, than whom no two 
 persons in middle life could have been more unlike in countenance or 
 in character, becoming like as tw 7 ins at last. I now see my father's 
 lineaments in the looking-glass, where they never used to appear." 
 
 Jeremy Taylor has this beautiful comparison of an aged man 
 to architectural remains : " It is true he was in the declension of 
 his age and health ; but his very ruins were goodly ; they who 
 saw the broken heaps of Pompey's theatre, and the crushed 
 obelisks, and the old face of beauteous Philoenium, could not but 
 admire the disordered glories of such magnificent structures, 
 which were venerable in their very dust." 
 
 AVERAGE OF HUMAN LIEE. 
 
 The average of Human Life is about 33 years. One quarter 
 die previous to the age of seven years ; one half before reaching 
 17 ; and those who pass this age enjoy a felicity refused to one 
 half the human species. To every 1,000 persons, only one reaches 
 100 years of life ; to every 100, only six reach the age of sixty- 
 five ;' and not more than one in 500 lives to eighty vears of age. 
 There are on earth 1,000,000,000 inhabitants; and of these 
 333,333,333 die every year, 91,824 every day, 3,730 every hour, 
 and 60 every minute, or one every second. These losses are about 
 balanced by an equal number of births. The married are longer 
 lived than the single ; and, above all, those who observe a sober 
 and industrious conduct. Tall men live longer than short ones. 
 Women have more chances of life in their favour previous to 
 being fifty years of age than men have, but fewer afterwards. 
 
Space and Time. 29 
 
 The number of marriages is in proportion of 75 to every 1,000 
 individuals. Marriages are more frequently after the equinoxes ; 
 that is, during the months of June and December. Those born 
 in the spring are generally more robust than others. Births and 
 deaths are more frequent by night than by day. Quarterly Review. 
 
 Of children born, certainly not more than one in ten thousand 
 lives to a hundred ; and of those who attain to the advanced age 
 of a century, as certainly not more than one in twenty thousand 
 has his life prolonged to 150 : consequently, not more than one 
 child out of twenty millions lives to the latter age. 
 
 By Gompertz's law of mortality, the sum of all the people 
 who have as yet lived upon the earth, does not warrant the ex- 
 pectation of an individual attaining the greatest age which his- 
 tory actually reveals as having been reached ; hence mathematical 
 reasoning upon increasing numbers might lead us to infer that 
 man is really immortal, and death but accidental. To medical 
 science, however, death appears as inevitable as growth ; and as 
 the child is developed from the boy and grows to the man, so the 
 man in his turn as certainly retrogrades to senility and death. 
 When age, unaccompanied with disease, sets in, the appetite 
 gradually and increasingly fails, nutrition and assimilation gra- 
 dually lessen; and the capacity to generate force and heat 
 diminishes. At last, nervous power fails, and the patient silently 
 passes into the sleep of death. To this end is man born, and 
 must submit ; for as sure as the endogenous tree grows itself to 
 death, so does man, by virtue of some changes in his organisa- 
 tion, cease to evince the powers of health, and finally of life. 
 Smee on General Debility and Defective Nutrition. 
 
 SPACE AND TIME. 
 
 Dr. Reid has candidly confessed, c< We are at a loss to what 
 category or class of things we ought to refer Space and Time. 
 They are not beings, but rather the receptacles of all created 
 beings, without which they could not have had the possibility of 
 existence/ 3 
 
 Upon this it is asked : <e Will no one venture to suggest that, 
 in the beginning God created space and time, as the receptacles of 
 all beings to be called into existence by His Almighty fiat ? " But 
 objections, such as these, will be made. 
 
 Where was God before the creation of space ? Where is He 
 now ? Does not His omnipresence mean that He is everywhere ? 
 Was He nowhere before Creation ? And is He not somewhere 
 now? Is there not a local Paradise? Is there not a local 
 Heaven in space where His presence and glory are manifested ? 
 
 To such questions as these the answers are : The very word 
 where is inapplicable to Him who cannot resemble His creatures 
 
30 Life and Time. 
 
 in their relations to space. His omnipresence pervades the uni- 
 verse in knowledge and power, not in the diffusion of His essence. 
 There is a local Heaven, where the Holy Angels are, with three 
 human beings, Enoch and Elijah, who never died, and the Divine 
 Redeemer, the first who triamphed over Death the three wit- 
 nesses of immortality, under the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the 
 Gospel dispensation. There is a local Paradise, where the spirits 
 of the redeemed await the resurrection of their bodies, and their 
 final admission into Heaven. And God's glory, which is mani- 
 fested everywhere, is especially manifested there, in the trans- 
 figured humanity of Christ, the visible temple for evermore of the 
 invisible God. Cronhelm on Predestination. 
 
 CLIMACTERICS. 
 
 The superstition respecting Climacterics, or critical periods of 
 life, was very strong during the Middle Ages ; and even down 
 to rather recent times, the mystic numbers 7 and 9, so frequently 
 occurring in the Bible, and the combinations of these numbers, 
 have had their influence with many persons. It was believed that 
 the constitution of man changed every seven years; and that 
 during every septinie the whole of the solids and fluids of the 
 body were periodically renewed the old cast off, and new matter 
 formed. Periods of seven years were looked upon as steps or 
 stages in life. At seven years of age, a child had left infancy ; 
 at twice seven, or fourteen, he had attained proberty ; at three 
 times seven, or twenty one, he had reached puberty, and so on. 
 But as people advanced in years, the more critical points were 
 approached, and the Grand Climacteric was looked forward to with 
 some anxiety. Combinations of the numbers 3, 7> and 9 were 
 mostly employed, and 3 X 7 = 21, 7 X 7 = 49, 7 X 9 = 63, 
 and 9 x 9 = 81, were important periods. In the Thesaurus 
 Lingu<s Romance et Britannica, 1578, we have : 
 
 Climactericus annus. The perilous or dangerous yeare of one's 
 lyfe. 
 
 Climactera. The perilous time of one's life, at euery seven yores' 
 ende ; or after other, at the ende of 63 yeres ; at which tyme he is in 
 some perill of body or minde. 
 
 In Florio's Worlde of WorUes, 1598, we read: 
 
 Climacterico, the dangerous and perilous year of one's life, comonly 
 the yeere 63. 
 
 Blount, in his Q-los$ography> gives : " the most dangerous and 
 climacterical year at the age of 63, because both accounts meet 
 in this number, namely, 7 X 9 = 63, and 9 X 7 = 63. 
 
Fragments of Time. 31 
 
 Kersey, in his Dictionarium Anglo-Britanicum y Third edition, 
 1722, gives : 
 
 Climacterical, belonging to the steps or rounds of a Ladder ; as 
 Climacterical Years, i.e. certain remarkable Years, whereby Man's Life 
 gets up, as it were, to its appointed period. Thus, every Seventh and 
 Ninth Year is said to be Climacterical, wherein, if any sickness happen, 
 it is counted very dangerous, especially the 63d and 81st, which are 
 termed Grand Climacterics. 
 
 Johnson, in his Dictionary, refers to Cotgrave, who says : 
 
 Climactore ; every seventh, ninth, or the sixty-third year of a man's 
 life ; all very dangerous, but the last most. 
 
 Death might have taken such, and her deferr'd, 
 Until the time she had been climacter'd, 
 When she would have been three score years and three, 
 Such as our best at three and twenty be. 
 
 Drayton, on the Death of Lady Clifton. 
 
 In the 59th number of the Tatler, a jocose old gentleman 
 remarks, that having attained to sixty-four, he has passed his 
 grand climacteric. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne has a chapter in Vidgar Terrors " Of the 
 Great Climacterical Year, that is Sixty- three;" in which he de- 
 cides upon two climacterics, 63 and 81. He dwells upon the 
 power and secret virtues of numbers, as taught by Pythagoras 
 and Plato; and Philo the learned Jew, "who hath acted this 
 part, even to superstition. 35 These observations and researches 
 extend to 20 pages. 
 
 Browne's foreign authorities are not more explicit than our 
 own as to the numbers. Several French, Spanish, Italian, and 
 Dutch writers harp upon the numbers 7 and 9 ; but we have no 
 clear ideas of the meaning of the word climacteric. 
 
 The vital statistics of our time favour the 63d year as the period 
 liable to severe sickness. Dr. Southwood Smith has shown 
 from physiological views, and from Einlaison's tables, the age 63 
 to be very susceptible of sickness ; for, taking a million of males, 
 members of London benefit societies, it appears that there are 
 not more persons on the sick list at 53 than at 43 years of age ; 
 whilst at 63 the number of sick is more than double. 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF TIME. 
 
 Betwixt the more stated employments and important occur- 
 rences of humane life, there usually happen to be interposed 
 certain intervals of time, which, though they are wont to be 
 neglected, as being singly, or within the compass of one day, 
 inconsiderable, yet in a man's whole life they may amount to no 
 contemptible portion of it. Now these uncertain parentheses or 
 
32 -Life and Time. 
 
 interludes, that happen to come between the more solemn pas- 
 sages (whether businesses or recreations) of humane life, are 
 wont to be lost by most men, for want of a value for them, and 
 even by good men for want of skill to preserve them ; for though 
 they do not properly despise them, yet they neglect or lose them, 
 for want of knowing how to rescue them, or what to do with 
 them. But although grains of sand and ashes be apart, but of a 
 despicable smallnsss, and very easy and liable to be scattered and 
 blown away; yet the skilled artificer, by a vehement fire, brings num- 
 bers of these to afford him that noble substance, glass, by whose help 
 we may both see ourselves and our blemishes lively represented, (as 
 in looking-glasses,) and discern celestial objects, (as with telescopes) 
 and with the sunbeams, kindle disposed materials, (as with burning- 
 glasses,) so when these little fragments or parcels of time, which, 
 if not carefully look'd to, would be dissipated, and lost, come to 
 be managed by a skilful contemplator, and to be improved by the 
 celestial fire of devotion, they may be so ordered, as to afford us 
 both looking-glasses to dress our souls by, and perspectives to 
 discover heavenly wonders, and incentives to inflame our hearts 
 with charity and zeal ; and since goldsmiths and refiners are wont 
 all the year long carefully to save the very sweepings of their 
 shops, because they may contain in them some filings or dust of 
 those richer metals, gold and silver, I see not why a Christian 
 may not be as careful not to lose the fragments and lesser in- 
 tervals of a thing incomparably more precious than any metal 
 time : especially when the improvement of them may not only 
 redeem so many portions of our life, but turn them to pious uses, 
 and particularly to the great advantage of devotion. Hon. Robert 
 Boyle's Occasional Reflections, Oxford edit. 1848. 
 
 CURIOUS STATISTICAL RESULTS. 
 
 Researches in the modern science of Statistics have proved 
 that the effects of the free-will of individuals composing large 
 societies completely neutralize each other ; and that such commu- 
 nities taken collectively act as if the whole body had by common 
 consent agreed to follow a certain prescribed course or conduct, 
 not only in matters which might be imagined to be more or less 
 of common interest, but even in those in which no feeling could 
 be imagined to be engaged, save the will, taste, personal inclina- 
 tion, or even caprice of the individual. 
 
 Not only, however, are voluntary acts subject to this numerical 
 regularity. Collectively speaking, persons remember and forget 
 certain, things with as much regularity as if memory and attention 
 were the result of wheelwork. A very common instance of forget- 
 fulness is presented by persons posting letters without any address 
 written upon them. The number of times this act of oblivious- 
 
Sir William Hamilton on Phrenology. 33 
 
 ness annually happens is known with the greatest precision, inas- 
 much as such letters are specially recorded in each post-office. 
 Now, it is found by the Post-office returns in England andErance, 
 that the number of these unaddressed letters in each country is 
 almost exactly the same from year to year. In London, the 
 number of such letters is about 2,000, being at the rate of above 
 six per day. But, connected with this is another circumstance 
 equally remarkable. A certain proportion of these letters is 
 found to contain money, and other valuable enclosures ; and like 
 the whole number, this proportion is also invariable. 
 
 The conclusion at which we arrive then is, that the great prin- 
 ciple in virtue of which the Author of nature carries out His 
 purposes by the operation of general laws is not, as it would first 
 appear, incompatible with the freedom of human agency, and 
 therefore, with man's moral responsibility. The same character 
 of generality attaches to the laws which govern the moral and 
 intellectual phenomena of human actions, considered collectively, 
 as those which attach to mere physical phenomena. But these 
 laws not being applicable to human actions, considered indivi- 
 dually, leave free-will and moral responsibility inviolate. 
 
 LIFE ASSURANCE. 
 
 One of the most remarkable examples of the value of general 
 laws is to be found in Life Assurances ; for what, apparently, can 
 be more precarious and uncertain than the duration of human life 
 in any individual ? Yet, in the aggregate, mortality is so regular 
 that it has been said, by an eminent mathematician, that there is 
 no investment so certain as that of a prudently conducted Assur- 
 ance Society. If we take 5,000 persons in the prime of life, 600 
 die in the first ten years, 700 in the second ten years, 850 in the 
 third. The experience under different circumstances varies but 
 little, as Jenkin Jones, Neisson, and Farren have shown ; and it 
 is a curious fact, that lives which might be called first-class lives 
 are as prone to disease as those which appear to belong to hardly 
 so high a class. Alfred Smee, E.KS. 
 
 SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON ON PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Sir W. Hamilton was a stalwart opponent of this new science. 
 Gall had taken credit for the discovery that the cerebellum is the 
 organ of the sexual passion, and supported the doctrine by as- 
 serting that it bears a much larger proportion to the brain proper 
 in adults than in the young. By "an induction from an average 
 of thirty-six brains and skulls of children, compared with an 
 average of several hundred brains and skulls of adults," Sir W. 
 Hamilton satisfied himself that the brain reaches its full size 
 
34 Life and Time. 
 
 about seven years of age. " If it be not so, then am I a delibe- 
 rate deceiver. 3 ' After this we can ask but one question : Why 
 does the man need a larger hat than the child ? The answer is, 
 that " the greater development of bones, muscles, and hair ren- 
 ders the adult head considerably larger than that of the child at 
 seven." Another inquirer tried to refute this by another induc- 
 tion and table of brains. But the Professor detected that the 
 difference of sex had been overlooked, or, as he phrases it, in 
 triumphant scorn of his adversary and, for once, in round Saxon 
 "he lumps the male and female brains together ! " 
 
 As another instance of the value of independent observation, 
 he notices that, whereas he found a common fowl's brain to be to 
 its body as 1 to 500, some twenty physiologists, including Cuvier, 
 had followed each other in making it as 1 to 25, owing to an 
 original mismeasurement by one-half, and a subsequent loss of a 
 cypher. Such is the "sequacity" of anatomical authors. Yet, 
 on the agreeable subject of maggots breeding in the frontal sinus, 
 or cavity of the human forehead, Sir W. Hamilton thought it 
 worth while, after an affected apology for his medical ignorance, 
 to give a list of seventy-five writers who have discussed the 
 matter, including " Olaus Wormius, who himself ejected a worm 
 from the nose, Smetius, who relates his own case, 33 &c. The im- 
 port of this passage, which it would be unpleasant to quote, is to 
 show the absurdity of phrenologists in ranging seventeen of the 
 smallest organs, " like peas in a pod, 33 along that part of the head 
 where there is an empty space within, such that "no one can 
 predict from external observation, whether it shall be a lodging 
 scanty for a fly, or roomy for a mouse. 3 ' 
 
 Nor were his experiments confined to probing the foreheads of 
 the dead, or " weighing the brain of a young and healthy convict, 
 who was hanged, and afterwards weighing the sand which his 
 prepared cranium contained." His own person was not spared. 
 To test the association of ideas, he made his friends repeatedly 
 wake him when dozing off in an arm-chair a self-sacrifice which 
 those who indulge that habit will appreciate. To try whether the 
 mind is always active, he caused himself to be roused at different 
 seasons of the night, and had the satisfaction of finding that he 
 was always in the middle of a dream. To determine how many 
 objects at once the mind can distinctly survey, he set himself 
 to attend to marbles on the floor, and by an effort took in seven 
 at most, beating Abraham Tucker by three, Degerando by two, 
 and Bonnet and Destutt Tracy by one. Perhaps his most re- 
 markable discovery of this kind is a law of mind which he has 
 thus enunciated: 
 
 " Knowledge and feeling, perception and sensation, though always 
 co-existent, are always in the inverse ratio of each other. Thus, 
 in sight there is more perception, less sensation ; in smell there 
 
Mans Proper Place in Creation. 35 
 
 is more sensation, less perception. In the finger-points, tactile 
 perception is at its height ; but there is hardly another part of the 
 body m which sensation is not more acute." 
 
 Sir W. Hamilton was not aware that this law had been an- 
 nounced and referred to its cause (the passive nature of sensation 
 and active nature of perception) by De Biran, now nearly half a 
 century ago. With what qualifications it is true of the sense of 
 touch, is examined in the notes to Reid. Here again, with his 
 usual zeal, Sir W. Hamilton seems to have tried upon various 
 parts of his own body the effect of " pressure with a subacute 
 point " and of " puncture." The latter, in seeming contradiction 
 to the law, produced most pain in the tongue and finger, where 
 perception is also the highest. But an explanation was soon 
 ready. Either nerves of feeling lie beneath the nerves of touch, 
 or the same nerves " commence their energy as feeling only at the 
 pitch where their energy as touch concludes." At any rate, ha 
 was reassured by finding that, in proportion to the soreness of 
 the tongue or the finger under such treatment, it is incapacitated 
 for the time as an organ of external touch.* 
 
 CONSUMPTION AND LONGEVITY. 
 
 Sir Edward Wilmot the physician, was when a youth, so far 
 gone in a consumption, that Dr. Radcliffe, whom he consulted, 
 gave his friends no hopes of his recovery, yet he lived to the age 
 of 93 ; and Dr. Heberden notes " this has been the case with 
 some others who had many symptoms of consumption in youth." 
 
 MAN'S PROPER PLACE IN CREATION. 
 Professor Daubeny has observed, with equal force and beauty : 
 When we reflect within what a narrow area our researches are neces- 
 sarily circumscribed ; when we perceive that we are bounded in space 
 almost to the surface of the planet in which we reside, itself merely a 
 speck in the universe, one of innumerable worlds invisible from the 
 nearest of the fixed stars ; when we recollect, too, that we are limited 
 in point of time to a few short years of life and activity, that our 
 records of the past history of the globe and of its inhabitants are com- 
 prised within a minute portion of the latest of the many epochs which 
 the world has gone through ; and that, with regard to the future, the 
 most durable monuments we can raise to hand down our names to pos- 
 terity are liable at any time to be overthrown by an earthquake, and 
 would be obliterated as if they had never been by any of those pro- 
 cesses of metamorphic action which geology tells us form a part of the 
 cycle of changes which the globe is destined to undergo, the more lost 
 in wonder we may be at the vast fecundity of nature, which within so 
 narrow a sphere can crowd together phenomena so various and so im- 
 posing, the more sensible shall we become of the small proportion which 
 our highest powers and their happiest results bear, not only to the cause 
 of all causation, but even to other created beings, higher in the scale 
 than ourselves, which we may conceive to exist. 
 
 * Selected and abridged from the Saturday Preview. 
 
 V 2 
 
gate 
 
 IT was a dictum of Aristotle's that " in infancy the soul of 
 man differs in nothing from that of the brutes." But then he 
 also says that " one animal alone, man, can reflect and delibe- 
 rate : " and the latter statement has found most favour with 
 modern philosophers. Thus we are now informed that "the brute 
 is sensitive but not self-conscious ; " and powers and faculties are 
 continually pointed to in man, which it is positively asserted can 
 be found in none lower than himself. May we not ask the 
 assertors how they know these things ? Have they ever visited . 
 the chambers of thought within the penetralia of the brute ? They 
 are hardly likely to be right, if Sir Benjamin Brodie apprehends 
 correctly that "the mental principle in animals is of the same 
 essence as that of human beings ; so that even in the humbler 
 classes we may trace the rudiments of those faculties to which, in 
 their state of more complete development, we are indebted for 
 the grandest results of human genius." (Psychological Inquiries, 
 p. 164.) Again : tc I am inclined to believe that the minds of 
 the inferior animals are essentially of the same nature with that 
 of the human race." (Ibid. p. 166.) 
 
 The Rev. John Wesley's conclusion as to the nature of " the 
 living soul " imparted to Adam, was that " God gave him such 
 life as other animals enjoy" (Notes to the New Testament, p. 497.) 
 
 Dr. Cromwell, in " the Philosophic Argument " of his work, 
 The Soul and the Future Life, introduces, in a note, the following 
 definitions of " spirit," or, as he terms it, " abstract self- sub- 
 sistence." 
 
 Substances, said Dr. Watts, speaking after the Schoolmen (Philo- 
 sophical Essays, p. 51) are " such things, or beings, which we conceive 
 as the subjects or supporters of distinct qualities, and which subsist of 
 tliemselves, without dependence upon any creature." This notion of 
 substance is commonly accepted by Immaterialists as applying to mans' 
 soul. Coleridge, in his Theory of Life, (p. 94, ) admits that he regards 
 the soul as "a thing, a self-subsistent hypostasis." Belsham, much less 
 consistently, either with Priestley, whom he professed to follow, or him- 
 self, denned Spirit as "thinking substance." (Elements of the Philosophy 
 of the Mind, prefixed to a Compendium of Logic.} Stewart saw an 
 objection to the word "substance," but it was only "as implying a 
 greater degree of knowledge of the nature of mind than our faculties 
 are fitted to attain" (Dissertation, Sir William Hamilton's, ed. p. 116) ; 
 and his proposed substitute, " thinking being" can be admitted to 
 offer no material alteration. Keid also preferred, throughout his 
 
Nature of the Soul. 37 
 
 Inquiry into the Human Mind, such expressions as " thinking "being " 
 and " thinking principle" But Sir William Hamilton continued to 
 employ the old scholastic term. With him Mind was still "hyper- 
 physical substance" (Discussions on Philosophy, &c. p. 307); notwith- 
 standing his remark, made with equal reference to Mind and Matter, 
 that l ' absolute substance and absolute quality are both inconceivable 
 as more than negations of the conceivable." (Ibid. p. 605.) 
 
 Plato instituted a classification into the soul of the appetites, 
 that of the passions, and that of the knowing faculties, each 
 having its own seat in the body, and each its peculiar motions ; 
 and Aristotle had his souls, vegetable, sentient, and rational. 
 Under all Grecian physiology and psychology lay the assumption 
 that whatever was self-motional was life or soul, matter being 
 essentially inactive. And thus it became necessary to suppose a 
 vital agent, whether activity was manifested, and that equally in 
 the cases of mere physical function, sentience, and intellect ; this 
 being the supposition on which alike rested Plato's three kinds of 
 soul and Aristotle's three souls ; for to so much the theory of the 
 last-mentioned philosopher seems very nearly, if not literally, to 
 amount. Galen limited the term " soul " to the agent of the 
 sentient and intelligent functions, and made "nature" the opera- 
 tor in the simply physical : but Aristotle reigned over the schools ; 
 and his doctrine of the vegetable, sentient, and rational souls, 
 variously modified, may be traced in very many medico-physio- 
 logical theories down to recent times. The Stagirite's "vegetable 
 soul " especially, as Galen had merely given it another name in 
 calling it "nature," or "the natural faculties," so was it sub- 
 stantially one with the <; archscus," or "governing principle" of 
 Paracelsus and Helmont ; and " the animating and organizing 
 principle " of Harvey. Yet, more lately, Miiller has set up an 
 " organic force," which " exists even in the germ, and creates 
 in it the essential parts of the future animal;" and Prout-an 
 "organic agent," or "ultimate principle," "endowed with a 
 faculty little short of intelligence" &c. And if Hunter, in his 
 theory of Life, did not commit the last-cited extravagance, yet his 
 " highly-attenuated substance " pervaded and gave vital properties 
 to both solids and fluids ; and, according to his zealous disciple 
 and successor, the late Mr. Abernethy, " actually constructed the 
 very means by which it carried on its various processes." 
 
 The discovery of Electricity made known a new class of beings 
 or entities which seemed to exist between the opposite confines of 
 matter and spirit, and to partake in a degree of the nature of 
 both. Dr. Prichard says : 
 
 The " vital principle " was imagined to be a substance of a similar 
 kind in many respects, if not to be absolutely identified, with the 
 electric fluid. As the electric fluid appears to be endowed with the 
 property of modifying, under particular circumstances, the ordinary in- 
 fluence of chemical affinity, and of controlling in a certain degree the 
 
38 Nature of the Soul 
 
 usual operation of its laws, so "the vital principle/' which was supposed 
 to be diffused through the body in the living state ; and to pervade 
 every texture and every part, was imagined to protect the whole from 
 the chemical agencies of the surrounding elements. Review of the 
 Doctrine of a Vital Principle, sect. ii. 
 
 This passage gives a fair exposition of the doctrine inculcated 
 by Mr. Abernethy, on the subject of Life as taught by Hunter ; 
 and Abernethy imagined that if philosophers once saw reason to 
 believe that Life was something of an invisible and active nature 
 superadded to organisation, 
 
 They would see equal reason to believe that Mind might be super- 
 added to Life, as life is to structure. They would then, indeed, still 
 further, perceive how Mind and Matter might reciprocally operate on 
 each other, by means of an inhering substance" (viz. the " matter of 
 life"). Phys. Led. and Disc. p. 95. (Again: " The consideration of 
 the phenomena of Mind, as well as that of the phenomena of Life, 
 equally enforces the opinion of their distinct and independent nature. 
 .... Uneducated reason, and the most scientific research, equally in- 
 duce us to believe that we are composed of an assemblage of organs 
 formed of common inert matter, a principle of life and action, and a 
 sentient and rational faculty ; all intimately connected, yet each distinct 
 from the other." Phys. Lect. and Disc., p. 401.) 
 
 Yet, adds Dr. Cromwell, "the notion of any distinct agent or 
 principle, to account for Life at least, has already become obso- 
 lete, and is now commonly abandoned." (The Soul and the Future 
 Life, p. 40.) 
 
 THE IMPRISONED SOUL. 
 
 Cowley, in his Davideis, book iv., says of Saul, 
 
 His soul was ne'er unbent from weighty care ; 
 But active as some mind that turns a sphere. 
 
 Upon which he notes " According to the old senseless opinion, 
 that the heavens were divided into several orbs or spheres, and 
 that a particular Intelligence or Angel was assigned to each of 
 them, to turn it round (like a mill-horse, as Scaliger says,) to all 
 eternity. 33 
 
 In his Pindaric Ode Life, Cowley thus describes the im- 
 prisoned soul. Upon the text from Euripides, "Who knows 
 whether to live be not to die ; and to die to live?" he says : 
 
 We grow at last by custom to believe 
 
 That really we live : 
 
 Whilst all these shadows that for things we take, 
 Are but the empty dreams which in death's sleep we make. 
 But these fantastic errors of our dream 
 
 Lead us to solid wrong ; 
 We pray God our friends' torments to prolong, 
 
 And wish uncharitably for them 
 To be as long a dying as Methusalem. 
 
The Imprisoned Soul and the Magnetic Needle. 39 
 
 The ripened soul longs from his pris'n to come, 
 
 But we would seal, and sow up, if we could, the womb. 
 
 We seek to close and plaster up by art 
 
 The cracks and breaches of th' extended shell, 
 
 And in that narrow cell 
 
 Would rudely force to dwell 
 The noble bird, already wing'd to part. 
 
 Archbishop Leighton, in his Commentary on St. Peter, says : 
 " It was a strange proof of Plato's Discourse of the Soul's Im- 
 mortality, that moved a young man, on reading it, to throw 
 himself into the sea, that he might leap through it to that 
 Immortality." 
 
 THE SOUL AND THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE. 
 
 This strange metaphor occurs in the following passage from 
 one of Archbishop Leighton's Sermons : 
 
 " The heart touched by the Spirit of God, as the needle touched with 
 the loadstone, looks straight and speedily to God, yet still with tremb- 
 ling, being filled with holy fear." 
 
 There is a passage in Bishop Jeremy Taylor's sermon on 
 " Growth in Sin," which amplifies the same thought : 
 
 " But as the needle of a compass, when it is directed to its beloved star, 
 at the first addresses waves on either side, and seems indifferent in its 
 courtship of the rising or declining sun, and when it seems first deter- 
 mined to the north stands awhile trembling, as if it suffered inconveni- 
 ence in the first fruition of its desires, and stands not still in full enjoy- 
 ment, till after first a great variety of motion, and then an undisturbed 
 posture ; so is the piety, and so is the conversion of a man wrought by 
 degrees and several steps of imperfection ; and at first our choices are 
 wavering, convinced by the grace of God, and yet not persuaded ; and 
 then persuaded but not resolved ; and then resolved, but deferring to 
 begin ; and then beginning, but as all beginnings are, in weakness and 
 uncertainty," &c. 
 
 Of similar purport, though from a very different source, is the 
 following : 
 
 As still to the star of its worship, though clouded, 
 
 The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea ! 
 
 So dark as I roam, in this wintry world shrouded, 
 
 The hope of my spirit turns trembling to thee. 
 
 Moore's Sacred Songs. 
 
 Norris of Bemerton employs this simile in " The Aspiration " : 
 
 How cold this clime ! and yet my sense 
 Perceives even here Thy influence. 
 Even here Thy strong magnetic charms I feel, 
 And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. 
 To lower good, and beauties less divine 
 Sometimes my erroneous needle does 
 
 But yet (so strong the sympathy) 
 
 It turns, and points again to Thee. 
 
40 Nature of the Soul. 
 
 Again, in his " Contemplation and Love " : 
 
 " Man is not as a body, for ever rolling or in an infinite vacuity : or, 
 as a needle continually trembling for an embrace." 
 
 Then, a stanza on a loose slab in Bishop Joceline's crypt in 
 Glasgow Cathedral commences : 
 
 Our life's a flying shadow, God is the pole, 
 The needle pointing to Him is our soul. 
 
 Quarles has these beautiful lines : 
 
 Even as the needle that directs the hour, 
 (Touch'd with the loadstone) by the secret power 
 Of hidden Nature, points upon the pole ; 
 Even so the wavering powers of my soul, 
 Touch'd by the virtue of Thy Spirit, flee 
 From what is earth, and point alone to Thee. 
 
 In the song of " Sweet William's Farewell," the sailor, with 
 great propriety, adopts a nautical term from his own art : 
 
 Change as ye list, ye winds ; my heart shall be 
 The faithful compass that still points to Thee. 
 
 Quarles has likewise a poem in which is enshrined the same 
 idea as Jeremy Taylor : 
 
 Like to the Arc-tick needle that doth guide 
 The wand' ring shade by his magnetick power, 
 
 And leaves his silken gnomon to decide 
 The question of the controverted hour, 
 
 First franticks up and down, from side to side, 
 And restless beats his crystal'd iv'ry case 
 With vain impatience ; jets from place to place, 
 
 And seeks the bosom of his frozen bride : 
 
 At length he slacks his motion, and doth rest 
 
 His trembling point at his bright Pole's beloved breast. 
 
 E'en so my soul, being hurried here and there, 
 
 By ev'ry object that presents delight, 
 Fain would be settled, but she knows not where ; 
 
 She likes at morning what she loathes at night : 
 She bows to honour ; then she lends an ear 
 
 To that sweet swan-like voice of dying pleasure, 
 
 Then tumbles in the scatter'd heaps of treasure ; 
 Now flatter'd with false hope ; now foyl'd with fear : 
 
 Thus finding all the world's delight to be 
 But empty toys, good God, she points alone to thee. 
 
 But hath the virtued steel a power to move ? 
 
 Or can the untouch'd needle point aright? 
 Or can my wand'ring thoughts forbear to rove, 
 
 Unguided by the virtue of thy sp'rit ? 
 hath my leaden soul the art t' improve 
 
 Her wasted talent, and, unrais'd, aspire 
 
Symbols of the Soul. 41 
 
 In this sad moulting time of her desire ? 
 Not first beloVd, have I the power to love ; 
 
 I cannot but stir, but as thou please to move me. 
 Nor can my heart return thee love, until thou love me. 
 
 The same metaphor also occurs in the 13th Emblem of Quarles's 
 1st Book : 
 
 Like as the am'rous needle joys to bend 
 To her magnetic friend, &c. 
 
 A much older author than either yet quoted, Raimond Lull, of 
 Majorca, who died in 1315, says : 
 
 As the needle turneth by nature to the north, when it is touched by 
 the magnet, so it behoves that thy servant should turn to praise his 
 Lord God, and to serve Him, since out of love to him, He willed to 
 endure sore griefs and heavy sufferings in this world. Neander's 
 Memorials of Christian Life. 
 
 Southey, in his Omniana, (vol. i. p. 210,) cites a passage from 
 the Partidas, in which the magnetic needle is used in illustration. 
 This is especially worthy of attention, as having been written 
 half a century before the supposed invention of the Mariner's 
 Compass at Amalfi ; and as Southey remarks, " it must have 
 been well known and in general use before it would thus be 
 referred to as a familiar illustration." See Notes and Queries, 
 vols. 6 & 8. 
 
 SYMBOLS OP THE SOUL. 
 
 The immortal Christian soul has been figured both by the Pea- 
 cock and the Dove, but more frequently by the latter. We may 
 see the disciples of our Lord represented as doves, on the apsidial 
 cross in S. Clemente. As doves, Christian souls are found figured 
 on mural tablets, on baptismal fonts, and on sarcophagi. Less 
 frequently they appear as peacocks rarely on sarcophagi ; how- 
 ever, the Gentiles thus represented them on the walls of sepul- 
 chral chambers, and in scenes of the Paradise of Osiris. On 
 a sarcophagus in the Museum of the Yatican, are two doves on a 
 cross, surrounded by the monogram of Christ within a wreath. 
 This device may frequently be seen. 
 
 On the unique ivory tabernacle preserved in the sacristy of the 
 Cathedral of Sens, we see a pine-cone taking the place of the 
 Cross, or the diagram of Christ, and on each side of it a peacock, 
 representing not the souls of Christians merely, but the souls of 
 martyrs, for each peacock has a small palm-branch attached to 
 its neck. 
 
 The Egyptian conventional symbol for the soul was, as every 
 archaeologist knows, a sparrow-hawk, with a human head. In 
 later times, and among the Romans, the souls of the departed in 
 the Paradise of Osiris, were figured as doves and peacocks. In a 
 fresco painting that once existed at Pompeii, (a copy of which 
 
42 Nature of the Soul 
 
 was engraved at Naples in 1833,) symbolical souls, as doves and 
 peacocks, are represented as perched on the sacred trees, the 
 palm and the peach-tree, in the Paradise of Osiris and Isis. In 
 this fresco was also represented the heron, the symbol, according 
 to the Vicomte de Ronge, of the first transformation of the soul 
 in this mysterious Paradise. 
 
 Dr. Barlow has communicated to the Builder, Sept. 18, 1858, 
 these interesting notes "on the occasional identity of symbolical 
 meaning between the Peacock and the Dove. Upon this the 
 Editor of the journal observes: "Higgins also points, in his 
 Anacalypsis, at the above identity. He speaks of the dove of 
 Venus as f a maenad or fanatic bird, crucified on a wheel with 
 four spokes/ the dove called also Inyx ; and in correlation with 
 these symbols, also he alludes to Semiramis, described to have 
 fled away, changed into this dove, when conquered by Staurobates, 
 who had threatened to ' nail her to a cross/ which is identified 
 with the four-spoked wheel in f the eternal crucifixion of Ixion, 
 the accursed/ or the wheel of execution described by Pindar. 
 The dove, crucified on a wheeled cross, is curious as a heathen 
 symbol, in connexion with what Dr. Barlow describes as a fre- 
 quent Christian symbol, namely, two doves on a cross. If the 
 peacock and dove be symbolically identical, may it not be ques- 
 tioned whether the symbolical meaning of either really be the 
 Soul, and not the Holy Spirit ; for the dove, in fact, does denote 
 the Holy Spirit ; and is it not more probable that doves, indi- 
 cating our Lord's disciples, did so as signifying that each of them 
 possessed that Spirit, than that these doves denoted their own 
 souls ? Even among the heathen, the dove denoted a spirit of 
 prophecy, or divine afflatus ; and the oracles were called doves-^ 
 columbce by the Latins, for example." 
 
 In France, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, there are 
 many monuments where the Soul is seen conveyed in a sheet by 
 angels to heaven. In a church at Axminster is a monument 
 where a lady holds between her hands a figure like a little doll, 
 swathed in a close garment, with its hands uplifted, and this 
 figure represents her soul. So, too, in the church of Hitchenden, 
 near High Wy combe, there is an altar-tomb of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, without inscription, representing a man in his shroud, and 
 on his open breast a little figure with hands raised, representing 
 his soul. 
 
 PERSONALITY OP GOD THE SOUL GOD'S GREAT ORGAN. 
 
 Mr. T. E. Poynting, in his able work, Glimpses of the Heaven 
 that lies about us, states : 
 
 How often has a poor doubting mind confessed to me, " You say 
 that God is in constant with us, and gives his Holy Spirit to those who 
 
Pre-Existence of Souls. 43 
 
 ask Him. Yet I look back through all my life, and I am not aware of 
 any inspiration, any revelation, any suggestion, that has not come, like 
 all my thoughts and feelings, by my ordinary faculties and instincts. 
 It seems to me that I have been left alone with my own mind, and God 
 has not at all interfered in its workings." I never saw that what we call 
 the ordinary working of the mind itself, the law of its faculties, the 
 movement of its impulses, was the very flowing of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 The same doubt is met with the same answer, as follows : 
 
 We have watched our minds, we have prayed and striven, but we 
 have been able to detect no trace of any stirring in our spirits beyond 
 the natural action of our faculties and instincts. 
 
 Let us then consider these ordinary impulses and faculties. When 
 we feel the impulse of Benevolence, the love of the Beautiful, the love 
 of Knowledge, when we feel the Sentiment of Conscience approving or 
 disapproving, when we feel the Reason leading us on from step to step 
 of truth we know not how, whence do these impulses and movements 
 come ? What is their fountain ? Do we invent these movements ? Do 
 we originate or direct them ourselves ? No, the movements seem to 
 come in upon us like streams of life from a source outside our Will. 
 Now, what is the source from which these streams or movements come ? 
 Is there an inexhaustible supply of such streams, powers, impulses, 
 shut up in secret wells within us ; and is there some mechanical con- 
 trivance for unlocking these wells at our need, and letting these streams 
 flow in upon our consciousness ? I reply, we know of no such wells ; 
 we cannot, indeed, imagine them. We have never had experience of 
 any such contrivance. On the other hand, there is a Cause, a real 
 known cause at hand all around us God himself, the Eternal fountain 
 of Life and Power quite sufficient to account for the phenomena. 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE OE SOULS. 
 
 That the Deity, at the beginning of the world, created the souls 
 of all men, which, however, were not united to the body till the 
 individuals for which they were destined, were born into the 
 world was (to omit any reference to Plato and his followers,) 
 a very general belief among the Jewish Kabbalists, a common 
 opinion in our Saviour's time, and holden and taught by many 
 fathers of the Christian Church, as Justin Martyr, Origeu, and 
 others. It was, however, opposed by Tertullian. 
 
 Mede, in chap. iii. of his Mystery of Godliness , combats the 
 vulgar opinion of a "daily creation of souls" at the time the 
 bodies are produced which they are to inform. He calls ft the 
 reasonable doctrine" of pre-existence tf a key for some of the 
 main mysteries of Providence, which no other can so handsomely 
 unlock." Sir Harry Yane is said by Burnet to have maintained 
 this doctrine. Joseph Glanvil, Rector of Bath (the friend of Meric 
 Casaubon and of Baxter, and a metaphysician of singular vigour and 
 acuteness), published in 1662, but without his name, a treatise to 
 
44 Nature of the Soul. 
 
 prove the reasonableness of the doctrine.* It was afterwards 
 republished, with annotations, by Dr. Henry More. 
 
 In 1762, the Rev. Capel Berrow published A Pre-existent Lapse 
 of Human Souls demonstrated ; and in the European Magazine for 
 September, 1801, is a letter from Bishop Warburton to the author, 
 in which he says : " The idea of a pre-existence has been espoused 
 by many learned and ingenious men in every age, as bidding fair 
 to resolve many difficulties." 
 
 Southey, in his published Letters, says : " I have a strong and 
 lively faith in a state of continued consciousness from this stage 
 of existence, and that we shall recover the consciousness of some 
 lower stages through which we may previously have passed seems to 
 me not improbable." Again : " The system of progressive exist- 
 ence seems, of all others, the most benevolent ; and all that we do 
 understand is so wise and so good, and all we do, or do not, so 
 perfectly and overwhelmingly wonderful, that the most benevolent 
 system is the most probable." Traces of belief in this doctrine also 
 occur in Wordsworth's " Ode on the Intimation of Immortality in 
 Childhood." 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The soul that rises in us, our life's star, 
 
 Has had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar. 
 
 Elsewhere, our metaphysical poet sings : 
 
 My eyes are dim with childish tears, 
 
 My heart is idly stirr'd ; 
 For the same sound is in my ears 
 
 Which in those days I heard. 
 
 Thus fares it still in our decay ; 
 
 And yet the wiser mind 
 Mourns less for what time takes away, 
 
 Than what he leaves behind. 
 
 The notion enters more or less into the majority of Oriental , 
 creeds, and philosophies, and found a believer in Plato : indeed, 
 it is a doctrine Platonic, that all knowledge is recollection. 
 
 Hence, it has been asked, whether it is not very possible, that 
 previously to this life, the human soul has passed through different 
 phases of existence, and that it is destined to pass through many 
 more before it arrives at its final rest. Thus, Pythagoras recol- 
 lected his former self in the majestic person of a herald named 
 ^Ethalides ; Euphorbus, the Trojan ; and others ; and he even 
 pointed out, in the temple of Juno, at Argos, the shield he used 
 when he attacked Patroclus. 
 
 * Among the Baxter MSS. in the Red-cross-street Library, Cripple- 
 gate, is a long letter, full of curious learning, from Glanvil to Baxter, in 
 defence of the doctrine of the soul's pre-existence. 
 
-Pre-Existence of Souls. 45 
 
 Milton, who imbibed from his college friend, Henry More, an 
 early bias to the study of Plato, hints at the same opinion in his 
 Comus : 
 
 The soul grows dotted by contagion, 
 
 Imbodies and imbutes, till she quite lose 
 
 The divine property of her first being. 
 
 Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, 
 
 Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres, 
 
 Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave, 
 
 As loath to leave the body that it loved. 
 
 In the first volume of Dodsley's Miscellaneous Poems is a poem 
 in Miltonic blank verse, entitled Pre-existence. Gray called it 
 " nonsense in all her attitudes ; " but it contains some fine things 
 in the midst of a great deal of wild turgidity. (Atlas, May 28, 1859 .) 
 
 In Chambers 's Edinburgh Journal, No. 93, New Series, this 
 " Sentiment of Pre-existence" is stated to have been first described 
 by Sir Walter Scott : this may be correct as to the expression but 
 not as to the phenomenon to which it is applied, as we have already 
 shown. Scott, it will be remembered, was highly susceptible upon 
 psychological matters. The description is thrown into the mouth 
 of Henry Bertram on his return to Ellangowan Castle : " How 
 often," he says, " do we find ourselves in society which we have 
 never before met, and yet feel impressed with a mysterious and 
 ill-defined consciousness that neither the scene, the speakers, nor 
 the subject are entirely new; nay, feel as if we could anticipate 
 that part of the conversation which has not yet taken place ! " > 
 
 We find the following entry in Scott's diary, under the date 
 February 17, 1828 : 
 
 I cannot, I am sure, tell if it is worth marking down, that yesterday, 
 at dinner-time, I was strongly haunted by what 1 would call the sense 
 of pre-existence, in a confirmed idea that nothing which passed was said 
 for the first time ; that the same topics had been discussed, and the 
 same persons had stated the same opinions on them . . . The sensation 
 was so strong as to resemble what is called a mirage in the desert, or a 
 calenture on board a ship. ... It was very distressing yesterday, and 
 brought to my mind the fancies of Bishop Berkeley about an ideal 
 world. There was a vile sense of want of reality in all I did and said. 
 Lockhart's Life of Scott. 
 
 It appears from a passage in the Wool-gatherer, a tale by James 
 Hogg, that that extraordinary son of genius was occasionally 
 conscious of the same feeling. 
 
 Sir Bulwer Lytton, in his Godolphin, thus notices this day- 
 dream: 
 
 How strange it is that at times a feeling comes over us, as we gaze 
 upon certain places, which associates the scene either with some dim- 
 remembered and dream -like images of the Past, or with a prophetic and 
 fearful omen of the Future ! . . . Every one has known a similar strange, 
 indistinct feeling, at certain times and places, and with a similar 
 inability to trace the cause. 
 
46 Nature of the Soul. 
 
 Elsewhere the same writer describes the same feeling of re- 
 miniscence as " that strange kind of inner and spiritual memory 
 which often recalls to us places and persons we have never seen 
 before, and which Platonists would resolve to be the unquenched 
 and struggling consciousness of a former life." 
 
 In fewer words, the feeling may be described as seeing and 
 hearing, apparently for the first time, what we have seen or heard 
 before, though our reason assures us of the contrary. Can any- 
 thing be more expressive of the sameness of human existence ? 
 
 Moreover something is, or seems, 
 
 That teaches me with mystic gleams, 
 
 Like glimpses of forgotten dreams 
 
 Of something felt, like something here ; 
 
 Of something done, I know not where ; 
 
 Such as no language may declare. Tennyson. 
 
 Mr. Dickens, in his Pictures from Italy, mentions this instance, 
 on his first sight of Ferrara : 
 
 On the fore-ground was a group of silent peasant-girls leaning over 
 the parapet of a little bridge, looking now up at the sky, now down into 
 the water ; in the distance a deep bell ; the shadow of approaching 
 night on everything. If I had been murdered there on some former life 
 I could not have seemed to remember the place more thoroughly, or 
 with more emphatic chilling of the blood ; and the real remembrance of 
 it acquired in that minute is so strengthened by the imaginary recollec- 
 tion, that I hardly think I could forget it. 
 
 We could multiply these instances manyfold; but proceed to 
 attempt the explanation of the mystery. 
 
 In a curious and original book, entitled The Duality of the Mind, 
 written by Dr. Wigan, and published in 1844, this strange senti- 
 ment is adduced as an evidence in favour of the conclusion aimed 
 at, that the Mind is double in its whole structure, correspondently 
 with the duplicity of the structure of the Brain. "It is a sudden 
 feeling, as if the scene we have just witnessed (although from the 
 very nature of things it could never have been seen before) had 
 been present to our eyes on a former occasion, when the very 
 same speakers, seated in the very same positions, uttered the 
 same sentiments in the same words the postures, the expression 
 of countenance, the gestures, the tone of voice, all seem to be 
 remembered, and to be now attracting attention for the second 
 time : never is it supposed to be the third time. This delusion, 5 ' 
 pursues the writer, "occurs only when the mind has been ex- 
 hausted by excitement, or is, from indisposition or any other 
 cause, languid, and only slightly attentive to the conversation. 
 The persuasion of the scene being a repetition, comes on when the 
 attention has been roused by some accidental circumstance, and 
 we become, as the phrase is, wide awake. I believe the explana- 
 tion to be this : only one brain has been used in the immediately 
 
Pre-Existence of Souls. 47 
 
 preceding part of the scene ; the other brain has been asleep, or 
 in an analogous state nearly approaching it. When the attention 
 of both brains is roused to the topic, there is the same vague 
 consciousness that the ideas have passed through the mind before, 
 which takes place on re-perusing the page we had read while 
 thinking on some other subject. The ideas have passed through 
 the mind before ; and as there was not sufficient consciousness to 
 fix them in the memory without a renewal, we have no means of 
 knowing the length of time that had elapsed between the faint 
 impression received by the single brain, and the distinct impres- 
 sion received by the double brain. It may seem to have been 
 many years. I have often noticed this in children, and believe 
 they have sometimes been punished for the involuntary error, in 
 the belief that they have been guilty of deliberate falsehood." 
 
 The strongest example of this delusion I ever recollect in my own 
 person was on the occasion of the funeral of the Princess Charlotte. 
 The circumstances connected with that event formed in every respect a 
 most extraordinary psychological curiosity, and afforded an instructive 
 view of the moral feelings pervading a whole nation, and showing them- 
 selves without restraint or disguise. There is, perhaps, no example in 
 history of so intense and so universal a sympathy, for almost every con- 
 ceivable misfortune to one party is a source of joy, satisfaction, or 
 advantage to another. The event was attended by the strange pecu- 
 liarity, that it could be a subject of joy or satisfaction to no one. It is 
 difficult to imagine another instance of a calamity by which none could 
 derive any possible benefit ; for in the then state of succession to the 
 throne no one was apparently brought a step nearer to it. One mighty 
 all-absorbing grief possessed the whole nation, and was aggravated in 
 each individual by the sympathy of his neighbour, till the whole people 
 became infected with an amiable insanity, and incapable of estimating 
 the real extent of their loss. No one under five-and-thirty or forty 
 years of age can form a conception of the universal paroxysm of grief 
 which then superseded every other feeling. 
 
 I had obtained permission to be present on the occasion of the 
 funeral, as one of the lord chamberlain's staff. Several disturbed nights 
 previous to that ceremony, and the almost total privation of rest on 
 the night immediately preceding it, had put my mind into a state of 
 hysterical irritability, which was still further increased by grief, and by 
 exhaustion from want of food ; for between breakfast and the hour of 
 interment at midnight, such was the confusion in the town of Windsor, 
 that no expenditure of money could procure refreshment. 
 
 I had been standing four hours, and on taking my place by the side of 
 the coffin, in St. George's chapel, was only prevented from fainting by the 
 interest of the scene. All that our truncated ceremonies could bestow 
 of pomp was there, and the exquisite music produced a sort of halluci- 
 nation. Suddenly, after the pathetic Miserere of Mozart, the music 
 ceased, and there was an absolute silence. The coffin, placed on a kind 
 of altar covered with black cloth (united to the black cloth which 
 covered the pavement), sank down so slowly through the floor, that it 
 was only in measuring its progress by some brilliant object beyond it 
 that any motion could be perceived. I had fallen into a sort of torpid 
 reverie, when I was recalled to consciousness by a paroxysm of violent 
 grief on the part of the bereaved husband, as his eye suddenly caught 
 
 
48 Nature of the Soul. 
 
 the coffin sinking into its black grave, formed by the inverted covering 
 of the altar. In an instant 1 felt not merely an impression, but a 
 conviction that I had seen the whole scene before on some former occa- 
 sion, and had heard even the very words addressed to myself by Sir 
 George Nayler. 
 
 The author thus concludes Often did I discuss this matter with my 
 talented friend, the late Dr. Gooch, who always took great interest in 
 subjects occupying the debateable region between physics and meta- 
 physics ; but we could never devise an explanation satisfactory to either 
 of us. I cannot but think that the theory of two brains affords a 
 sufficient solution of the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon. It is 
 probable that some of the examples of religious mysticism, which we 
 generally set down as imposture, may have their origin in similar 
 hallucinations, and that in the uneducated mind these apparent recol- 
 lections of past scenes, similar to the present, may give to an 
 enthusiast the idea of inspiration, especially where one brain has a 
 decided tendency to insanity, as is often the case with such persons. 
 
 Dr. Wigan's theory has been much controverted; but we think 
 there is some probability in the view by Mr. W. L. Nichols, in 
 Notes and Queries, Second Series, No. 55, that the cause is "some 
 incongruous action of the double structure of the brain, to which 
 perfect unity of action belongs in a healthy state." 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie describes Dr. Wigan's mind to have had 
 in it more of ingenuity than of philosophy, and the object of his 
 work to be to prove that each hemisphere of the cerebrum has a 
 separate mind, and that on these occasions the two hemispheres 
 might be considered as conversing with each other. Sir Benjamin 
 does not believe this hypothesis, or, rather, he adds, "I should 
 say that it is not in my nature to believe it. It seems to me that 
 the question as to the oneness and individuality of the mind is 
 very clearly and unanswerably stated by Father Buffier. It is one 
 of those fundamental truths which are inherent in us, and defy all 
 argument ; which I can no more help believing than I can help 
 believing in the external world, or even in my own existence." 
 (Psychological Inquiries, p. 23.) 
 
 This disclaimer, however, leaves where it was, the explanation 
 of the phenomenon which has been so often attested by reliable 
 authorities in past and present times. 
 
 Sir Henry Holland repudiates the leading idea of Dr. Wigan's 
 theory ; although he assents to the still stranger notion that there 
 is a duality of ^natures in the individual human being. 
 
 Combe's phrenological doctrine that " there are two organs for 
 each mental power, one in each hemisphere," may seem to help 
 the species of duality contended for by Dr. Wigan. (Dr. Cromwell.) 
 
 A curious instance of Duality of Heart is stated to occur in the 
 Elephants, in captivity, when their temper cannot be relied on, and 
 they are subject to occasional fits of stubbornness. Hence a popular 
 belief recorded by Phile, a Greek writer, of the 14th century, who in a 
 poem (from which Sir Emerson Tennent gives extracts in his Natural 
 
Transmigration of Souls. 49 
 
 History of Ceylon,} to the effect that the elephant has two hearts, by tho 
 use of one of which he is used to gentleness, by the other to ferocity 
 and resistance. Upon this, a writer in the National Review observes": 
 " This legend of the two hearts of the elephant is a striking expression 
 of that duality of the physical nature which seems to distinguish tame- 
 able from untameable animals. In an animal of the latter class, 
 whether in its wild state or in captivity, the whole bent of its 
 nature is single and unwavering : it may be crushed by outer violence, 
 but it admits of no internal division, and the influence of man finds no 
 place in the permanent nature of the beast. In the tameable animal, 
 on the contrary, there is an original duality which furnishes a foot-hold 
 for the power of man. There is one part of the creature's nature that 
 struggles with the other, and thus strangely mimics the moral nature 
 of man, with its conflicts between the higher and the lower principles 
 in him, and like that moral nature is amenable to the power of rewards 
 and punishments." The writer then instances the dog as exhibiting this 
 quality in the highest degree ; but considers that the same thing, in 
 lesser "degrees, characterises all animals that are capable of being tamed, 
 and not merely subdued to be held in by present force. 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Howe, the friend of Bishop Ken, and of Dr. 
 Isaac Watts, has left, in allusion to the " Pre-existence of Souls," 
 
 A HYMN ON HEAVEN. 
 
 Ye starry mansions, hail ! my native skies ! 
 Here in my happy, pre-existent state, 
 (A spotless mind,) I led the life of gods. 
 But passing, I salute you, and advance 
 To yonder brighter realms, allowed access. 
 
 Hail, splendid city of the Almighty King ! 
 Celestial Salem, situate above, &c. 
 
 TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS, AND SACREDNESS OF ANIMALS. 
 
 The Egyptians maintained that after death the soul, being 
 immortal, transmigrated into bodies of all kinds of animals, 
 whether birds, beasts, or fishes ; and that after the space of three 
 thousand years it again returned to the body which it left, pro- 
 vided that body was preserved from destruction during the long 
 period of its absence. The Egyptians also held that the gods 
 took refuge in the bodies of animals from the wickedness and 
 violence of men ; they therefore regarded such animals as sacred, 
 and accordingly worshipped them as containing the divinities 
 whom they revered. This led to the bestowing on them the 
 honour of embalming, while it explains the reason why the 
 mummies of so many animals are found to this day preserved 
 in their catacombs. They placed particular gods in particular 
 animals : thus, Apollo was in the hawk, Mercury in the ibis, 
 Mars in the fish, Diana in the cat, Bacchus in the goat, Hercules 
 in the colt, Vulcan in the ox, &c. These animals, with many 
 others, or parts of them, are accordingly found embalmed with 
 the bodies of the human race in the Egyptian tombs ; but they 
 were not all worshipped during the early history of Egypt. 
 
SPIRITUAL RECLAMATION. 
 
 THE progress of souls from darkness to light, from ignorance to 
 knowledge, is among the more beautiful spectacles of our spiritual 
 life. And, soon or late, this is a consummation which awaits us 
 all. Yet, spiritual reclamation, whether on the large scale or the 
 small, demands concentration of purpose, energy, and intelligence. 
 
 Would we realise heaven, let us begin now. The paradise of 
 our aspirations has its foundations here, and the capacities of the 
 future are grounded on those of the present life. 
 
 A twofold cosmos, natural things and spiritual, 
 Must go to a perfect world. 
 
 For whoso separates those two, 
 In arts, in morals, or the social drift, 
 Tears up the bond of nature and brings death. 
 
 As we love here, we shall love in a degree hereafter, as we feel 
 and think now, so must we in somewise feel and think for ever. 
 The unseen world, with all its momentous transactions, let us be 
 assured, is simple and natural as that in which we dwell. Ascetic 
 horrors and ascetic gloom, travestying and deforming with fright- 
 ful, yet vain imaginings, the beautiful city of God, are sorry pre- 
 paratives for heaven. How, indeed, should sourness and formality, 
 convictions on which no ray of imagination or feeling seems to 
 shine, consort with the angelic amenities, the transporting assur- 
 ances of the life to come. Tor this, let us be well assured, is not 
 as some inquisition torture- chamber, reformatory hulk, or con- 
 demned cell. In the celestial life, as here, so surely as God is 
 light, and truth, and love, goal shall succeed goal, and quest 
 follow quest, for ever. A new iris shall spring up, not to foil 
 past efforts, but to allure us on to new, a constant becoming of 
 which the perfect realisation is never. There, indeed, the great- 
 souled patriot shall freedom find at last, there each self-denying 
 saint the sanctities which lie folded within the inner life, and of 
 which the perfect home is heaven. Dr. Me Cormactfs Aspirations 
 of the Inner Life. 
 
 " EXCELSIOR." 
 
 This is the motto of the United States of America : it signifies 
 literally " Higher," and may be considered to denote the aspiring 
 character of that nation. "Excelsior" is also the title of a 
 
Notions of Angels. 51 
 
 sublime poem by Longfellow, whose meaning is thus interpreted 
 by a classic friend : 
 
 " Longfellow, in my mind, has a feeling in that beautiful poem 
 not unlike the feeling of his psalm of life under every aspect. It 
 is, I take it, an ideo-religion of Longfellow's own fine imagination 
 and truly poetic art, and I read the effusion as his view of the 
 interior career of man. EXCELSIOR, starting from that sublime 
 point of departure wherein the human soul was placed by the 
 Almighty, c paulo minus ab angelis/ the individual who wishes to 
 improve himself never finds a halting place on earth. His career 
 is upward, in one sense, whatever it may appear to be. His very 
 degradations are means of increased ennoblement, because of in- 
 cessant compurgation and purity. And in one respect the human 
 almost surpasses the angelic lot ; because the one, being perfect 
 in its kind, does not, perhaps^ admit of progress, and the other 
 does indefinitely. The yearning to fulfil this progressive lot 
 engenders a noble discontent, and that discontent is expressed by 
 the word Excelsior. Observe, it is not Excelsius ; it is therefore 
 entirely interior; whereas Excelsius would refer to the circum- 
 stances, rather than to him who was in them." Miles Gerald 
 Keon ; Things not Generally Known, First Series, page 91. 
 
 NOTIONS OF ANGELS. 
 
 The word Angel, (angelos in Greek, malak in Hebrew,) literally 
 signifies " a person sent," or a " messenger." Dr. Lee remarks, 
 in his Hebrew Lexicon : " As man is incapable of receiving any 
 communication from God in his abstract and incomprehensible 
 character of deity, if a revelation was to be made to man by any 
 visible personage, it must have been by the intervention of some 
 being fitted to sustain such office ;" and such was the person em- 
 phatically styled " the Angel of Jehovah," in Exod. xxiii. 20, to 
 whom are ascribed the acts and reverence attributable to none 
 but God himself; for, it is added, v. 21, "my name^ (person) is 
 within him" In a lower sense, angel denotes a spiritual being 
 employed in occasional offices ; and lastly, men of office, as priests 
 or bishops. The " angel of the congregation," among the Jews, 
 was the chief of the synagogue. Such is the Scriptural usage of a 
 term, which, in common parlance, is now limited to its principal 
 meaning, and denotes only the happy inhabitants of heaven. 
 
 The apostle of the Gentiles speaks of the angels as " minister- 
 ing spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of 
 salvation," in strict keeping with the import of the term itself. 
 In Mark i. 2, it is applied to John the Baptist. " Behold, I send 
 my messenger (angel) before my face," and the word is the 
 same (" malak") in the corresponding prophecy of Malachi. In 
 Hebrews xii. 22, 24, we read: "Ye have come to an innumerable 
 
 E2 
 
52 Spiritual Life. 
 
 company of angels, to the spirits of the just," &c., and this idea 
 of their great number is sustained by the words of our Lord him- 
 self, where, for example, he declares that "twelve legions" of 
 them were ready upon his demand : the full Roman legion num- 
 bered about 6,000 men. They are also called the " armies " of 
 heaven. Their song of praise is described as " the voice of a great 
 multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of 
 mighty thunderings." (Rev. xix. 6.) In fine, the sense of number is 
 overwhelmed in the effort to compute them : " I heard the voice 
 of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the 
 elders :" and the number of them was ten thousand times ten 
 thousand, and thousands of thousands." (Rev. v. 11.) 
 
 The nature of angels is essentially the same as that of man ; for 
 not only are understanding and will attributed to them, but they 
 have been mistaken for man when they appeared, and Paul repre- 
 sents them as capable of disobedience. (Heb. ii. 7, 16.) The latter 
 possibility is exhibited in its greatest extent by Jude, who speaks 
 of " the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own 
 habitation," (v. 6 ;) and upon this belief is founded the whole 
 system of tradition concerning angels and demons : the former 
 term was gradually limited to mean only the obedient ministers of 
 the will of the Almighty, and the influence of evil angels was 
 sublimed into the office of the great adversary of all good, the 
 devil, or Satan. These ideas were common to the whole Eastern 
 world, and were probably derived by the Jewish people from the 
 Assyrians. The Pharisees charged the Saviour with casting out 
 devils " by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." (Matt. xii. 24.) 
 But that evil spirits acted in multitudes under one person appears 
 from Mark x. 9, where the evil spirit being asked his na-me, 
 answered: "My name is c Legion,' for we are many.' 3 
 
 The book of Tobias speaks of Seven Angels superior to all the 
 rest; and this has been constantly believed, according to the 
 letter, -by the ancient Jews and Christians. So, the seven that 
 have the greatest power, the first-born angels (Tob.xii. 15) : "I 
 am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the 
 prayers of the saints, and go in ana out before the glory of the 
 Holy One." And this Daniel may very well be thought to mean 
 when he says, chap. x. 13, &c. : "Michael, one of the chief 
 princes, came to help me." That some angels were under the 
 command of others may be collected out of Zechariah ii. and iii., 
 where one angel commands another, " Run, speak to this young 
 man," &c.; and out of Rev. xii. 7, where Michael and his angels 
 fought with the dragon and his angels. The number of just 
 seven supreme angels Grotius conceived to be drawn from the 
 seven chief princes of the Persian empire ; but it may be doubted 
 whether the seven there were so ancient as this tradition. Three 
 names of these seven the Scripture affords Michael, Gabriel, 
 
Notions of Angels. 53 
 
 and Eaphael ; but for the other four Oriphiel, Zachariel, Samael, 
 and Anael, let the authors of them answer, as likewise for their 
 presiding over the seven planets. Cow ley's Notes to Lavideis. 
 
 In the Roman Catholic services, St. Michael is invoked as a 
 most glorious and warlike prince ; " chief officer of Paradise," 
 " captain of God's hosts/' " the receiver of souls/ 3 and the " van- 
 quisher of evil spirits." His design, according to Handle Holme, 
 is a banner hanging on a cross ; and he is armed as representing 
 victory, with a dart in one hand, and a cross on his forehead. 
 Bishop Horsley and others consider Michael only another designa- 
 tion for the Son of God. We may add, as a certain Biblical truth, 
 that the Lord Himself is always meant, in an eminent sense, by 
 any angel named as his minister ; and He is called the Angel of 
 the Covenant, because He embodied in his own person the whole 
 power and representation of the angelic kingdom, as the mes- 
 senger, not of separate and temporary commands, but of the whole 
 Word in its fulness. 
 
 Paul speaks of a "third heaven," which must be understood 
 not as a distinct order of created intelligence, but in the same 
 sense as the Lord's declaration, " In my Father's house are many 
 mansions." For Jesus Christ always speaks of his kingdom as 
 essentially one, even in both worlds, the spiritual and natural. 
 The rhetorical passage (Rom. vii. 28, 30), " neither death, nor 
 life, nor angels, nor principalities, can separate us from the love 
 of God," makes excellent sense, however it may be understood. 
 
 Dionvsius, or St. Denis, the supposed Areopagite, describes 
 three hierarchies of angels in nine choirs, thus : Seraphim, Cheru- 
 bim, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers, Yirtues, Angels, 
 and Archangels. 
 
 Tartar, the Armenian poet and historian of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, describes Angels under the same terms, but expressly states, 
 " these orders differ from one another in situation, and degree of 
 glory, just as there are different ranks among men, though they 
 are all of one nature" He also remarks that the first order are 
 attracted to the Deity by love ; and hardly attributes place to 
 them, but states of desire and love, while the heaven which con- 
 tains the whole host is above the primum mobile, which, again, is 
 superior to the starry firmament. This description, and all others 
 resembling it, the twelve heavenly worlds of Plato, and the 
 heaven succeeding heaven of the Chinese, for example^ are but as 
 landmarks serving to denote the heights which the restless waves 
 of human intelligence have reached at various times in the attempt 
 to represent the eternal and infinite in precise terms. Bohme, 
 (Behmen,) regards " the whole deep between the stars " as the 
 heaven of one of the three hierarchies, and places the other two 
 above it ; "in the midst of which," he says, " is the Son of God : 
 not part of either is farther or nearer to Him, yet are the three 
 
54 Spiritual Life. 
 
 kingdoms circular about Him." The Revelations of Svvedenborg 
 date a century later and begin all these subjects de novo. 
 
 The division of angels into nine orders, or three hierarchies, 
 was held in the Middle Ages, and gave the prevalent character to 
 much of their symbolism. With it was held the doctrine of their 
 separate creation, and the tradition of the rebellious hierarchy, 
 headed by Lucifer, the whole of which is rendered familiar to the 
 popular mind by the Epic of Milton. 
 
 The Persian, Jewish, and Mohammedan accounts of angels all 
 evince a common origin, and they alike admit a difference of sex. 
 In the latter the name of "Azaril" is given to the hierarchy 
 nearest the throne of God, to which the Mohammedan Satan, 
 ("Eblis" or "Haris,") is supposed to have belonged; also 
 "Azrael," the angel of death, and "Azrafil," the angel of the 
 resurrection. The examiners "Moukir" and "Nakir" are subor- 
 dinate angels of terrible aspect, armed with whips of iron and 
 fire, who interrogate recently deceased souls as to their lives. 
 The parallel to this tradition in the Talmud is an account of seven 
 angels who beset the paths of death. The Koran also assigns two 
 angels to every man, one to record his good and the other his evil 
 actions ; they are so merciful that if an evil action has been done, 
 it is not recorded till the man has slept, and if in that interval he 
 repents, they place on the record that God has pardoned him. 
 
 The Christian fathers, for the most part, believed that angels 
 possessed bodies of heavenly substance, (Tertullian calls it 
 " angelified flesh,") and if not, that they could assume a corporeal 
 presence at their pleasure. The most decisive description of an 
 angel contained in the whole Word is : " And I John saw these 
 things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell 
 down to worship before the feet of the angel that showed me 
 these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not : for I 
 am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them 
 that keep the sayings of this oook : worship God." (ftev. xxii. 
 8, 9.) This passage may well supply the place of any lengthened 
 argument against the invocation of angels and supposed saints, 
 whatever the love and service they bestow upon us ; for they are 
 but the agents of the All- merciful, and, like ourselves, the sub- 
 jects of his supreme government. The same passage establishes 
 that angels are the beatified spirits of good men, and in a word, 
 justifies the highest speculations of philosophy, and the dearest 
 hopes of the Christian. 
 
 The remarkable passage, " Take heed that ye despise not one 
 of these little ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels 
 do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven," 
 (Matt, xviii. 10,) has been the subject of much comment. It is 
 generally held to establish the fact of ministering angels ; and at 
 any rate", will be admitted to bear the construction, that the inno- 
 
Spiritual Natures. 55 
 
 cent are the happiest of all, and ^rnost immediately under the 
 divine view.* 
 
 We now come to the broadest and most popular notion of an 
 Angel. The Rev. John Eagles, in one of his ingenious Essays, 
 says : 
 
 I have often tried to make out the exact ideas the poor people have 
 of Angels, for they talk a great deal about them. The best that I can 
 make of it is, that they are children, or children's heads and shoulders 
 winged, as represented in church paintings, and in plaster of Paris on 
 ceilings. It is notorious and Scriptural, poor people think, that the 
 body dies, but nothing being said about the head and shoulders, they 
 have a sort of belief that they are preserved to angels, which are no 
 other but dead young children. 
 
 Adam Littleton, in his Dictionary, has this odd sentence : 
 1 ' There is no reason for fancying Angels more of one sex than 
 of the other, since amongst them there is no such distinction; 
 but they may as well be imagined female as male." 
 
 Bishop Hall, in The Invisible World : Of God and his Angels, 
 thus speaks of the portage of souls : 
 
 The main care, and most officious endeavours of these blessed spirits, 
 are employed about the better part, the soul in the instilling of good 
 motions ; enlightening the understanding, repelling of temptations, 
 furthering our opportunities of good, preventing occasions of sin, com- 
 forting our sorrows, quickening our dulness, encouraging our weakness : 
 and lastly, after all careful attendance here, below, conveying the souls 
 of their charge to their glory, and presenting them to the hands of their 
 faithful Creator. 
 
 It is somewhat too hard to believe, that there have been occular 
 witnesses of these happy convoys ; who lists may credit that which 
 Hieron tells us, that A ntony the Hermit saw the soul of his partner in 
 that solitude (Paul) carried up by them to heaven ; that Severinus, 
 Bishop of Colein, saw the soul of St. Martin thus transported, as 
 Gregory reports'in his Dialogues ; that Benedict saw the soul of Ger- 
 manus in the form of a fiery globe thus conveyed ; what though I 
 speak of the souls of the Holy Marytrs, Tiburtius, Valerian, Maximus, 
 J\farcellinus, Justus, Quintinus, Severus, and others : we may if we 
 please (we need not unless we list,) give way to these reports, to which 
 our faith obligeth us not : In these cases, we go not by eye-sight ; 
 but we are well assured the soul of Lazarus was by these glorious 
 spirits carried up into the bosom of Abraham, neither was this any 
 privilege of his above all other the saints of God ; all which as they land 
 in one common harbour of blessedness, so they all participate of one 
 happy means of portage. 
 
 SPIRITUAL NATURES. 
 
 In Sir Humphry Davy's posthumous Consolations in- Travel, 
 we find this picture of spiritual power. " Listen," said the 
 Genius of the Yision, " whilst I reveal to you the mysteries of 
 spiritual natures ; but I almost fear that with the mortal veil of 
 
 * Selected and abridged from The Occult Sciences, by Elihu Rich. 
 
56 Spiritual Life. 
 
 your senses surrounding you, these mysteries can never be made 
 perfectly intelligible to your mind. Spiritual natures are eternal 
 and invisible, but their modes of being are as infinitely varied as 
 their forms of matter. They have no relation to space, and in 
 their transitions no dependence upon time, so that they can pass 
 from one part of the universe to another, by laws entirely inde- 
 pendent of their motion. The quantity or the number of spiritual 
 essences, like the quantity or number of the atoms of the material 
 world, are always the same ; but their arrangements, like those 
 of the materials which they are destined to guide or govern, are 
 infinitely diversified ; they are, in fact, parts more or less inferior 
 of the infinite mind, and in the planetary systems, to one of 
 which the globe you inhabit belongs, are in a state of probation, 
 continually aiming at, and generally rising to, a higher state of 
 existence. Were it permitted me to extend your vision to the 
 fates of intellectual existences, I could show you the same spirit, 
 which in the form of Socrates developed the foundations of moral 
 and social virtue, in the Czar Peter possessed of supreme power 
 and enjoying exalted felicity in improving a rude people. I could 
 show you the monad or spirit which, with the organ of Newton, 
 displayed an intelligence almost above humanity, now in a higher 
 and better state of planetary existence, drinking intellectual light 
 from a purer source, and approaching nearer to the infinite and 
 divine mind." 
 
 To this succeeds a glimpse of those states, which the highest 
 intellectual beings that have belonged to the earth enjoy after 
 death, in their transition to new and more exalted natures. 
 " These beings," said the Genius, " so grand, so glorious, with 
 functions to you incomprehensible, once belonged to the earth ; 
 their spiritual natures have risen through different stages of 
 planetary life, leaving their dust behind them, carrying with them 
 only their intellectual power. You ask me if they have any 
 knowledge or recollection of their transitions ? Tell me of your 
 own recollections in the womb of your mother, and I will answer 
 you. It is the law of divine wisdom, that no spirit carries with it 
 into another state and being, any habit or mental qualities except 
 those which may be connected with its new wants and enjoy- 
 ments ; and knowledge relating to the earth would be no more 
 useful to these glorified beings than their earthly system of 
 organized dust, which would be instantly resolved into its ulti- 
 mate atoms at such a temperature : even on the earth the butter- 
 fly does not transport with it into the air the organs or the 
 appetites of the crawling worm from which it sprung. 
 
 "There is, however, one sentiment or passion which the monad 
 or spiritual essence carries' with it into all its stages of being, 
 and which, in these happy and elevated creatures, is continually 
 exalted : the love of knowledge or of intellectual power, whict 
 
Permanent Impressions by Spiritual Powers. 57 
 
 is, in fact, in its most ultimate and perfect development, the love 
 of infinite wisdom and unbounded power, or the love of God. 
 Even in the imperfect life that belongs to the earth, this passion 
 exists in a considerable degree ; increases even with age ; outlives 
 the perfection of the corporeal faculties ; and at the moment of 
 death is felt by the conscious being ; and its future destinies 
 depend upon the manner in which it has been exercised and 
 exalted. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Your vision (said the Genius,) must end with this glorious view 
 of the inhabitants of the cometary worlds : I cannot show you 
 the beings of the system to which I myself belong, that of 
 the sun : your organs would perish before our brightness ; and 
 I am only permitted to be present to you as a sound or in- 
 tellectual voice. We are likewise in progression, but we see 
 %nd know something of the place of infinite wisdom : we feel the 
 personal presence of that supreme Deity which you only imagine ; 
 to you belongs faith, to us knowledge ; and our greatest delight 
 results from the conviction that we are lights kindled by his 
 light, and that we belong to his substance. To obey, to love, to 
 wonder, and adore form our relations to the infinite Intelligence. 
 We feel his laws are those of eternal justice, and that they govern 
 all things, from the most glorious intellectual natures belonging 
 to the sun and fixed stars, to the meanest spark of life animating 
 an atom crawling in the dust of your earth. We know all things 
 begin from, and end in, his everlasting essence, the cause of 
 causes, the power of powers." 
 
 PERMANENT IMPRESSIONS BY SPIRITUAL POWERS. 
 
 Dr. Eerriar, in his Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions, re- 
 lates a remarkable Trial of Dr. Pordage, a clergyman in Berkshire, 
 which was published under the frightful title of Daunonium Meri- 
 dionem, or Satan at Noonday, &c. Dr. Eerriar remarks : " The 
 development of this story, which is not necessary for my purpose, 
 exhibits the combined effects of Mysticism, Superstition, and 
 Sensuality, which evidently produced a disordered state of the 
 sensorium, and gave rise to the visions, which were admitted by 
 all the parties." 
 
 The book quoted by Dr. Eerriar, (published in 1655,) is one 
 written by a most determined opponent of Dr. Pordage, in 
 reply to Dr. P.'s own book (published in 1654). Had Dr. Eerriar 
 consulted that, he would have found the following passage, which 
 would have required quite another theory than the one he has 
 offered to explain it. It* will be seen that it affirms the fact of 
 permanent impressions, caused by the spiritual powers, upon objects 
 in nature. Such impressions, of course, could be judged of by 
 
58 Spiritual Life. 
 
 the senses of other persons than the parties immediately con- 
 cerned : 
 
 Now, besides these appearances within, the spirits made some 
 wonderful in^ressions upon visible bodies without, as figures of men and 
 beasts upon the glass windows and the ceilings of the house, some of 
 which yet remain. But what was most remarkable, was the whole in- 
 visible world, represented by the spirits upon the bricks of a chimney, 
 in the form of two half globes, as in the maps. After which, upon 
 other bricks of the same chimney, were figured a coach and four horses, 
 with persons in it, and a footman attending, all seeming to be in 
 motion, with many other such images, which were wonderfully exactly 
 done. Now fearing lest there might be any danger in these images, 
 through unknown conjuration and false magic, we endeavoured to wash 
 them out with wet cloths, but could not, finding them engraven in the 
 substance of the bricks ; which, indeed, might have continued until this 
 day had not our fear and suspicion of witchcraft, and some evil design 
 of the devil against us in it, caused us to deface and obliterate them 
 with hammers. 
 
 It is difficult to see how, what is commonly called, delusion 
 could have any place here. The affirmations, from their nature, 
 if not truths, must be intentional falsehoods ; yet they are most 
 deliberately put forth, and that too, not by any one wholly 
 obscure, but by a man well known amongst those who are in- 
 terested in the mystic writers, as being of some eminence in that 
 class; and, moreover, he . makes these statements in a book 
 written to clear himself from charges which had been of the most 
 ^erious consequences to him. Notes and Queries, Second Series, 
 No. 166. 
 
 Dr. South has this remarkable passage upon tf The Mind of Man 
 in Spirituals affected by External Objects : 
 
 The mind of man in spirituals, acts with a corporeal dependence, and 
 so is helped or hindered in its operations according to the different 
 quality of external objects that incur into the senses ; and, perhaps, 
 sometimes, the sight of the altar, and those decent preparations for the 
 work of devotion, may compose and recover the wandering mind much 
 more effectually than a sermon or a rational discourse : for these things, 
 in a manner, preach to the eye, when the ear is dull and will not hear ; 
 and the eye dictates to the imagination, and that at last moves the 
 affections. And if these little impulses set the great wheels of devotion 
 at work, the largeness and height of that shall not be at all prejudiced 
 by the smallness of its occasion. If the fire burns brightly and vigor- 
 ously, it's no matter by what means it was at first kindled ; there is 
 the same force and the same refreshing virtue in it, kindled by a spark 
 from a flint, as if it were kindled by a beam from the sun. 
 
 Perhaps, the most remarkable manifestation of material attri- 
 butes by presumed spiritualities is that narrated by Damascius, a 
 stoic philosopher of Syria, who nourished in the time of Justi- 
 nian. Speaking of him, Dr. Lardner writes : " He says expressly 
 that in a battle fought near Rome with the Scythians commanded 
 by Attila, in the time of Yalentinian (the third) who succeeded 
 
Materialism and Spiritualism Personal Identity. 59 
 
 Honorius (in the year 425) the slaughter on both sides was so 
 great, that none on either side escaped except the generals and a 
 few of their attendants. And, which is very strange," he says, 
 " when the bodies were fallen, the souls stood upright, and con- 
 tinued fighting three whole days and nights, nothing inferior to 
 living men either for the activity of their hands or the fierceness 
 of their minds :".... they were " both seen and heard, fighting 
 together, and clashing with their armour." Works, viii. 143. 
 Southey thought this passage sufficiently curious for insertion in 
 his Commonplace Book, page 143. 
 
 MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM PERSONAL IDENTITY. 
 
 Isaac Taylor has well observed, in his Physical Theory of 
 Another Life : " The doctrine of the materialist, if it were followed 
 out to its extreme consequences, and consistently held, is plainly 
 atheistic, and is therefore incompatible with any and with every 
 form of religious belief. "It is so because, in affirming that mind 
 is nothing more than the product of animal organization, it excludes 
 the belief of a pure and uncreated mind the cause of all things ; 
 for if there be a supreme mind, absolutely independent of 
 matter, then, unquestionably, there may be created minds, also 
 independent." 
 
 The question has been thus ably illustrated by Dr. Lardner, in 
 his popular Museum of Science and Art, vol. 8 : 
 
 " Man's nature, it is admitted, is a compound of the material and 
 the intellectual. According to some, to whom, on that account, the 
 name of Materialists has been given, the intellectual is a mere 
 function or property of the material part of our nature. Accord- 
 ing to others, the intellectual is a function of a spiritual essence, 
 which is independent of our material organization, though inse- 
 parably connected with it during human life. 
 
 " Our nature being thus compound, let us see how far we can 
 trace the connexion between its mere physical part and the think- 
 ing and intelligent principle which abides in it. 
 
 " There is a principle called in metaphysics Personal Identity^ 
 which consists in the internal consciousness by which each indi- 
 vidual knows his past existence, so as to be able, with the greatest 
 certainty of which the judgment of our minds is susceptible, to 
 identify himself existing at any given moment with himself, 
 existing at any former time and place. Nothing in human judg- 
 ment can exceed the clear certitude which attends this conscious- 
 ness. The Duke of Wellington, on the eve of his death at 
 Walmer, had an assured certainty that he was himself the same 
 individual intelligent thinking being, who, on the 18th of June, 
 1815, commanded at "Waterloo the allied armies. Now, to what 
 did this intense conviction and consciousness of identity apply ? 
 
60 Spiritual Life. 
 
 What was there in common between the individuals who died at 
 Walmer and who commanded at Waterloo? To reply to this 
 question we must recur, for a moment, to our physical organization. 
 
 " The human body consists of bones, flesh, and blood, each of 
 which is, however, itself a compound substance, and the whole is 
 largely impregnated with water. The ultimate materials of the 
 average human body are 14 Ibs. of charcoal and 10 Ibs. of lime, 
 impregnated with 116 Ibs. of water, and 14 Ibs. weight of the 
 gases which form air and water, that is, oxygen, nitrogen, and 
 nydrogen. 
 
 " Now those \vho think that the intellectual principle residing in 
 the human body is nothing more than a quality or a property 
 arising from the matter composing it, must be able to imagine 
 how 14 Ibs. of charcoal, 10 Ibs. of lime, and 116 Ibs of water can 
 be so mixed up with 14 Ibs. of air as to make a material thing 
 machine let us call it which can feel, think, judge, remember, 
 and reason. This power of intelligence, we know, is ascribed to 
 the organization of the materials ; but we are still left as far as 
 ever from any explanation as to how the mere arrangement and 
 peculiar juxta-position of the material atoms thus composing such 
 a body, can produce the prodigious powers of intellect. 
 
 "But even admitting a supposition apparently so impossible, the 
 question of Personal Identity will raise an insuperable objection 
 to it. Physiologists and anatomists have proved that the matter 
 which composes our bodies is subject to continual change, with 
 varying rapidity, according to the habitudes and occupations of 
 individuals. According to some authorities the average length 
 of the interval within which the change takes place does not 
 exceed thirty days. It is, however, generally agreed that it is a 
 very brief period. 
 
 " This, then, being the case, let us again ask, what is it that was 
 identical in the Duke of Wellington dying at Walmer in Sept. 
 1852, with the Duke of Wellington commanding at Waterloo in 
 June, 1815 ? Assuredly, it was not possible that there should 
 have been a single particle of matter common to his body on the 
 two occasions. The interval consisting of 37 years 2 months, 
 the entire mass of matter composing his body must have under- 
 gone a complete change several hundred times yet no one doubts 
 that there was something there which did not undergo a change 
 except in its relation to the mutable body, and which possessed 
 the same thought, memory, and consciousness, and constituted 
 the personal identity of the individual ; and since it is as demon- 
 strable as any problem in geometry, that that something which 
 thus abode in the body, retaining the consciousness of the past, 
 could not have been an atom, or any number of atoms, of matter, 
 tt must necessarily have been something not matter, that is to 
 say, something spiritual thus proving the existence of a spiritual 
 
Mesmerism and Somnambulism. 61 
 
 essence connected with the human organization. Here the proof 
 of the physical inquirer terminates. If there is nothing in the 
 disorganization of the human body and the phenomena of death 
 to demonstrate the simultaneous destruction of the spiritual prin- 
 ciple, the existence of which is thus established, there is, on the 
 other hand, nothing to prove its continued existence, and for that 
 we are thrown upon the resources of revelation, which might, 
 indeed, have been foreseen ; for, if the continued existence of the 
 spirit, or in other words, a future state, were capable of demon- 
 stration by the ordinary faculties of the mind, it would have been 
 incompatible with the divine economy to have rendered it the 
 subject of revelation. God does not suspend the laws of nature 
 to reveal by miraculous means those truths which are discoverable 
 by the exercise of our natural faculties." 
 
 MESMERISM AND SOMNAMBULISM. 
 
 In 1784, a Report was made to the King of Erance, signed, 
 among other members of the Commission, by Franklin and 
 Lavoisier. It speaks in strong terms of the Magnetism of this 
 period, with its baquets, its crises, and its convulsions against 
 iVJesmer's theory, too, of a universal fluid with flux and reflux, 
 the medium of influence by the celestial bodies on the human 
 system, and a universal curative a^ent they express no opinion 
 whatever, favourable or unfavourable, in regard to Somnambulism 
 properly so called. 
 
 It is equally admitted that somnambulism, with its attendant 
 phenomena, in the form now known to us, was observed, for the 
 first time, by the Marquis de Puysegur, on his estate of Buzancy, 
 near Soissons, on the 4th of March, 1784 ; but his observations 
 were not published until four months after the Commissioners' 
 report was made. Bailly, and his associates, learned and candid 
 as they were, did not condemn that which they had never seen nor 
 heard of. To this fact Arago testifies as follows : " the Report 
 of Bailly, upset from their foundations the ideas, the system, the 
 practice, of Mesmer and his disciples : " but we have no right to 
 evoke its authority against modern somnambulism, most of the 
 phenomena of which were neither known nor announced in 1783. 
 A magnetizer undoubtedly says one of the least probable things 
 in the world when he tells us that such an individual, in a state 
 of somnambulism, can see everything in perfect darkness, can 
 read through a wall, or even without the aid of the eyes. 
 
 Bailly does not notice such marvels. The naturalist, the phy- 
 sician, or the more curious investigator of somnambulistic experi- 
 ments, who inquire, whether, in certain states of nervous excite- 
 ment, individuals are really endowed with extraordinary faculties 
 that, for instance, of reading through the epigastrium or the 
 
62 Spiritual Life. 
 
 heel who desires to ascertain positively up to what point the 
 phenomena announced with so much assurance by modern mag- 
 netizers, belong only to the domain of the rogue or the conjuror : 
 all such inquirers, we say, are not really opposing themselves to a 
 Lavoisier, a Eranklin, or a Bailly. They are entering upon a world 
 entirely new, the very existence of which these illustrious sages 
 did not suspect. A little further on, Arago adds : " My object 
 has been to show that Somnambulism ought not to be rejected a 
 priori, especially by those who have kept up with the progress of 
 modern physical science." 
 
 In 1826, a Commission was appointed from among the Members 
 of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Paris, to examine the subject 
 of Animal Magnetism ; and after five years' investigation (in 1831) 
 this Commission reported unanimously in favour of the reality of 
 certain somnambulic phenomena : among them, insensibility, vision 
 with the eyes closed, prescience during sickness, and, in one case, 
 perception of the diseases of others. Some years later, (in 1837,) 
 a second Commission of the Academy reported, expressing their 
 conviction that not one of these phenomena had any foundation 
 except in the imagination of the observers. They reached this 
 conclusion by examining two somnambules only. Still, the Pre- 
 sident of the Academy, on their first Report, observed on the 
 conclusions of the second Report, that " the negative experiences 
 thus obtained can never destroy the positive facts observed by the 
 previous Commission ; since^though diametrically opposed to each 
 other, both may be equally true." 
 
 Arago, also, speaking of " the actual power which one man may 
 exert over another without the intervention of any known physical 
 agent," declares that even Bailly's Report against Mesmer's crude 
 theory shows "how our faculties ought to be studied experi- 
 mentally, and by what means psychology may one day^ obtain a 
 place among the exact sciences." Cuvier, more familiar than 
 Arago with the phenomena of animated nature, says : " it scarcely 
 admits of further doubt that the proximity of two living bodies in 
 certain circumstances and with certain movements, has a real 
 effect, independently of all participation of the imagination of one 
 of the two ;" and he further adds : "it appears now clearly enough 
 that the effects are due to some communication established between 
 their nervous systems." This is conceding the principle lying at 
 the base of Mesmerism, a concession which is sustained by 
 countless observations, little reliable in some cases, but in others 
 made by upright and capable experimentalists, on the contested 
 ground of artifical somnambulism and kindred phenomena.* 
 
 * Abridged from Owen's Footfalls, 
 
Clairvoyance. 63 
 
 CLAIRVOYANCE. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter, in his Principles of Human Physiology, under the 
 head "Mesmerism," discredits the higher phenomena of Clair- 
 voyance, but admits, 1st, A state of complete insensibility, during 
 which severe surgical operations may be performed without the 
 consciousness of the patient. 2ndly, Artificial somnambulism, 
 with manifestation of the ordinary power of mind, but no recol- 
 lection, in the waking state, of what has passed. 3rdly, Exalta- 
 tion of the senses, during such somnambulism, so that the som- 
 nambule perceives what in his natural condition he could not. 
 4thly, Action during such somnambulism, on the muscular appa- 
 ratus, so as to produce, for example, artificial catalepsy: and 
 5thly, perhaps curative effects. 
 
 Dr. Carpenter adds : his mind is made up as to the reality of 
 these phenomena, and that " he does not see why any discredit 
 should attach to them." 
 
 Rogers, the poet, relates that, when he was in Paris, he went 
 to Alexis, the clairvoyant, and desired him to describe the house 
 in St. James's Place. "On my word," says Rogers, " he asto- 
 nished me \ He described most exactly the peculiarities of the 
 staircase; and that, not far from the window in the drawing- 
 room there was a picture of a man in armour, (the painting by 
 Giorgione,) and so on. Colonel Gurwood, shortly before his 
 death, assured me that he was reminded by Alexis of some cir- 
 cumstances that had happened to him in Spain, and which he 
 could not conceive how any human being, except himself, should 
 know. Still, I cannot believe in clairvoyance because the thing 
 is impossible." Not because the opportunities for observation 
 were too few, and the experiments needed repetition ; but because 
 no evidence would suffice. La Place, however, says : "it is ex- 
 ceedingly unphilosophical to deny magnet phenomena merely be- 
 cause they are inexplicable in the present state of our knowledge ; " 
 and upon the above instance, Owen, in his Footfalls, observes : 
 " it is remarkable enough that in a matter like this, usually 
 deemed to savour of imagination, the mathematician should 
 reprove the incredulity of the poet." 
 
Inrfal 
 
 MIND AND BODY. 
 
 IT lias been observed that the mental powers, unlike the bodily, 
 do not suffer from the effects of time, but continue, as life ad- 
 vances, to enlarge and exalt themselves. Lord Brougham says : 
 
 It is an undoubted fact, and almost universally true, that the Mind, 
 before extreme old age, becomes more sound, and is capable of greater 
 things, during nearly thirty years of diminished bodily powers ; that in 
 most cases, it suffers no abatement of strength during ten years more 
 of bodily decline ; that in many cases, a few years more of bodily 
 decrepitude produce no effect upon the mind ; and that in some Ji- 
 stances its faculties remain bright to the last, surviving almost totally 
 the total extinction of the corporeal endowments. It is certain that the 
 strength of the Body, its agility, its patience of fatigue, indeed, all its 
 qualities, decline from thirty at the latest ; and yet the mind is im- 
 proving rapidly from thirty to fifty ; suffers little or no decline before 
 sixty ; and therefore, is better, when the body is enfeebled, at the age 
 of fifty-eight or fifty -nine, than it was in the acme of the corporeal facul- 
 ties thirty years before. It is equally certain that, while the body is 
 rapidly decaying, between sixty or sixty-three and seventy, the mind 
 suffers hardly any loss of strength in the generality of men ; that men 
 continue to seventy-five or seventy-six in the possession of all their 
 mental powers, while few can then boast of more than the remains of 
 physical strength ; and instances are not wanting of persons, who, be- 
 tween eighty or ninety, or even older, when the body can hardly be said 
 to live, possess every faculty of the mind unimpaired. 
 
 We are authorised to conclude from these facts, that unless some 
 unusual and violent accident interferes, such as a serious illness or a 
 violent contusion, the ordinary course of life presents the mind and the 
 body running courses widely different, and in great part of the time in 
 opposite directions : and this affords strong proof, both that the mind 
 is independent of the body, and that its destruction in the period of its 
 entire vigour is contrary to the analogy of nature. Discourse of Natural 
 Theology, pp. 119121. 
 
 Dr. Cromwell gives as the leading doctrine of his work, that 
 Mind is no independent immaterial essence, but the most excellent 
 and exalted among the numerous and varied phenomena of life. 
 "Though," says Mr. Spencer, "we commonly regard mental and 
 bodily life as distinct, it needs only to ascend somewhat above 
 the ordinary point of view, to see that they are but subdivisions 
 of life in general ; aod that a line of demarcation can be drawn 
 between them otherwise than arbitrarily." (Elements of Psychology, 
 
Mental Processes of which we are Unconscious. 65 
 
 349.) And if the oft-put question again follow, " What is 
 ife ? " we repeat that it cannot be more closely defined than as 
 the expression by operation of the laws of the states, functions, 
 and actions, by which an organism manifests itself to be alive." 
 
 F lf , 
 
 MENTAL PROCESSES OF WHICH WE ARE UNCONSCIOUS. 
 
 It has long been our practice, in order to master a subject of 
 difficulty, to assemble the facts and reasonings, to weigh and con- 
 sider them thoroughly, and having done so, to take leave of the 
 matter until the next day, or for a short interval ; when, on re- 
 turning to it, we have, invariably, been the better able to master 
 the inquiry. This result may, perhaps, be attributed to returning 
 to the subject with a fresh eye and recruited brain ; but this is 
 not precisely the explanation. In Sir Benjamin Brodie's Psycho- 
 logical Inquiries, we find it stated that a remarkable process takes 
 place in the mind, which is independent of any direct act of voli- 
 tion ; " as if there were in the mind a principle of order which 
 operates without our being at the time conscious of it." The 
 explanation is thus given in the First Dialogue : 
 
 Crites. It has often happened to me to have been occupied by a 
 particular subject of inquiry ; to have accumulated a store of facts con- 
 nected with it ; but to have been able to proceed no further. Then, 
 after an interval of time, without any addition to my stock of knowledge, 
 I have found the obscurity and confusion in which the subject was 
 originally enveloped, to have cleared away ; the facts have seemed all 
 to have settled themselves in their right places, and their mutual rela- 
 tions to have become apparent, although I have not been sensible of 
 having made any distinct effort for that purpose. 
 
 Eubulus. What you have now described has occurred repeatedly to 
 myself. It is certainly not very easy to comprehend the nature of this 
 mental operation. Is it that the subject every now and then comes 
 before us, and is considered without our recollecting it afterwards ? or 
 is it, as a philosophical friend '..as suggested, that in the first instance 
 we are perplexed by the multiplicity of facts presented to us, and that 
 after an interval of time, those of less importance fade away, while the 
 memory retains those which are essential, in the subsequent arrange- 
 ment or classification of which, being thus rendered more conspicuous, 
 there is no difficulty ? 
 
 Crites. The latter seems to be the more probable explanation of the 
 two. At the same time, it must be admitted that they are not incom- 
 patible with each other. 
 
 Accordingly, as men possess this faculty of keeping the atten- 
 tion fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked 
 all around it, will be the success of taking cognizance of relations 
 of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more 
 than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which con- 
 stitutes the vast difference which exists between the minds of 
 different individuals. " I keep the subject," said Sir Isaac 
 
66 Mental Operations. 
 
 Newton, " constantly before me, and wait until the first dawnings 
 open by little and little into a full light." It was thus that, after 
 long meditation, he was led to the invention of fluxions, and to 
 the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of 
 the diamond. 
 
 THE VOLTAIC BATTERY, THE ELECTB1C EEL, AND THE 
 BRAIN OF MAN. 
 
 We boast of our Voltaic Battery; but when we compare it 
 with the battery which Nature has given to the electrical eel and 
 torpedo, how insignificant are human operations compared with 
 those of the Architect of living beings ! The stupendous elec- 
 trical eel exhibited some years since at the Polytechnic Institution, 
 when he sought to kill his prey, inclosed him in a circle ; then by 
 volition caused the voltaic force to be produced, and the hapless 
 creature was instantly killed. It would probably require ten 
 thousand artificial batteries to effect the same object, as the 
 creature was killed instanter on receiving the shock. As much, 
 however, as Smee's battery is inferior to that of the electric fish, 
 so is man superior to the same animal. Man is endowed with a 
 power of mind competent to appreciate the force of matter, and 
 is thus enabled to make the battery. The eel can but use the 
 specific apparatus which nature has bestowed upon it. 
 
 If the brain, (says Sir John Herschel,) be an electric pile con- 
 stantly in action, it maybe conceived to discharge itself at regular 
 intervals, when the tension of the electricity reaches a certain 
 point, along the nerves which communicate with the heart, and 
 thus excite the pulsation of that organ. 
 
 A GALVANISED HUMAN BODY. 
 
 The appearances produced by the agency of galvanism on the 
 human body are of the most frightful nature, and awaken horrible 
 fancies in the mind of the spectator : the eyes roll wildly, and the 
 countenance is distorted with ghastly grins, whilst the limbs 
 move in forcible and convulsive actions. The most successful 
 effort to resuscitate by galvanism was that made on the body of 
 John White, who was executed for a murder at Louisville. The 
 body, after hanging twenty-five minutes, was cut down, and whilst 
 yet warm, and even trembling, was subjected to the stimulus of 
 galvanism. The man suddenly rose from the bench to a sitting 
 posture, afterwards stood on his feet, opened his eyes, and gave a 
 terrific screech. His chest worked as if in respiration. One of 
 the surgeons present exclaimed that he was alive. On another 
 shock being given, he jumped up with a sudden bound, disengaged 
 himself from the wires, and ran into a corner of the room. He 
 
Changes in the Nervous System. 67 
 
 frequently opened his eyes, and the breathing became so regular, 
 that many addressed him, but he made no sign of understanding. 
 Nevertheless, by the assistance of a medical student, he took a 
 few steps on the floor, and seated himself in an arm-chair. He 
 seemed like a man intoxicated, and overcome with the exertion he 
 had made. Every effort was put in practice to equalis e the circu- 
 lation; but congestion of the brain eventually came on, and 
 terminated his existence. A man named Clydesdale, who was 
 executed for murder at Glasgow, was also made the subject of a 
 similar experiment. Harrison on the Medical Aspects of Death. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie considers it (1) very probable that the 
 Nervous Force is some modification of the force which produces 
 the phenomena of electricity and magnetism ; and he compares 
 the generation of it by the oxygenated blood on the grey sub- 
 stance of the brain and spinal chord, to the production of the 
 electric force by the action of the acid solution on the metallic 
 plates in the cells of a voltaic battery. 
 
 2. We know that the solid parts of the body are in a state of 
 perpetual change. There is a constant influx of new materials 
 supplied by the digestive organs, and in other ways ; and a cor- 
 responding efflux of the old materials by means of the various 
 excretions, especially by that of the kidneys. The brain itself 
 forms no exception to the general rule. We cannot otherwise 
 account for its growth in the early part of life, nor for the altera- 
 tions in its structure which arise as the consequence of disease, 
 nor for those other changes which occur in extreme old age. The 
 mind preserves its identity, but there is no corresponding identity 
 of the corporeal organ with which it is associated ; and we may 
 even venture to assert that the brain of to-day is not precisely 
 and in all respects the same with the brain of yesterday, and that 
 it will not be the brain of to-morrow. 
 
 3. We cannot suppose that such deposition of new materials 
 and abstraction of old ones can be effected by mere mechanical 
 means, as you would take one brick from a building and substitute 
 another in its place. The elements of which the nervous system 
 is composed exist in the blood, but they must undergo a new 
 chemical combination before they can be incorporated with it; 
 and in like manner they must undergo a chemical change of an 
 opposite kind before they can re-enter the current of the circula- 
 tion. The precise character of these chemical changes we have 
 no means of ascertaining ; but whatever it may, there is reason 
 to believe that it must be in proportion as the nervous system is 
 more or less exercised. 
 
 The nervous substance is distinguished from all the other tissues 
 F 2 
 
68 Mental Operations. 
 
 (with the exception of the bones) by the very large proportion of 
 phosphorus which enters into its composition, amounting to 1*5 
 parts in 100, and to as much as one-thirteenth of the solid matter 
 which remains after the evaporation of the water ; and that one 
 result of over exercise of the nervous system is the elimination 
 of an unusual quantity of salts containing phosphorus, by means 
 of the secretions of the kidneys. This fact was first observed by 
 Dr. Prout, who has given it as his opinion " that the phosphorus 
 in organized beings is in some measure connected with the nervous 
 tissues and nervous action." 
 
 Lastly, Sir Benjamin Brodie considers that even if we had 
 more perfect organs of sense, or more perfect microscopes, 
 we could trace exactly the changes which took place in the brain, 
 we should be just as far from identifying physical and mental 
 phenomena with each other as we are at present. The link 
 between them would still be wanting, and it would be as idle to 
 speculate on the nature of the relation between mind and matter, 
 as on the proximate cause of gravitation, or of magnetic attrac- 
 tion and repulsion. Selected and Abridged from Psychological 
 Inquiries. 
 
 Dr. Eorbes Winslow has thus sketched what may be termed 
 the ubiquitous existences of the Nervous System : 
 
 From the maggot that leaps from a nut as we crack it in our 
 plate after dinner, and the caterpillar that eats up the leaves of 
 our favourite convolvulus in the garden from the sh that cleaves 
 the green, translucent wave, and the bird that wings the breeze 
 of incense-breathing morn from the lion that roams the desert 
 wild, and the horse that tramps the battle field, or prances before 
 the lady's equipage up to Man, the master of them all, there is 
 one all-pervading Nervous System, progressively diminishing in a 
 downward scale of analytic exhaustion, till it ends in a mere 
 microscopic globule of a brain, by which they all communicate 
 and hold their relative and inter-dependent existences, according 
 to their various forms and needs, and types of organization, 
 function, growth, location, and pursuits. 
 
 WORKING OE THE BRAIN. 
 
 Erom several causes within medical experience, it would seem 
 that Motion of the Brain is, at least, coincident with every mental 
 operation. Thus, "in a case reported by Dr. Pierquin, observed 
 by him in one of the hospitals of Montpellier in 1S21, he saw, in 
 a female patient, part of whose skull had been removed, the brain 
 motionless, and lying within the cranium, when she was in a 
 dreamless sleep ; in u motion, and protruding without the skull, 
 when she was agitated by dreams ; more protruded in dreams re- 
 ported by herself to be vivid ; and still more so, when perfectly 
 
What is Memory f 69 
 
 awake, and especially if engaged in active thought or sprightly 
 conversation." Combe's Constitution of Man. 
 
 A British captain, whilst giving orders on the quarter-deck of 
 his ship at the Battle of the Nile, was struck on the head by a 
 shot, and immediately became senseless. He was taken home, 
 and removed to Greenwich Hospital, where for fifteen months he 
 evinced no sign of intelligence. He was then trephined, and 
 immediately upon the operation being performed, consciousness 
 returned, and he immediately began busying himself to see the 
 orders carried out that he had given during the battle fifteen 
 months previously. The clockwork of the brain, unaware that it 
 had stopped, upon being set going again, pointed to the exact 
 minute at which it had left off. These sudden revivals of a lost 
 intelligence almost rival in their dramatic effect the effect of the 
 Prince's advent in the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, where at 
 the magic of a kiss, the inmates of the royal household, who had 
 gone to sleep for a hundred years transfixed in their old attitudes, 
 leapt suddenly into life and motion, as though they had only for a 
 moment slept. Once a Week. 
 
 WHAT IS MEMORY ? 
 
 The eye, the ear, and the other organs of sense, are physical 
 instruments by means of which impressions are communicated 
 through the nerves to the brain. It does not, however, follow 
 that the brain itself feels, or that it performs any other than a 
 subordinate office, conveying the impressions received from the 
 organs of sense to a superior principle in connexion with it. 
 Memory is a recurrence of sensations, which existed formerly, pro- 
 duced by the operation of some internal changes, after the causes, 
 by ichich the first sensations were excited, have ceased to exist. 
 When renewed, sensations are (with some rare exceptions,) fainter 
 and less distinct than those in which they originated. There is 
 also this difference between them, that the renewed sensations are 
 subject to the influence of volition, vanishing at once on the 
 slightest effort being made to direct the attention to anything 
 else ; whereas, we have no such power over the impressions which 
 are made on our senses by the immediate presence of external 
 objects. 
 
 Notwithstanding these points of difference, it is plain that 
 memory is closely allied to sensation, and the resemblance between 
 the two orders of phenomena is so great as to justify the sus- 
 picion that the nervous system is instrumental in producing the 
 one as well as the other ; while a multitude of facts show that 
 the suspicion is well founded. A blow on the head may de- 
 stroy the memory altogether, or (which is more usual), it may 
 destroy it partially, or it may interrupt its exercise for a 
 
70 Mental Operations. 
 
 certain time, after which it may be gradually, or even suddenly 
 restored. After fever, also, and some other bodily ailments, the 
 memory is not unfrequently impaired or lost. A blow on the head 
 which causes insensibility, generally affects the memory so far 
 that when the patient has recovered from the state of insensibility, 
 he has no knowledge of the accident. (Seepage 69.) But in some 
 instances, the effect of a blow on the head is merely to disturb the 
 memory, the other functions being unimpaired. 
 
 It seems to be a legitimate conclusion, that impressions made 
 on the organs of sense, and transmitted to the brain, produce 
 some actual change in the minute organization of the latter ; and 
 that this is subservient, and in our present state of existence, 
 essential to, the memory. 
 
 What the actual changes in the condition of the brain may be, 
 it is impossible for us to comprehend. 
 
 It is clearly not sufficient that an impression should be trans- 
 mitted to the brain to be remembered. An act of the mind itself 
 is necessary for that purpose ; and that, as Dr. Hooke has observed, 
 is attention. It is only a small proportion of what we see, or hear, 
 or feel, or imagine, that is not immediately forgotten, simply be- 
 cause there are very few of these things to which we pay more 
 than a momentary attention, while to many of them we pay no 
 attention at all. Now, attention implies volition ; that is, it is 
 that effort of volition by which an object, which would otherwise 
 have immediately passed away, is kept present to the mind during 
 a certain period of time. Sensation and volition are the two 
 functions by means of which the mental principle is enabled to 
 maintain its communication with the external world. It is under 
 the influence of volition that the contraction of muscles takes 
 place for locomotion, speech, the procuring of food, and other 
 purposes, and that the torpedo discharges his electric battery. 
 Here there is an impulse communicated from the mind to the 
 brain, and from hence to the nerves, and from these to other 
 organs, and producing a marked change in the condition of the 
 latter ; and a priori, there is no reason to doubt that the operation 
 of a similar cause may produce an equal change, though of another 
 kind, and more prominent in the minute structure of the brain 
 itself. 
 
 It appears probable that there is a special organ in the brain 
 for the purpose of memory, as well as for locomotion and speech. 
 But there our knowledge ends. At present, we must be content 
 to acknowledge that we know nothing as to the locality of the 
 function, nor of the minute changes of organization which are 
 connected with it. From Sir B. Brodie's Psychological Inquiries. 
 
Persistence of Impressions. 71 
 
 HOW THE FUNCTION OF MEMORY TAKES PLACE. 
 
 Berzelius asks Where, in the narrow emulsive mass of the 
 Brain lie those registers of the objects and occurrences of a man's 
 life ; those tablets which are the result of recitals or reading ; the 
 numberless words of many languages understood by the same 
 individual; and the systems of facts belonging to the many 
 sciences which he understands, Where is all this knowledge 
 stored away ready for use? What part has the matter (the 
 water, the albumen, and the cerebral fat) in that sublime activity, 
 which, nevertheless, does not exist without it, and which, through 
 its least derangement, is altered, or entirely lost ? 
 
 The method of transforming the valuation of time into space 
 by the rapid rotation of a cylinder rotating 1000 times in a second, 
 proposed by M. Fizeau, has been applied by M. Helmholtz to the 
 measurement of the rapidity of nervous impulse. In this way it 
 has been found by experiments made with the utmost care, 
 1. That sensations are transmitted to the brain with a rapidity of 
 about 180 feel per second, or at one-fifth the rate of sound; and 
 this is nearly the same in all individuals. 2. The brain requires 
 one-tenth of a second to transmit its orders to the nerves which 
 preside over voluntary motion ; but this amount varies much in 
 different individuals, and in the same individual at different times, 
 according to the disposition or the condition at the time, and is 
 more regular the more sustained the attention. 3. The time re- 
 quired to transmit an order to the muscles by the motor nerves is 
 nearly the same as that required by the nerves of sensation to 
 pass a sensation ; moreover, it passes nearly one-hundredth of a 
 second before the muscles are put in motion. 4. The whole 
 operation requires one and a quarter to two-tenths of a second. 
 Consequently, when we speak of an active, ardent mind, or of one 
 that is slow, cold, or apathetic, it is not a mere figure of rhetoric. 
 M. Ule, Revue Suisse. 
 
 PERSISTENCE OF IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 There is reason to believe that no idea which ever existed in the 
 mind can be lost. It may seem to ourselves to be gone, since we 
 have no power to recal it; as is the case with the vast majority of 
 our thoughts. But numerous facts show that it needs only some 
 change in our physical or intellectual condition to restore the long- 
 lost impression. A woman-servant, for instance, twenty-four 
 years old, who could neither read nor write, in the paroxysm of a 
 fever, commenced repeating, fluently and pompously, passages of 
 Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; and it afterwards appeared that, in 
 her early days a learned clergyman with whom she lived, had been 
 in the daily habit of walking through a portion of his house, that 
 
72 Mental Operations. 
 
 opened into the kitchen, and repeating aloud the very passages 
 which the servant uttered in her fever. This extraordinary state- 
 ment is made by Dr. E. Hitchcock, Boston, U.S. 
 
 Dr. Beattie tells of a gentleman who received a severe blow on 
 the head, and completely lost for a time his knowledge of Greek, 
 but did not appear to have lost anything else. Dr. Gregory, again, 
 tells of a clergyman, who, while labouring under an affection of 
 the brain, could speak nothing but Hebrew, the language he had 
 part acquired. So, too, Dr. Prichard mentions a lady, who, after 
 a fit of apoplexy, could only speak French for a time, but after 
 that, recovered her knowledge of English. The most curious 
 instance, perhaps, is, however, that mentioned by Cuvier, in his 
 Lectures, of a person who for some weeks lost the power of pro- 
 nouncing substantives, but could pronounce all his adjectives as 
 usual.* 
 
 That the brain constitute? fte material organ which is imme- 
 diately subjected to the operation of the mind, is unquestionable. 
 
 The human brain consists of a congeries of matter so extensive 
 that its actual service has been computed to be equal to that of 
 the whole body. Phrenologists have long assigned to each part 
 of the brain a separate office, and have estimated the capacity of 
 the mind by the relative quantities of the different portions of 
 that organ on which they suppose it to act ; but in what way it 
 acts they have not explained. If the distribution they have made 
 be well founded, it is obvious that a particular and distinctive part 
 of this organ must be the immediate subject of each mental ope- 
 ration; audit may not be an unreasonable conjecture, that this 
 widely- extended surface is the part acted on. 
 
 Take, for example, one of the simplest processes of the mind; 
 the record it makes of the scenes which are presented to us. If 
 an impression be made in early life, before the brain has been 
 overtasked, it is always easily revived: latent it may be for 
 years, for many years ; but so far is it from becoming extinct that 
 some accidental occurrence, the mention of a person or incident 
 connected with it, immediately brings up the picture of the past 
 in all its marked outlines, and with all its glowing colours. 
 
 And it does more : it brings up a hundred other pictures which 
 have also lain in total obscurity, and which seem to have no 
 further connexion with each other than the views that are in the 
 same portfolio. May we not suppose that the surface of certain 
 organs or parts of the brain constitute a living portfolio ? The 
 objects we look upon pass through that small but highly finished 
 telescope, the eye, and paint their image on the retina ; the retina 
 does not retain the picture, but transmits it to the brain. Why 
 should not the next operation be that of engraving it on the sur- 
 face of that part of the brain which is appropriated for its pre- 
 * The Critic. 1859. 
 
Value of Memory. Registration. 73 
 
 servation ? and why should not the picture be actually indented on 
 the brain, there to remain until the final destruction of that 
 organ ? How well does such a supposition correspond with the 
 mental operation ? A scene is viewed, is recollected for years ; 
 so vividly recollected, that we fancy the impression incapable 
 of being strengthened : the scene is again visited, how well does 
 it correspond with the old impression, but for a time how much 
 more vivid is the picture ! How indelible, as we have already 
 remarked, are the impressions which are made in early life when 
 the brain is unoccupied ! How evanescent are those which are 
 made when every part is crowded with impressions when the 
 same ground has been occupied and re-occupied, until a confused 
 blending takes place, and the outlines are too faint to be accurately 
 retained, even for a short period, if they pass not away beyonc 
 the dawn of our earthly consciousness. 
 
 VALUE OE MEMORY. REGISTRATION. 
 
 To estimate the value of Memory in regulating our proceedings, 
 we should compare examples of powerful memories with other 
 instances in which the faculty is lost. Mr. Smee relates a case of 
 a poor fellow who could not tell what he had done the day before, 
 or even on the morning he was examined; and he would, in a few 
 minutes, totally forget anything that was told him. Where 
 memory is lost, all the properties of the mind dependent upon it 
 are also lost. The man without memory cannot compare a pre- 
 sent event with a past event, or judge in any way of the difference. 
 He cannot exercise the powers of reflection or imagination, and is 
 said to be fatuous or foolish, a state which destroys all that 
 ennobles the man, and lowers him almost to the condition of ? 
 plant. 
 
 Erom various facts we know that memory entirely depends 
 upon organization, which is the word used for mechanism con- 
 trived by the Infinite Cause. It is, therefore, a physical property 
 arising from that mechanism. It ultimately resolves itself into 
 an action, determined by some previous impression on the body, 
 and as such, can be obtained by human contrivances. Now, here 
 a difficulty ensues ; for if you pass a voltaic current through a 
 solution, and so alter it that it ever afterwards shows that pheno- 
 menon, you obtain the same effect which is produced in the brain 
 by memory. 
 
 Mere registration may be imitated by mechanical means. At 
 the Bank of England there are many presses for printing Bank- 
 notes ; and every time the press acts, a communication is made to 
 a series of numbers, and the event is registered ; and the clerk 
 who sits in an adjoining apartment, has only to look to the num- 
 bers, when he can tell how many times the press has aeted at any 
 
74 Mental Operations. 
 
 given moment of the day. This, however, is an instance of 
 registration, not of memory. Memory involves a new tendency 
 to act, while registration is a passive result; and we thus find 
 that registration may exist without memory, although memory 
 cannot act without registration. 
 
 Memorv is a property of the mind of extreme importance. It 
 is the basis of its other more noble qualities ; and, as man pos- 
 sesses it, we must admit that it requires a mechanism so exten- 
 sive as only to be exemplified in the glorious works of God.* 
 
 Nothing so strengthens memory as the exercise of it. We have 
 heard of persons losing their powers of memory by the use of a 
 Ready Reckoner, instead of exercising their own calculation. 
 Mason, in his Treatise on Self-knowledge, says : " Recur to the help 
 of a common-place book, according to Mr. Locke's method, and 
 review it once a-year. But take care that by confiding to your 
 minutes or memorial aids, you do not excuse the labour of the 
 memory ; which is one disadvantage attending this method." 
 
 DECAY OF MEMORY. 
 
 In old age, the Brain loses its power to receive new images, to 
 restore bygone impressions, to connect different images, or to 
 apply general laws to specific instances. That which ennobles 
 the man has passed away: the outward form remains, but the 
 inward structure has lost its power to act. Childhood again 
 ensues not to acquire new ideas, but to forget those before im- 
 planted. All that is beautiful and desirable in this world has 
 passed away; the brain has lost its power the mind ceases 
 the very existence of the man is unknown to himself, till death 
 gives rise to a new life, and discloses that new and glorious state 
 in which our organization teaches us that man will be immaterial 
 and immortal.f 
 
 Mr. Stewart conceives, (says the Rev. Sydney Smith,) and, as 
 it appears to me, with great justice that the decay of memory 
 observable in old men, proceeds as frequently from the very little 
 interest they take in what is passing around them, as in any bodily 
 decay by which their powers of mind are weakened : " In so far 
 as this decay of memory, which old age brings along with it, is a 
 necessary consequence of a physical change in the constitution, or 
 a necessary consequence of a diminution of sensibility, it is the 
 part of a wise man to submit cheerfully to the lot of his nature. 
 But it is not unreasonable to think that something may be done 
 by our own efforts to obviate the inconveniences which commonly 
 result from it." 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie observes upon this point : " It is worthy 
 of notice that, while in old age the recent impressions on the 
 * Smee, on Instinct and Reason. f Ibid. 
 
Intuitions. 75 
 
 memory are evanescent, it is quite otherwise as to those which 
 were made formerly ; and hence it is that the old man, whose 
 mind wanders when he speaks of what has happened to-day or 
 yesterday, may be quite clear and coherent when he goes back to 
 the scenes of his early life ; and that it is on these especially that 
 he loves to dwell during the day, while they form almost the 
 entire subject of his dreams at night. At the same time, my own 
 observations lead me to believe that the failure of the mind in old 
 age is often more apparent than real. The old man is not stimu- 
 lated by ambition, as when he felt that he might have many years 
 of life before him. He has, probably, withdrawn from his former 
 pursuits, and has substituted no others for them ; and we know 
 that the mind as well as the body requires constant exercise to 
 maintain it in a healthy state. Where it is still occupied we 
 frequently find it to survive the decay of the body, retaining its 
 energy and vigour even to the last." 
 
 INTUITIONS. 
 
 Animals carry put certain designs, which we infer to originate 
 in their organization, because we observe, that, under all circum- 
 stances, the same species conduct their operations in a similar 
 manner. Now, Man does not conduct any ordinary operation by 
 instinct, but is guided by a knowledge of the properties of matter 
 to obtain any given result. 
 
 Nevertheless, certain ideas are possessed in common by all 
 mankind ; and under all circumstances, in every clime and region 
 of the world are held both by educated men and savages. Various 
 combinations of ideas give us other higher ideas. Thus, the ideas 
 of personality and infinity give us the idea of the soul ; pleasure 
 and infinity, of good ; pain and infinity, of evil ; cause and infinity, 
 of God ; time and infinity, of eternity ; infinity, pleasure, and time, 
 of heaven ; infinity, pain, and time, of hell. Personality, and all 
 the units of sensation, give us the idea of the body ; personality, 
 infinity, and time, of immortality ; personality, and other totalities 
 of senses, give us the idea of the mind ; thought and infinity, of 
 spirit ; lastly, action, infinity, and pleasure, give us the idea of 
 virtue ; action, infinity, and pain, of vice. 
 
 Thus, we perceive that we know, from the very organization of 
 our bodies, that we are immortal ; that God exists ; that there 
 is vice and virtue, a heaven and a hell. It is not in our power 
 to define these ideas; and if we attempt to descend to particulars 
 upon these mental conceptions, very different specific ideas are 
 attached to the same point. That which is infinite must noi be 
 limited; time must not be confounded with eternity, matter 
 with space, the body with the soul, or material creations with 
 God. 
 
76 Mental Operations. 
 
 Many of these intuitive ideas cannot be deduced from the 
 external world by any effort of reason. For instance, man knows 
 that all mankind are mortal, but cannot deduce from experience 
 that man has an immortal soul. It is, in like manner, impossible 
 to prove by reason the existence of heaven and hell, of virtue and 
 vice. But when man observes the insect deposit its egg blindly, 
 to produce an offspring which it can never see, but which, never- 
 theless, comes to life and eats food which has been instinctively 
 supplied by its parent ; when man observes the bird to build its 
 nest upon principles which never fail, can he suppose that when 
 he himself aims at attaining a future reward in heaven, which he 
 intuitively believes, that he will be deceived ? Can he believe 
 that these ideas have been implanted in him as a mockery of 
 Providence ? and can he doubt the reality of his soul, and that 
 Us soul will live for ever ? 
 
 WHAT IS GENIUS ? 
 
 From several pages of facts bearing on the faculty of attention, 
 in Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, we select the 
 following illustrations : 
 
 To one who complimented Sir Isaac Newton on his genius, he 
 replied, that if he nad made any discoveries it was owing more to 
 patient attention than to any other talent. There is but little 
 analogy between mathematics and play-acting ; but I heard the 
 great Mrs. Siddons, in nearly the same language, attribute the 
 whole superiority of her unrivalled talent to the more intense 
 study which she bestowed on her parts. . . . "Genius," says 
 Helvetius, " is nothing but a continued attention." " Genius," 
 says Buffon, " is only a protracted patience." " In the exact 
 sciences at least," says Cuvier, "it is the patience of a sound in- 
 tellect, when invincible, which truly constitutes genius." And 
 Chesterfield has also observed, that " the power of applying an 
 attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure 
 mark of a superior genius." 
 
 Mr. Disraeli has, in his Coningsby, this striking page : 
 
 " Genius, when young, is divine. Why, the greatest captains of 
 ancient and modern times both conquered Italy at twenty-five ! 
 Youth, extreme youth, overthrew the Persian empire. Don John of 
 Austria won Lepanto at twenty-five the greatest battle of modern 
 time ; had it not been for the jealousy of Philip, the next year he would 
 have been Emperor of Mauritania. G-aston de Foix was only twenty- 
 two when he stood a victor on the plain of Ravenna. Every one re- 
 members Conde' and Rocroy at the same age. Gustavus Adolphus died 
 at thirty-eight. Look at his captains that wonderful Duke of Weimar, 
 only thirty-six when he died. Baner himself, after all his miracles, died 
 at forty five. Cortes was little more than thirty when he gazed upon 
 the golden cupolas of Mexico. When Maurice of Saxony died at 
 thirty-two all Europe acknowledged the loss of the greatest captain and 
 
Mental Abstraction. 77 
 
 the profoundest statesman of the age. Then there is Nelson, Clive ; but 
 these are warriors, and perhaps you may think there are greater things 
 than war. I do not. I worship the Lord of Hosts. But take the most 
 illustrious achievements of civil prudence. Innocent III., the greatest 
 of the popes, was the despot of Christendom at thirty-seven. John de 
 Medici was a cardinal at fifteen, and, Guicciardini tells us, baffled with 
 his craft Ferdinand of Aragon himself. He was Pope as Leo X. at 
 thirty-seven. Luther robbed even him of his richest province at thirty- 
 five. Take Ignatius Loyola and John Wesley they worked with young 
 brains. Ignatius was only thirty when he made his pilgrimage and 
 wrote the Spiritual Exercises. Pascal wrote a great work at sixteen 
 (the greatest of Frenchmen), and died at thirty-seven. Ah, that fatal 
 thirty- seven ! which reminds me of Byron greater even as a man than 
 a writer. Was it experience that guided the pencil of Kaphael when 
 he painted the palaces of Rome ? He died at thirty-seven. Richelieu 
 was secretary of state at thirty-one. Well, then, there are Bolingbroke 
 and Pitt, both ministers before other men leave off cricket. Grotius 
 was in practice at seventeen, and attorney-general at twenty-four. And 
 Acquaviva Acquaviva was General of the Jesuits, ruled every cabinet 
 in Europe, and colonised America, before he was thirty-seven. What 
 a career ! the secret sway of Europe ! That was indeed a position ! 
 But it is needless to multiply instances. The history of heroes is the 
 history of youth. 
 
 MENTAL ABSTRACTION. 
 
 In some persons the power of abstraction almost degenerates 
 into a habit akin to disease. . . . Archimedes was so absorbed in a 
 
 feometrical meditation that he was first aware of the storming of 
 yracuse by his own death- wound. Joseph Scaliger, the most 
 learned of men, when a Protestant student at Paris, was so en- 
 grossed in the study of H\jner, that he became aware of the 
 Massacre of St. Bartholomew and of his own escape only on the 
 day subsequent to the catastrophe. The philosopher Carneades 
 was liable to fits of meditation so profound, that to prevent him 
 sinking from inanition, his maid found it necessary to feed him 
 like a child. Newton sometimes forgot to dine. Cardan, one of 
 the most illustrious of philosophers and mathematicians, was once 
 upon a journey so lost in thought, that he forgot both his way and 
 the object of his journey. To the questions of his driver whither 
 he should proceed he" made no answer ; and, when he came to 
 himself at nightfall, he was surprised to find the carriage at a 
 standstill, and directly under a gallows. The mathematician "Vieta 
 was sometimes so buried in meditation, that for hours he bore 
 more resemblance to a dead person than to a living. On the day 
 of his marriage, the great Budseus forgot everything in his philo- 
 logical speculations ; and he was only awakened to the affairs of 
 the external world by a tardy embassy from the marriage-party, 
 who found him absorbed in the composition of his Commentarii. 
 Sir William Hamilton's Lectures. 
 
78 Mental Operations. 
 
 EFFECT OF EMOTION ON THE INTELLECT. 
 
 In a clever paper, on the Physiology of Laughter, in Macmillan's 
 Magazine for March, 1860, it is remarked : 
 
 All know how generally it happens that a large amount of emotion 
 disturbs the action of the intellect, and greatly interferes with the 
 power of expression. A speech delivered with great facility to tables 
 and chairs, is by no means so easily delivered to an audience. And 
 every schoolboy can testify that his trepidation, when standing before 
 a master, has often disabled him from repeating a lesson which he had 
 duly learnt. In explanation of this we commonly say that the attention 
 is distracted that the proper train of ideas is broken by the intrusion 
 of ideas that are irrelevant. But the question is, in what manner un- 
 usual emotion produces this effect ; and we are here supplied with a 
 tolerably obvious answer. The repetition of a lesson or set speech pre- 
 viously thought out, implies the flow of a very moderate amount of 
 nervous excitement through a comparatively narrow channel. The 
 thing to be done is simply to call up in a given succession certain pre- 
 viously arranged ideas a process in which no great amount of mental 
 energy is expended. Hence when there is a large quantity of emotion, 
 which must be discharged in some direction or other, and when, as 
 usually happens, the restricted series of intellectual actions to be gone 
 through does not suffice to carry it off, there result discharges along 
 other channels besides the one prescribed ; that is to say, there are 
 aroused various ideas foreign to the train of thought to be pursued, and 
 these tend to exclude from consciousness those which should occupy it. 
 
 And now, observe the meaning of those bodily actions spontaneously 
 set up under these circumstances. The schoolboy saying his lesson 
 commonly has his fingers actively engaged perhaps in twisting about 
 a broken pen, or perhaps in squeezing the angle of his jacket; and if 
 he is forbidden thus to occupy his hands, he soon again falls into the 
 same or a similar trick. Many anecdotes are current of public speakers 
 having incurable automatic actions of this class ; barristers who per- 
 petually wound and unwound a piece of tape ; members of Parliament 
 ever putting on and taking off their spectacles. So long as such move- 
 ments are unconscious they facilitate the mental actions. At least this 
 seems a fair inference from the fact that confusion frequently results 
 from putting a stop to them ; witness the case narrated by Sir Walter 
 Scott of his schoolfellow, who became unable to say his lesson after the 
 removal of the waistcoat-button that he habitually fingered while in 
 class. But why do they facilitate the mental actions ? Clearly because 
 they draw off a portion of the surplus nervous excitement. If, as above 
 explained, the quantity of mental energy is greater than can find 
 vent along the narrow channel of thought that is open to it ; and if, in 
 consequence, it is apt to produce confusion by rushing into other 
 channels of thought ; then by allowing it an exit through the motor 
 nerves into the muscular system, the pressure is diminished, and irre- 
 levant ideas are less likely to intrude upon consciousness. 
 
 Instantaneous impressions are very deceptive. A visitor to the 
 Polytechnic Institution a person of quick temperament inad- 
 vertently placed his hand upon the head of one of the stuffed 
 tigers in the gallery of the Institution. The affrighted gentleman 
 turned quickly round, and started with horror : at the instant, he 
 
Melancholy or Poetic Feeling. 79 
 
 thought the tiger alive, an impression which another instant en- 
 abled him to correct. 
 
 The same susceptible person, whilst walking through one of the 
 least frequented portions of Covent Garden Market was followed 
 by a famished dog; at the instant, he took from his pouch a 
 penny, which he offered to the miserable animal. Here was the 
 same emotion at work, which would have led him to relieve a 
 starving man ; if this was madness, there was some method in it. 
 
 MELANCHOLY OH POETIC FEELING. 
 
 Hypochondriacal feelings are, no doubt, in a great measure, 
 connected with constitution or temperament. Melancholy is much 
 more common than is generally conceived, and may be, perhaps, 
 in some degree inseparable from a mind which highly appreciates 
 the beautiful, has quick sympathies with all around, and a thought- 
 ful regard to the possibilities and even probabilities of a changing 
 world. On this account it has always been considered by the 
 poets as a poetic feeling. Ben Jonson alludes to this notion, 
 with respect to melancholy, as an accompaniment of sensibility, 
 in his Every Man in his Humour : 
 
 Stephen. Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy. 
 
 Matthew. Oh ! it's only fine humour, sir ; your true melancholy 
 breeds your perfect wine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself divers 
 times, sir ; and then do I no more but take pen and paper presently, 
 and overflow your half a score or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting. Act 
 iii. sc. 1. 
 
 Again, Stephen says, in Act 1, "I will be more proud and 
 melancholy, and gentlemanlike than I have been." 
 Sir Walter Scott, in his "Diary," (May, 1827,) says : 
 
 Imagination renders us the victim of occasional low spirits. All be- 
 longing to this gifted, as it is called, but often unhappy class, must 
 have felt, but for the dictates of religion, or the natural recoil of the 
 mind from the idea of dissolution, there have been times when they 
 would have been willing to throw away life, as a child does a broken 
 toy. I am sure I know one who has often felt so. 
 
 In a letter to his daughter-in-law, Sir Walter says of Mathews, 
 the comedian: "It is very odd he is often subject to fits of 
 melancholy." 
 
 A disposition to melancholy (says Mr. Harrison,) is by no 
 means, as might first be imagined, necessarily indicated by a staid 
 and grave deportment. In a large proportion of instances, it is 
 even coupled with an exuberance of spirits, which' would seem to 
 promise a perpetual sunshine of cheerfulness. The mind, how- 
 ever, which is alive to joy, is also, and perhaps equally, alive to 
 sorrow; and often passes by quick transition from the one to 
 
80 Mental Operations. 
 
 the other. Lord Byron, in his Corsair, touches upon this pecu- 
 liarity of mind : 
 
 Strange though it seem, yet with extremest grief 
 Is linked a mirth, it doth not bring relief. 
 The playfulness of sorrow ne'er beguiles, 
 And smiles in bitterness, but still it smiles. 
 
 Dr. Currie describes Burns, notwithstanding the gaiety of his 
 writings, as constitutionally a melancholy man, and subject "to 
 those depressions of mind, which are perhaps not wholly separ- 
 able from the sensibility of genius, but which, in him, rose to an 
 uncommon degree." . . . . " Such a disposition is far from being 
 at variance with social enjoyments. Those who have studied the 
 affinities of mind, know that a melancholy of this description after 
 a while seeks relief in the endearments of society, and that it has 
 no distant connexion with the flow of cheerfulness, or even the 
 extravagance of mirth." 
 
 Mr. Listen, the celebrated comedian, the first sight of whom 
 was wont to set the audience in a roar, is said to have been a 
 melancholy man. This is not strictly correct. He, however, did 
 really imagine he could be a tragic actor; and there were, un- 
 doubtedly, touches of pathos occasionally in his acting that seldom 
 failed to draw tears from feeling hearts : his success was in great 
 part the result of thought and study. He went into society but 
 little ; his attention to religion was marked by devout sincerity, 
 and his knowledge of the Scriptures was very extensive. 
 
 Another phase of melancholy that peculiar to youth, may be 
 noticed here. The Rev. Dr. Temple, Head Master of Rugby 
 School, in his admirable Essay on the Education of the World, 
 observes : " Young men are ^rone to extreme melancholy, even 
 to disgust with life. A young preacher will preach upon afflictions 
 much more often than an old one. A young poet will write more 
 sadly. A young philosopher will moralize more gloomily. And 
 this seems unreal sentiment, and is smiled at in after years. But 
 it is real at the time ; and perhaps is nearer the truth at all times 
 than the contentedness of those who ridicule it. Youth, in fact, 
 feels everything more keenly; and as far as the keenness of 
 feeling contributes to its truth, the feeling, whether it is pain or 
 pleasure, is so much the truer." 
 
 GAY MELANCHOLY. 
 
 The history of Madge Wildfire, previous to her derangement, is 
 well known to the legion of readers of Sir Walter Scott's Heart 
 of Midlothian, illicit love and its consequences, in a character of 
 low extraction, whose beauty raised her above her station, were 
 the predisposing causes of her malady. Her personal Charms 
 appear to have attracted much attention, and a considerable 
 
Gay Melancholy. 81 
 
 degree of vanity and self-love formed a prominent feature in her 
 character. The ruling passion of her mind runs through the 
 whole of her history when insane, and stamps all its workings 
 with a peculiar feature. Facts teach us that persons in whom 
 vanity or amour-propre forms a predominating part of the disposi- 
 tion, if afflicted with insanity, from whatever cause it may arise, have 
 the ideas of health renewed in a modified and exalted form in 
 the state of disease ; and, as the tenor of the mind when awake, 
 determines in a great measure the nature of our dreams, so does 
 the stamp of the sane intellect throw the hue of its colouring 
 over the imagination of the insane. The vain are apt, in this con- 
 dition, to imagine themselves queens and princesses, and are more 
 greedy of admiration than ambitious of power. This turn of the 
 insane mind is peculiar to females. It is well exemplified in 
 some of Madge's ditties : 
 
 I'm Madge of the country, I'm Madge of the town, 
 
 I'm Madge of the lad I'm blithest to own ; 
 
 The lady of Beaver in diamonds may shine, 
 
 But has not a heart half so happy as mine. 
 
 I'm queen of the wake, and I'm lady of May, 
 
 And I head the blithe ring round the May-pole to-day ; 
 
 The wild-fire that dances so fair and so free, 
 
 Was never so bright or so bonnie as me. 
 
 Bred at a distance from the Court, and in an obscure village, the 
 imagination of Madge wonderfully adapts itself to the circum- 
 stances of her previous life. Had she been accustomed to society 
 of a higher order, she would probably have fancied herself a royal 
 queen; but the fancy having no materials of this kind to work 
 upon, she exalts herself to that dignity which, in rural sport, is 
 generally awarded to the most beautiful. 
 
 The death-bed of this sufferer is one of the most feeling 
 scenes ever sketched. In the most violent and perfect maniacs, 
 alarming disease very commonly partially or completely restores 
 the mental faculties : the body acts by way of revulsion upon the 
 mind, and the disorder appears to be removed from one by the 
 action of disease in another. Most commonly this return of con- 
 sciousness is rather an unsteady twinkling than a fixed and brilliant 
 light. The mind seizes ideas which it fancies are not new, and 
 looks upon objects in a truer light. The causes of its observa- 
 tion become apparent; and however gay the paroxysms of the 
 disorder may have been, there is frequently a tinge of profound 
 melancholy attends these periods of mental health, especially 
 when the occasion of its overthrow has been crime or great mis 
 fortune. When these periods immediately precede dissolution, as 
 they frequently do, there is always an instructive " persuasion " 
 of its approach. The maniac is aware that his troubles are past, 
 that his toils are at a-i end, that his grief and his gaiety, the 
 
 G 
 
82 Mental Operations. 
 
 troubles of Ms spirit, and the wanderings of his imagination, will 
 all sleep the sleep that knows no waking.* All the wanderings 
 of Madge's partially restored mind upon her sickbed centre in 
 her approaching death, and the whole of the portions of old 
 ballads, collected in her roving life, bear upon this point : 
 
 Our work is over, over now : 
 The good man wipes his weary brow, 
 The last long wain winds slowly away, 
 And we are free to sport and play ; 
 The night comes on when sets the sun, 
 And labour ends when day is done ; 
 When autumn's gone and winter's come 
 We hold our jolly harvest home. 
 
 Again, in a strain of a different character : 
 
 When the fight of grace is fought, 
 When the marriage crest is wrought, 
 When faith hath chased cold doubt away, 
 And hope but sickens at delay. 
 When charity, imprison' d here, 
 Longs for a more extended sphere ; 
 Doff thy robes of sin and clay, 
 Christian, rise ! and come away. 
 
 The next snatches are extremely pathetic, and indicate a 
 greater degree of consciousness than was exhibited by the former. 
 Memory assumes more power, and the poor maniac looking back 
 with sorrow and shame at the crimes and misfortunes of her past 
 life, and her once happy home, contrasts it with her present 
 situation as an outcast on the bed of charity; and prophecies 
 that an evil and sudden termination of existence must attend the 
 author of all her miseries : 
 
 Cold is my bed, Lord Archibald, 
 
 And sad my sleep of sorrow ; 
 But thine shall be as sad and cold, 
 
 My false true love, to-morrow. 
 
 And weep ye not, my maidens free, 
 
 Tho' death your mistress borrow : 
 For he for whom I die to-day 
 
 Shall die for me to-morrow. 
 
 * "It is rare," (says Foville,) "that the insane die in a state of 
 mental alienation : they generally fall victims to some bodily disorder, 
 and the mind recovers, in some measure, its sanity before dissolution. 
 Even where the most complete fatuity has been produced by long con- 
 tinued mental derangement, an unsteady glimmering of reason occa- 
 sionally returns. The intellect appears to approach once more the 
 throne of reason, to linger about the scenes in which she once delighted, 
 and to recal for once more, and but for a moment, ideas which she once 
 possessed, and which she is about to part with for ever." How true is 
 our author's character to nature ! 
 
Insane Impulses. 83 
 
 Her last words relate to her burial, which a strange mixture of 
 ideas confuses with a wedding : 
 
 Tell me, thou bonnie bird, 
 
 When shall I marry thee ? 
 When six braw gentlemen 
 
 Kirkward shall carry ye. 
 
 Who makes the bridal bed ? 
 
 Birdie, say truly ? 
 The grey-headed sexton, 
 
 That delves the grave truly. 
 
 The glow-worm o'er grave stone, 
 
 Shall light there steady, 
 The owl, from the steeple, sing 
 
 Welcome, proud lady ! 
 
 Such is an example illustrating the imaginations of that form 
 of mental derangement termed mania mitis, amenomania, or gay 
 melancholy. The Analyst, 1837. 
 
 INSANE IMPULSES. 
 
 Mr. Harrison speaks of these peculiar states of mind, which 
 attend certain peculiarities of temperament, and though not in- 
 compatible with mental sanity, are yet to be considered as 
 bordering upon derangement. These strange sensations are not 
 common to everybody, and are far more frequent or powerful in 
 the imaginative and eccentric, than in others. 
 
 Amongst this class of feelings may be placed the disposition 
 which is sometimes manifested by those who stand on precipitous 
 cliffs to throw themselves over ; or when standing on the brink 
 of deep water, to plunge into it; although such impulses are 
 dreaded by the yery persons who indulge them. 
 
 Shakspeare alludes to such a feeling, in Hamlet, when he is 
 cautioned by Horatio not to follow the Ghost : 
 
 What if it tempt you towards the flood, my lord, 
 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff 
 That beetles o'er his base into the sea ; 
 And there assume some other horrible form, 
 Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason, 
 And draw you into madness ? Think of it, 
 The very place puts toys of desperation, 
 Without more motive, into every brain, 
 That looks so many fathoms to the sea, 
 And hears it roar beneath. 
 
 Mr. Harrison considers under this head the cases of suicide 
 which seem to have been suggested by the contemplation of 
 frightful precipices, lofty buildings, deadly poisons, or dangerous 
 weapons. The same kind of feeling sometimes urges persons to 
 contemplate scenes of suffering and distress, which are painful to 
 G 2 
 
84 Mental Operations. 
 
 be witnessed, or impels them on to acts which they at the time 
 dread. 
 
 There are feelings sometimes which are contradictory in their 
 nature and objects. The mind is strangely perplexed in a war of 
 emotions, which are cherished while they are painful. Actions 
 are not always dictated by the simple feelings which seem to have 
 given them birth. How many persecuting spirits have wept for 
 those they have persecuted! There are those whose feelings 
 of mercy and forgiveness have struggled hard, and yet yielded 
 to pride and an ignoble revenge. Such contradictory feelings do 
 indeed partake of an insane character, and there is a fine signi- 
 ficance in the words of the poet : 
 
 That to be wroth with those we love, 
 Doth work like madness in the brain. 
 
 Such states of mind should be at once deprecated as unhealthy 
 and insane feelings ; since the proper control of the mind, which 
 constitutes virtue, is in reality the most conducive to a sound 
 understanding. 
 
 Goethe speaks of an evil disposition of mind which often mis- 
 leads us so far as to make us find a pleasure in tormenting those 
 whom we love. He tells us how he abused the fondness of a 
 young female by tyrannical and arbitrary caprices ; and secure of 
 her affection, vented on her all the ill humour caused by the failure 
 of his poetical essays, and everything else that occurred to vex 
 him. He poisoned all her best days by groundless and unworthy 
 jealousies; she long endured all these follies with angelic patience; 
 out he had the cruelty to tire it out. (See Goethe's Characteristics.) 
 
 Hazlitt observes, in his acute Characteristics, that men often 
 take a perverse delight in acting, not only contrary to reason, but 
 in opposition to their own inclination. 
 
 KEEP THE BRAIN FALLOW IN CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Helps makes the following suggestive remarks upon 
 what may be termed the forcing system of early education : 
 
 When we are considering the health of children, it is imperative not 
 to omit the importance of keeping their brains fallow, as it were, for 
 several of the first years of their existence. The mischief perpetrated 
 by a contrary course, in the shape of bad health, peevish temper, and 
 developed vanity, is incalculable. Some -infant prodigy, which is a 
 standard of mischief throughout its neighbourhood, misleads them. 
 But parents may be assured that this early work is not, by any means, 
 all gain, even in the way of work. I suspect it is a loss : and that 
 children who begin their education late, as it would be called, will 
 rapidly overtake those who have been in harness long before them. 
 And what advantage can it be that a child knows more at six years old 
 than its compeers, especially if this is to be gained by a sacrifice of 
 health, which may never be regained ? There may be some excuse for 
 
What is Madness ? 85 
 
 this early book- work in the case of those children who are to live by 
 manual labour. It is worth while perhaps to run the risk of some 
 physical injury to them, having only their early years in which we can 
 teach them book-knowledge. The chance of mischief too will be less, 
 being more likely to be counteracted by their after life. But for a child 
 who is to be at book- work for the first twenty- one years of its life, 
 what folly it is to exhaust in the least its mental energy, which, after 
 all, is its surest implement ! 
 
 Sir Henry Holland, in his book on Mental Physiology, has the 
 following passage bearing upon this intellectual exhaustion : 
 
 It is a fact well attested by experience, that the memory may be 
 seriously injured by pressing upon it too hardly and continuousfy in 
 early life. Whatever theory we hold as to this great function of our 
 nature, it is certain that its powers are only gradually developed ; and 
 that if forced into premature exercise, they are impaired by the effort. 
 This is a maxim, indeed, of general import, applying to the conditior 
 and culture of every faculty of body and mind ; but singularly to the 
 one we are now considering, which forms in one sense the foundation of 
 intellectual life. A regulated exercise, short of fatigue, is improving to 
 it, but we are bound to refrain from goading it by constant and labori- 
 ous efforts in early life, and before the instrument is strengthened to its 
 work, or it decays under our hands. 
 
 PERVERTED REASON. 
 
 In all cases of perverted reason, (says Mr. Smee,*) there appears 
 to be an irregular action of the brain, analogous to the irregular 
 action of machinery. If a steam-engine be subjected to the 
 undue stimulus of heat, it will, like the overstimulated man, 
 exhibit increased action ; and if too much power were applied to 
 the striking part of a clock, it might continue to strike, inde- 
 pendently of a corresponding action in the other parts of the 
 machinery. So with contrivances for ascertaining force; as a 
 mere spider's cord might materially interfere with the correct 
 action of the vertical force of the magnetic needle, which is said 
 by Professor Airy, to appreciate the one-ten-millionth part of a 
 grain. With all pieces of human mechanism we thus find that 
 proper care must be taken that they act correctly. The elaborate 
 mechanism of the brain, formed by nature, requires that its action 
 should be conducted upon the laws of the Creator. Whoever 
 ventures to set at nought these laws will most assuredly fall into 
 the errors and delusions of perverted reason. 
 
 WHAT IS MADNESS ? 
 
 Madness, like sense, admits of no adequate definition ; no one 
 set of words will include all its grades and varieties. Some of 
 the existent definitions of insanity would let loose half the in- 
 mates of Bedlam, while others are wide enough to place nine- 
 * In his popular work On Instinct and Reason. 
 
86 Mental Operations. 
 
 tenths of the world in strait-jackets. The vulgar error consists 
 in believing the powers of the mind to be destroyed by the malady; 
 but general disturbance of the intellect is only one form. The 
 aberration may be confined to a few objects or trains of ideas ; 
 sometimes the feelings, passions, and even instincts of our nature 
 may assume an undue ascendancy over a mind not disjointed, but 
 warped, urging it with resistless force to the commission of for- 
 bidden deeds, and to form the most consistent plans for their 
 accomplishment. Quarterly Review. 
 
 In a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, Dr. Conolly, of the 
 Hanwell Lunatic Asylum, speaking of the moral treatment of the 
 insane, stated as the result of the experience of his whole life, that dis- 
 torted views on religious subjects are the cause of at least two- thirds of 
 the cases of mania in women, especially those belonging to the upper 
 classes. Touching with all reverence on the proper study of religious 
 books, Dr. Conolly lamented that morbid brooding over subjects of 
 theology and points of doctrine, is such a fruitful cause of mental dis- 
 eases : and he remarked, that of all forms of insanity, religious mono- 
 mania is the one most prone to lead its unfortunate possessor to the 
 commission of suicide. 
 
 Among the most frequent sources of mental derangement are 
 the mind breaking down under some sudden affliction ; or its more 
 gradually yielding to the apprehension of poverty, especially when 
 it may arise from the misconduct of the individual ; while, on the 
 other hand, the unexpected acquisition of wealth, and overweening 
 vanity and pride, overturn even a strong mind. 
 
 INTELLECTUALITY AND INSANITY. 
 
 The division between the intellectual and insane portion of 
 mankind is by no means so broad as it appears on a cursory 
 examination. There are minor aberrations of the mind, which do 
 not come within the limits of actual madness ; nor is real insanity 
 so far dissevered from the more healthy operations of the mind as 
 to be. altogether incompatible with intermissions of extraordinary 
 brightness. Dry den has sung with nervous truth : 
 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 
 And thin partitions do their bounds divide. 
 
 And, in the masterly satire whence these lines are quoted, how 
 truly are insane workings portrayed in the character of "the 
 false Achitopel : " 
 
 A fiery soul, which, working out its way, 
 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay, 
 
 And o'er inform' d the tenements of clay. * 
 
 * Absolom and Achitopel. This character of Shaftesbury, (Achitopel, ) 
 is drawn with as much truth as power. He hated a calm, lived all his 
 life in intrigues, and in his sixty-second year his "fiery soul " wore out 
 his small and fragile body. A curious parallel to these famous lines 
 
Intellectuality and Insanity. 87 
 
 Mr. Harrison observes : * " It is well known that many of our 
 eminent writers, especially those of an imaginative kind, were 
 hypochondriacs. The unfortunate Cowper and Collins were of 
 this class ; and Chatterton and Haydon, it will be remembered, 
 destroyed themselves under its influence. The Rev. Robert Hall 
 had periods of actual insanity, and the elegant Charles Lamb 
 probably escaped from his sister's fate only by the necessities of 
 Ids position. Whitbread, Romilly, Londonderry, and Calcraft, 
 put an end to their own existences ; but the list is too great to 
 particularize, and it is enough to know, that learning and genius 
 are not removed from the worst of human calamities." 
 
 How tenderly has Johnson spoken of the affliction of Collins, 
 in his letters to Joseph Warton. 
 
 ( ' But how little can we venture to exult in any intellectual powers 
 or literary attainments when we consider the condition of poor Collins. 
 I knew him a few years ago, full of hopes and full of projects, versed in 
 many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy 
 and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately 
 would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of 
 its designs." 
 
 " The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transi- 
 toriness of beauty ; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the 
 powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding 
 may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire." 
 
 To the list of sufferers must be added Robert Southey, who, 
 in early life, professed a democratic and half-deistical creed : his 
 overtasked mental faculties gave way, and he sank into a condi- 
 tion which gradually became one of deeper unconsciousness, in 
 which state he died, after four years' suffering. The poet Moore, 
 for the last three years of his life, was afflicted with a softening 
 of the brain, which reduced him to a state of mental incapacity, 
 though without pain. 
 
 The fate of Swift is well known ; but even before the period 
 at which his mind gave way, it is too probable that he inwardly 
 laboured under a mental infirmity which, in itself, might be nearly 
 allied to his genius. His own account of the source of his afflic- 
 tion is curious. In a letter to Lord Bolingbroke, Swift says : 
 " I remember when I was a little boy, I felt a great fish at the 
 end of my line, which I drew up almost on the ground, but it 
 dropt in, and the disappointment vexes me to this very day, and, 
 I believe it was the type of all my future disappointments." 
 
 This little incident, (says Percival,) perhaps gave the first wrong bias 
 to a mind predisposed to such impressions ; and by operating with so 
 
 occurs in Fuller's Profane State : ' ' He was of a lean body and visage, 
 as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to 
 fret a passage through it." Bell's Annotated Edition of Dryden's 
 Poetical Works. 
 
 * Medical Aspects of the Human Mind. 
 
88 Mental Operations. 
 
 much strength and permanency, it might possibly lay the foundation 
 of the Dean's subsequent peevishness, passion, misanthropy, and final 
 insanity. The quickness of his sensibility furnished a sting to the 
 slightest disappointment ; and pride festered those wounds which self- 
 government would instantly have healed. As children couple hob- 
 goblins with darkness, every contradiction of his humour, every obstacle 
 to his preferment, was, by him, associated with ideas of malignity and 
 evil. By degrees, he acquired a contempt of human nature, and a 
 hatred of mankind, which at last terminated in the total abolition of 
 his rational faculties. 
 
 Swift himself, in the last document which we possess of him, 
 as a rational and reflecting being, thus awfully foretels the catas- 
 trophe which shortly afterwards took place : 
 
 "I have been very miserable all night, and to-day extremely deaf 
 and full of pain. I am so stupid and confounded that I cannot express 
 the mortification I am under, both in body and mind. All I say is, 
 that I am not in torture ; but I daily and hourly expect it. Pray let 
 me know how your health is, and your family. I hardly understand 
 one word I write. I am sure my days will be very few few and miser- 
 able they must be. 
 
 I am, for those few days, yours entirely, 
 
 If I do not blunder, it is Saturday. J. SWIFT." 
 
 Dr. Eerriar observes that what we call genius has often a degree 
 of eccentricity connected with it, which he hints, may even have 
 an alliance with insanity. "No doubt/' says he, "the same 
 causes, which, in a strong degree, produce madness, may, in a 
 lower, increase the natural powers of the mind. 33 
 
 Lord Byron has left a " trivial fond record " of a mind, ren- 
 dered more subtle and more oppressed with thought and ambition, 
 looking back even to its primitive simplicity, with a feeling little 
 short of regret : 
 
 I feel almost at times as I have felt 
 
 In happy childhood ; trees, and flowers, and brooks, 
 
 Which do remember me of where I dwelt 
 
 Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, 
 
 Come as of yore upon me, and can melt 
 
 My heart with recognition of their looks. 
 
 Wordsworth thus expresses a feeling akin to the above : 
 
 My eyes are dim with childish tears, 
 
 My heart is idly stirr'd ; 
 For the same sound is in my ears 
 
 Which in those days I heard. 
 Thus fares it still in our decay ; 
 
 And yet the wiser mind 
 Mourns less for what time takes away 
 
 Than what he leaves behind. 
 
 Personal attachment sometimes exists to a morbid degree in 
 sensitive minds. Sheridan, in his play of The Rivals, apostro- 
 phises Love as the tormentor and fiend, " whose influence acting 
 
How the Egyptians Treated their Insane. 89 
 
 on men of dull souls makes idiots of them, but meeting subtler 
 spirits, betrays their courses, and urges sensibility to madness." 
 
 There are few persons who have not, at particular seasons, 
 experienced the effect of certain accidental associations, which 
 obtrude one impertinent idea, or set of ideas, on the mind, to the 
 exclusion of every other. Locke has noticed this weakness, and. 
 he humorously describes it as, "a childishness of the under- 
 standing, wherein, during the fit, it plays with and dandles some 
 insignificant puppet, without any end in view." Thus, at time*,, 
 a proverb, a scrap of poetry, or some other trivial object, will 
 steal into the thoughts, and continue to possess them long after 
 it ceases to be amusing. Persuasives to dismiss a guest that 
 proves so troublesome, can hardly be necessary ; and bodily exer- 
 tion is generally the best remedy for this mental infirmity. 
 
 HOW THE EGYPTIANS TREATED THEIR INSANE. 
 
 How strange is it to find that the mild system now adopted in 
 our asylums should have been that actually pursued in that 
 " cradle of civilization," Egypt ! 
 
 The system of treatment seems to have been excellent. At both ex- 
 tremities of Egypt were temples dedicated to Saturn, to which melan- 
 cholies resorted in great numbers in quest of relief. In these abodes, 
 surrounded by shady groves and beautiful gardens, varieties of games 
 and recreations were established for the amusement of the mind and the 
 invigoration of the body, while the imagination was impressed with the 
 finest productions of the sculptor and painter. This was nothing less 
 than the treatment which Pinel laboured to restore when he struck off 
 the chains from the lunatic, and by reverting to the system of a compara- 
 tively benighted age, destroyed that barbarous and cruel system which 
 was disgracing the character and satirizing the vaunts of an advanced 
 civilization. They were, indeed, wonderful people, those ancient 
 Egyptians, with their tenets of a resurrection, a day of judgment, a 
 future retribution and an incarnation of God ; perhaps justice has 
 scarcely been done them by those who owed so much to them. Thus 
 Pythagoras, who was the first Greek philosopher who practised medicine, 
 seems to have inherited most of his philosophy from them ; and may 
 well have introduced into Greece, with the doctrine of metempsychosis 
 the plan after which the Egyptians treated insanity. At any rate the 
 method of Asclepiades, who is looked upon as the real founder of a 
 psychical mode of cure among the Greeks, was Egyptian. "Music, 
 love, wine, employment, exercising the memory, and fixing the atten- 
 tion were his principal remedies." * He recommended that bodily re- 
 straint should be avoided as much as possible and that none but 
 the most dangerous should be confined by bonds. It was reserved, 
 however, for more recent times to discover the ingenious plan 
 of once for all disposing of lunatics by burning them alive, and to 
 mingle with a barbarity scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous time 
 the degraded foliy which discovered in some of them saints worthy of 
 
 * Feuchterleben's Medical Psychology. 
 
90 Mental Operations. 
 
 canonization. The cells, the whip, and the chains were of even yet 
 more recent date ;* but now, happily, resting 1 on the solid basis of the 
 highest moral law, we apply every comfort which humanity can sug- 
 gest, and every instrument wnich science can devise, to relieve the 
 unhappy beings whom destiny has so fearfully afflicted, f 
 
 OPERATION OE MIND. " THE GREAT BOOK." 
 
 Mr. Samuel Warren says : " I do not know how to express it, 
 but I have several times had a transient consciousness of mere 
 ordinary incidents then occurring having somehow or other hap- 
 pened before, accompanied by a vanishing idea of being able to 
 predict the sequence. 1 once mentioned this to a man of powerful 
 intellect, and he said, ( So have I/ Again, it may be that there 
 is more of truth than one suspects in the assertion which I met 
 with in a work of M. de Quincey's, that forgetting absolute 
 forgetting is a thing not possible to the human mind. Some 
 evidence of this may be derived from the fact of long-missed 
 incidents and states of feeling suddenly being reproduced, and 
 without any perceptible train of association. Were this to be so, 
 the idea is very awful; and it has been suggested by a great 
 thinker that merely perfect memory of every thing may constitute 
 the great book which shall be opened in the last day, on which 
 man has been distinctly told that the secrets of all hearts shall be 
 made known ; for all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of 
 him icith whom we have to do" (Heb. iv. 13.) 
 
 Sir Francis Beaufort, (in a letter published in the Autobiography 
 of Sir John Barrow,) describes what happened to himself when he 
 was preserved from being drowned ; when " every incident of his 
 former life seemed to glance across his recollection in a retro- 
 grade succession, not in mere outline, but the picture being filled 
 with every minute and collateral feature," forming " a kind of 
 panoramic picture of his entire existence, each act of it accom- 
 panied by a sense of right and wrong." All this must have 
 happened in the brief space of a very few minutes. 
 
 Other instances are related of individuals whose minds had 
 been affected very much in the same way when they were sud- 
 denly placed in a situation which threatened immediate death, 
 although they were not at all deprived of their sensibility and 
 self-possession. 
 
 The accounts, however, given after recovery from drowning 
 differ very much. Some, whatever they may have felt at the time, 
 remember nothing except their having been overcome by a sense 
 of insuperable drowsiness. In one instance, a sailor who had been 
 
 * Scarcely half a century has elapsed since the Parliamentary In- 
 quiry was instituted, which led to the reform of the treatment oi 
 lunatics in Bethlem Hospital. 
 
 J* Journal of Mental Science, July, 1860. 
 
Discipline of the Intellect. 91 
 
 snatched from the waves, after lying for some time insensible on 
 the deck of the vessel, proclaimed on his recovery that he had 
 been in Heaven, and complained bitterly of his being restored to 
 life as a great hardship. 
 
 We may conclude that drowning, terrible as it appears to be, is 
 not, after all, either morally or physically, a painful death ; and 
 this is confirmed by the experience of one who had nearly lost 
 his life in this manner. He says that the last thing which he 
 remembers is looking at the pebbles and weeds at the bottom of 
 the river, with little or no fear of what was about to happen, and 
 no bodily suffering. (Sir B. Brodie.) 
 
 We remember to have heard the Bishop of Oxford relate from the 
 pulpit of St. James's Church, Piccadilly, an incident which illus^ 
 trates this consciousness. An acquaintance of his Lordship, a man 
 of remarkably clear head, was crossing a railway in the country, 
 when an express train, at full speed, appeared closely approaching 
 him. He had just time to throw himself down in the centre of 
 the road between the two lines of rails; and as the vast train 
 passed over him, the sentiment of impending danger to his very 
 existence, brought vividly into his recollection every incident of 
 his former life in such an array as that which is suggested by 
 the promised opening of " the great book, at the last great day." 
 
 DISCIPLINE OE THE INTELLECT. 
 
 Dr. Temple has thus ably illustrated the importance of the 
 teaching of discipline in mature life which is needed for the 
 intellect even more than for the conduct : There are many men 
 who, though they pass from the teaching of the outer law to that 
 of the inner in regard to their practical life, never emerge from 
 the former in regard to their speculative. They do not think ; they 
 are contented to let others think for them, and to accept the 
 results. How far the average of men are from having attained 
 the power of free independent thought is shown by the staggering 
 and stumbling of their intellects when a completely new subject 
 of investigation tempts them to form a judgment of their own on 
 a matter which they have not studied. In such cases a really 
 educated intellect sees at once that no judgment is yet within its 
 reach, and acquiesces in suspense. But the uneducated intellect 
 hastens to account for the phenomenon ; to discover new laws of 
 nature, and new relations of truth ; to decide, and predict, and 
 perhaps to demand a remodeling of all previous knowledge. The 
 discussions on table-turning, a few years ago, illustrated this 
 want of intellects able, to govern themselves. The whole analogy 
 of physical science was not enough to induce that suspension of 
 judgment which was effected in a week by the dictum of a known 
 philosopher. The Education of the World; Essays and Reviews. 
 
92 Mental Operations. 
 
 THE CHILD FATHER TO THE MAN. 
 
 The outer law of childhood is often the best vehicle in which 
 the inner law of mature life can be contained for its various pur- 
 poses. The man remembers with affection, and keeps up with 
 delight the customs of the home of his childhood ; tempted, per- 
 haps, to over-estimate their value, but even when perfectly aware 
 that they are no more than one form out of many which a well- 
 ordered household might adopt, preferring them because of his 
 long familiarity, and because of the memories with which they are 
 associated. So, too, truth often seems to him richer and fuller 
 when expressed in some favourite phrase of his mother's, or some 
 maxim of his father's. He can give no better reason very often 
 for much that he does every day of his life than that his father 
 did it before him ; and provided the custom is not a bad one the 
 reason is valid. And he likes to go to the same church. He 
 likes to use the same prayers. He likes to keep up the same 
 festivities. There are limits to all this. But no man is quite 
 free from the influence ; and it is in many cases, perhaps in most, 
 an influence of the highest moral value. There is great value in 
 the removal of many indifferent matters out of the region of dis- 
 cussion into that of precedent. There is greater value still in the 
 link of sympathy which binds the present with the past, and fills 
 old age with the fresh feelings of childhood. If truth sometimes 
 suffers in form, it unquestionably gains much in power ; and if its 
 onward progress is retarded, it gains immeasurably in solidity and 
 in its hold on men's hearts. 
 
 We quote this exquisite and life-like sketch from Dr. Temple's 
 essay on the Education of the World. 
 
 LIFE NOT GREATER THAN ITS REFLEX. 
 
 The opinion that Life in spontaneous unconscious evolution, is, 
 relatively to us, or to life's progress, greater than its reflex is 
 thus eloquently controverted by Mr. A. Wilson, in the Edinburgh 
 Essays, 1856 : 
 
 As the flower on the mountain-side, and the crystal in the vein of the 
 rock, may be more lovely and more perfect to us than the mountain 
 itself, so individual souls may be, as it were, the flowers and highest 
 perfection of the great existence of which they are a part, while these 
 souls again have their flower and highest perfection in the ideal life 
 which they project beyond the confines of the real. The highest life 
 known to us exists not in the ages of our past, not in the distant stars, 
 which look so blue and beautiful, while probably they are full of wildly 
 conflicting forces, but in our own imaginings and longing dreams, 
 which can harmonize all antagonisms, and shadow forth a perfect world. 
 It is even this draping glorifying power of imaginative thought which 
 renders possible our conscious recognition of things existent. Omni- 
 
Life not Greater than its Reflex. 9o 
 
 potent Phantasy, that divinest goddess, is the true mater gloriosa and 
 Queen of Heaven, the mistress of souls and benefactress of mankind, 
 ever gathering our knowledge and ignorance into shapes of beauty, 
 weaving the rainbow across our path, and veiling the dark deep with 
 lucid azure. From the cradle to the grave, what were the children of 
 men but for her ? Before the child's gaze, where the speculation is but 
 small, she forms this our world as before the clear earnest eyes of the 
 bravest' man ; and when the strong thought is about to slumber for 
 ever, in the wearied brain, the heart of feeling beats faintly, and the 
 dim eye is closing, she is there, painting the blessed fields, on the awful 
 darkness, with the very mists of death. In her gift is an ordered 
 world. How often, in her highest exercise, has she formed it anew for 
 the races of men ! now giving, as centre, some misty Olympus, among 
 the peaks of which are gods : now some unfathomable source of creative 
 power, itself unmoved ; now some omnipotent ruler "Jehovah, Jove, 
 or Lord." Slight her not, poor Thinker ! and worship at her nod, for 
 without her, there is only the blackness of darkness for ever the 
 melancholy waste of waters on which no Columbus has found, the New 
 Land. Painful and dangerous is her service, spes et prcemia in am- 
 liguo certa, funera et luctus ; but even to him who is destroyed by it 
 there is compensation ; for in the very perception of genius in its love 
 penetrating to all stars, its sight, which vindicates existence, and hails 
 the golden age, there is a pure joy, an exceeding sense of glory, which 
 can raise and transfigure it above the sufferings of earth. 
 
 After all, though you may look to your understanding for 
 amusement, it is to the affections that we must trust for happi- 
 ness. These imply a spirit of self-sacrifice ; and often our virtues, 
 like our children, are endeared to us by what we suffer for them. 
 Conscience, even when it fails to govern our conduct, can disturb 
 our peace of mind. Yes ! it is neither paradoxical, nor merely 
 poetical, to say 
 
 That seeking other's good, we find our own. 
 
 This solid yet romantic maxim is found in no less a writer than 
 Plato; who, sometimes, in his moral lessons, as well as in his 
 theological, is almost, though not altogether, a Christian. These 
 are the opinions of Richard Sharpe, a man of refined conversation 
 and practical virtue. 
 
hlid 
 
 WHAT IS PATTH ? 
 
 SIR, WILLIAM HAMILTON, in his Lectures on Metaphysics, gives, as 
 a joint reason for the desire of unity as one of the essential causes 
 of philosophy, the existence of a corresponding unity in the order 
 of nature, and the ultimate dependence of all effects on one cause, 
 the Creator. That he did not believe the human mind capable of 
 any direct knowledge of this highest unity is plain from his 
 Alphabet of Thought. It would be vain to criticise his few words 
 which remain : 
 
 " We must believe in the infinity of God ; but the infinite God 
 cannot by us, in the present limitation of our faculties, be com- 
 prehended or conceived. A Deity understood would be no Deity 
 at all ; and it is blasphemy to say that God only is as we are able 
 to think Him to be. We know God according to the finitude of 
 our faculties, but we believe much that we are incompetent 
 properly to know. The Infinite, the infinite God, is what, to 
 use the words of Pascal, is infinitely inconceivable. Faith 
 Belief is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond our 
 knowledge." 
 
 On the nature of this organ, Sir W. Hamilton has left us 
 nothing. This has made his philosophy popular among those who 
 do not seek a reason for the faith that is in them. With pardon- 
 able confusion of thought, many of them have also welcomed the 
 work of the disciple, who has included Eaith itself in the demonstra- 
 tion that the spirit of man has no direct knowledge of the Infinite 
 Spirit. How far the teaching of Sir W. Hamilton tended to such 
 conclusions, is a question which has excited much controversy. 
 
 Lord Erskine has left us this practical picture of Eaith. " I 
 can conceive a distressed but virtuous man, surrounded by his 
 children, looking up to him for bread, when he has none to give 
 them, sinking under the last day's labour, and unequal to the 
 next, yet still supported by confidence in the hour, when all tears 
 shall be wiped from the eyes of affliction bearing the burden laid 
 upon him by a mysterious Providence, which he adores, and an- 
 ticipating with exultation the revealed promises of his Creator, 
 when he shall be greater than the greatest, and happier than the 
 happiest of mankind." 
 
Childish Desires. 95 
 
 WHAT IS REVELATION ? 
 
 The idea of a positive external Divine revelation of some kind 
 lias formed the very basis of all hitherto received systems of 
 Christian belief. The Romanist indeed regards that revelation as 
 of the nature of a standing oracle accessible in the living voice of 
 his Church ; which being infallible, of course, sufficiently accredits 
 all the doctrines it announces, and constitutes them divine. A 
 more modified view has prevailed among a considerable section of 
 Anglican theologians, who ground their faith on the same prin- 
 ciples of Church authority, divested of its divine and infallible 
 character. Most Protestants, with more or less diiference of 
 meaning, profess to regard revelation as once for all announced, 
 long since finally closed, permanently removed, and accessible 
 only in the written Divine word contained in the Scriptures. 
 And the discussion with those outside the pale of belief has been 
 entirely one as to the validity of those external marks and attesta- 
 tions by which the truth of the alleged fact of such communica- 
 tion of the Divine will, was held to be substantiated. Prof. 
 Baden Powell ; Essays and Reviews. 
 
 Mr. Locke says: "He that takes away Reason to make way 
 for Revelation puts out the light of both ; and does much about 
 the same as if he would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the 
 better to receive the remote light of an invisible star by a tele- 
 scope." 
 
 Much scepticism has been engendered of late years by tyros in 
 science straining after identities of physical truths with Scripture. 
 " There are, indeed," observes the Rev. W. L. Harcourt, " certain 
 common points in which Reason and Revelation mutually assist 
 each other; but, in order that they may ever be capable of doing 
 so, let us keep their paths distinct, and observe their accordances 
 alone ; otherwise our reasonings run round in a circle, while we 
 endeavour to accommodate physical truth to Scripture, and Scrip- 
 ture to physical truth." 
 
 CHILDISH DESIRES. 
 
 Archbishop Le'ghton, speaking of unreasonable and childish 
 Desires, says : 
 
 " And what would we have ? Think we that Contentment lies in so 
 much and no less ? When that is attained, it shall be as far off as 
 before. When children are at the foot of a high Hill, they think it 
 reaches the Heavens, and yet if they were there, they would find them- 
 selves as far off as before, or, at least, not sensibly nearer. Men think, 
 oh, had I this, I were well ; and when it is reached, it is but an 
 advanced standing, from which to look higher, and spy out for some 
 other thing. Comment on St. Peter. 
 
9G Belief and Scepticism. 
 
 Compare this with Norris's fine poem, entitled The Infidel: 
 
 Farewell Fruition, thou grand cruel cheat 
 Which first our hopes doth raise, and then defeat ; 
 Farewell thou midwife to abortive Bliss, 
 Thou mystery of Fallacies, 
 Distance presents the object fair, 
 . . With charming features and a graceful air, 
 
 But when .we come to seize th' inviting prey,. 
 Like a shy Ghost, it vanishes away. 
 
 So to th' unthinking Boy, the distant Sky 
 Seems on some Mountain's surface to rely ; 
 He with ambitious haste climbs the ascent, 
 Curious to touch the Firmament ; 
 But when with an un weary 'd pace 
 Arrived he is at the long-wished-for place, 
 With sighs the sad defeat he does deplore, 
 His Heaven is still as distant as before. 
 
 We conclude with a beautiful passage from Bishop Hickes's 
 Devotions : 
 
 Tis to be happy that we run after Pleasures ; and cover (sic) in every 
 thing our own proud Will. But we, alas ! mistake our Happiness, 
 and foolishly seek it where it is not to be found. As silly children 
 think to catch the sun, when they see it setting at so near a distance. 
 They travel on, and tire themselves in vain ; for the thing they seek is 
 in another World. 
 
 WEAK BELIEF. 
 
 There is in the world a great deal of this lukewarm reception 
 of divine truths : it does not amount to unbelief, but it is thickly 
 beset with its perils. " It is easy and agreeable to believe," said 
 Bonnet, the learned Genevese : " to doubt requires an unpleasant 
 effort." But how important is the conviction. There can be 
 no reasonable doubt that it is better to believe too much than too 
 little; since, as Boswell observes (most probably in Johnson's 
 words), "a man may breathe in foul air, but he must die in an 
 exhausted receiver." 
 
 How many, too, content themselves with expressing their sense 
 of the importance of a firm religious belief, and a desire to attain 
 it, rather than an assertion that they themselves have found all 
 they sought. This shortcoming is very observable among leaders 
 of science, and hence it has a baleful effect. What can be more 
 encouraging on the one hand, and disheartening on the other, 
 than the following eloquent declaration of Sir Humphry Davy : 
 
 I envy no qualities of the mind and intellect in others nor genius, 
 nor power, nor wit, nor fancy : but if I could choose what would be the 
 most delightful and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm 
 religious belief to everv other blessing. For it makes life a discipline 
 
Weak Belief. 97 
 
 of goodness, .creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and 
 throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous 
 of all lights ; awakens life in death, and calls out from corruption and 
 decay beauty and everlasting glory. 
 
 Twenty years ago, it was sagaciously remarked that "an 
 absence of religious principle and belief, similar to that which 
 lias, of late years, characterised so much of the popular literature 
 of the day, appears in the speculations of several men of high 
 intellectual endowments. And what is remarkable is, the produc- 
 tions of some of these philosophers have been received by the 
 most amiable and popular of our contemporaries, with scarcely a 
 remark upon the fact, that their speculations conducted directly 
 to the dreary gulf of utter scepticism. . . . It is not to the 
 appearance of such speculations that we are to look as charac- 
 teristic of the age, but to the fact that their publication excites 
 so little attention, that they blend so readily, so much a matter 
 of course, with the prevailing tone of its literature. (British and 
 Foreign Review, 1840.) This omission to arrest, and apathy to 
 correct, the progress of infidelity has progressively increased since 
 the above was written ; for, as our great moralist observed : 
 "There are few persons who do not practise that which they 
 cease to censure." 
 
 In the Spirit of Truth, by Delta, we find the following spirited 
 rebuke of these restless an cl sceptical tendencies of the day : 
 
 I mean what I say, and express it as a deliberate conviction, founded 
 on an extensive observation of young men, that no book in the world 
 was ever so generally possessed, and so little comprehended, as an 
 English Bible in the present day. I do not say English Bible, with 
 any reference to faults of translation, for whatever errors may cling to 
 the authorised version of the Scriptures, I do not believe that these 
 affect, in any appreciable degree, the question of its intelligent perusal. 
 The evil lies much deeper. Everything, in English society, is unfavour- 
 able to the profitable study of the Bible : the ceaseless activities of the 
 good, and the restless insinuations of the bad, textual preaching, and 
 tormenting criticism, the multiplication of books, and the mingling 
 of things sacred and profane, all tend to keep men from feeding in 
 green pastures, or reposing by the side of still waters. The result is 
 for that which affects the people affects the Priest, that while public 
 worship was never [?] so well attended as at present, the pulpit was 
 never so powerless ; conduct in the counting-house never so independ- 
 ent of attention in the pew ; scepticism never so rampant ; and happy 
 Christians never so rare. 
 
 Most unfortunately, in the present day, a very large class of 
 persons are unsettled by others in their belief: they doubt un- 
 willingly, but they cannot resist the difficulties thrust upon them. 
 Of such an one the author of the Eclipse of Faith, (Henry Rogers,) 
 gives the following as a confession : 
 
 I have been rudely driven out of my old beliefs ; my early Christian 
 faith has given way to doubt ; the little'hut on the mountain- side in which 
 il 
 
98 Belief and Scepticism. 
 
 I had thought to dwell with pastoral simplicity, has been shattered to 
 the tempest, and I turned out to the blast without a shelter. I have 
 wandered long and far, but have not found that rest which you tell me 
 is to be obtained. As I examine all other theories, they seem to me 
 pressed by at least equal difficulties with that I have abandoned. I 
 cannot make myself contented, as others do, with believing nothing ; 
 and yet I have nothing to believe. I have wrestled long and hard with 
 my Titan foes, but not successfully. 1 have turned to every quarter of 
 the universe, but in vain. I have interrogated my own soul, but it 
 answers not. I have gazed upon nature, but its many voices speak no 
 articulate language to me : and more especially when I gaze upon the 
 bright page of the midnight heavens, those orbs gleam upon me with 
 so cold a light and amidst so portentous a silence, that I am, with 
 Pascal, terrified with the spectacle of the infinite solitude. 
 
 The Hon. Robert Boyle has this Occasional Meditation upon 
 the resemblance between those disturbers of belief, profane and 
 atheistical wits, and the black clouds in a thunderstorm : as 
 the clouds, when raised, afford flashes of light, so these irreligious 
 wits are sometimes conspicuous enough to bring forth surprising 
 notions ; but as the same clouds, while they give us their own 
 momentary light, obscure by darkness the sky, and hinder us 
 from receiving the light of the sun, which is preferable to vanish- 
 ing coruscations; so these wits, while they seem to enlighten 
 those they dazzle, with their own new opinions, do really deprive 
 them of the true heavenly light, that would else shine forth to 
 them in the revealed Word of God; and as the light we do 
 receive from the clouds may deceive and astonish us, but is not 
 sufficient to travel by ; so the admired reasonings of these 
 sophisters may surprise and amaze us, but will never prove suffi- 
 cient to be, like the Scripture, a constant Lamp unto our feet, and 
 Light unto our paths. Psalm cxix. 105. 
 
 EEAL GROWTH. 
 
 The only real growth is spiritual growth. Behind the physical 
 the savage sees a demon, the civilized man a soul. Philosophy, 
 indeed, will bake no bread, but it will procure us God, freedom, 
 immortality. It is the marriage of nature with the human soul. 
 The principles of psychology, of all philosophy, like those of all 
 religion, all truth, have subsisted from the beginning; not. so, 
 however, man's appreciation of them, which is progressive. 
 
 The soul, (observes a recent writer,) in its attempts to bring 
 the divine into closer union with the consciousness, has gradually 
 built up its appreciation of the character of Christ. And thus it 
 is more or less in all our delineations of greatness and goodness, 
 our conceptions of the ideal, and its realization in man. 
 
 It has been asserted that psychology, in place of converting, 
 ratifies the delusions of ordinary thought. This, however, must 
 
Intolerance and Unbelief. 99 
 
 mean an erroneous psychology. Otherwise we may gladly sub- 
 scribe to terrier's eloquent remark, that all God's truths and 
 man's blessings lie in trodden ways, and that intellect and genius 
 are but the power of discerning wonders in common things. Dr. 
 M'Cormack's Aspirations from the Inner Life. 
 
 EXPERIENCE FALLIBLE. 
 
 In our searches after truth, we should bear in mind that the 
 possibility of " change-bearing laws " having been established, 
 then, in regard to any occurrence, strange, but coming to us well 
 attested, ^we must not assert that, because contrary to past 
 experience, it would be miraculous, and is consequently impossible. 
 
 Professor de Morgan has ably illustrated this position in the 
 following paragraph : 
 
 The natural philosopher, when he imagines a physical impossi- 
 bility which is not an inconceivability, merely states that his phe- 
 nomenon is against all that has been hitherto known of the course 
 of nature. Before he can compass an impossibility, he has a huge 
 postulate to ask of his reader or hearer, a postulate which nature 
 never taught : it is that the future is always to agree with the 
 past. How do you know that this sequence of phenomena always 
 will be ? Answer, Because it must be. How do you know that 
 it must be ? Answer, Because it always has been. But then, 
 even granting that it always has been, how do you know that 
 what always has been always will be ? Answer, I feel my mind 
 compelled to that conclusion. And how do you know that the 
 bearings of your mind are always towards truth ? Because I am 
 infallible, the answer ought to be but this answer is never given. 
 Athenaum, No. 1637. 
 
 INTOLERANCE AND UNBELIEF. 
 
 To tax any one with want of reverence, (says Dr. Arnold, in 
 his Lectures on Modern History,) because he pays no respect to 
 what we venerate, is either irrelevant, or is mere confusion. The 
 fact, so far as it is true, is no reproach, but an honour; because 
 to reverence all persons and all things, is absolutely wrong : rever- 
 ence shown to that which does not deserve it is no virtue ; no, 
 nor even an amiable weakness, but a plain folly and sin. But if 
 it be meant that he is wanting in proper reverence, not respecting 
 what is really to be respected, that is assuming the whole ques- 
 tion at issue, because what we call divine, he calls an idol ; and 
 as, supposing that we are in the right, we are bound to fall down 
 and worship, so, supposing him to be in the right, he is no less 
 bound to pull it to the ground and destroy it. Considering the 
 ability of Dr. Arnold, considering his gr eat influence, and consi- 
 H 2 
 
100 Belief and Scepticism. 
 
 dering his profession, his antecedents, and the character of the 
 university in which he was speaking, it must be allowed that this 
 is a remarkable passage, and one well worthy the notice of those 
 who wish to study the tendency of the English mind during the 
 present generation. 
 
 HOW MEN BECOME SCEPTICS. 
 
 Locke, in his profound Essay on the Human Understanding, 
 book i. says : 
 
 Men extending their inquiries beyond their capacities, and letting 
 their thoughts wander into those depths where they can find no sure 
 footing, it is no wonder that they raise questions, and multiply dis- 
 putes ; which, never coming to any clear resolution, are proper only to 
 continue and increase their doubts, and to confirm, them, at last in perfect 
 scepticism. Whereas, were the capacities of our understandings well 
 considered, the extent of our knowledge once discovered, and the 
 horizon found which sets the bounds between the enlightened and dark 
 parts of things ; between what is, and what is not, comprehensible by 
 us, men would perhaps, with less scruple, acquiesce in the avowed 
 ignorance of the one, and employ their thoughts and discourse with 
 more advantage and satisfaction in the other. 
 
 INFIDELITY IRRATIONAL. 
 
 When speaking of infidelity, we usually mean the conduct of 
 those persons who disbelieve the evidences of the Christian reli- 
 gion. Doubtless, a Deist may be a very good man;* and such 
 were some of the philosophers of ancient times, and such were 
 many of the Jews, who could not discern the person or terms of 
 the Christ in the book that guided their moral and humane life. 
 But whether an utter infidel can exist, one who beholds all the 
 orderly arrangements of the celestial and terrestrial systems, and 
 yet can discern no power more than human, is a problem indeed. 
 "Hannah More makes mention of the only atheist, (poor Ayrey,) 
 she ever knew. " He was an honest, good-natured man, which 
 certainly," she observes, "he should not have been on his princi- 
 ples." Yet he was not without a belief. " He was a fatalist, 
 and if he snuffed the candle, or stirred the fire, or took snuff, he 
 solemnly protested he was compelled to do it." What made him 
 believe in this necessity of things ? must be our question. She 
 adds : " He always confessed he was a coward, and had a 
 
 * Because a Deist may be a good man, let it not be thought that 
 any encouragement is held out to a profession of deism. There is a 
 wide difference between the case of a heathen who has never heard of 
 Christ, and a man in a Christian country who wilfully rejects evidences 
 internal and external, the disbelief of which is sometimes attributable 
 to defective moral constitution, but in the vast majority of cases to 
 vitiated moral feeling, and a dislike of the humbling doctrines of the 
 Cross. 
 
Confessions of Sceptics. 1 01 
 
 natural fear of pain and death, though lie knew he should be as 
 if he never had been." This was, indeed, in him cowardly and 
 irrational, and quite opposed in principle to the fear of death 
 which a Christian may entertain. " God's purpose shall stand," 
 said the devout Charles Simeon ; " but our liability to fall and 
 perish is precisely the same as ever it was : our security, as far 
 as it relates to him, consists infaitk, and as far as relates to our- 
 selves, it consists hi fear." 
 
 CONFESSIONS OF SCEPTICS. 
 
 Dr. Arnold, in his sermon Of Christian Life, Us Course, its Hin- 
 drances, and its Helps, says : 
 
 One of the greatest men of our time has declared, that, in the early 
 part of his life, he did not believe in the divinity of our Lord ; but he has 
 stated expressly, that he never, for a moment, persuaded himself that 
 St. Paul or St. John did not believe it ; their language he thought was 
 clear enough upon the point ; but the notion appeared to him so un- 
 reasonable in itself, that he disbelieved it in spite of their authority. 
 . . . The language of the Scripture was as clear to him at first as it was 
 afterwards ; but in his early life he disbelieved it, while, in his latter 
 life, he embraced it, with all his heart and soul. 
 
 Now the "greatest man" here alluded to was Samuel Taylor 
 Coleridge, and here is his confession : 
 
 Take myself, S. T. C. , as a humble example. I was never so befooled 
 as to think that the author of the fourth Gospel, or that St. Paul, ever 
 taught the Priestleyan Psilanthropism, or that Unitarianism (pre- 
 sumptuously, nay, absurdly so called) was the doctrine of the New 
 Testament generally. But during the sixteen months of my aberration 
 from the Catholic faith, I presumed that the tenets of the divinity of 
 Christ, the Redemption, and the like, were irrational, and that what 
 was contradictory to reason could not have been revealed by the 
 Supreme Reason. As soon as I discovered that these doctrines were 
 not only consistent with reason, but themselves very reason, I returned, 
 at once, to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, and to the 
 Faith. Notes on English Divines, p. 179. 
 
 I owe, under God, my return to the faith, to my having gone much 
 further than the Unitarians, and so having come round to the other 
 side. I can truly say, I never falsified the Scripture : I always told 
 them that their interpretations of the Scripture were intolerable upon 
 any principles of sound criticism, and that if they were to offer to con- 
 strue the will of a neighbour as they did that of their Maker, they 
 would be scouted out of society. I said then plainly and openly tha,t it 
 was clear enough that John and Paul were not Unitarians. But at that 
 time I had a strong sense of the repugnance of the doctrine of Vicarious 
 Atonement to the moral being, and I thought nothing could counter- 
 balance that. 
 
 The old Unitarians of Birmingham have never forgiven Cole- 
 ridge these strictures. 
 
 Paley truly says : " No one in his heart derides religion long. 
 
102 Belief and Scepticism. 
 
 What are we, any of us ? Religion will soon be our only care and 
 friend." 
 
 Charles Lamb has been accused of scepticism ; but Coleridge 
 has thus manfully rescued him from the heinous charge: 
 
 " No, no ; Lamb's scepticism has not come lightly, nor is he a 
 sceptic. The harsh reproof to Godwin for his contemptuous 
 allusion to Christ before a well-trained child, proves that he is not 
 a sceptic. His mind, never prone to analysis, seems to have been 
 disgusted with the hollow pretences, the false reasonings and 
 absurdities of the rogues and fools with which all establishments, 
 and all creeds seeking to become established, abound. I look upon 
 Lamb as one hovering between earth and heaven ; neither hoping 
 much nor fearing anything. 
 
 "It is curious that he should retain many usages which he 
 learnt or adopted in the fervour of his early religious feelings, 
 now that his faith is in a state of suspended animation. Believe 
 me, who knew him well, that Lamb, say what he will, had more 
 of the essentials of Christianity than ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 professing Christians. He has all that would still have been 
 Christian had Christ never lived or been made manifest upon 
 earth." 
 
 We may here refer to the scepticism of Lord Bolingbroke, upon 
 which some new light has been thrown of late by the publication 
 of the Diary of one of his contemporaries. The opposition of 
 his philosophical sentiments to revealed religion, and the system 
 which he would substitute in its place, are principally detailed in 
 the third of his Essays on the Study of History ; and in his Essays 
 addressed to Pope. 
 
 It appears from an entry in the Diaries and Correspondence of the 
 Rt. Hon. George Rose, edited by the Rev. L. V. Harcourt, and pub- 
 lished in 1860, that, by a letter of Lord Bolingbroke' s, dated 1740, he 
 had actually written some Essays dedicated to the Earl of Marchmont 
 of a very different tendency from his former works. These essays, on 
 his death, fell into the hands of Mr. Mallet, his executor, who had, at 
 the latter end of his life, acquired a decided influence over him, and 
 they did not appear among his lordship's works published by Mallet ; 
 nor have they since been heard of. From whence it must be naturally 
 conjectured that they were destroyed by the latter, from what reason 
 cannot now be known : possibly, to conceal from the world the change, 
 sucfh as it was, in his lordship's sentiments in the latter end of his 
 life, and to avoid the discredit of his former works. In which respect, 
 he might have been influenced either by regard for the noble Viscount's 
 consistency, or by a desire not to impair the pecuniary advantage he 
 expected from the publication of his lordship's works. 
 
 Upon this Mr. Harcourt observes : 
 
 The letter to Lord Marchmont here referred to, has a note appended 
 to it by Sir George Rose, the editor of the Marchmont Papers, who 
 takes a very different view of the contents from his father. He gravely 
 remarks, that as the posthumous disclosure of Lord Bolingbroke's in- 
 
Lord Bolingbroke. 103 
 
 veterate hostility to Christianity lays open to view as well the bitterness 
 as the extent of it, so the manner of that disclosure precludes any doubt 
 of the earnestness of his desire to give the utmost efficiency and publicity 
 to that hostility, as soon as it could safely be done : that is, as soon as 
 death should shield him against responsibility to man. Sir George saw 
 plainly enough that when he promised in these essays to vindicate 
 religion against divinity and God against man, he was retracting all that 
 he had occasionally said against Christianity ; he was upholding the 
 religion of Theism against the doctrines of the Bible, and the God of 
 nature against the revelation of God to man. 
 
 Bolingbroke was the last of the professed Deists.* It is 
 painful to reflect upon this prostration of a splendid intellect, 
 and we are but slightly relieved by Lord Chesterfield's statement 
 in one of his Letters, (published by Lord Mahon, in his edition 
 of Chesterfield's Works,) that " Boiingbroke only doubted, and by 
 no means rejected, a future state." Lord Brougham says : 
 
 The dreadful malady under which Bolingbroke lingered, and at 
 length sank a cancer in the face he bore with exemplary fortitude, 
 a fortitude drawn from the natural resources of his mind, and unhappily 
 not aided by the consolation of any religion ; for, having early cast off 
 the belief in revelation, he had substituted, in its stead, a dark and 
 gloomy naturalism, which even rejected those glimmerings of hope 
 as to futurity not untasted by the wiser of the heathens. 
 
 We know that Bolingbroke denied to Pope his disbelief of the 
 moral attributes of God, of which Pope told his friends with 
 great joy. How ungrateful a return for this " excessive friendli- 
 ness" was the indignation which Bolingbroke expressed at the 
 priest having attended Pope in his last moments ! 
 
 It will be recollected that the publication of Bolingbroke's 
 posthumous works by his executor, Mallet, drew from Dr. Johnson 
 the severe remark, that "having loaded a blunderbuss and 
 pointed it against Christianity, he had not the courage to discharge 
 it himself, but left half-a-crown to a hungry Scotchman to pull 
 the trigger after his death." To talk Deism had ceased to be 
 fashionable as soon as it ceased to attract attention. 
 
 It is now, we believe, admitted that Christianity has not found 
 a very formidable or lasting opponent in Bolingbroke : his objec- 
 tions betray his half-learning, but their speciousness, in the latter 
 half of the last century proved very mischievous. His rashness 
 was condemned even by that "mad assassin and low wretch," 
 Lord Ferrers, who said, on his way to execution, "I always 
 thought Lord Bolingbroke in the wrong to publish his notions on 
 religion : I will not fall into the same error." Walpole. 
 
 * Yet Bolingbroke encouraged the hope of better things : he occa- 
 sionally visited the Countess of Huntingdon, who tells us that he was 
 seldom in her company without discussing some topic beneficial to his 
 eternal interests ; and he always paid the utmost respect and deference 
 to her ladyship's opinion. Bolingbroke's collected "Works were pre- 
 sented as a nuisance by the grand jury of IMiddlesex in 1752. 
 
Belief and Scepticism. 
 
 RENUNCIATION OF INFIDELITY. 
 
 Well-directed efforts are unceasingly made to check the pro- 
 gress of infidelity, and this rather by steady and small-voiced 
 operations than by more pretentious means. It affords us much 
 pleasure to quote an instance of this progress (to use a cant word 
 of the day), recorded in the Times journal of August 5, 1858 : 
 
 tl Some years ago there was a rather numerous society of persons at 
 Nottingham, chiefly operatives, who professed to disbelieve the tenets 
 of the Christian religion, and set up a peculiar creed of their own. 
 Great numbers of the working people were from time to time attracted 
 to the lectures of these free-thinkers, and some conversions were made ; 
 but after the first excitement of the thing was over the members of the 
 party began to drop off, and under the influence of repeated discussions 
 between the leaders of the sceptics and various religious ministers of 
 the town, particularly the Rev. J. W. Brooks, the vicar, the society 
 gradually collapsed, and last week its president, a framework knitter, 
 named Jonathan Barber, publicly announced his secession from the 
 doctrines he had so long advocated. After a lecture by the vicar in the 
 school-room, Barker-gate, Barber stated that it was about 14 years 
 since he and other infidels first met in that room, on the invitation of 
 their much esteemed vicar, for the purpose of holding discussions on 
 infidelity ; and he now thought it right publicly to acknowledge in the 
 same place that throughout those discussions he had had misgivings in 
 regard to the existence of a God, and that for the last five years he had 
 been uneasy in his mind with respect to Christianity. This uneasiness 
 increased when he found himself upon a sick bed, and on reviewing his 
 creed he found it worthless in the prospect of death. He had therefore 
 determined, after a considerable struggle with his pride, to avow his 
 entire renunciation of his infidel sentiments, and his belief in Divine 
 revelation. A working man named Start, in proposing a vote of thanks 
 to the vicar for his very able and convincing lecture, to which he had 
 listened with the deepest attention and found singularly useful to him- 
 self, avowed that he had held the same infidel sentiments as Barber, 
 but had been led to see his error, and now publicly thanked God, who 
 had in great mercy brought him out of darkness into His marvellous 
 light. Two other men in the room admitted a similar change of senti- 
 ments. The infidel party in Nottingham is now broken up." 
 
 MATERIALISM OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 
 
 This theory (see pp. 11 13) when taken in its full extent, is 
 manifest Materialism. The animals of lowest organization have 
 been derived, it asserts, from inanimate matter by some ordinary 
 and general process of nature ; and those of higher forms have 
 been derived from the lower, till man was finally arrived at the 
 crowning: point. Thus, not only are all the ordinary phenomena 
 of organic life, but likewise all our intellectual and moral attri- 
 butes, derived primarily from inert matter by the operation of 
 natural causes, without any separate creation, either of animal 
 life, or of the spiritual life of man. The advocates of the theory 
 will, doubtle&s, admit the former fluid and incandescent state of 
 
The Metempsychosis. 105 
 
 the globe ; and it then follows, necessarily, from their theory that 
 the noblest qualities of man's intellect, the tenderesfc feelings of 
 his heart, the deepest consciousness of his moral responsibilities, 
 and his highest aspirations for the future, must all have been con- 
 tained in a molten mass of matter, to be finally evolved from it 
 by natural causes a few thousand years ago. Yet there are men 
 who, in the confidence of their own intuitive insight into the 
 Creator's ways, shrink not from conclusions which, we doubt not, 
 will appear so preposterous to most of our readers. 
 
 These views present one of the alternatives if we reject the 
 theory of successive creations, and the permanence of species in 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Such views differ from those 
 of the author of an Essay on the Philosophy of Creation, by a 
 distinguished member of the University of Oxford. According 
 to this latter theory, the offensive part of the materialism is 
 avoided, by regarding the spiritual part of man's nature as the 
 special object of a separate and independent creation ; while, to 
 the merely animal part he is indebted for the same material ele- 
 ments ancl natural causes as those from which the brute creation 
 is supposed to derive its origin. 
 
 Though this theory avoids the more monstrous extravagance of 
 development, which, in the Vestiges of Creation, assumed the un- 
 equivocal form of materialism, it loses the greater simplicity of 
 the more unrestricted theory; and still involves, what appears 
 to us, the enormous difficulty of conceiving how the sensation, 
 volition, memory, foresight, and all the instincts of animals, can 
 be derivable from inanimate matter. We believe that a careful 
 consideration of such theories must generally lead to increased 
 confidence in that which maintains that the Creator, for the intro- 
 duction of new classes of animate beings from time to time, has 
 called into action powers altogether different from those which we 
 recognise in the ordinary course of nature. W. Hopkins, F.R.S.; 
 Cambridge Essays. 1857- 
 
 COMBUSTION THE METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 Berthollet, in his Chemical Statics, observes: "When bodies 
 are burnt, none of their principles are destroyed : they had pre- 
 viously formed together one kind of compound, and they now 
 separate from each other, at the high temperature to which they 
 are exposed, in order to form others with the vital air in contact 
 with them : and such of the principles as cannot unite with the 
 vital air, viz. the earth, some saline and some metallic particles, 
 compose the cinder. The new compounds formed are carbonic 
 acid and water. The proportion of these varies according to the 
 proportion of the carbonic particles, and of the hydrogen that 
 had been contained in the inflammable body. 
 
106 Belief and Scepticism. 
 
 It was said of old, that the Creator weighed the dust ana 
 measured the water when he made the world. The first quantity 
 is here still, and though man can gather and scatter, move, 
 mix, and unmix, jet he can destroy nothing : the putrefaction of 
 one thing is a preparation for the being, and the bloom, and the 
 beauty, of another. Something gathers up all fragments, and 
 nothing is lost. Thus, the laws by which matter is modified, effect 
 so many desirable purposes, and at the same time prevent the de- 
 struction of those elementary principles which are actually essential 
 to the preservation of the world. 
 
 Perhaps it was in some such light as this that Pythagoras 
 meant the Metempsychosis to be understood. It might Toe a 
 curious inquiry, whether or not he received the doctrine from the 
 Egyptian priests, as they from the philosophers of India. An 
 ancient Shastre, called the Geeta, has a beautiful stanza upon this 
 subject, in which the varied form that nature assumes is com- 
 pared to a change of dress- (See Halhed's Account of the Hindoo 
 Land.) Ovid, in the speech he forms for Pythagoras, compares it 
 to wax, where the substance is always the same though the out- 
 Avard form is varying. Dr. Darwin thus pursues the same idea : 
 
 " Hence when a monarch or a mushroom dies, 
 A while extinct the organic matter lies ; 
 But, as a few short hours or years revolve, 
 Alchemic powers the changing mass dissolve ; 
 Emerging matter from the grave returns, 
 Feels new desires, with new sensations burns : 
 With youth's first bloom a finer sense acquires, 
 And loves and pleasures from the rising fires." 
 
 Metempsychologic appellations are used in a good as well as 
 bad sense. Thus, the designation of wolf has been applied to 
 St. Paul; Christ is the lion of the tribe of Judah, although 
 Satan, " as a roaring lion, walkech about seeking whom he may 
 devour." 
 
 The doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato is humorously illustrated 
 in the Dreamer, (a series of dreams forming an indirect satire on 
 the abuses of religion, literature, &c- by Dr. William King,) by 
 quotations from sacred as well as profane writers, e.g. Isaiah, Ivi. 
 10, 11 ; Nahum, ii. 12 : 
 
 A judicious critic, (Dr. King writes,) or observant reader, will scarce 
 allow that more than four or five, in the long catalogue of Roman 
 Emperors, had any humanity ; and although they might perhaps have 
 a just claim to be styled Lords of the Earth, they had no right to the 
 title of Man. There is an excellent dissertation in Erasmus on the 
 princely qualities of the Eagle and the Lion ; wherein that great wit 
 has demonstrated that Emperors and Kings are very justly represented 
 by those animals, or that there must be a similarity in their souls, as 
 all their actions are similar and correspondent. 
 
s 
 
 " TO DIE CHILDLESS." 
 
 THE origin of the word Superstition has been described as some 
 mysterious belief respecting the relations between the Dead and 
 the Living the deceased and those who survive them the 
 World that is seen, and the World that is not seen. 
 
 Cicero thus defines the word : " Not only Philosophers, but all 
 our forefathers dydde ever separate Superstition from true Reli- 
 gion ; for they which prayed all day that theyr children mought 
 overly ve them, were called superstitious ; whiche name afterwards 
 was larger extended." Old Translation. 
 
 Lactantius, however, says " the word got its meaning from the 
 worship of deceased parents and relatives, by the Superstites or 
 Survivors ; or from men holding the memory of the dead in super- 
 stitious veneration/' 
 
 Cicero and Lactantius thus agree in connecting the word with 
 some visionary notion respecting the relation between the Dead 
 and the Living who survive them. 
 
 The question may be said to turn mainly upon the riles of 
 sepulture. The Ancients believed that the manes of unburied men 
 were restless and unhappy, and haunted the earth ; and in this 
 point of view they deemed it unfortunate not to have a child to 
 close their eyes after death, and to perform duly the last solemn 
 rites : accordingly, they even adopted children with this view, 
 rather than die without survivors. 
 
 This may not seem a very satisfactory solution of the matter, 
 as it might be asked, Why should one's own children be absolutely 
 required ? Could not others perform the last rites ? The question 
 then still remains : Why was it considered so terrible a misfortune 
 to survive one's children? It is obvious that there was some- 
 thing more at bottom than mere natural feelings. 
 
1 08 What is Superstition ? 
 
 Passing over the use of Prayers to the Dead,* and Prayers for 
 the Dead, among the Ancients, we come to the Doctrine of 
 Vicarious Sacrifice. 
 
 The Ancients believed that the Death of one person might be 
 prevented by that of another. From hence came the custom of 
 those Devotements we read of, made for the life of a friend, a 
 nation, or a prince. 
 
 We now proceed to illustrate the belief of the Ancients in the 
 importance of securing to themselves the rites of Sepulture by 
 their surviving children. Solomon declares, in Eccletiaxtcs vi. 3 : 
 
 If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years . . . and 
 that he have no burial : I say that an untimely birth is better than he. 
 
 Bishop Pearson, in treating of the Fifth Article of the Creed, 
 in which, arguing that Hades is a place, and not a stafe, refers 
 "to the judgment of the Ancient Greeks," because there were 
 many which they believed to be dead, and to continue in the 
 state of death, which yet they believed not to be in Hades, as 
 those who died before their time, and those whose bodies were un- 
 buried. 
 
 The souls of the latter bodies were thought to be kept out of 
 Hades till their funerals were performed ; and the souls of those 
 who died an untimely or violent death, were kept from the same 
 place until the time of their natural death should come. 
 
 Bishop Pearson then quotes from Virgil's account of the souls 
 who wander and flit about the shores of Hades for a hundred 
 years. Thus he (Virgil) is understood in the description of the 
 funeral of Polydorus, /En. iii. 62 : 
 
 Ergo instauramus Polydoro funus, et ingens 
 Aggeritur tumulo tellus : 
 
 animamque sepulchre 
 
 Condimus. 
 
 Not that anima does here signify the body, as some have ob- 
 served, but that the soul of Polydorus was at rest when his body 
 had received funeral rites,- ad quietem wferni, according to the 
 petition of Palinurus. And that the soul of Polydorus was so 
 wandering about the place where his body lay unburied appeareth 
 out of Euripides in Hecuba ; and in the Troades of the same poet 
 this is acknowledged by the Chorus. And when their bodies were 
 buried, then their souls passed into Hades, to the rest. So was 
 it with Polydorus, and that man mentioned in the history of the 
 philosopher of Athenagoras, whose umbra or phasma, (according 
 to Pliny,) walked about after his death. 
 
 * " When a father mourned grievously for his child that was taken 
 away suddenly, he made an Image of him that was then dead, and 
 worshipped him as a god, ordaining to those under him Ceremonies and 
 Sacrifices. Thus, in process of time, this wicked custom prevailed, and 
 was kept as a law." 
 
To Die Childless. 109 
 
 A curious illustration of the wide prevalence of those ideas 
 which lie at the root of Superstition, occurs in the narrative of 
 the sufferings of Byron and the crew of H.M. Ship, Wager t 
 on the coast of South America. The crew had disgraced them- 
 selves by rioting, mutiny, and recklessness, in the island upon 
 which they were thrown, after a most tempestuous navigation. 
 Long before they left the bay. the body was found of a man, sup- 
 posed to have been murdered by some of the first gang who left 
 the island. The corpse had never been buried, and to this neglect 
 did the crew now ascribe the storms which had lately afflicted 
 them; nor would they rest until the remains of their comrade 
 were placed beneath the earth, when each (says the narrative) 
 evidently felt as if some dreadful spell had been removed from 
 his spirit.* " Few would expect to find many points of resem- 
 blance between the Grecian mariners of the heroic ages, who 
 navigated the galleys described by Homer, to Troy, and the 
 sailors of George II. ; yet here, in these English seamen, was the 
 same feeling regarding the unburied dead which prevailed in 
 ancient times/ 5 
 
 The Desire for Posterity, though it seems, perhaps, hardhj suffi- 
 cient to account for the acts of the Superstition, is so deeply im- 
 planted in the human heart, and is so connected with Man's in- 
 stinctive longing and striving after Immortality, that, after all, it 
 may possibly have been their ultimate and only motive. Hooker 
 has forcibly said : 
 
 It is the demand of nature itself, " What shall we do to have 
 Eternal Life ?" The Desire of Immortality and the Knowledge of that 
 whereby it may be attained, is so natural unto all men, that even they 
 which are not persuaded that they shall, do, notwithstanding, wish 
 that they might know a way kow to see no end of life. A longing, there- 
 fore, to be saved, without understanding the true way how, hath been 
 the cause of all the superstitions in the world. Hooker, Serm. ii. 
 
 The erudite correspondent (Eirionnach) who has contributed 
 to Notes and Queries the very interesting papers whence these 
 details have been selected, proceeds to illustrate the subject from 
 "the intense humanity and domesticity of minds such as Dr. 
 Arnold's," whose tastes and feelings were strongly domestic : 
 "he thought, and he taught, and he worked, and he played, and 
 he looked at Sun, and Earth, and Sky, with a domestic heart. 
 The horizon of family life mixed with the skiey life above, and 
 the Earthly Landscape melted by a quiet process of nature, into 
 the Heavenly one.' 3 (Christian Remembrancer, 1844:.) 
 
 Dr. Arnold himself declared : 
 
 * " Yet, in Christian England, (but the other day,) we remember more 
 than one unseemly squabble about the liability to bury a corpse turning 
 upon some obscure point of parochial law ! 
 
110 What is Superstition? 
 
 I do not wonder that it was thought a great misfortune to die childless 
 in old times, when they had not fuller light it seems so completely wiping 
 a man out of existence . . . The anniversaries of domestic events the 
 passing away of successive generations and the entrance of his sons on the 
 several stages of their education struck on the deepest chords of his 
 nature, and made him blend with every prospect of the Future, the 
 keen sense of the continuance (so to speak) of his own existence in the 
 good and evil fortunes of his children, and to unite the thought of these 
 with the yet more solemn feeling, with which he was at all times wont 
 to regard "the blessing of a whole house transplanted entire from 
 Earth to Heaven, without one failure." Dr. Arnold's Life. 
 
 This reminds one of what the Son of Sirach says : 
 
 He that teacheth his son grieveth the enemy ; and before his friends 
 he shall rejoice him. Though his father die, yet he is as though he were 
 not dead, for he hath left one behind him that is like himself. While he 
 lived, he saw and rejoiced in him ; and when he died, he was not sorrow- 
 ful. He left behind him an avenger against his enemies, some that 
 shall requite kindness to his friends. Ecclus. xxx. 3 6. 
 
 Bacon (Essays, xxvii.) uses similar language with regard to 
 Friends : 
 
 It was a sparing speech of the Ancients to say " That a Friend' is 
 another himself ; " for that a Friend is far more than himself. Men 
 have their time, and die many times of some things which they princi- 
 pally take to heart ; the bestowing of a Child, the finishing of a Work, 
 or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure 
 that the care of those things will continue after him ; so that a man 
 hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. 
 
 In the same Essay, Bacon mentions that Septimius Severus had 
 such a friendship for Plautianus, that he preferred him to his 
 own son, and wrote to the Senate, in the words of the Supersti- 
 tiosi : " I love this man so well, that I wish he may outlive me." 
 
 The domesticity of character to which we have just alluded 
 would appear to be concentrated, as it were, in the oneness of con- 
 jugal life. How often do we read in the newspaper obituary lists 
 of the death of a husband in a few days following that of his wife, 
 and a wife that of her husband. These remarkable instances are 
 in our recollection. On October 29, 1817, died Lady Romilly; 
 and on November 2, following, Sir Samuel Romilly, in an aberra- 
 tion of mind, induced by grief for the loss of his wife, committed 
 suicide. It is a singular coincidence, that in the church of St. 
 Bride, Fleet Street, is a tablet with an inscription to the memory 
 of Mr. Isaac Ilomiily, F. R. S., who was the uncle of Sir Samuel, 
 and who died in 1759, of a broken heart, seven days after the 
 decease of his beloved wife. There is still another coincidence 
 connected with Sir Samuel Romilly's death : he had just been re- 
 turned to Parliament for Westminster, after a severe contest, 
 principally with the supporters of Sir Francis Burdett, who, 
 twenty-seven years later, expired of grief for the loss of his wife 
 Lady Burdett having died thirteen days previously ! 
 
High Spirits a Presage of Evil. Ill 
 
 HIGH SPIRITS A PRESAGE OF EVIL. 
 
 Among the minor perplexities which beset life's thorny path, 
 is this curious psychological question Whether high spirits do 
 not often forebode evil, and fancied good fortune prove the fore- 
 runner of adversity. 
 
 Shakspeare, (Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 3,) has : 
 
 How oft when men are at the point of death 
 Have they been merry ; which their Keepers call 
 A lightning before death. 
 
 This phenomena has, however, a physiological explanation; 
 but it may have favoured the popular notion of high spirits pre- 
 saging calamity. This historical incident has been pressed into 
 the illustration of the above feeling : upon the morning of the day 
 of the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham by Eelton, his 
 Grace " did rise up in a well-disposed humour, out of his bed, 
 and cut a caper or two." HowelVs Fam. Lett. 
 
 Tytler, in his History of Scotland, tells us of the death of King 
 James I. : "On this fatal evening, (Eeb. 20, 1436,) the revels of 
 the Court were kept up to a late hour. . . . The Prince himself 
 appears to have been in unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He 
 even jested, if we may believe the contemporary manuscript, 
 about a prophecy which had declared that a King should tliat 
 year be slain." 
 
 In Guy Mannerina, chap. 9. " I think," said the old gardener 
 to one of the maids, "the ganger's Jie," by which words the 
 common people express those violent spirits which they think a 
 presage of death. 
 
 In the evidence given at the inquest upon the bodies of four 
 persons killed by an explosion at a firework manufactory in Ber- 
 mondsey, Oct. 12, 1849, one of the witnesses stated : " On Friday 
 night, they were all very merry, and Mrs. B. said she feared some- 
 thing would happen, before they went to bed, because they were 
 so happy T 
 
 We return to Shakspeare, in the Second Part of King Henry IV. 
 Act iv. Sc. 2 : 
 
 Westmoreland. Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray. 
 
 Moivbray. You wish me health in very happy season : 
 For I am, on the sudden, something ill. 
 
 Archbishop of York. Against ill chance, men are ever merry ; 
 But heaviness foreruns the good event. 
 
 West. Therefore, be merry, cos ; since sudden sorrow 
 Serves to say thus some good thing comes to-morrow. 
 
 Arch. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit. 
 
 Mow. So much the worse, if your own rule be true. 
 
 In the last act of Romeo and- Jnliet, Sc. 1, Romeo comes on, 
 saying : 
 
11*2 What is Superstition ? 
 
 If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep, 
 
 My dreams presage some joyful nevv r s at hand: 
 
 My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne ; 
 
 And all this day, an unaccustomed spirit 
 
 Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. 
 
 Immediately, a messenger comes in to announce Juliet's death. 
 
 In Act iii. So. 2, of King Richard ILL Hastings is represented 
 
 as rising in the morning in unusually high spirits. Stanley says : 
 
 The Lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London, 
 Were jocund, and suppos'd their states were sure, 
 And they, indeed, had no cause to mistrust ; 
 And yet, you see, how soon the day o'ercast. 
 
 This idea runs through the whole scene. Before dinner-time, 
 Hastings is beheaded. 
 
 Shelley, the poet, whose life was a dream of romance, a tale of 
 mystery and grief, strongly entertained this feeling : " during all 
 the time he spent in Leghorn, he was in brilliant spirits, to him a 
 sure prognostic of coming evil." 
 
 The following incident is strange, but scarcely comes within 
 our purpose. At an inquest held in Feb. 1853, concerning the 
 death of a poor girl, supposed to have been murdered by her 
 paramour throwing her into the Regent's Canal, one of the wit- 
 nesses deposed that the girl was in high spirits, and insisted upon 
 singing the song, " I've wander 3 d by the brook-side." The de- 
 ceased then left in company with the accused ; and met with her 
 death within half an hour after. 
 
 "THIRTEEN TO DINNER." 
 
 There is a prejudice existing, generally, on the pretended 
 danger of being the thirteenth at table. If the probability be re- 
 quired, that out of thirteen persons of different ages one of them 
 at least shall die within a year, it will be found that the chances 
 are about one to one that one death at least will occur. This 
 calculation, by means of a false interpretation, has given rise to 
 the prejudice, no less ridiculous, that the danger will be avoided 
 by inviting a greater number of guests, which can only have the 
 effect of augmenting the probability of the event so much 
 apprehended. Quetelet, on the Calculation of Probabilities. 
 
 This superstition obtains in Italy and Russia, as well as in 
 England. Moore, in his Diary, vol. ii. p. 206, mentions there 
 being thirteen at dinner one day at Madame Catalani's, when a 
 French countess, who lived with her upstairs, was sent for to 
 remedy the grievance. Again, Lord L. said he had dined once 
 abroad at Count Orloff's, who did not sit down to dinner, but 
 kept walking from chair to chair, because "the Naristiken were 
 at table, who, he knew, would rise instantly if they perceived the 
 
" Thirteen to Dinner" 113 
 
 number thirteen, which Orloff would have made by sitting down 
 himself." 
 
 The following instance is related by Rachel, the celebrated 
 tragedienne. When she returned from Egypt, in the spring of 
 1857, she installed herself in a villa in the neighbourhood of 
 Montpellier. There she received the visit of the poet Ponsard, 
 and Arsene Houssaye, who was making a tour as inspector of de- 
 partmental museums. " Do you recollect the dinner we had at 
 the house of Victor Hugo, at the close of the repetition of L'An- 
 gelo ? " she said to the former director. " You remember there 
 were thirteen of us ? There was Hugo and his wife, you and your 
 wife, Rebecca and I, Girardin and his wife, Gerard de Nerval, 
 Pradier, Alfred de Musset, Perree, of the Siecle, and the Count 
 d'Orsay. Well! where to-day are the thirteen? Yictor Hugo 
 and his wife are in Jersey; your wife is dead; Madame de Gi- 
 rardin is dead; my poor Rebecca is dead; Gerard de Nerval, 
 Pradier, Alfred de Musset, are dead. I say no more. There 
 remain but Girardin and you. Adieu ! my friends. Never laugh 
 at thirteen at a table." 
 
 WHAT IS CHANCE ? 
 
 Chance is frequently personified and erected into a chimerical 
 being, whom we conceive as acting arbitrarily, and producing all 
 the effects the real causes of which do not appear to us ; in which 
 sense the word coincides with the Tvxn,fortuna, of the Ancients. 
 
 The ancient sortilege or chance, M. Placette observes, was 
 instituted by God himself; and in the Old Testament we find 
 several standing laws and express commands which prescribed its 
 use on certain occasions. Hence the Scripture says, " The lot 
 or chance fell on Matthias," when it was in question who should 
 fill Judas' s place in the apostolate ; and hence also arose the sortes 
 sanctorum, or method of determining things, among the ancient 
 Christians, by opening some of the sacred books, and pitching on 
 the first verse the eye rested on as a sure prognostic of what was 
 to happen. The sortes Homericce, Virgiliance, Pr&nestinae, and the 
 like, used by the heathens, were resorted to with the same view, 
 and in the same manner. St. Augustin seems to approve of this 
 method of determining things future, and owns that he had prac- 
 tised it himself, grounding his doing so on the principla that God 
 presides over chance. 
 
TRANCE. 
 
 How prevalent is the fear of being "buried alive" may be 
 gathered from the number of instances in which men have re- 
 quested, that before the last offices are done for them, such 
 wounds or mutilations should be inflicted upon their bodies as 
 would effectually prevent the possibility of an awakening in the 
 tomb. Dr. Dibdin relates that Francis Douce, the antiquary, 
 requested, in his will, that Sir Anthony Carlisle, the surgeon, 
 should sever his head from his body, or take out his heart, to 
 prevent the return of vitality ; and his co-residuary legatee, Mr. 
 Kerrick, had also requested the same operation to be performed 
 in the presence of his son. 
 
 Sometimes the burning of the body has been enjoined as an assurance 
 against living interment. : Dr. Paris tells us, that, the daughter of 
 Henry Laurene, the first President of the American Congress, when an 
 infant, was laid out as dead of the small-pox ; upon which the window 
 of the apartment, that had been carefully closed during the progress of 
 the disease, was thrown open to ventilate the chamber, when the fresh 
 air revived the corpse, and restored her to her family : this circumstance 
 occasioned in her father so powerful a dread of living interment, that 
 he directed by will that his body should be burnt, and enjoined on his 
 children the performance of this wish as a sacred duty. Medical Juris- 
 prudence, p. 5. 
 
 In 1703, a sermon was preached in the Presbyterian chapel of 
 Lancaster, " On the Duty of the Relations of those who are in 
 dangerous Illness, and the Hazard of Hasty Interment ; " wherein 
 it is stated by Dr. Hawes that thirty years previously, M. Bruhier, 
 the physician, of Paris, in a work entitled The Uncertainty of the 
 Signs of Death, clearly proved, from the testimonies of various 
 authors, and attestations of unexceptionable witnesses, that many 
 persons who have been buried alive, and were providentially 
 discovered in that state, had been rescued from the grave, and 
 lived for several years afterwards. Notwithstanding these nu- 
 merous instances, the custom then remained in full force. As 
 soon as the semblance of death appears, the bed-clothes are re- 
 moved, and the body is exposed to the air ; which, when cold, 
 
Trance. 115 
 
 must extinguish the little spark of life that may remain, and which, 
 by a different treatment, might be kindled into flame. 
 
 Mrs. Godfrey, mistress of the Jewel Office, and sister of the 
 great Duke of Marlborough, is stated to have lain in a trance, 
 apparently dead, for seven days, and was even declared by her 
 medical attendants to have been dead. Colonel Godfrey, her 
 husband, would not allow her to be interred, or the body to be 
 treated in the manner of a corpse; and on the eighth day she 
 awoke, without any consciousness of her long insensibility. The 
 authority assigned for this story is Mr. Peckard, Master of Mag- 
 dalen College, Cambridge, in a work entitled Further Observations 
 on the Doctrine of an Intermediate State. 
 
 Stories are also told of a Mr. Holland, improperly treated as 
 dead, who revived, only to die, however, from the effects of 
 exposure to cold in the grave-dress ; and of a Mrs. Chaloner, a 
 lady of Yorkshire, who was buried alive, and who was found, on 
 the re-opening of the vault in which she was interred, to have 
 burst open the lid of her coffin, and to be sitting nearly upright 
 in it. 
 
 Dr. Doddridge, at his birth, showed so little signs of life that 
 he was laid aside as dead ; but one of the attendants perceiving 
 some motion in the body, took the infant under her charge, and 
 by her treatment the flame of life was gradually kindled. 
 
 In 1814, Anne Taylor, the daughter of a yeoman of Tiverton, 
 being ill, lay six days insensible, and to all appearance dead : 
 during the interval she had a dream, which her family called 
 a trance, an account of which was subsequently printed. On 
 awaking from her stupor, by her request a person wrote down all 
 she had to relate, which she desired her father would cause to be 
 printed. This request he evaded until, as she told him, it would 
 be too late. She died the same evening. Next morning her voice 
 was heard by the person who wrote the narrative, inquiring if it 
 was printed. Between ten and twelve o'clock the undertaker's 
 men placed her in the coffin ; and while the family were at dinner 
 her voice was again heard, saying, "Father, it is not printed." 
 This was attested by six witnesses ; but, after her death, Mr. 
 Vowles, a dissenting minister of Tiverton, in a sermon, was con- 
 sidered to have proved the fraud of the whole story. 
 
 More veracious is the case of the Rev. Owen Manning, the 
 historian of Surrey, who, during his residence at Cambridge Uni- 
 versity, caught small-pox, and was reduced by the disorder to a 
 state of insensibility and apparent death. The body was laid out, 
 and preparations were made for the funeral, when Mr. Manning's 
 father, going into the chamber to take a last look at his son, 
 raised the imagined corpse from its recumbent position, saying, 
 "I will give my poor boy another chance;" upon which signs of 
 vitality were apparent. He was therefore removed by his friend 
 12 
 
116 Premature Interment. 
 
 and fellow-student Dr. Heberden, and ultimately restored to 
 health. He had another narrow escape from death ; for becoming 
 subject to epilepsy, and being seized with a fit as he was walking 
 beside the river Cam, he fell into the water, and was taken out 
 apparently lifeless; Heberden, however, being called in, again 
 became the means of Manning's restoration. 
 
 A monument in St. Giles's church, Cripplegate, has strangely 
 been associated with a trance story. In the cliancel is a tablet in 
 memory of Constance Whitney, representing her rising from a 
 coffin : and the story relates that she had been buried while in a 
 trance, but was restored to life through the cupidity of the sexton, 
 which induced him to disinter the body to obtain possession of a 
 valuable ring left upon her finger.* 
 
 In Smith's History of Cork, vol. ii. p. 428, we find recorded that 
 " Mr. John Goodman, of Cork, died in January, 1747, aged about 
 fourscore ; but what is remarkable of him, his mother was in- 
 terred while she lay in a trance; having been buried in a vault 
 which she found means to open, she walked home, and this Mr. 
 Goodman was born some time after." 
 
 Raikes, in his Journal, under August 3rd, 1837, mentions the 
 horrible death of the Cardinal Somaglia, who recovered from his 
 trance for one moment to put away the surgeon's knife, which 
 had begun the preparatory incision before embalming, and then 
 died in agony. 
 
 Peter Klaus, the goatherd, a tradition of the Hartz, furnished 
 Washington Irving with the plot of Rip Van Winkle. There are 
 several German traditions and ballads which turn on the unsus- 
 pected lapse of time under enchantment; and we may remember, in 
 connexion with it, the ancient story of the Seven Sleepers of the 
 fifth century. (Gibbon, vi. 32.) That tradition was adopted by 
 Mahomet, and has, as Gibbon observes, been also adopted and 
 adorned by the nations from Bengal to Africa, who profess the 
 Mahometan religion. The next step is to animate the period 
 dropt from real life the parenthesis of existence with charac- 
 teristic adventures, as in the story of the Elfin, Grove in Tieck's 
 Phantasus ; and as in the Dean of Santiago, a Spanish tale from 
 the Conde C/acanor. 
 
 There is a very pretty story in the Turkish Tales, (of a Sultan 
 of Egypt and -a Mahometan doctor,) the morale of which is : 
 The doctor took this occasion of instructing the Sultan that 
 nothing was impossible with God ; that He, with whom a thou- 
 sand years are but as one day, can, if He pleases, make a single 
 day, -nay, a single moment, appear to any of His creatures as a 
 thousand years. 
 
 Emerson, in The >0ver-$aul, says : 
 
 * From 'Things not generally Known, Sscond Series. 
 
Trance. 117 
 
 The Soul circumscribeth all things. It contradicts all experience. 
 In like manner, it abolishes time and space. The influence of the 
 Senses has, in most men, overpowered the mind to that degree that the 
 walls of time and space have come to look solid, real, and insurmount- 
 able ; and to speak with levity of those limits is, in the world, the sign 
 of insanity. Yet time and space are but the inverse measures of the forces 
 of the soul. A man is capable of abolishing them both. The spirit 
 sports with time, 
 
 Can crowd eternity into an hour, 
 Or stretch an hour out to eternity. 
 
 We are often made to feel that there is another youth and age, than 
 that which is measured from the year of our natural birth. Some 
 thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the 
 love of the universal and eternal beauty. Every man parts from that 
 contemplation with the feeling that it belongs rather to ages than to 
 mortal life. The least activity of the intellectual powers redeems us, in 
 a degree, from the influences of time. In sickness, in languor, give us 
 a strain of poetry, or a profound sentence, and we are refreshed ; or 
 produce a volume of Plato or Shakspeare, or remind us of their names, 
 and instantly we come into a feeling of longevity. . . . Always the soul's 
 scale is one ; the scale of the senses and the understanding is another. 
 Before the great revelations of the Soul, time, space, and nature shrink 
 away. 
 
 Trance legends beautifully illustrate the great truth that the 
 soul is " its own place and time," and the sublime passage in the 
 Apocalyptic Vision : 
 
 And the angel, which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, 
 lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever and 
 ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the earth 
 and the things that therein are, and the sea and the things which are 
 therein, that there should be time no longer. 
 
 Lord Lindsay, in his work on Christian Art, refers to 
 
 A very beautiful legend of a monk on whose heart the benumbing 
 thought had settled, " Must not the bliss of eternity pall at last, and 
 shall we not weary of heaven ? " and who, after having been beguiled 
 into a wood by a song of a bird, and having passed as it seemed an hour 
 there listening to it, returned to the monastery to find a whole genera- 
 tion had passed away during his absence, and to learn by this experi- 
 ence, that an eternity will not suffice to exhaust the bliss of paradise. 
 
 According to the legend, the book which the monk was reading 
 before his trance was the famous treatise of St. Austin, De Cimtate 
 Del (Of the City of God). The penult chapter of this noble 
 work treats " Of the Quality of the Vision with which the Saints 
 shall see God in the World to come ;" and the last chapter treats 
 ' ' Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and the Perpetual 
 Sabbath." See Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No, 61. 
 
 Another trance legend is that of Dorurosr,hen or Thorn Rose, 
 commonly called the Sleeping Beauty: this is a Hessian story, 
 which Mon. Grimm traces to the ancient tradition of the Re- 
 storation of Brynhilda by Sigurd, as narrated in the Edda of 
 
118 Premature Interment. 
 
 Ssesmund, in Volsunga Saga. The heroine fells a king in fight, bnt 
 Odin strikes her head with the Sleepy Thorn, (the Thorn-rose or 
 Dog-rose,) and says, she shall never be again victorious, and 
 shall be hereafter wedded. Though the allusion to the Sleep- 
 Rose is preserved in our heroine's name, she suffers from the 
 wound of a spindle, as in the Pentamerone of G. B. Basil. 
 
 Trance legends afford momentary glimpses of eternity; and 
 the ecstasy, or " Pylgrimage of the Sowle " out of itself, its rup- 
 ture into spirit-land and beatific vision of the joys of paradise, 
 and its sorrowful return into the prison of the body and the 
 dominion of time and change, are set forth in countless instances, 
 not forgetting that of Timdall, treating of a vision supposed to 
 have taken place in 1149. Trance legends comprise also those 
 tales of the giants who are wrapt in a magic slumber in enchanted 
 caves until the great day of doom ; besides descriptions of terres- 
 trial paradises : but the most interesting are those legends, the 
 leading ideas of which are nullity of time as regards the soul when 
 apart from the body ; and, on the other hand, the manifold changes 
 of this earthly life and the power of time. 
 
 In a rare work, printed by Wynkyn de Worde and Caxton 
 The Art and Craft to lyve icell and to dye well, translated from 
 the French, is a beautiful legend of "The Joyes of Paradise," 
 which Longfellow has versified in his Golden Legend. This idea is 
 also embodied in The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, of which the 
 popular German tale of the Slumbers of the Emperor Frederick 
 Barbarossa is a late version ; and the old Welsh tradition of King 
 Arthur's enchanted slumber, from which he will awake before the 
 last day arrives, and join in the holy wars of the times bears a 
 strong likeness to the German legend. The Welsh legend of 
 Owen Lawgoch, the Iled-handed,* corresponds with that of King 
 Arthur. Mr. Faber has traced " the Origination of Romance from 
 old Mythologic Idolatry," Thus with 
 
 "The legend of the wandering Jew; who for insulting the 
 Messiah while upon his mock trial, is doomed to await in the flesh 
 the Second Advent. Like the fabled Great Father, he rambles over 
 the face of the whole globe, and visits every region. At the close 
 of each revolving century, bowed down with age, he sickens and 
 falls into a deathlike slumber ; but from this he speedily awakes 
 in renovated youth and vigour, and acts over again the part which 
 he has so repeatedly sustained^ As these romances have originated 
 from the periodical sleep of the Great Father and his family, so 
 that of St. Antony has been copied from the various terrific trans- 
 formations exhibited in the funeral orgies of Dionusus, or Osiris, 
 or Mithras." 
 
 * This Legend has some resemblance to the ancient legend of Epime- 
 nides, as related by Diogenes Laertius. See Notes and Queries, Nos. 
 267, 268. 
 
Trance. 119 
 
 The Eastern prediction, " The child shall die an hundred years 
 old," is thus illustrated by Addison : 
 
 In- the Koran it is said that the angel Gabriel took Mahomet 
 out of his bed one morning, to give him a sight of all things in 
 the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which the prophet 
 took a distinct view of, and after having held ninety thousand 
 conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, 
 says the Koran, was transacted in so small a space of time, that 
 Mahomet, on his return, found his bed still warm, and took up an 
 earthen pitcher which was thrown down at the very instant that 
 the angel carried him away, before the water was spilt ! 
 
 Apparent death is not always accompanied by a suspension of 
 consciousness. In the Psychological Magazine, No. 5, we read 
 that a young lady, after lying ill for some time, to all appearance 
 died. "She was laid in her coffin, and the day of her funeral was 
 fixed. When the lid of the coffin was about to be screwed down, 
 a perspiration was observed on the body ; life soon appeared, and 
 at length she opened her eyes, and uttered a most pitiable shriek. 
 She said it seemed to her, as if in a dream she was really dead; 
 yet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her 
 in this dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking, 
 and lamenting her death, at the side of her coffin. She felt them 
 pull on the dead clothes, and lay her in them. This feeling pro- 
 duced a mental anxiety which was indescribable : she tried to cry, 
 but her soul was without power, and could not act on her body. 
 She had the contradictory feeling as if she were in her body, and 
 yet not in it, at one and the same time. It was equally impossible 
 for her to stretch out her arm, or to open her eyes, or to cry, 
 although she continually endeavoured to do so. The internal 
 anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height, when the 
 funeral hymns were being sung, and when the lid of the coffin 
 was about to be screwed on. The thought that she was to be 
 buried alive was the one that gave activity to her soul, and caused 
 it to operate on her corporeal frame. 
 
0f 
 
 HOURS FATAL TO LIFE. 
 
 A WRITER in the Quarterly Review states : " We have ourselves 
 ascertained the hour of death in 2,880 instances of all ages, and 
 have arrived at interesting conclusions. We may remark that the 
 population from which the data are derived is a mixed population 
 in every respect,, and that the deaths occurred during a period of 
 several years. If the deaths of the 2,880 persons had occurred 
 indifferently, at any hour during the twenty-four, 120 would have 
 occurred at each hour. But this was by no means the case. 
 There are two hours in which the proportion was remarkably 
 below this, two minima in fact, namely, from midnight to one 
 o'clock, when the deaths were 53 per cent, below the average, 
 and from noon to one o'clock, when they were 20| per cent, below. 
 From three to six o'clock A.M. inclusive, and from three to seven 
 o'clock P.M. there is a gradual increase ; in the former 23J per 
 cent, above the average; in the latter of 5J per cent. The 
 maximum of deaths is from five to six o'clock A.M. when it is 40 
 per cent, above the average ; the next, during the hour before 
 midnight, when it is 25 per cent, in excess ; a third hour of ex- 
 cess is from nine to ten o'clock in the morning, being 17^ per 
 cent, above the average. Erom ten A.M. to three o'clock P.M. the 
 deaths are less numerous, being 16J per cent, below the average, 
 the hour before noon being the most fatal. Erom three o'clock 
 P.M. to seven P.M. the deaths rise to 5J per cent, above the 
 average, and then fall from that hour to eleven P.M. averaging 6^- 
 per cent, below the mean. During the hours from nine to eleven 
 in the evening there is a minimum of 6J per cent, below the 
 average. Thus, the least mortality is during the mid -day hours, 
 namely, from ten to three o'clock; the greatest during early 
 morning hours, from three to six o'clock. About one-third of the 
 total deaths noted were children under five years of age, and they 
 show the influence of the latter still more strikingly. At all the 
 hours from ten in the morning until midnight the deaths are at or 
 below the mean: the hours from ten to eleven A.M. four to 
 five P.M. and nine to ten P.M. being minima, but the hour after 
 midnight being the lowest maximum : at all the hours from two to 
 ten A.M. the deaths are above the mean, attaining their maximum 
 at from five to six A.M. when it is 45^ per cent, above. 
 
Premonitions of Death. 121 
 
 PREMONITIONS OP DEATH. 
 
 The first symptom of approaching death with some is the strong 
 presentiment that they are about to die. 
 
 Ozanam, the mathematician, while in apparent health, rejected 
 pupils from the feeling that he was on the eve of resting from his 
 labours ; and he expired soon after of an apoplectic stroke. 
 
 Fletcher, the divine, had a dream which shadowed out his im- 
 pending dissolution, and believing it to be the merciful warning of 
 Heaven, he sent for a sculptor and ordered his tomb. "Begin 
 your work forthwith," he said, at parting, " there is no time to 
 lose." And unless the artist had obeyed the admonition, death 
 would have proved the quicker workman of the two. 
 
 The case of Wolsey was singular. After his arrest by the Earl 
 of Northumberland, the Cardinal proceeded from Cawood Castle 
 towards London on his mule, but by the way he was attacked 
 with dysentery. As he entered the gate of the monastery at 
 Leicester, he said, " Father Abbot, I am come to lay my bones 
 among you; " and so the event proved : the monks carried him to 
 his bed, upon which, three days afterwards, he expired. The 
 morning before he died he asked Cavendish, his gentleman-usher, 
 the hour, and was answered, "Past eight." "Eight of the 
 clock ?" replied Wolsey, "that cannot be; eight of the clock 
 nay, nay, it cannot be eight of the clock, for by eight of the 
 clock shall you lose your master." The day he miscalculated, the 
 hour came true. On the following morning, as the clock struck 
 eight, his troubled spirit passed from life. Cavendish and the 
 bystanders thought he must have had a revelation of the time of 
 his death ; and from the way in which the fact had taken posses- 
 sion of his mind, we suspect that he relied on astrological predic- 
 tion, which had the credit of a revelation in his own esteem. 
 
 Shakspeare has little altered the words Wolsey used on his 
 death-bed, though they were spoken to Kingston, the lieutenant 
 of the Tower, and not, as in the play, to Cromwell : 
 
 Had I but served my God with half the zeal 
 I served the King, he would not in mine age 
 Have left me naked to mine enemies. 
 
 Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. i. 
 
 It is unnecessary, as well as uncharitable, to suppose, what 
 there is no proof of, that Wolsey died of poison, either by himself 
 or others. The obvious and proximate cause of his death was 
 affliction. A great heart opprest with indignities, and beset with 
 dangers, at length gave way, and Wolsey received the two last 
 charities of a death-bed and a grave, with many circumstances 
 affectingly told by Cavendish, in the Abbey of Leicester. 
 
 Of "The Renowned Confessor," Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, 
 
122 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 who died in 1589, in the Tower of London, where he was impri- 
 soned for high treason, we find an impressive narrative, in the Life of 
 him, edited from the original.MSS. by the late Duke of Norfolk, and 
 published in 18 5 7. The Earl's piety was remarkable. He constantly 
 rose in the morning at five o'clock, and " as soon as he was risen 
 out of bed, he fell down upon his bare knees, and breath' d forth 
 in secret his first Devotions to Almighty God, his eyes and hands 
 lifted up to heaven. With his kneeling in that manner then and 
 at other times, his knees were grown very hard and black." .... 
 " In those times which were allotted to walking or other recrea- 
 tion, his discourse and conversation either with his Keeper, or the 
 Lieutenant, or his own servants, was either tending to Piety, or 
 some profitable discourse, as of the lives and examples of holy 
 men, of the sufferances and constancy of the martyrs of ancient 
 times, from which he would usually deduce some good document 
 or other : as of the facility of a virtuous life, after a man had 
 once overcome his sensuality; of the happiness of those that 
 suffered anything for our Saviour's sake, with such like ; to which 
 purpose he had writ with his own hand upon the wall of his cham- 
 ber this Latin sentence : Qiianto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc 
 saculo, tanto plus gloria cum Christo infaturo. The more affliction 
 we endure for Christ in this world, the more glory we shall obtain 
 with Christ in the next." The Earl's last moments are thus 
 pathetically described : 
 
 The last night of his life he spent for the most part in prayer, some- 
 times saying his Beads, sometimes such Psalms and Prayers as he knew 
 by heart. And oftentimes used these holy Aspirations : Lord into 
 thy hands I commend my spirit. Lord thou ar't my hope ; and life. 
 Very frequently, moreover, indicating the holy names of Jesus and 
 Mary. 
 
 Seeing his servants in the morning stand by his bedside weeping 
 in a mournful manner, he ask'd them what o'clock it was ; they answer- 
 ing that it was eight, or there about. Why then, said he, I have 
 almost run out my course, and come to the end of this miserable and 
 mortal life, desiring them not to weep for him since he did not doubt 
 by the grace of God but all would go well with him. Which being said, 
 he return' d to his Prayers upon his Beads again, though then with a 
 very slow, hollow, and fainting voice, and so continued as long as he 
 was able to draw so much breath as was sufficient to sound out the 
 names of Jesus and the glorious Virgin, which were the last words 
 which he was ever heard to speak. The last minute of his last hour 
 being now come, lying on his back, eies firmly fixt towards Heaven, and 
 his long lean consumed armes out of the bed, his hand upon his breast 
 laid in cross one upon the other, about twelve o'clock at noon, in which 
 hour he was also born into this world, arraign'd, condemn' d, and ad- 
 judg'd unto death, upon Sunday the 19th of October, 1595, (after 
 almost 11 years Imprisonment in the Tower) in a most sweet manner 
 without any sign of grief or groan, only turning his head a little aside, 
 as one falling into a pleasing sleep, he surrender' d his happy soul into 
 the hands of Almighty God, who to his so great glory had created it. 
 
 Some have thought, and perhaps not improbably, that he had some 
 
Premonitions of Death. 123 
 
 fore knowledge of the day of his death, because about seven or eight 
 dayes before making certain notes (understood only by himself) in his 
 Calendar, what Prayers and Devotions he intended to say upon every 
 day of the week following, on Monday, Tuesday, &c. : when he came to 
 the Sunday on which he dy'd, he there made a pause, saying, Hitherto and 
 no further : this is enough: and so writ no more, as his servants who 
 then heard his words, and saw him write, have often testified. 
 
 In the following chapter occnrs this curions record : 
 
 I forgot to note in the due place, that upon the night precedent to 
 the Earl's arraignment and condemnation, a Nitingale was heard to sing 
 with great melody in a Jessamine tree all y e night long in the Garden 
 of Arundel House, where his Countess and children then did remain, 
 the which may seem the more strange in regard the like was neither 
 before, nor since that time ever heard in that place. Another thing as 
 strange did happen in the Tower soon after his death ; for two tame 
 stags which the Lieutenant kept there for his pleasure falling into a 
 fury, never desisted knocking their horns against the walls till their 
 brains being beaten out they dy'd." 
 
 Foote, the dramatist, shortly prior to his death, stood contem- 
 plating the picture of a brother author, and exclaimed, his eyes 
 full of tears, " Poor Weston ! " In the same dejected tone he 
 added, after a pause : " Soon shall others say, ' Poor Foote ! ' 5: 
 and, to the surprise of his friends, a few days proved the justice 
 of his prognostication. While performing at the Haymarket 
 theatre, he was seized with paralysis on the stage : he shortly 
 after went to Brighton, returned to London, set out for Paris, 
 but died on his way, at Dover. The expectation of the event 
 had a share in producing it; for a slight shock completes the 
 destruction of prostrate energies. 
 
 Another great artist, in a different department, convinced that 
 his hand was about to lose its cunning, chose a subject emblema- 
 tical of the coming event, His friends inquired the nature of his 
 next design, and Hogarth replied, " The End of All Things." " In 
 that case," rejoined one, " there will be an end of the painter." 
 What was uttered in jest was answered in earnest, with a solemn 
 look and a heavy sigh: "There will," he said, "and the sooner 
 my work is done the better." He commenced next day, laboured 
 upon it with unremitting diligence, and when he had given it the 
 last touch, seized his palette, broke it in pieces, and said: "I 
 have finished." The print was published in March, under the 
 title of "Finis," and in October the curious e;yes which saw the 
 manners in the face were closed in the dust. Our ancestors, who 
 were prone to look in the air for causes which were to be found 
 upon the earth, attributed these intimations to various super- 
 natural agencies. 
 
 John Hunter has solved the mystery, if mystery it can be 
 called, in a single sentence. " We sometimes," he says, " feel 
 within ourselves that we shall not live ; for the living powers 
 become weak, and the nerves communicate the intelligence to the 
 
Phenomena of Death. 
 
 brain." His own case has often been quoted among the marvels 
 of which he offered this rational explanation. 
 
 Dr. Ridge, in an eloquently written Oration, delivered by him before 
 the Hunterian Society, has introduced some valuable information on 
 the nature of gout and angina pectoris, incidentally in his examination 
 of the various attacks under which the great anatomist suffered, with 
 many judicious remarks on the mental and bodily health, which left 
 unmistakable evidence of the affection under which Hunter laboured, 
 and which at length suddenly terminated his most extraordinary and use- 
 ful career. Dr. Ridge thus described the death-scene. " On the 16th of 
 October, 1793, says Mr. Ottley, the Board was to meet ; and Hunter 
 prepared to fulfil his promise, though he was not so well aware of the 
 risk he incurred in undertaking a task which he felt would agitate him, 
 that in mentioning the circumstance to a friend who called on him in 
 the morning, he expressed his apprehension lest some unpleasant dis- 
 pute might occur, and his conviction, that if it did, it would certainly 
 prove fatal to him. At his accustomed hour he left his house to com- 
 mence his morning rounds, and by accident forgot to take with him his 
 list of appointments. He had left his house but a few minutes when it 
 was discovered ; and Mr. Cleft, who was residing in his house, hastened 
 with it to York-street, St. James's, the first place on the list, where he 
 found the carriage waiting. Hunter now made his appearance, took the 
 list, and in an animated tone, bade his coachman drive to St. George's. 
 Arrived at the Hospital, he found the Board already assembled ; and 
 entering the room, presented the memorial of the young men, and pro- 
 ceeded to urge the propriety of their being admitted. In the course of 
 his remarks he made some observation which one of his colleagues 
 thought it necessary instantly and flatly to contradict. Hunter imme- 
 diately ceased speaking, retired from the table, and, struggling to 
 suppress the tumult of his passion, turned into the adjoining room, 
 where he had scarcely reached, when, with a deep groan, he fell lifeless 
 into the arms of Dr. Robertson, one of the Physicians of the Hospital, 
 who chanced to be present." * Dr. Ridge has also traced the hereditary 
 affection which Hunter inherited, to its fatal termination. He has dis- 
 criminated the different results of the ordinary wear and tear of the 
 organic functions, and the aggravated form, which, as in the case of 
 John Hunter, was induced by too much mental application and the 
 neglect of the ordinary means of health ; at the same time, distinguish- 
 ing some forms of disease (gout and angina pectoris), which were shown 
 to be in the life of the illustrious John Hunter. 
 
 It is remarked in the Phrenological Journal : There was every 
 thing to lament in the circumstance, but nothing at which to 
 wonder, except that any individual could show such disrespect to 
 the great genius, a single year of whose existence was worth the 
 united lives of his opponents. Hunter, in uttering the prediction, 
 had only to take counsel in his own experience, without the inter- 
 vention of invisible spirits. He had long laboured under a disease 
 of the heart, and he felt the disorder had reached the point at 
 which any sharp agitation would bring on the crisis. 
 
 * He was carried to his house in Leicester-square, in a close chair 
 belonging to the Hospital, and was interred on the Wednesday following 
 in the public vault of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, whence the coffin was 
 removed in 1859, to Westminster Abbey. 
 
Premonitions of Death. 125 
 
 Mrs. Schimmelpenninck, in her amusing Memoirs, relates the 
 following well-attested instance. 
 
 " While Dr. Priestley occupied the post of librarian to Lord 
 Shelburne, one day, Mr. Petty, the precocious and gifted youth, 
 sent for Dr. Priestley (Lord Shelburne being then absent, I think, 
 in London). When the doctor entered, Mr. Petty told him he 
 had passed a very restless night, and had been much disturbed 
 by uncomfortable dreams, which he wished to relate to Dr. 
 Priestley, hoping that, by so doing, the painful impression would 
 pass away He then said he dreamed he had been very unwell, 
 when suddenly the whole house, was in preparation for a journey ; 
 he was too ill to sit up, but was carried lying down into the 
 carriage ; his surprise was extreme in seeing carriage after 
 carriage in an almost interminable procession. He was alone, 
 and could not speak ; he could only gaze in astonishment. The 
 procession at last wound slowly off. After pursuing the road for 
 many miles towards London, it at last appeared to stop at the 
 door of a church. It was the church at High Wycombe, which 
 is the burial-place of the Shelburne family. It seemed, in Mr. 
 Petty 's dream, that he entered, or rather was carried into, the 
 church ; he looked back ; he saw the procession which followed 
 him was in black, and that the carriage from which he had been 
 taken bore the semblance of a hearse. Here the dream ended, 
 and he awoke. Dr. Priestley told him that his dream was the 
 result of a feverish cold, and that the impression would soon pass 
 off. Nevertheless, he thought it best to send for the family medical 
 attendant. The next day Mr. Petty was much better; on the 
 third day he was completely convalescent, so that the doctor per- 
 mitted him to leave his room; but, as it was in January, and 
 illness was prevalent, he desired him on no account to leave the 
 house, and, with that precaution, took his leave. Late the next 
 afternoon the medical man was returning from his other patients ; 
 his road lay by the gates of Bowood, and, as Lord Shelburne was 
 away, he thought he might as well call to see Mr. Petty, and enforce 
 his directions. What was his surprise, when he had passed the 
 lodge, to see the youth himself, without his hat, playfully running 
 to meet him ! The doctor was much astonished, as it was bitterly 
 cold, and the ground covered with snow. He rode towards Mr. 
 Petty to rebuke him for his imprudence, when suddenly he dis- 
 appeared; whither, he knew not but he seemed instantaneously 
 to vanish. The doctor thought it very extraordinary, but that 
 probably the youth had not wished to be found transgressing 
 orders, and he rode on to the house ; there he learnt that Mr. 
 Petty had just expired." 
 
 Soldiers and Sailors are remarkable for their presentiments of 
 death. Here are three instances : 
 At the battle of Ramilles, was engaged a young officer, who 
 
126 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 had been intimate with Sir John Friend, executed by William of 
 Orange for adherence to the interests of the exiled family. The 
 officer assured his friends that he should not survive the battle. 
 At its close, while the allied forces were pursuing the remains of 
 the enemy, a knot of his acquaintance rallied him on his despond- 
 ency, and congratulated him on his safety. "You speak," he 
 replied, ( ' as you think. I shall die yet." Scarcely had he said 
 these words when the last cannon-ball fired by the enemy laid 
 him dead on the spot. In his pocket was found a slip of paper, 
 with these words, after a certain date : " Dreamed, or 
 (the blank was supposed to be intended for " was told by a 
 spirit") that on May 22, 1706, Sir John Friend meets me." On 
 that May 22 the battle of Eamilles was fought. 
 
 The following is related in Cadell's Campaigns in Egypt: 
 " When the inlying picquets turned out in the morning, a soldier 
 of my company (the Grenadiers), named M'Kinlay, came up to 
 me, handing a paper, and said : c Captain, here is my will ; I am 
 to be killed to-day, and I will all my arrears, and everything I 
 have, to my comrade, Bugh Swift.' 'What nonsense, M'Kinlay/ 
 I replied to him ; ' go into action, and do what you have always 
 done : behave like a brave soldier.' He answered : ' 1 will 
 do that, sir ; but I am certain I am to be killed to-day, and I 
 request you to take my will. To satisfy him, I took it ; and the 
 man fought with the picquets during the whole day with great 
 coolness and gallantry. In the afternoon, a little before the 
 action was over, we rejoined the regiment; we had suffered 
 much, but M'Kinlay was standing unhurt close to me; upon 
 which I observed to him : ( So, M'Kinlay, I suspect you are 
 wrong this time.' The right of the regiment being posted on the 
 round of a hill cut into steps for the vines, a body of the enemy's 
 sharp-shooters came close under us, and opened a fire to cover 
 their retiring columns. M'Kinlay, seeing one of them taking aim 
 over the arm of a fig-tree in our direction, exclaimed, " Look at 
 that rascal going to shoot our captain ! ' And, advancing one 
 step down the hill, he presented at the Frenchman, who, however, 
 was unfortunately too quick for him, for in an instant afterwards 
 poor M'Kinlay was shot through the neck, and killed on the spot. 
 The same ball gave me a severe contusion on the breast, and I 
 fell with the unfortunate man, and was actually covered with his 
 blood. He was one of the best soldiers in the Grenadier company, 
 and was much regretted; indeed, but for him, it is probable I 
 should not have lived to tell this tale. The will was duly for- 
 warded to the War Office, whence an order was issued for his 
 comrade Swift to receive all that was due to him." 
 
 A correspondent of Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No. 34, relates : 
 (t Having been several months in the Crimea during the severest 
 period of the bombardment, I can state that many cases of pre- 
 
Premonitions of Death. 127 
 
 sentiment were fulfilled ; as also, that some were falsified. There 
 were also many deaths without any accompanying presentiment 
 having been made known. A sergeant in the Light Division, 
 who was in the second boat which reached the shore before the 
 Alma, and went through all the severest work up to the final 
 storming, frequently, in his letters home, remarked, c Something 
 tells me I shall escape ; ' but, poor fellow, he was hit severely in 
 two places, at the Redan. In one of his letters he stated: 
 c Many of our men knew when they would fall, and prepared ac- 
 cordingly by packing up letters and papers, and leaving instruc- 
 tions as to sending and writing 1 to friends : sure enough they did 
 fall. 3 " 
 
 It will be remembered that Dr. Johnson, in his Rasselas, puts 
 into the mouth of the sage Imlac, these words : 
 
 That the dead are seen no more, I will not undertake to maintain 
 against the concurrent testimony of all ages and all nations. There is 
 no people, rude or unlearned, among whom apparitions of the dead are 
 not related and believed. This opinion, which prevails, as far as human 
 nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth : those that 
 never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which 
 nothing but experience could make credible. That it is doubted by 
 single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence ; and some 
 who deny it with their tongues, confess it with their fears." 
 
 To this passage Lord Byron thus alludes : 
 
 I merely mean to say what Johnson said, 
 
 That in the course of some six thousand years, 
 
 All nations have believed that from the dead 
 A visitant at intervals appears. 
 
 And what is strangest upon this strange head 
 
 Is, that, whatever bar the reason rears 
 'Gainst such belief there's something stronger still 
 
 In its behalf, let those deny who will. 
 
 Lord Byron was " superstitious : " he believed in the ill-luck 
 of Eriday, and was seriously disconcerted if anything was to be 
 done on that frightful day of the week. Yet he sometimes laughed 
 at the idea of ghosts. In 1811, Byron, writing to Mr. Murray, 
 says : " My old school and form-fellow Peel, the Irish secretary, 
 told me he saw me in St. James's-street ; I was then in Turkey. 
 A day or two afterwards he pointed out to his brother a person 
 across the way, and said, ' There is the man I took for Byron : ' 
 his brother answered, ' Why, it is Byron, and no one else.' I 
 was at this time seen to write my name in the Palace book. I 
 was then ill of a malaria fever. If I had died, here would have 
 been a ghost-story." 
 
 Not long after the death of Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott was 
 engaged in his study, during the darkening twilight of an au- 
 
128 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 tumnal evening, in reading a sketch of Byron's form and habits, 
 his manners and opinions. On a sudden, he saw, as he laid down 
 his book, and passed into his hall, the eidolon of his departed 
 friend before him. He remained some time impressed by the in- 
 tensity of the illusion, which had thus created a phantom out of 
 skins, and scarfs, and plaids, hanging on a screen, in the gotbic 
 hall at Abbotsford. 
 
 Harriet Duchess of St. Albans frequently expressed a wish 
 that her own demise should take place on a Sunday ; which was 
 fulfilled; she died on Sunday, Aug. 6, 1837. In reply to a ques- 
 tion why she so fervently desired to die on the Sabbath, she said : 
 "As it was on the Sunday after the Crucifixion that the Resur- 
 rection took place, those who would believe in their salvation by 
 the Lord Jesus naturally wish to leave earth on the same day, in 
 the humble hope of gaining admission where there are many 
 mansions." 
 
 Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, Part i. sec. 2, tells us that 
 near Rupes Nova, in Finland, in the Kingdom of Sweden, there is a 
 lake, in which, before the governor of the cattle dyes, a spectrum, 
 in the habit of Arion with his harp, appears, and makes excellent 
 musick, like those blocks in Cheshire, which, (they say,) presage 
 death to the master of the family; or that oak in Lanthadran 
 park in Cornwall, which foreshows as much. Many families in 
 Europe are so put in mind of their last, by such predictions, and 
 many men are forewarned (if we may believe Paracelsus) by 
 familiar spirits in divers shapes, as cocks, crows, owls, which often 
 hover about sick men's chambers, ve quia morientium faditatem 
 sentient , as Barcellus conjectures, et ideo supertectum infirmorum 
 crocitant, because they smell a corse ; or for that (as Bernardinus 
 de Bustis thinketh) God permits the devil to appear in the form 
 of crows, and such like creatures, to scare such as live wickedly 
 here on earth. A little before Tullie's death (saith Plutarch) 
 the crows made a mighty noise about him; tumultuose per- 
 strepentes, they pulled the pillow from under his head. Of 
 course, allowance must be made for the classic garniture of 
 these prodigies. 
 
 Persons in health have died from the expectation of dying. 
 It was once common for those who perished by violence to sum- 
 mon their destroyers to appear, within a stated time, before the 
 tribunal of their God ; and we have many perfectly attested in- 
 stances in which, through fear and remorse, the perpetrators 
 withered under the curse, and died. Pestilence does not kill with 
 the rapidity of terror. 
 
 The profligate abbess of a convent, the Princess Gonzaga of 
 Cleves and Guise, and the profligate Archbishop of Rheims, took it 
 into their heads for a jest to visit one of the nuns by night, 
 and exhort her as a person who was visibly dying. While in the 
 
Premonitions of Death. 129 
 
 performance of their heartless scheme they whispered to each 
 other, "She is just departing," she departed in earnest. Her 
 vigour, instead of detecting the trick, sank beneath the alarm ; 
 and the profane pair discovered, in the midst of their sport, that 
 they were making merry with a corpse. Phrenological Journal. 
 
 Mrs. Crawford relates in the Metropolitan Magazine, 1836, that 
 Lord Chedworth (father of the late lord) had living with him the 
 orphan daughter of a sister of his, a Miss Wright, from whom 
 Mrs. Crawford heard this circumstance. Lord Chedworth had 
 some lamentable doubts as to the existence of the soul in another 
 world. He had a great friendship for a gentleman, who was as 
 sceptical as himseli. One morning, Miss Wright observed, on 
 her uncle's joining her at the breakfast table, that he was very 
 thoughtful, ate little, and was unusually silent. At last, he said, 
 "Molly, (for thus he familiarly called her,) I had a strange visitor 
 
 last night. My old friend B came to me. 33 " How ? 33 said 
 
 Miss Wright, " did he come after I went to bed ? " " His spirit 
 did" said Lord Chedworth, solemnly. "Oh, my dear uncle! 
 how could the spirit of a living man appear ? ' 3 said she, smiling. 
 " He is dead, beyond doubt, 33 replied his lordship : " listen, and 
 then laugh as much as you please. I had not entered my bed- 
 room many minutes, when he stood before me. Like you, I could 
 not believe but that I was looking on the living man, and so 
 accosted him; but he (the spirit) answered, 'Chedworth, I died 
 this night at eight o'clock. I came to tell you, there is another 
 world beyond the grave; there is a righteous God that judgeth all." 
 
 "Depend upon it, uncle, it was only a dream;" but while Miss 
 Wright was yet speaking, a groom on horseback rode up the 
 avenue, and immediately afterwards delivered a letter to Lord 
 Chedworth, announcing the sudden death of his friend. The effect 
 that it had upon the mind of Lord Chedworth was as happy as it 
 was permanent: all his doubts were at once removed, and for 
 ever. 
 
 Haydon, the painter, in his Journal, February 15, 1815, has 
 this extraordinary entry : "About this time, I had a most singular 
 dream. I dreamt Wilkie and I were both climbing up an im- 
 mensely high wall, at the top of which were sweet creatures smiling 
 and welcoming us. He could scarcely keep hold, it was so steep 
 and slippery ; when all of a sudden he let go, and I saw him wind 
 and curve in the air, and felt the horrible conviction that his body 
 would be dashed to pieces. After a moment's grief, I persevered 
 and reached the top, and there found Mrs. Wilkie and his sister, 
 lamenting his death. 33 Upon this Haydou subsequently noted: 
 "This is like a presentiment of his (Wilkie 7 s) dying first." 
 B. K. H. 1843. 
 
130 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 DEATH OF LORD LYTTELTON. 
 
 The premonition said to have been received by Thomas Lord 
 Lyttelton, a short time before his death, at the precise period 
 foreshadowed, at Pitt Place, Epsom, is well known; but there 
 are many versions of the circumstances. That most to be relied 
 on is by Mr. William Russell, an organist, of Guildford, whose 
 company was much courted on account of his musical talent, and 
 who was a visitor at Pitt Place, on the night of Lord Lyttelton' s 
 death. We have in our possession Mr. Russell's narrative in 
 his own handwriting, but it is incomplete as regards the dream 
 in which the time of death was foretold. The circumstances are 
 related, though with a difference, by a Correspondent of Notes and 
 Queries, 2d Series, No. 113, who, however, received his version 
 from a gentleman who had it from Mr. Russell. 
 
 The story ordinarily told is, that Lord Lyttelton dreamed the 
 ghost of a lady whom he had seduced, appeared to him, and pre- 
 dicted his death at twelve at night on the third day following. The 
 informant's version differs only thus far : that the supposed appari- 
 tion was that of Mrs. Amphletf, the mother of the lady in question, 
 who had died of a broken heart, in consequence of her daughter's 
 dishonour. Lord Lyttelton was, at this time, in a very bad state 
 of health, in consequence of his excesses, and was subject to 
 " suffocating fits," probably nervous hysteria. Be this as it may, 
 it appears that on the day of his death, the foretold third day, he 
 had a party of friends at Pitt Place, among whom was Mr. 
 Russell, the organist. He said that Lytteltoii was in a state of 
 some agitation, and had told the story of the dream to his friends. 
 As the night wore on, and midnight approached, his nervous- 
 ness increased painfully; and some of his visitors said, during 
 his absence, "Lyttelton will frighten himself into another fit 
 with this foolish ghost-story : " they determined to put a clock, 
 which stood in the room, forward; and when he returned to 
 them, they said, "Hurrah, Lyttelton, twelve o'clock is past, 
 you've jockied the ghost now, the best thing to do, is to go 
 quietly to bed, and in the morning you will be all right." He 
 accordingly went upstairs; and while some of his guests were 
 preparing to depart, his valet came down to fetch some mint- 
 water which he was in the habit of taking, leaving his Lordship 
 alone. At this period, the clock of the parish-church, which was 
 not far off, and which, of course, could not have been touched, 
 began slowly to peal forth the true midnight hour. The valet 
 returned upstairs, and called out loudly; the company ran up, 
 and found his Lordship had fallen dead. 
 
 Now, the impression of the narrator was, that the sudden re- 
 vulsion of feeling, from a state of fancied security to the finding 
 
Death of Lord Lyttelton. 131 
 
 of himself in the very instant of the dreaded danger, had caused 
 such a reaction as to bring on the fits which carried his Lordship 
 off. He, no doubt, had heard the first stroke of the clock, as 
 well as others downstairs; and as each successive blow struck 
 slowly upon the bell, the sense of danger, and the remembrance 
 of the dream, became greater and greater and to so weakened a 
 frame, and so distressed a mind, no doubt, these caused the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 It is also stated that Mrs. Amphlett died of grief at the precise 
 time when the figure appeared to Lord Lyttelton ; and that at 
 the period of his Lordship's own dissolution, a Ggure answering 
 his description appeared at th& bedside of Miles Peter Andrews, 
 Esq., (his Lordship's friend and companion,) and suddenly throw- 
 ing open the curtains, desired Mr. Andrews to come to him. The 
 latter, not knowing that his Lordship had returned from Ireland, 
 got up, when the phantom disappeared. Mr. Andrews (then at 
 his partner's, Mr. Pigou, at Dartford,) had, in consequence, a 
 short fit of illness ; and in his subsequent visits to Pitt Place, no 
 solicitations could ever prevail on him to take a bed there ; but 
 he would invariably return, however late, to the Spread Eagle 
 inn for the night. Mr. Croker, in his edition of Bos well's Life of 
 Johnson, notes that he had heard Mr. Andrews relate these details, 
 more than once, but always reluctantly, and with an evidently 
 solemn conviction of their truth. 
 
 In Notes and Queries, 2d Series, No. 158, we find another 
 version of the above story, copied from a MS. at least fifty years 
 old, of a gentleman of Derbyshire, whose mother was a collateral 
 descendant of Lord Lyttelton. This version states that his 
 Lordship died at his house in Hill-street, Berkeley-square ; but 
 of the accuracy of Mr. Russell's statement that his Lordship died 
 at Pitt Place, there can be no doubt. This version repeats the 
 statement, that the next post, on the morning after Lord Lyttel- 
 ton's death, brought the account of the death of Mrs. Amphlett, 
 " who departed precisely at the time Lord Lyttelton saw the 
 vision." 
 
 We find the following narrative in the Supplement to Nash's 
 History of Worcestershire : 
 
 Thomas, the second Lord Lyttelton,* had great parts and ambition. 
 He had all his father's foibles, but without his sound principles of 
 religion and morali ty ; for want of which he fell into great enormities 
 
 * Lord Lyttelton married in 1772, Apphia, relict of Joseph Peach, 
 Esq., Governor of Calcutta. She survived her lord 60 years, dying at 
 Peach Field Lodge, Great Malvern, at the age of 96. With means com- 
 paratively slender she was eminently charitable ; and the schools 
 founded by her, the public walks laid out and improved, and the Home 
 of Industry at Malvern, are interesting memorials of her beneficence. 
 K2 
 
132 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 and vices. His pleasures were restrained by no ties of relationship, 
 friendship, or decency. He was a great lover of gaming ; in his younger 
 years he was unsuccessful, but he afterwards became more artful, and 
 at his death he was supposed to have acquired 30,000/. by play. His 
 constitution was feeble, and by his vices so enervated, that he died an 
 old man at the age of 35. He was, like his father, a believer in ghosts, 
 and many stories are told, with considerable confidence, which have re- 
 lation to his death. About three days before he died, a female figure, 
 with a bird on her hand, * appeared to him, as he imagined, and told 
 him he should die in three days. The day of this supposed appearance 
 he went to the House of Lords, and spoke with great earnestness on 
 some business then in agitation. The next dlay he went to a villa he 
 had at Epsom, apparently as well as he had been some time before. 
 The succeeding day he continued there, and was in as good health and 
 spirits as usual, though the apparition still hung upon his mind. He 
 spent the evening in company with the Miss Amphletts, Admiral 
 Wolseley, Earl Fortescue, and some other persons : he seemed perfectly 
 well, and pulling out his watch, said jocularly, it was ten o'clock, and 
 if he lived two 'hours, he should jockey the ghost. In about an hour, he 
 retired to his chamber, and ordered his valet to bring his powder of 
 rhubarb, which he frequently took at night. His servant brought it, 
 and forgetting to bring a spoon was going to stir it with a key ; upon 
 which his Lordship called him a dirty fellow, and bid him fetch a spoon. 
 Accordingly, he went out, and returning in a few minutes, found his- 
 Lordship in the agonies of death. 
 
 DEATH OE ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. 
 
 Bishop Burnet records of the saintly Robert Leighton : 
 
 He often used to say that if he were to choose a place to die in, it 
 should be an Inn. It looked like a Pilgrim's going Home, to whom 
 this world was all as an Inn, and who was weary of the noise* and con- 
 fusion in it. He added that the officious tenderness and care of friends 
 was an entanglement to a dying man; and that the unconcerned 
 attendance of those that could be procured in such a place would give 
 less disturbance. And he obtained what he desired ; for he died at the 
 BelVinn, in Warwick-lane. 
 
 Dr. Pall, who was well acquainted with Leighton, after a glow- 
 ing eulogy on his holy life and " heavenly converse," proceeds : 
 
 Such a life, we may easily persuade ourselves, must make the thought 
 of Death not only tolerable but desirable. Accordingly, it had this noble 
 effect upon him. In a paper left under his own hand (since lost) he 
 bespeaks that day in a most glorious and triumphant manner : his Ex- 
 pressions seem rapturous and ecstatic, as though his Wishes and Desires 
 
 * In Devonshire the appearance of a white-breasted bird has long been 
 considered an omen of death. This belief has been traced to a circum- 
 stance stated to have happened to one of the Oxenham family in that 
 county, and related by Howel, in his Familiar Letters ; wherein is the 
 following monumental inscription: "Here lies John Oxenham, a 
 goodly young man, in whose chamber, as he was struggling with the 
 pangs of death, a bird, with a white breast, was seen fluttering about 
 his bed, and so vanished."' A similar circumstance is related of the 
 death of his sister Mary, and two or three others of the family. 
 
Old Age and Death. 133 
 
 had anticipated the real and solemn celebration of his Nuptials with 
 the Lainb of God. . . . He sometimes expressed his desire of not being 
 troublesome to his friends at his Death ; and God gratified to the full 
 his modest humble choice : he dying at an Inn in his sleep. ... So kind 
 and condescending a Master do we serve, who not only enriches the 
 souls of his faithful servants with His best Treasures, but often indulges 
 them in lesser matters, and giveth to his beloved, even hi their sleep. 
 
 Diodorus tells us that the Egyptians used to style the dwellings 
 of the living "Inns," regarding the Life as the Journey of a 
 Traveller towards his home. Cowley has a similar thought in one 
 of his Pindaric Odes, of which the following is the first stanza : 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 Nascentes morimur. Manil. 
 We're ill by those Grammarians us'd, 
 We are abused by Words, grossly abused ; 
 
 From the Maternal Tomb 
 
 To the Grave's fruitful Womb, 
 We call here Life ; but Life's a Name 
 That nothing here can truly claim : 
 This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait, 
 
 We call our Dwelling-place ; 
 
 We call one Step a Race ; 
 But Angels in their full enlightened state, 
 Angels who Live, and know what 'tis to Be, 
 Who all the nonsense of our Language see, 
 Who speak Things, and our Words (their ill-drawn Pictures) scorn : 
 
 When we by a foolish Figure say 
 
 Behold an old Man dead ! then they 
 Speak properly, and cry, " Behold a Man-child lorn I " 
 
 OLD AGE AND DEATH. 
 
 M. Bicherand, in his Elements of Physiology, has this pathetic 
 picture of the closing scene : 
 
 New impressions are now less easily made, and the motions necessary 
 to the operation of the understanding are performed with difficulty. 
 Hence in decrepitude, man returns, as far as relates to his intellectual 
 faculties, to a state of second childhood, limited to certain recollections 
 which are at first confused, and at last completely lost, incapable of 
 judgment or will, or of new impressions. 
 
 The close of life is marked by phenomena similar to those with which 
 it began. The circulation first manifested itself, and ceases last. 
 The right auricle is the first to pulsate, and in death the last to 
 retain its motion. 
 
 The following is the order in which the intellectual faculties cease and 
 are decomposed I am not here speaking of the immortal soul, of that 
 divine emanation which outlives matter, and freed from our perishable 
 part, returns to the Almighty ; I am speaking merely of those intel- 
 lectual faculties which are common to man, and to those animals which, 
 like him, are provided with a brain. Keason, the exclusive faculty of 
 man, first forsakes him. He begins by losing the faculty of associating 
 judgments, and then of com paring, bringing together, and of connecting, 
 a number of ideas, so as to judge of their relation. The patient is then 
 
134 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 said to have lost his consciousness, or to be delirious. This delirium 
 has generally for its subject the ideas that are most familiar to tho 
 patient, and his prevailing passion ' is easily recognised. The miser 
 talks, in the most indiscreet manner, of his hidden treasure ; the un- 
 believer dies haunted by religious apprehensions. Sweet recollections 
 of a distant native land ! then it is that ye return with your all-powerful 
 energy and delight. 
 
 At last, he ceases to feel ; but his senses vanish in succession, and in 
 a determinate order. The taste and smell cease to give any sign of 
 existence ; the eyes become obscured by a dark and gloomy cloud ; but 
 the ear is yet sensible to sound and noise ; and no doubt, it was on 
 this account that the Ancients, to ascertain that death had really taken 
 place, were in the habit of calling loudly to the deceased. 
 
 A dying man, though no longer capable of smelling, tasting, hearing, 
 and seeing, still retains the sense of touch ; he tosses about in his bed, 
 moves his arms in various directions, and is perpetually changing his 
 posture. 
 
 DEATH AT WILL. 
 
 An instance of this kind, which may also be termed voluntary 
 trance, is quoted by Mrs. Crowe, in her Night side of Nature, 
 
 Doctor Cheyne, the Scottish physician, who died in 1742, re- 
 lates the case of Colonel Townshend, who could, to all appearance, 
 die whenever he pleased : his heart ceased to beat, there was no 
 perceptible respiration, and his whole frame became cold and rigid 
 as death itself ; the features being shrunk and colourless, and the 
 eyes glazed and ghastly. He would continue in this state for 
 several hours, and then gradually revive ; but the revival does not 
 appear to have been an effort of will, or rather, we are not in- 
 formed whether it was so or not. The Doctor, who attended the 
 Colonel, states that his patient said, he could " die or expire when 
 he pleased ; " and yet, by an effort, or somehow, he could come to 
 life again. He performed the experiment in the presence of three 
 medical men ; one of whom kept his hand on his heart, another 
 held his wrist, and the third placed a looking-glass before his lips : 
 and they found that all traces of respiration and pulsation gra- 
 dually ceased, insomuch that after consulting about his condition 
 for some time, they were leaving the room, persuaded that he was 
 really dead, when signs of life appeared, and he slowly revived. 
 He did not die while repeating the experiment, as has been some- 
 times asserted. 
 
 SLEEP AND DEATH.* 
 
 Aristotle, who hath written a singular tract of sleep, hath not, 
 
 methinks, thoroughly denned it ; nor yet Galen, though he seem 
 
 to have corrected it; for those noctambulos and night walkers, 
 
 though in their sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses. 
 
 * From Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, Part II. Sect. xii. 
 
Sleep and Death. 135 
 
 We must, therefore, say that there is something in us that is not 
 in the jurisdiction of Morpheus ; and that those abstracted and 
 ecstatic souls do walk about in their own corpses, as spirits with 
 the bodies they assume, wherein they seem to hear, see, and feel ; 
 though indeed the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures 
 of those faculties that should inform them. 
 
 We term sleep a death ; and yet it is waking that kills us, and 
 destroys those spirits that are the house of life. 'Tis indeed a 
 part of life that oest expresses death ; for every man truly lives, 
 so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties 
 of himself. Themistocles, therefore, that slew his soldier, was a 
 merciful executioner : 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of 
 no laws hath invented ; I wonder (says Sir T- Browne) the fancy 
 of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it. It is that death by 
 which we may be literally said to die daily ; a death which Adam 
 died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and 
 moderating point between life and death. In fine, so like death, I 
 dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu unto the 
 world, and take my farewell in a colloquy with God : 
 
 The night is come, like to the day ; 
 Depart not thou, great God, away. 
 Let not my sins, black as the night, 
 Eclipse the lustre of thy light. 
 Keep still in my horizon ; for to me 
 The sun makes not the day, but thee. 
 Thou whose nature cannot sleep, 
 On my temples sentry keep ; 
 Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, 
 Whose eyes are open while mine close. 
 Let no dreams my head infest, 
 But such as Jacob's temples blest. 
 While I do rest, my soul advance ; 
 Make my sleep a holy trance : 
 That I may, my rest being wrought, 
 Awake into some holy thought. 
 And with as active vigour run 
 My course as doth the nimble sun. 
 Sleep is a death ; make me try, 
 By sleeping, what it is to die ! 
 And as gently lay my head 
 On my grave as now my bed. 
 Howe'er I rest, great God, let me 
 Awake again at last with thee. 
 And thus assur'd, behold I lie 
 Securely, or to wake or die. 
 These are my drowsy days ; in vain 
 I do now wake to sleep again : 
 come that hour, when 1 shall never 
 Sleep again, but wake for ever ! 
 
 This is the dormitive I take to bedward ; I need no other laudanum 
 than this to make me sleep ; after which I close mine eyes in 
 
136 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the 
 resurrection. 
 
 DOES THE SOUL SLEEP ? 
 
 The Cartesian doctrine, that the Soul never sleeps, it is ex- 
 tremely difficult if not impossible to test. If we imagine that 
 the soul has need of rest, then we must admit that sleep will be 
 found in the next world, as in this. This, however, does not 
 accord with our ideas of an immortal spirit, which has thoughts 
 and sensations, which we on earth apply to mental conditions 
 which presuppose the action of the human brain ; and our present 
 existence furnishes us with no idea of the action of tne soul 
 without the action of the brain. 
 
 CONTRITION OF THE ANCIENTS AT THE POINT OF DEATH. 
 
 Diogenes Laertius relates of the atheistic philosopher, Bion, 
 that on his deathbed he changed his opinion, and repented of the 
 sins he had committed against God. The notion of penitence for 
 offences against the gods scarcely ever presents itself in poly- 
 theism. Their offerings and prayers had regard to the conciliation 
 of the deities, with a view to some prospective temporal benefit ; 
 for spiritual or eternal benefits do not seem at all to have occu- 
 pied the heathen mind. Even the concluding scene of Socrates, 
 depicted by Xenophon and Plato, leaves the result arrived at by 
 Cicero, that philosophy can reckon a future state of rewards and 
 punishments, only among the probabilia. The cultivated Greek, 
 according to Tholuck, believed in no future state : as for example, 
 Polybius, Pausanias, and Simonides. The second Alcibiades (of 
 Plato) is designed to show that prayer itself should be seldom, if 
 at all, addressed to the gods, lest a person should unconsciously 
 pray for great evils upon himself, whilst thinking that he prays 
 for good ; and lest the gods should not happen to be in a disposi- 
 tion to grant what he happens to pray for. 
 
 Particular prayers, as for rain, are objected to by Marcus 
 Antoninus;* and Socrates prayed simply for what was good, 
 leaving the gods to decide, as knowing better than himself what 
 was or was not for his good. Some of the pliilosophers decided 
 not to pray at all. (See Tholuck on Heathenism.) /. T. Buckton; 
 Notes and Queries, 2d S., No. 112. 
 
 * Some Christians of the present day have not, in this respect, dis- 
 dained to follow the practices of the Heathens. In the wet autumn of 
 1860, prayers for fine weather were objected to by certain correspondents 
 of the newspapers of the day, as had been in the previous year prayers 
 for rain. 
 
Mans reluctance to think upon God. 137 
 
 In the Introduction to the Republic of Plato, Cephalus is made 
 to say : 
 
 Be assured, Socrates, that when a man is nearly persuaded that ho 
 is going to die, he feels alarmed and concerned about things which 
 never affected him before. Till then he has laughed at those stories 
 about the departed, which tell us that he who has done wrong here 
 must suffer for it in the other world ; but now his mind is tormented 
 by a fear that these stories may possibly be true. And, either owing to 
 the infirmities of old age, or because he is now nearer to the confines of 
 a future state, he has a clearer insight into these mysteries. However 
 that may be, he becomes fuller of misgiving and apprehension, and sets 
 himself to the task of calculating and reflecting whether he has done 
 any wrong to any one. Hereupon, if he finds his life full of unjust 
 deeds, he is apt to start out of sleep in terror, as children do, and he 
 lives haunted by gloomy anticipations. But if his conscience reproaches 
 him with no injustice, he enjoys the abiding presence of sweet Hope, 
 that "kind nurse of old age," as Pindar calls it. 
 
 This passage, (from Davis and Yaughan's excellent translation) 
 is alone sufficient to prove the belief of some of the ancients in 
 remorse or contrition for crimes at the approach of death ; espe* 
 cially when taken in connexion with Plato's constant recognition 
 of a future state, in which " the rewards and honours that await a 
 good man surpass in number and magnitude all that one ex.pe- 
 riences in this life." (Rep. 6, x. p. 614 n.) Notes and Queries, 
 2dS., No. 115. 
 
 MAN'S RELUCTANCE TO THINK UPON GOD. 
 
 A striking incidental illustration of the aversion of the unre- 
 newed heart to meditate upon God occurs in Shakspeare's descrip- 
 tion of the Death-bed of Falstaff, for the hint of which the 
 dramatist may have been indebted to some actual gossiping Mrs. 
 Quickly, or to his own ever-wakeful observation, beside the bed of 
 a dying person. " In other respects," says a writer in the Chris- 
 tian Observer, " graphic and vivid as it is, and so minutely correct 
 in delineation that one can scarcely believe it is not a description 
 of an actual occurrence ; it is so painful to witness the solemnities 
 of death portrayed for scenic effect, and even mixed up with asso- 
 ciations of gross ribaldry, that it seems astonishing that persons 
 of refined mind, even though unimpressed by religious feelings, 
 do not shrink from such pictures in theatrical representations. 
 Mrs. Siddons's mimicry (for what is it but mimicry ?) of death is 
 related to have been awfully natural ; but is death, after which 
 comes judgment, a subject for amusement? It is too solemn 
 even for tragedy ; in comedy it is revolting." Yet, how truthful 
 is the following passage : 
 
 'A made a finer end, and went away as it had been any christom * 
 
 * "Chrystom," scilicet chrisom. From Mrs. Quickly 's version of tho 
 \vord, (for, doubtless, Shakspeare intended to give the popular dialect, 
 
138 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 child. 'A parted even just before twelve and one, e'en at turning o' th' 
 tide ; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,- 
 and smile upon his fingers'-ends, I knew there was but one way : for his 
 nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. " How now, 
 Sir John," quoth I : ' ' what, man ! be of good cheer." So 'a cried out, 
 " God, God, God ! " three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, 'a 
 should not think of God : I hoped there was no need to trouble himself 
 with such thoughts yet. So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet : I 
 put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any 
 stone. King Henry the Fifth, Act ii. Sc. 3. 
 
 With incomparable skill though the images are too painful to 
 be gazed at without distress in fiction by any person who has 
 witnessed them in reality has Shakspeare here brought together 
 the visible prognosticators of dissolution. We have the fades 
 Hippocratica : "his face was as sharp as a pen;" (?) and we 
 have the peculiar and characteristic restlessness alluded to by 
 
 and it may be supposed, his spelling has been retained), we may con- 
 clude that uneducated persons, and perhaps, others, confused the 
 anointing chrism, and the baptismal robe, called chrisom, with christen: 
 that is, man's unwarranted addition to Christ's sacrament, with the 
 sacrament itself, whereby we are admitted visibly into the Christian 
 church ; in vernacular phrase, christened. The rite of chrism was re- 
 tained in the first service-book of Edward VI., but happily it was 
 expunged in the second. Chrisom was, in popular language, the holy 
 robe, or chrisom-cloth put about, or upon, the child, at, or in token of, 
 his baptism ; and with which the women used to shroud it, if it died 
 " within the month;" otherwise, it was usually brought to church 
 on the day of the mother's purification. Hence, Chrisoms, in the 
 bills of mortality, were properly such children as died within the 
 month, or before they had left off the chrisom-cloth ; but the parish- 
 clerks, "in their ignorance," justly says Wheatly, mean by the 
 word in those Bills, infants dying unbaptized, who, therefore were 
 not chrisoins. It came to be popularly used as Shakspeare makes Mrs. 
 Quickly use it, in the sense of innocents, infants who had not com- 
 mitted sin after baptism. That wonderful man, Shakspeare, knew well the 
 rites, and even the technical language, of the church of Home, to which 
 he often alludes ; as in the well-known lines of the ghost in Hamlet : 
 
 Cut off e'en in the blossom of my sins, 
 Unhousel'd, unanointed, unassoil'd. 
 
 In some copies, " disappointed, unanealed." The word " soil " is still 
 used in our Hymn in the Ordination office for priests: "Anoint and 
 cheer our soiled face." The penitent was " cheered " by being " as- 
 soiled." The word " ousel" is Saxonic for the sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
 per. Abridged from the Christian Observer. See Nares's Glossary, 1841, 
 new edit. 1859, voce Ghrisome, in which the Editor considers it plain 
 that we should read* " chrisom chttd ;" unless Mrs. Quickly be supposed 
 to disfigure the word, chrisome child is used where no suspicion of mis- 
 use can apply. The original use of this cloth was to. prevent the 
 rubbing off the chrism, or holy unguent, a part of the old baptismal 
 office. It afterwards came to signify the white mantle thrown over the 
 whole infant. We retain the word robe, applied to the long frock in 
 which the child is christened : it is often finely embroidered, and is very 
 costly. 
 
Mans reluctance to think upon God. 139 
 
 Richerand "I saw him fumble with the sheets, play with the 
 flowers, and smile upon his fingers'-ends," which Shakspeare 
 well knew betokened that "there was but one way." ^ 
 
 But, perhaps, the most striking part of the description is the 
 half-disclosed intimation of what was passing in the dying man's 
 mind, even in its incoherence, when he "cried out, God, God, 
 God! three or four times;" with the counsel which the woman, 
 with the utmost simplicity, tells us she gave him : " Now I, to 
 comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God : I hoped there 
 was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet." 
 How wonderfully in these few words has Shakspeare exhibited 
 the feelings of the unrenewed mind, which is "enmity with 
 God;" and also the popular delusion that it is not necessary to 
 think upon God till it is too late to think of anything else. The 
 narrator dreams not that there could be two opinions urjon the 
 subject : she relates with perfect complacency the advice she 
 gave ; she does not conjecture that any person could suppose that 
 a man would think upon God except as a matter of necessity ; it 
 might be requisite if he were in the very article of death; but 
 why should he " trouble himself" a most apt expression to con- 
 vey her idea with such reflections, so long as any ray of hope 
 remained ? It comes out also for Shakspeare is evidently paint- 
 ing from nature that such was, and it is feared, still is, the 
 advice given by ignorant, officious persons to the sick and dying. 
 
 The language put by Shakspeare into the lips of Mrs. Quickly 
 is the more striking, because he is making her speak in character, 
 as an ignorant, irreligious woman ; her being dissolute does not 
 touch the question, for he might have caused her to speak thus 
 without her being grossly vicious. And, a few pages further on, 
 when Henry Y., whom Shakspeare means to represent as a re- 
 flecting, religious, and high-souled man, is describing how a sick 
 person should feel and act, very different are the sentiments. 
 Speaking of the wicked lives of too many soldiers, before they 
 entered the army, he says : 
 
 Now, if these men have defeated the law/ and outrun native punish- 
 ment, though they can outstrip man, they have no wings to fly from 
 God : war is his beadle, war is his vengeance : so that men are here 
 punished for before breach of the King's laws, in now the King's 
 quarrel : where they feared death, they have borne life away ; and 
 where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided, 
 no more is the King guilty of their damnation, than he was before 
 guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every 
 subject's duty is the King's ; but every subject's soul is his ( own. 
 Therefore, should every soldier in the war do as every sick man in his 
 ~be.d, wash every mote out of his conscience ; and dying so, death is to him 
 advantage; as not dying, the time was blessedly lost, wherein such pre- 
 paration was gained ; and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think, 
 that, making God so free an offer, he let him outlive that day to see 
 his greatness, and to teach others how they should prepare. 
 
140 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 In this passage, which, might have been written by Jeremy- 
 Taylor, there is nothing of its being time enough to repent when 
 we are dying. The time, he says, which men accounted lost, was 
 " blessedly lost," wherein such preparation was gained. He vents 
 no such folly as the popular notion that a sick man is to seek his 
 comfort in banishing serious reflection. Shakspeare, though irre- 
 ligious himself, knew, as a matter of information, that it is the 
 wicked who say unto God, (< Depart from us ; for we desire not 
 the knowledge of thy ways." The righteous man the true 
 believer finds comfort in thinking upon God : though alienated 
 by nature, he is brought nigh by grace ; though he fell in the first 
 Adam, he is restored by the second ; though he had destroyed 
 himself, yet in God is his help ; his offended Creator has become 
 his reconciled Father in Christ Jesus ; God is his shield, and his 
 exceeding great reward ; he has followed the advice which Eliphaz 
 gave to Job in his affliction, and has enjoyed the blessing wnich 
 he predicted should follow "Acquaint now thyself with Him, 
 and be at peace ; thereby good shall come unto thee." Abridged 
 from the Christian Observer, 1841. 
 
 STATE OF MIND PRECEDING DEATH. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie, as the result of his long observation, con- 
 cludes that the mere act of Dying is seldom, in any sense of the 
 word, a very painful process. It is true, (he ados,) that some 
 persons die in a state of bodily torture, as in the case of tetanus ; 
 that the drunkard dying of delirium tremens is haunted by terrific 
 visions ; and that the victim of that most horrible of all diseases, 
 hydrophobia, in addition to those peculiar bodily sufferings from 
 which the disease has derived its name, may be in a state of terror 
 from the supposed presence of frightful objects, which are pre- 
 sented to him as realities, even to the last. But the general rule 
 is, that both mental and bodily suffering terminate long before the 
 scene is finally closed. 
 
 Then, as to the actual fear of death: it seems that the Author 
 of our existence, for tHe most part, gives it to us when it is 
 intended that we should live, and takes it away from us when it 
 is intended that we should die. Those who have been long 
 tormented by bodily pain are generally as anxious to die as they 
 ever were to live. So it often is with those whose life has been 
 protracted to an extreme old age, beyond the usual period of 
 mortality, even when they^ labour under no actual disease. Sir 
 Benjamin describes the dying of old age 
 
 Like ripe fruit to drop 
 Into his mother's lap, 
 
 as seeming to be a happy conclusion of worldly cares and joys. 
 "Tt is like falling to sleep never to wake in this state or ex- 
 
How Man dies. 141 
 
 istence. Some die retaining all their faculties, and quite aware 
 that their dissolution is at hand. Others offer no signs of recog- 
 nition of external objects, so that it is impossible for us to form 
 any positive opinion whether they do or do not retain their sensi- 
 bility ; and others, again, who appear to be insensible and uncon- 
 scious, when carefully watched, are found not to be so in reality; 
 but they die contentedly." 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie has never known but two instances in 
 which, in the act of dying, there were manifest indications of the 
 fear of death. The individuals alluded to were unexpectedly 
 destroyed by haemorrhage, which it was impossible to suppress. 
 The depressing effects which the gradual loss of blood produced 
 on their corporeal systems seemed to influence their minds, and 
 they died earnestly imploring that relief which art was unable to 
 afford. Seneca might have chosen an easier death than that from 
 opening his arteries. 
 
 With respect to the influence of religious sentiments on the 
 minds of dying persons, Sir B. Brodie observes : " there is no 
 doubt that a pure and simple religious faith, and a firm reliance 
 on the Being who has placed us here, contribute more than any- 
 thing besides to disarm death of its terrors, deprive ' the grave of 
 its victory/ and smooth the passage of the humble and sincere 
 believer to the termination of his worldly career. Nevertheless, 
 according to my own experience, and what I have heard from 
 others, the influence of religious feelings is for the most part, not 
 so much perceptible at the moment when death is actually im- 
 pending, as it is at an earlier period, when the individual, who 
 was previously in health, or supposed himself to be so, first 
 discovers that it is probable that he shall die." 
 
 HOW MAN DIES.* 
 
 Although the fear of death is natural to man, in some cases, 
 illness gradually removes this dread, and the change is welcomed, 
 and even earnestly desired ; the sufferer has ceased to take an 
 interest in the things around him ; they have lost all the charms 
 they borrowed from hope and anticipation, and he has no future 
 earthly prospect but the grave. 
 
 The fear of dying in sleep is not uncommon. The wife of 
 Mr. Edgeworth expressed this dread. She soon fell asleep, and 
 awakened smiling. " I am smiling," said she, " at my asking you. 
 to sit beside me as a sort of protection, and at my being afraid to 
 die in my^ sleep, when I never felt afraid of dying when awake." 
 
 Sometimes, consciousness remains to the last moment of ex- 
 istence, and even when the tongue refuses to speak, the wistful 
 
 * These additional illustrations are, in the main, selected and abridged 
 from Mr. Harrison's excellent work on The Medical Aspects of Death. 
 
142 Phenomena of Death.. 
 
 eye and waving of the hand serve to impress the dying injunction. 
 How touchingly has Sterne pictured this in the story of Lefevre, 
 where the poor soldier looks first at his son, and then at my Uncle 
 Toby; and the ligature, fine as it is, was never broken! 
 
 The changes which immediately precede death are, of course, 
 more or less painful, according to their nature and severity; yet 
 there can be no doubt but dissolution itself is the cessation of 
 suffering. In some instances, the approach of death is betokened 
 by strange and awful sensations ; and it is probable that where 
 consciousness remains to the last, the feelings are always peculiar 
 and unmistakeable. 
 
 The premonitions of death often give rise to a degree of rest- 
 lessness and a wish for change, which is odd and capricious in its 
 manifestations. Persons who have long remained tranquil will 
 suddenly express a desire to be dressed and go down stairs, or 
 have their beds moved to another position. Strange yearnings 
 for particular places and old scenes sometimes arise, which seem 
 like the shadowing forth of dim instincts, which have been con- 
 cealed in the recesses of the mind. 
 
 With the exception of those who are worn down by long illness, 
 or reduced to despair by mental anguish and misfortune, there are 
 few who can believe that they have accomplished all the purposes 
 of life ; and we naturally look towards the infirmities of old age 
 to wean us from the interests of the world. But even then we 
 are reluctant to leave; and it is only when deserted by friends, 
 that we can say 
 
 I have lived long enough ; my way of life 
 Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf. 
 
 In speaking of others it is common to regard life as properly 
 terminating when usefulness, activity, and fortune are declining. 
 When reverses succeed a happy and prosperous career, we say 
 that existence has been too protracted : it is on this account that 
 the poets have spoken of the happiest moment of life as the most 
 proper time for death ; a notion more poetical than rational : 
 
 Why did they 
 
 Then not die ? They had lived too long 
 Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart. 
 
 Lord Byron's Don Juan, canto iv. 
 
 And Shakspeare makes Othello exclaim : 
 
 If I were now to die, 
 'Twere now to be most happy ; for I fear 
 My soul' hath her content so absolute, 
 That not another comfort like to this 
 Succeeds in unknown fate. 
 
 The absence of respiration is the most ordinary sign of death, 
 but at the same time the most likely to deceive. To ascertain 
 
How Man dies. 143 
 
 whether the breathing be entirely suspended, it, is a common 
 practice to hold a looking-glass to the face : 
 
 Lend me a looking-glass ; 
 
 If that her breath will mist or stain the stone, 
 Why, then she lives. King Lear, Act v. So. 3. 
 
 For the same reason, the stirring of any light substance, such 
 as down, which may rest about the mouth, has been regarded as 
 a fine indication of the act of respiration : but this, like the mist 
 on the looking-glass, is a deceptive or inaccurate method. Shak- 
 speare represents Prince Henry as having been deceived when he 
 carried off the crown from his father's pillow : 
 
 By his gates of breath 
 There lies a downy feather which stirs not ; 
 Did he suspire, that light and weightless down 
 Perchance must move. 
 
 If the observance of the respiration be taken as the indication 
 of life, and its absence as a proof of death, the exposure of the 
 naked chest and abdomen would enable the spectator to form a 
 much more accurate appreciation of it, especially if it be made 
 carefully, and for a sufficient length of time. 
 
 Death may be said to begin at different parts of the body; and 
 it will be found that the nature, symptoms, and peculiarities of 
 the act of dying, are determined by the organ first mortally 
 attacked. The alterations which directly occasion dissolution 
 seem principally effective, either in the arrest of the circulation 
 or the respiration. 
 
 As the heart is the great mover of the circulation, we can 
 easily conceive that whatever brings it to stop must be fatal to 
 life. Extensive losses of blood operate in this manner, and they 
 furnish us with a good illustration of the manner in which death 
 takes place. The sufferer becomes pale and faint, his lips white 
 and trembling; after a while the breathing becomes distressed, 
 and a rushing noise seems to fill the ears. The pulse is soft, 
 feeble, and wavering; and the exhaustion and prostration are 
 more and more alarming. Soon a curious restlessness takes 
 place, and he tosses himself from side to side. At length, the 
 pulse becomes uncertain, and the blood is feebly thrown to the 
 brain. The surface assumes an icy coldness. The mind is yet 
 untouched, and the sufferer knows himself to be dying. In vain 
 the pulse is sought at the wrist in vain efforts are made to re- 
 excite warmth the body is like a living corpse. Now, a few 
 convulsive gaspings arise, and the countenance sets in the stiff 
 image of death. Such are the more striking phenomena which 
 attend the fatal hemorrhages. 
 
 The failure of the vital powers, from the withdrawal of blood, 
 may be regarded as a sort of type of this mode of death, since the 
 
144 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 various symptoms which have been named, arise from the cessa- 
 tion of the healthy circulation. 
 
 A dread of the loss of blood may almost be considered as an 
 instinctive feeling ; at any rate its importance is early impressed 
 on the mind, and is never forgotten. In childhood, it is looked 
 at with alarm ; and the stoutest mind cannot but view with horror 
 those perilous gushes of blood which bring us into the very jaws 
 of destruction. 
 
 Byron has given a fearful description in his Manfred of the 
 state which Mr. Harrison has just portrayed : 
 
 Abbot. Alas ! how pale them art thy lips are white, 
 And thy breast heaves, and in thy gasping throat 
 The accents rattle give thy prayers to Heaven 
 Pray albeit but in thought but die not thus. 
 
 Manfred. 'Tis over my dull eyes can fix thee not ; 
 But all things swim around me, and the earth 
 Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well 
 Give me thy hand. 
 
 Independently of the mere loss of blood, other causes may 
 depress the action of the heart : it may be arrested by a shock, or 
 sudden impression on the nervous system so frequent in cases 
 of violent death, and disease in which life is extinguished with 
 fearful rapidity. 
 
 In many accidents, there is little loss of blood ; yet the injury 
 is great, and its consequences are terrible. The sufferer tarns 
 pale his countenance changes, and he feels that he is fatally 
 wounded. Sickness and complete prostration follow, and the 
 heart never rallies. In this manner, extensive burns and scalds, 
 and dreadful blows, or internal lacerations, produce death. In 
 the same way, the strong mineral acids, when taken internally, 
 appear to destroy, by their depressing influence on the heart. 
 
 The internal lesion of the stomach causes a sympathetic failure 
 of the circulation. 
 
 But the effects of the shock are much more numerous and 
 interesting than might at first be imagined. At least, impres- 
 sions on the nervous system, analogous in their nature, play an 
 important part in the fatal termination of many diseases. Yiolent 
 inflammations seem, when fatal, to act by their depressing influ- 
 ence, by lowering the vital powers, and bringing the circulation 
 to a stand. 
 
 The introduction of some poisons, also, is peculiarly inimical to 
 the vitality of the blood. Thus, the death is truthfully described 
 by Shakspeare, as commencing in the blood itself : 
 
 It is too late ; the life of alL his Mood 
 Is touch' d corruptibly ; and his pure brain, 
 
 I Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house, 
 
 Doth, by the idle comments that it makes, ' 
 Foretell the ending of mortality. 
 
How Man dies. 145 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie states that he has been curious to watch 
 the state of dving persons, and is satisfied that, where an ordinary 
 observer would not for an instant doubt that the individual is in a 
 state of complete stupor, the mind is often very active even at the 
 very moment of death. 
 
 Dr. Baillie once said, that " all his observation of death-beds 
 inclined him to believe that nature intended that we should go out 
 of the world as unconscious as we came into it." "In all my ex- 
 perience/ 3 he added, " I have not seen one instance in fifty to the 
 contrary." Yet even in such a large experience the occurrence of 
 "one instance in fifty to the contrary" would invalidate the 
 assumption that such was the law of nature (or " nature's inten- 
 tion," which, if it means anything, means the same). The mo- 
 ment in which the spirit meets death is perhaps like the moment 
 in which it is embraced by sleep. It never, I suppose, (says Mrs. 
 Jameson, whose observations we quote,) happened to any one to 
 be conscious of the immediate transition from the waking to the 
 sleeping state. 
 
 The mode of death, though not one of pain, may have been pre- 
 ceded by considerable suffering, as in the case of burns and scalds. 
 But the act of dying is one of relief ; or if the sensations are 
 uneasy and fearful, they cannot be termed painful in the common 
 sense of the term. 
 
 When fluids taken by the patient flow back from his mouth, or 
 fall heavily down his throat, as if poured into an ordinary tube, 
 death is soon to be expected. 
 
 In young children a curious playing with the bed-clothes often, 
 attends fatal affections of the brain. Mr. Harrison relates that a 
 little child, who had in her hand her handkerchief, spread it out 
 repeatedly with apparent care, and in a fantastic manner, that 
 would have been amusing but for its fatal import. The picking of 
 bed-clothes and catching of the hands, as if at imaginary objects, 
 are well known as terrible indications. 
 
 Chomel remarks, as of serious presage, the automatic manner 
 in which a patient will unceasingly draw his hand to his side, in 
 spite of the efforts of the physician to ascertain his pulse. 
 
 When death occurs in advanced and feeble age, the vital powers 
 are so easily depressed, and the heart's action is brought to a 
 stand in so imperceptible a manner, that it is common to speak of 
 it as a quiet sleep : 
 
 and our little life 
 Is rounded with a sleep. 
 
 Shakspeare's Tempest, Act iv. Sc. 1. 
 
 Madame D'Arblay thus describes the death of her revered father, 
 Dr. Buraey : " an awful stillness pervaded his apartment, and so soft 
 became his breathing, that I dropped my head by the side of his 
 pillow, to be sure that he breathed at all. ... Yet could I not 
 
 L 
 
146 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 believe that all had ceased thus suddenly, without a movement, 
 without even a sigh." 
 
 The stiffness of death is often not fairly established until the 
 body is already cold, and, when overcome by pressure, does not 
 return, as the contractions which arise from nervous causes. The 
 rigidity comes on with various degrees of rapidity, and its dura- 
 tion is also various. It usually commences in about seven hours; 
 seldom if ever later, according to Sommer ; but it may be deferred 
 even to twenty and thirty hours. When the body is greatly 
 weakened by disease, the rigidity comes on much sooner, but is 
 more evanescent : it has been known to arise in fifteen or twenty 
 minutes. Its duration is ordinarily from twenty-four to thirty- 
 six hours ; but it may continue many days. This stiffening of 
 the body seems like the final act of life, and has been supposed to 
 be the last effort of muscular power. Every one must be struck 
 with the analogy it presents to the coagulation of the blood: 
 indeed, it was long imagined by some physiologists to be dependent 
 on that cause ; but this is not the case. The rigidity does not 
 seem to be confined to the external muscles of the body, but is 
 particularly manifested in the heart and great blood-vessels. The 
 walls of the heart contract forcibly after the external signs of death ; 
 the arteries also contract, and propel their contents into the veins. 
 
 According to Dr. Taylor, the average time of the body cooling 
 after death is about fifteen or sixteen hours, when not warmly 
 clad, and when the temperature is about 60. He has known a 
 body keep warm thirty or forty hours ; the heat remaining longest 
 when the death was violent and the person robust. It is a curious 
 fact in relation to the temperature of the body, that in cases of 
 Asiatic cholera, the body, previously quite cold, has become warm 
 immediately before or even after death. 
 
 The brightening-up of the mind previous to dissolution, or, to 
 use the common expression, " the Lightness before Death," has 
 led to a notion that dying people are favoured beyond others with 
 a spiritualised conception of things not only relating to time, but 
 likewise to eternity ; or, in other words, that they have visions of 
 angelic consolation. This lighting-up of the mind is stated by Mr. 
 Madden to amount to "nothing more than a pleasurably excited 
 condition of the mental faculties, following perhaps a state of 
 previous torpor, and continuing a few hours, or oftentimes 
 moments, before dissolution. This rousing up of the mind is 
 probably produced by the stimulus of dark venous blood circu- 
 lating through the arterial vessels of the brain, in consequence of 
 the imperfect oxygenation of the blood in the lungs, whose delicate 
 air-cells become impeded by the deposition of mucus on the surface, 
 which there is not sufficient energy in the absorbents to remove ; 
 and hence arises the rattling in the throat which commonly pre- 
 cedes death." 
 
How Man dies. 147 
 
 Of the general forerunners of death Mr. Harrison * says : "When 
 the evidences of dissolution begin to manifest themselves, a general 
 failure of the temperature, with a cold dew on the skin, may be 
 considered an indicative that the scene is about to close. In 
 many cases it is easy to recognise the fatal turn which diseases 
 take by the alterations which the symptoms undergo. Where 
 internal inflammations are about to issue in death, there is mostly 
 a striking change in the expression of the face, and sometimes a 
 curious shrinking of the body. The nose and lips are very charac- 
 teristic in the dying ; the lips become pale, the nostrils dilated and 
 dark-looking, and the hairs about the lips seem more than usually 
 apparent ; the teeth look like pieces of ordinary bone, and the eyes 
 seem to shadow through the eye-lids, or are partially turned under 
 the lids ; the nails appear dark, and the ends of the fingers sodden. 
 
 " Finally, convulsive twitchings often show themselves in the 
 face, with singular elevations of the eyebrows, and staring of the 
 eyes. A gasping attempt to breathe terminates the struggle. 
 
 " When coma is present, a mucous rattle is generally of fatal 
 import ; and, e contrario, when the lungs are affected, the super- 
 vention of coma is equally to be dreaded." 
 
 From observations by D. A. T. Thomson, it is evident there are 
 no certain signs that a person is truty dead, except the total cessa- 
 tion of respiration, and the commencing putrefaction of the body. 
 
 Take away but the pomps of death, (says Jeremy Taylor,) the 
 disguises, and solemn bugbears,")" and the actings by candlelight, 
 and proper and fantastic ceremonies, the minstrels and the noise- 
 makers, the women and the weepers, the swoonings and the 
 shriekings, the nurses and the physicians, the dark room and the 
 ministers, the kindred and the watches, and then to die is easy, 
 ready and quit of its troubled circumstances. 
 
 How fearfully does the impressive poetry of Pope picture the 
 closing scene : 
 
 THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. 
 Vital spark of heavenly flame, 
 Quit, oh quit this mortal frame 
 Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying 
 
 Quit, oh quit this mortal frame : 
 Trembling, hoping, lingering, fly 
 Oh the pain, the bliss of dying ! 
 
 Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, 
 And let me languish into life ! 
 
 * On the Medical Aspects of Death. 
 
 f When we read of these easy modes of shuffling off " the mortal 
 coil/' we are the more displeased with the vulgar emblems of Death 
 as the "bugbear" of the scull and cross-bones, or "Death's Head," 
 which we owe to Pagan sensuality. " I wonder," says Bishop Hall, 
 " at the practice of the ancient both Greeks and Romans, whose use 
 was, to bring up a death's head, in the midst of their feasts, on purpose 
 to stir up their guests to drink harder, and to frolic more : the sight 
 whereof, one would think, should have rather abated their courage, and 
 have tempered their jollity." Occasional Meditations. 
 L2 
 
148 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 Hark they whisper, angels say, 
 
 Sister spirit, come away ! 
 
 What is this absorbs me quite ? 
 
 Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 
 Drowns my spirit, draws my breath ? 
 Tell me, my soul, can this be death ? 
 
 The world recedes, it disappears ! 
 Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears 
 
 With sounds seraphic ring : 
 Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! 
 Grave ! where is thy victory ? 
 
 Death ! where is thy sting ? * 
 
 DEATH FROM HEART DISEASE. 
 
 Fatal fainting is not ^infrequently the result of actual disease 
 of the heart, although death from affections of the heart is not 
 always of a sudden or uncomplicated kind. The walls of the 
 heart are sometimes thin and dilated, and there is a soft, strug- 
 gling palpitation which has been aptly compared to the flattering 
 of a bird against the bars of its cage. 
 
 At other times, the heart is overloaded with fatty deposits, so 
 that its natural fleshy structure is proportionally defective ; and 
 it is unable to propel the blood with sufficient force to meet the 
 exigencies of the system. Occasionally, bony deposits are found 
 in. the heart and great vessels, and the natural contractions of the 
 heart are painful and irregular. Erom these and other causes, 
 which probably produce a spasm of the heart, arises the disease 
 called angina pectoris. 
 
 John Hunter died of this disease. (See page 124.) 
 
 The benevolent and accomplished Dr. Arnold was taken from 
 us by angina pectoris. He awoke in the morning with a sharp 
 pain across his chest, which he had felt slightly on the preceding 
 day, before and after bathing. He composed himself to sleep for 
 a short time ; but the pain seemed to increase, and to pass down 
 the left arm, which called to Mrs. Arnold's remembrance what 
 she had heard of this fatal disease. Their usual medical atten- 
 dant, Dr. Bucknill, was sent for, and found Dr. Arnold lying on 
 his back his countenance much as usual his pulse, though 
 regular, was very quick, and there was cold perspiration on the 
 brow and cheeks. He apologized in a cheerful manner for 
 troubling Dr. Bucknill at so early an hour, and inquired as to the 
 nature and danger of his illness : he was told it was a spasm of 
 the heart. The physician quitted the house to furnish himself 
 with remedies. On his return, Dr. Arnold said, " If the pain is 
 
 * A popular living poet, whose lyrics sing of the more cheerful 
 aspects of life, has afforded us much gratification by declaring the 
 above to be one of the most perfect embodiments of poetic genius 
 in our literature. 
 
Death of Dr. Arnold. 149 
 
 again as severe as it was before you left, I do not know how I 
 can bear it." He again questioned Dr. Bucknill as to the danger 
 of his complaint he was told of his danger inquired as to the 
 remedies, and on being told, answered, " Ah ! very well." The 
 physician, who was dropping the laudanum into a glass, turned 
 round, and saw him quite calm, but his eyes were shut. In 
 another minute he heard a rattle in his throat, and a convulsive 
 struggle, flew to the bed, and called to one of the servants to 
 fetch Mrs. Arnold. The family soon arrived ; but the sobs and 
 cries of his children were unable to affect him ' ' the eyes were 
 fixed, the countenance was unmoved : there was a heaving of the 
 chest, deep gasps escaped at prolonged intervals, and just as the 
 usual medical attendant arrived, and as the old school-house 
 servant, in an agony of grief, rushed with the others into the 
 room in the hope of seeing his master once more, he breathed 
 his last." This occurred shortly before eight in the morning. 
 "What that Sunday was in Rugby, it is hard 
 fully to represent, the incredulity, the bewilderment, the 
 agitating inquiries for every detail, the blank, more awful than 
 sorrow, that prevailed through the vacant services of the long 
 and dreary day, the feeling as if the very place had passed 
 away with him who had so emphatically been in every sense its 
 head, the sympathy which hardly dared to contemplate, and 
 which yet could not but fix the thoughts and looks of all on the 
 desolate house, where the fatherless family were gathered round 
 the chamber of death." Arnold's Life, vol. ii. 
 
 Mr. Harrison, in whose work are quoted these details, adds : 
 "in Dr. Arnold's case, the heart was found soft and thin, but 
 without any valvular disease." Mr. Harrison then relates a case 
 of a gentleman, about fifty-five years of age, in impaired health, 
 and who, from having been thin and muscular, was slightly tend- 
 ing to fat and corpulency. One day, at dinner, he felt an unusual 
 pain in the region of his heart : he retired, warm applications 
 were made to the chest, and the pain soon ceased altogether. 
 He then begged to be left alone : in less than an hour, his wife 
 found him lying upon the sofa, just in the position she had left 
 him : she believed him asleep, but found him dead. The exami- 
 nation of his body disclosed nothing that could account for his 
 death, but a thin fat heart ; fat was deposited on it at the expense 
 of its muscular substance. 
 
 BROKEN HEARTS. 
 
 The term ' c broken heart," as commonly applied to death from 
 grief, is not a vulgar error, as generally supposed. On the con- 
 trary, though not a very common circumstance, there are many 
 cases on record in medical works. This affection, it is believed, 
 
150 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 was first described by Harvey ; but since his day several cases 
 have been observed. Morgagni has recorded a few examples.: 
 amongst^ them, that of George II., who died suddenly, of this 
 disease, in 1760; and, what is very curious, Morgagni himself 
 fell a victim to the same malady. Dr. Elliotson, in his Lumleyan 
 Lecture on Diseases of the Heart, in 1839, stated that he had 
 only seen one instance ; but in the Cyclopedia of Practical Medi- 
 cine, Dr. Townsend gives a table of twenty-five cases, collected 
 from various authors. Generally, this accident is consequent 
 upon some organic disease, such as fatty degeneration ; but it 
 may arise from violent muscular exertion, or strong mental 
 emotions. 
 
 THE DEATH-BED. BY OWEN EELTHAM. 
 
 Peltham lived in the time of James I., and wrote a curious 
 book of pious and moral treatises, called Resolves, rich in wit and 
 fancy, not flung about in idle and unmeaning sport, but employed 
 as the exponents of thoughts in themselves acute and profound. 
 Eeltham delighted in reflection, but was at the same time a man 
 of the world, of a cheerful and lively temper, and always pre- 
 serving a clear understanding. He has left this naturally elo- 
 quent picture of a death-bed : 
 
 There is no spectacle more profitable, more terrible, or more humble, 
 than the sight of a dying man, when he lies expiring his soul on his 
 deathbed ; to see how the ancient society of the body and the soul is 
 divided ; and yet to see how, they struggle at the parting ; being in 
 some doubt what shall become of them after. 
 
 The spirits shrink inward, and retire to the anguished heart ; as if, 
 like sons pressed from an indulgent father, they would come for a sad 
 vail, from that which was their life's maintenance ; while that, in the 
 meantime, parts with affrighting pangs, and the hands and feet, being 
 the most remote from it, are, by degrees, encolded to a fashionable 
 clay ; as if death crept in at the nails, and by an insensible surprise, 
 suffocated the environed heart. 
 
 To see how the mind would fain utter itself, when the organs of the 
 voice are so debilitated that it cannot. 
 
 To see how the eye settles to a fixed dimness, which, a little before, 
 was swift as the shoots of lightning, nimbler than the thought, and 
 bright as the polished diamond : and in which this miracle was more 
 eminent than in any of the other parts, that it being a material, earthly 
 body, should yet be conveyed with quicker motion than the revolutions of 
 an indefinite soul ; so suddenly bringing the object to conceits, that one 
 would think the apprehension of the heart were seated in the eye itself. 
 
 To see the countenance, (through which, perhaps, there shined a 
 lovely majesty, even to the captivating of admiring souls,) now altered 
 to a frightful paleness. 
 
 To think how that which commanded a family, nay, perhaps, a king- 
 dom, and kept all in awe with the moving of a spongy tongue, is now 
 become a thing to be transmitted from all these enchanting blandish- 
 ments, to the dark and noisome grave ; where, instead of shaking the 
 golden sceptre, it now lies imprisoned but in five feet of lead. There 
 
Death-Bed Repentance. 151 
 
 is even the difference of two several worlds between a king enamelled 
 \vith his robes and jewels, sitting in his chair of state, and his con'dition 
 in his bed of earth ; and yet all this change without the loss of any 
 visible, substantial, since all the limbs remain as they were, without 
 the least sight either of dislocation or diminution. From hence it is, 
 I think, Scaliger defines death to be the cessation of the functions of 
 the soul ; as if it were rather a restraint than a missive ill. 
 
 When thou shalt see all these things happen to one whose conversa- 
 tion had endeared him to thee ; when thou shalt see the body put on 
 death's sad and ashy countenance, in the dead age of night, when 
 silent darkness does encompass the dim light of thy glimmering taper, 
 tell me if thou canst then find a thought of thine, devoting thee to 
 pleasure and the fugitable joys of life ? what a bubble, what but a 
 wink of life, is man ! 
 
 "When Hadrian asked Secundus what death was, he answered in these 
 several truths : " it is a sleep eternal ; the body's dissolution ; the rich 
 man's fear ; the poor man's wish ; an event inevitable ; an uncertain 
 journey; a thief that steals away man; sleep's father; life's flight; 
 the departure of the living, and the resolution of all." 
 
 Who may not, from such sights and thoughts as these, learn, if he 
 will, both humility and loftiness ? the one to vilify the body, the other 
 to advance the soul. As I would not care for too much indulgiating of 
 the flesh, so I would ever be studious for such actions as may appear 
 the issues of a divine and noble soul. 
 
 DEATH-BED REPENTANCE. 
 
 In " a further continuation " of his Meditations, the Hon. Robert 
 Boyle adduces this Reflection on the great mistake of those 
 that think a death-bed the fittest and opportunest place to begin 
 repentance in : " but sure these men are very little acquainted, 
 either with the disadvantages of a dangerous sickness, or the 
 nature of repentance. J Tis true that sin and death do more easily 
 frighten one, when they are looked on as both together : but I 
 much doubt whether the being frightened by hell, be sufficient to 
 give a man a well-grounded hope of Heaven : for when we see sin 
 and torment at one view, and so near one to another, 'tis not so 
 easie to be sure which of the two it is that, as we presume, scares 
 the sinner towards Heaven. And surely repentance, which ought 
 to be the change of the whole man, and in some sense the work 
 of the whole life, is very improperly begun, when men have 
 finished that course, \rhion it should have guided them in: nor 
 have men cause to presume, that when God is severely punishing 
 them for their sins, he will vouchsafe them so great a grace as 
 that of repentance, which they would none of, till it could not 
 make them serviceable to him. And as for the opportunity 'tis 
 hop'd an expiring state may give men for repentance, they must 
 needs be great strangers to great sickness, that can promise them- 
 selves so unlikely a matter : who can secure them, that the acute- 
 ness of the disease will not invade the brain ? and as deliriums 
 and phrensies are not unfrequent in fevers, and other acute dis- 
 
152 Phenomena of Death 
 
 eases, so in case they happened to persevere, the wretched patient 
 is cast into a desperate condition, even on this side the grave, 
 and as near as the body is to its dissolution, the man may be dead 
 a pretty while before it. 
 
 " But supposing he escape these accidents, which make repent- 
 ance impossible, a dangerous sickness has other circumstances 
 enough to make it very uneasie : for the organical faculties of the 
 mind cannot but be dull'd and prejudic'd by the discomposure of the 
 spirits, by which their functions are to be exercised ; and the 
 sense of pain, the troublesome prescriptions of physitians, the 
 loathsome and bitter potions, the weakening operation of physick, 
 the languishments produced by want of spirits, the restlessness- 
 proceeding from heat or want of sleep, the distracted importuni- 
 ties of those interested persons, especially if any of them be sus- 
 pected to hover about the dying man's bed, as birds of prey that 
 wait for a carcase, the sighs and tears of friends and relations 
 that come to take their last farewell, and to imbitter it the lawyer 
 that must be directed to draw up the will, the divine that must 
 be allowed to say something concerning the soul, and the affrighted 
 conscience, that alone brings more disquiet than all the rest put 
 together, do make a dying man's condition so amazing, so dismal, 
 and so distracting, that to think this an opportune time to begin 
 such a work (which may well enough imploy the whole man in his 
 calmest state of mind), is a madness as great as any, that ev'n a 
 death-bed can, by the translation of the humours into the brain, 
 occasion ; for my part, I think it so wild, and so unadvisable a 
 thing to put off the beginning to provide all graces to a death-bed, 
 that I think it uneasie enough so much as to exercise then those 
 that were acquir'd before; men being in that state commonly 
 unable so much as to reap the consolation they have been sowing 
 all along a pious life." 
 
 (Our author then considers the condition that though it be 
 said, a true repentance cannot come too late, yet it is a hard 
 thing to be certain, that so late a repentance is true. He then 
 continues :) 
 
 " And as it is difficult, when a man already feels much punish- 
 ment for sin, and sees himself in danger of more, to discern 
 clearly upon what account it is, that he is sorry for what he has 
 committed ; so it must certainly be a state unspeakably anxious 
 and uncomfortable to find one's self dragged to the grave, without 
 knowing whether the last trumpet shall call him thence to heaven 
 or to hell : and if he should be deceiv'd in judging of the validity 
 of his repentance, the fatal error would be remediless, and the 
 mistake far sadder and more horrid than that of the Syrians, who, 
 when they thought they were arrived victorious at Doth an, found 
 themselves at the mercy of their enemies in Samaria, 2 Kings vi. 18. 
 To conclude, he that resolves not to renounce his sins, till he 
 
Dea th-Bed Repen tance. 153 
 
 thinks Christ ready to renounce him for them, may very pro- 
 bably lose his soul, and has most certainly lost his ingenuity; 
 and that will appear a very sad loss for a man, that being by 
 death denied the opportunities of actually leading a new and 
 pious life, must derive his comfort from the assurance that he 
 sincerely intends it." 
 
 " Still, a death-bed is a wonderful reasoner : many a proud infidel 
 hath it humbled and refuted, without a word, who Imt a short 
 time before would have defied all the ability of man to shake the 
 foundation of his system. All is well, as long as the curtain is up, 
 and the puppet-show of life goes on ; but when the rapid represen- 
 tation draws to a close, and every hope of longer respite is pre- 
 cluded, things will appear in a very different light. Would to 
 God I could say that that great find awful moment were as often 
 distinguished by the dew of repentance as by the groan of 
 despair." 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy has well observed : 
 
 The laws of nature are all directed by Divine Wisdom, for the purpose 
 of preserving life and increasing happiness. Pain seems in all cases to 
 precede the mutilation or destruction of those organs which are essential 
 to vitality, and for the end of preserving them ; but the mere process 
 of dying seems to be the falling into a deep slumber : and in animals, 
 who have no fear of death dependent upon imagination, it can hardly 
 be accompanied by very intense suffering. In the human being, moral 
 and intellectual motives constantly operate in enhancing the fear of 
 death, which, without these motives in a reasoning being, would pro- 
 bably become null, and the love of life be lost upon every slight occa- 
 sion of pain or disgust : but imagination is creative with respect to 
 both these passions, which, if they exist in animals, exist independent 
 of reason, or as instincts. Pain seems intended by an all- wise Provi- 
 dence to prevent the dissolution of organs, and cannot follow their de- 
 struction. I know several instances in which the process of death has 
 been observed, even to its termination, by good philosophers ; the 
 instances are worth repeating. Dr. Cullen, when dying, is said to 
 have faintly articulated to one of his intimates : "I wish I had the 
 power of writing or speaking, for then I would describe to you how 
 pleasant a thing it is to die." Dr. Black, worn out by age, and a dis- 
 position to pulmonary hemorrhage, which obliged him to live very low, 
 whilst eating his customary meal of bread and milk, fell asleep, and 
 died in so tranquil a manner, that he had not even spilt the contents of 
 the spoon which he held in his hand. And Sir Charles Blagden, whilst 
 at a social meal with his friends, Monsieur and Madame Berthollet, and 
 Gay Lussac, died in his chair so quietly, that not a drop of the coffea 
 in the cup which he held in his hand was spilt. 
 
 THE LAST MOMENTS AND WORDS OF DISTINGUISHED 
 PERSONS. 
 
 Some of the following brief accounts of the closing scenes in the 
 lives of men of genius may tend to show how far a predominant 
 passion or favourite pursuit may influence the mind, even in the 
 
 
 
 
 
Io4< Phenomena of Death. 
 
 latest hour of life. In the majority of instances, " the ruling pas- 
 sion strong in death" is found to be exemplified. 
 
 Housseau, when dying, ordered his attendants to place him. 
 before the window, that he might once more behold his garden, 
 and bid adieu to nature. 
 
 Addison's dying speech to his son-in-law was characteristic 
 enough of the man, who was accustomed to inveigh against the 
 follies of mankind, though not altogether free from some of the 
 frailties he denounced. " Behold," said he to the dissolute young 
 nobleman, " with what tranquillity a Christian can die." 
 
 Roscommon uttered, at the moment he expired, two lines of 
 his own version of Dies ira. 
 
 Haller died feeling his pulse, and when he found it almost gone, 
 turning to his brother physician, he said, e< My friend, the artery 
 ceases to beat," and died. 
 
 Petrarch was found dead in his library, leaning on a book. 
 
 Bede died in the act of dictating. 
 
 Herder closed his career writing an ode to the Deity, his pen 
 on the last line. 
 
 Waller died repeating some lines of Yirgil. 
 
 Metastasio, who would never suffer the word " death " to be 
 uttered in his presence, at last so far triumphed over his fears, 
 that, after receiving the last rites of religion, in his enthusiasm he 
 burst forth into a stanza of religious poetry. 
 
 Lucan died reciting some words of his own Pharsalia. 
 
 Alfieri, the day before he died, was persuaded to see a priest ; 
 and when he came, he said to him, with great affability, " Have 
 the kindness to look in to-morrow I trust death will wait four- 
 and-twenty hours." 
 
 Napoleon, when dying, and in the act of speaking to his clergy- 
 man, reproved his sceptical physician for smiling, in these words, 
 " You are above these weaknesses, but what can I do ? I am 
 neither a philosopher nor a physician ; I believe in God, and am 
 of the religion of my father. It is not every one who can be an 
 atheist." The last words he uttered Head Army evinced 
 clearly enough what sort of visions were passing over his mind at 
 the moment of dissolution. 
 
 Tasso's dying request to Cardinal Cynthia was indicative of the 
 gloom which haunted him through life : he had but one favour, he 
 said, to request of him, which was that he would collect his 
 works, and commit them to the flames, especially his Jerusalem 
 Delivered. 
 
 Leibnitz was found dead in his chamber, with a book in his 
 hand. 
 
 Clarendon's pen dropped from his fingers when he was sick 
 with the palsy, which terminated his life. 
 
 Chaucer died ballad-making. His last production he entitled 
 
Last Moments and Words. 155 
 
 " A Ballad made by Geoffry Chaucer on his death-bed, lying in 
 great anguish." 
 
 Barthelemy was seized with death while reading his favourite 
 Horace. 
 
 Sir Godfrey Kneller's vanity was displayed in his last moments. 
 Pope, who visited him ten days before he died, says, he never 
 saw a scene of so much vanity in his life ; he was sitting up 
 in his bed, contemplating the design- he was making for his own 
 monument. 
 
 Wy cherry, when dying, had his young wife brought to his bed- 
 side, and having taken her hand in a very solemn manner, said, he 
 had but one request to make of her, and that was, that she would 
 never marry an old man again. There is every reason to believe, 
 though it is not stated in the account, that so reasonable a request 
 cculd not be denied at such a moment. 
 
 " Bolingbroke," says Spence, " in his last illness, desired to be 
 brought to the table where we were sitting at dinner : his appear- 
 ance was such that we all thought him dying, and Mrs. Arbuthnot 
 involuntarily exclaimed, ' This is quite an Egyptian feast ! ' ' 
 On another authority, he is represented as beipg overcome by 
 terrors and excessive passion in his last moments ; and, after one 
 of his fits of choler, being overheard by Sir Harry Mildmay com- 
 plaining to himself, and saying, " What will my poor soul undergo 
 for all these things ! " 
 
 Keats, a little before he died, when his friend asked him how 
 he did, replied in a low voice, "Better, my friend, I feel the 
 daisies growing over me." 
 
 The pious Gerson, the chancellor of the church and university 
 of Paris, had the terror of his last moments assuaged by the 
 prayers of three hundred children supported and educated by 
 his 'charity, and who were congregated in his house from the 
 threshold to his bedchamber. " Now, God," he exclaimed, in 
 a transport of holy joy, as he closed his eyes in death, " thou 
 dost let thy servant depart in peace ! The soul that is accom- 
 panied to eternity by the prayers of three hundred children, 
 may advance with humble hope into the presence of their Eather 
 and their God." 
 
 Schiller, when dying, was asked how he felt. "Calmer and 
 calmer," he replied. Perhaps, this serenity was mainly due to the 
 state of his body ; for that degree of physical weakness which no 
 longer suffers the will to employ the muscles, but yet arrests not 
 the internal action of the brain, is usually attended by an inde- 
 scribable calm of mind. If, indeed, the conscience be reconciled 
 to God, it is complete ; for then the torment of conflicting affec- 
 tions is over, the soul sees only that it is heir to a rich and eternal 
 inheritance. Thus, a tranquil ecstasy is often witnessed at the 
 death-bed of the Christian : 
 
156 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 Is that a death-bed where the Christian lies ? 
 
 Yes, but not his ; 'tis Death itself there lies. Coleridge.* 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh lived like a philosopher, and died like a 
 Christian. Not long before he ceased to speak, his daughter said 
 to him, "Jesus loves you." He answered slowly, pausing between 
 each word, "Jesus Christ love the same thing ! " After a long 
 silence, he said, " I believe ! " She asked, " In God ? " He 
 answered, "In Jesus." On her inquiring how he felt, his last 
 word was, " Happy ! " 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, according to the Bishop of Salisbury, 
 who attended him on the scaffold, was "the most fearless of 
 death that ever was known, the most resolute and confident, yet 
 with reverence and conscience." 
 
 Maccail, the expiring Scottish probationer, exclaimed, with 
 foretaste of the bliss of Paradise, "Farewell, sun, mooD, and 
 stars; farewell kindred and friends farewell world and time 
 farewell weak and frail body: welcome eternity welcome angels 
 and saints welcome Saviour of the world, and welcome God, 
 the Judge of all." 
 
 " I do not mean to be killed to-day," were the words of " the 
 great" Turenue, a few minutes before he was struck down in 
 battle by a cannon-ball. What short-sightedness ! 
 
 Edward Moore, in his periodical paper, The World, took leave 
 of his readers in a humorous account of his own death, which 
 really took place two months afterwards. 
 
 George, the first Lord Lyttelton, who, after being a sceptic, 
 became a zealous believer, said to his son-in-law, Lord Yalentia, 
 on taking leave of him, "Be good, be virtuous, my lord, you 
 must come to this." 
 
 Bishop Hough's dying words to some of his friends and neigh- 
 bours who attended him in his last moments were, " We part to 
 meet again, I hope, in endless joys." 
 
 * Dr. Moore states that when the vital flame was flickering, the 
 heart was faltering with every pulse, and every breath was a convulsion, 
 he has said to a dying believer, who had not long before been talking 
 in broken words of undying love, "Are you in pain? " and the reply, 
 with apparently the last breath, was, " It is delightful ! " In another 
 person, in whom a gradual disease had so nearly exhausted the physical 
 powers that the darkness of death had already produced blindness, the 
 sense of God's love was so overpowering, that every expression for 
 many hours referred to it in rapturous words, such as, " This is life 
 this is heaven God is love I need not faith I have the promise." It 
 is easy to attribute such expressions to delirium ; but this does not 
 alter their character, nor the reality of the state of the soul which pro- 
 duces them. Whether a. dying man can maintain any continued atten- 
 tion to things through his senses, we need not inquire. It is enough 
 for him, if, in the spirit, he possess the peace and joy of believing. 
 The Use of the Body in relation to the Mind, pp. 427428. 
 
Last Moments and Words. 157 
 
 A Correspondent of Notes and Queries has been at the pains of 
 collecting these memorable and note-worthy "last words" of 
 great persons. To these a few additions have been made. 
 
 " Tete de 1'armee." (Napoleon.) 
 
 " I have loved God, my father, liberty." (De Stael.) 
 
 " Let me die to the sound of delicious music." (Mirabeau.) 
 
 " Is this your fidelity ? " (Nero.) 
 
 " A king should die standing." (Augustus.) 
 
 " I must sleep now." (Byron.) 
 
 " Kiss me, Hardy." (Nelson.) 
 
 " Don't give up the ship." (Laurence.) 
 
 " I'm shot if I don't believe I'm dying." (Thurlow.) 
 
 " Clasp my hand, my dear friend, I die." (Alfieri.) 
 
 " God preserve the Emperor." (Haydn.) 
 
 " Let the light enter." (Goethe.) 
 
 " All my possessions for a moment of time." (Elizabeth.) 
 
 " What, is there no bribing death ? " (Beaufort.) 
 
 " Monks, monks, monks ! " (Henry YI1I.) 
 
 " Be serious." (Grotius.) 
 
 " In tuas manus, Domine." (Tasso.) 
 
 " It is small, very small" (clasping her neck). (Anna Boieyn.) 
 
 " I feel as if I were myself again." (Walter Scott.) 
 
 " It is well." (Washington.) 
 
 " Independence for ever." (Adams.) 
 
 " A dving man can do nothing easy." (Eranklin.) 
 
 " Don't let poor Nelly starve." (Charles II.) 
 
 " I have endeavoured to do my duty." (Taylor.) 
 
 " There is not a drop of blood on my hands." (Frederick Y.) 
 
 " I resign my soul to God, my daughter to my country." 
 (Jefferson.) 
 
 " It is the last of earth." (J. Q. Adams.) 
 
 " Don't let that awkward squad fire over my grave." (Burns.) 
 
 " Lord make haste." (H. Hammond.) 
 
 " Precious salvation." (Sir J. Stonehouse ) 
 
 " Remember" (the charge to Archbishop Juxon to bid Charles 
 II. forgive his father's murderers). (Charles I.) 
 
 " I shall be happy." (Archbishop Sharp.) 
 
 " God s will be done." (Bishop Ken.) 
 
 " Amen." (Bishop Bull.) 
 
 " I have peace." (Parkhurst.) 
 
 " Come, Lord Jesus." (Burkitt.) 
 
 " Cease now " (Lady Masham was reading the Psalms). (Locke.) 
 
 " I thank God I was brought up in the Church of England." 
 (Bishop Gunning.) 
 
 " Lord, forgive me specially my sins of omission." (Ussher.) 
 
 "Lord, receive my spirit." (Eerrar, Cranmer, Hooper, 
 G. Herbert.) 
 
158 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 ' Thy will be done." (Donne.) 
 
 ' This day let me see the Lord Jesus." (Jewell.) 
 
 1 In te speravi : ne confundar in eternum." (Bishop Abbot.) 
 
 ( God will save my soul." (Burghley.) 
 
 ' This is death." (George IV.) 
 
 ' Lord, take my spirit." (Edward VI.) 
 
 1 What ? do they run already ? Then I die happy." (Wolfe.) 
 
 c God bless you, my dear " (Miss Morris). (Dr. Johnson.) 
 
 c What I cannot utter with rny mouth, accept, Lord, from, my 
 heart and soul." (F. Quarles.) 
 
 1 Then I am safe." (Oliver Cromwell.) 
 
 ' Let the earth be filled with His glory." (James, Earl of 
 Derby ; Bishop Broughton.) 
 
 e I go to my God and Saviour." (P. Heylyn.) 
 
 c My days are past as a shadow that returns not." (H. Hooker.) 
 
 f Let me hear once more those notes so long my solace and 
 delight, 5 ; (Mozart.) 
 
 " I wish the true principles of government carried out. I ask 
 no more." (Harrison, the Regicide.) 
 
 " For my coming down, let me shift for myself " (on the scaf- 
 fold). (Sir Thomas More.) 
 
 "In me behold the end of this world with all its vanities." 
 (Sir P. Sidney.) 
 
 " I do not suffer, my friends ; but I feel a certain difficulty in 
 existence." (Fontenelle, in his 100th year.) 
 
 THE SOUL GOING FORTH FROM THE BODY. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne refers to this phenomenon when, in his 
 Religio Medici, he says : ' ' It is observed, that men sometimes, 
 upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above 
 themselves. For then the soul begins to be freed from the liga- 
 ments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse 
 in a strain above mortality." 
 
 Sir Kenelm Digby, in his Observations on Sir Thomas Browne's 
 'Religio Medici, quotes from Hog;er Bacon, " a separated and un- 
 bodied soul : " and Browne mentions a remarkable heresy of the 
 Arabians "that the souls of men perished with their bodies, but 
 should be raised again at the last day : not that I did absolutely 
 conceive a mortality of the soul, but, if that were, (which faith, 
 not philosophy, hath yet thoroughly disproved,) and that both 
 entered the grave together, yet I held the same conceit thereof, 
 that we all do of the body, that it rise again. Surely, it is but 
 the merits of our unworthy natures, if we sleep in darkness until 
 the last alarm. A serious reflex upon my own unworthiness did 
 make me backward from challenging this prerogative of my 
 soul: so that I might enjoy my Saviour at the last, I could 
 
The Soul going fur tli from the Body. 159 
 
 with patience be nothing almost unto eternity." Origen was- 
 called from Egypt to make head against this rising sect of minute 
 philosophers, and so successfully disputed against them in full 
 council, that they abandoned their errors, and returned to the 
 received doctrine of the Church. Origen himself, however, fell 
 into the error, that not only the souls of men, but the devils 
 themselves, should be discharged from tortures after a certain 
 time "that God would not persist in his vengeance for ever, but 
 after a definite time of his wrath, would release the damned souls 
 from torture." (Religio Medici.) But Genebrard endeavours to 
 clear Origen of this charge. 
 
 Webster, in his Display of supposed Witchcraft, writing of 
 corpses bleeding in the presence of murderers, argues : " If 
 we physically consider the union of the soul with the body 
 by the mediation of the spirit, then we cannot rationally conceive 
 that the soul doth utterly forsake that union, until by putrefac- 
 tion, tending to an absolute mutation, it is forced to bid farewell 
 to its beloved tabernacle ; for its not operating ad extra to our 
 senses, doth not necessarily infer its total absence. And it may 
 be, that there is more in that of Abel's blood crying unto the Lord 
 from the ground, in a physical sense, than is commonly conceived, 
 &c" 
 
 The appearance of the Departure of the Soul is thus mentioned x 
 as a known fact in one of the works of the celebrated mystic, Jacob 
 Bohmen. In The Three Principles, chap. 19, " Of the going forth 
 of the Soul/ 3 he observes : 
 
 "Seeing that man is so very earthty, therefore he hath none but 
 earthly knowledge ; except he be regenerated in the gate of Deep. 
 He always supposeth that the Soul (at the deceasing of the Body) goeth 
 only out at the Mouth, and he understandeth nothing concerning its 
 deep Essences above the Elements. When he seeth a blue Vapour go 
 forth out of the Mouth of a dying Man, (which maketh a strong smell 
 all over the chamber,) then he supposeth that is the Soul." 
 
 In the Folk-lore of Notes and Queries, No, 20, a curate of 
 Exeter relates that on visiting a poor man, who was daily expect- 
 ing his death from a very painful disease, his wife, one morning, 
 informed the narrator that she thought he would have died during 
 the night, and consequently she and her friend unfastened every 
 lock in the house. The reason given was that every bolt or lock 
 fastened was supposed to cause uneasiness to the soul, and hinder 
 its departure ; consequently, upon the approach of death, all the 
 boxes, doors, &c. in the house were unlocked. 
 
 Another Correspondent relates that, according to popular belief, 
 a considerable interval invariably elapses between the first sem- 
 blance of death, and what is considered to be the departure of the 
 soul. About five minutes after the time when death, to all out- 
 ward appearances, has taken place, "the last breath" may be 
 
160 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 seen to issue with a vapour or " steam " out of the mouth of the 
 departed. Hogarth, in his Tailpiece, has represented the figure 
 of Time breathing forth his last a puff of breath, with the word 
 "Einis " proceeding from his mouth ! 
 
 In some parts of Holland, when a child is dying, persons shade 
 it by the hands from the parents' gaze ; the soul being supposed 
 to linger in the body as long as a compassionate eye is fixed upon 
 it. Thus, in Germany, if he who sheds tears when leaning over an 
 expiring friend, or bending over the patient's couch, does but 
 wipe them off, he enhances, they say, the difficulty of death's last 
 struggle. We find this poetical superstition recorded in Mary 
 Barton, a Tale of Manchester Life. 
 
 In Bishop Hale's Breathings of the Devout Soul, we find : 
 
 In this life, in this death of the body, Lord, I see there are no 
 degrees, though differences of time. The man that died yesterday is 
 as truly dead ; as Abel, the first man that died in the world : and Me- 
 thuseleh, that lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years, did not more truly 
 live, than the child that did but salute, and leave the world. But in 
 the life to come, and the second death, there are degrees : degrees of 
 blessedness, to the glorified ; degrees of torments, to the damned ; the 
 least whereof, is unspeakable, unconceivable. Thou, Thou art the 
 Lord of Life and Death, keep my soul from those steps, that go down 
 to the chamber of death ; and once set it, for higher I dare not sue to 
 go, but over the threshold of glory and blessedness. 
 
 THE PASSING BELL. 
 
 We gather from the two following extracts the object of this bell, 
 which was tolled when the soul was passing from this life, and has 
 been described as " the melancholy warning of the death-crier." 
 
 In a statute passed towards the reign of Henry VIII., it is ordered 
 " that clarks are to ring no more than the passing bel] for poare people, 
 nor less for an honest householder, and he be a citizen ; nor for children, 
 maydes, journeymen, apprentices, day-labourers, or any other poare 
 person." 
 
 In 1662, the Bishop of Worcester asks in his visitation charge : 
 " Doth the parish-clerk or sexton take care to admonish the living, by 
 tolling of a passing bell, of any that are dying, thereby to meditate of 
 their own deaths, and to commend the other's weak condition to the 
 mercy of God." Annals of Worcester, 1849. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott asserts, in his Border Minstrelsy, that the custom 
 was then (1803,) still retained in many villages in Scotland. 
 
 We find frequent allusions to this practice. Sir Symonds 
 D'Ewes* mentions, in 1621, the bell tolling for an individual 
 
 * There are few of us who care to recollect our ancestors as 'bell- 
 ringers ; but Sir Symonds d'Ewes, who was Lord of the manor of La- 
 venham, in Suffolk, was a learned antiquary, and greatly attached to 
 bell-ringing. Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice of the Common 
 Pleas, and William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer of England were also 
 bell-ringers. Indeed, Campanology, or Tintinnalogy, or the Art of 
 Kinging, was formerly a gentleman's recreation. 
 
The Passing Bell 161 
 
 whom he visited, and who lived some hours afterwards. The 
 canon, however, is express on the subject : " And when any person 
 is passing out of this life, a bell shall be tolled, and the minister 
 shall not then slack to do his last duty." At one period, the 
 sound of the Passing Bell was heard in every parish, and in most 
 of the Visitation Articles the custom was enjoined. Nor can any 
 reasonable objection be raised against it, as it was allowed by 
 the Church of England. The question in Yisitation Articles 
 usually appeared in this form : " And when any person is passing 
 out of life, doth he, upon notice given thereof, toll a bell, as hath 
 been accustomed, that the neighbours may thereby be warned to 
 recommend the dying person to the grace and favour of God ? " 
 Probably, such a custom would now, by some persons, be called 
 popish ; yet few practices were more likely to advance the inte- 
 rests of true religion in a parish. 
 
 At Dewsbury, in Somerset, is a sort of Christmas Passing Bell : 
 that is, a bell tolled on Christmas Eve, as at a funeral ; and any 
 one asking whose bell it was would be told it was the devil's 
 knell. The moral of this is that the devil died when Christ was 
 born. The custom was discontinued for many years, but was 
 revived by the vicar in 1828. Among the sweet bells of Dews- 
 bury is the famous "Black Tom of Tothill," which is said to have 
 been an expiatory gift for a murder. 
 
 Bishop Hall has this touching Meditation On the Tolling of a 
 Passing Bell : 
 
 How doleful and heavy is this summons of death ! This sound is 
 not for our ears, but for our hearts : it calls us not only to our prayers, 
 but to our preparation ; to our prayers, for the departing soul ; to our 
 preparation, for our own departing. We have never so much need of 
 prayers, as in our last combat: then is our great Adversary most 
 eager : then are we the weakest : then nature is so over-laboured, that 
 it gives us not leisure, to make the use of gracious motions. There is 
 no preparation so necessary as for this conflict: all our life is little 
 enough to make ready for our last hour. What am I better than my 
 neighbours ? How often hath this bell reported to me, the farewell of 
 many more strong and vigorous bodies than my own ; of many more 
 cheerful and lively spirits ! And now what doth it, but call me to the 
 thought of my parting ? Here is no abiding for me : I must away too. 
 
 O Thou, that art the God of Comfort, help thy poor servant, that is 
 now struggling with his last enemy. His sad friends stand gazing upon 
 him, and weeping over him ; but they cannot succour hini : needs 
 must they leave him, to do this great work alone : none, but Thou, to 
 wJiom belong the issues of death, canst relieve his distressed and over- 
 matched soul. And, for me, let no man die without me : as I die 
 daily, so teach me to die once : acquaint me beforehand with that mes- 
 senger, which I must trust to. Oh, teach me so to number my days, that 
 I may apply my heart to true wisdom. 
 
 M 
 
162 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 BEAUTY OF DEATH. 
 
 He that hath bent him o'er the dead, 
 
 Ere the first day of death is fled 
 
 The first dark day of nothingness, 
 
 The last of danger and distress 
 
 Before decay's effacing fingers 
 
 Have swept the lines where beauty lingers, 
 
 And marked the wild angelic air, 
 
 The rapture of repose that's there 
 
 The fixed yet tender traits that streak 
 
 The languor of the placid cheek 
 
 And but for that sad shrouded eye, 
 
 That fires not wins not weeps not now 
 And but for that chill changeless brow, 
 
 Whose touch thrills with mortality, 
 
 And curdles to the gazer's heart, 
 
 As if to him it could impart 
 
 The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon 
 
 Yes but for these and these alone 
 
 Some moments ay one treacherous hour, 
 
 He still might doubt the tyrant's power, 
 
 So fair so calm so softly sealed 
 
 The first last look by death revealed. 
 
 To these exquisite lines in the Giaour, in the context of which the 
 aspect of Greece is compared to a beautiful corpse, Lord Byron 
 appends a note, in which he remarks that " this peculiar beauty re- 
 mains but a few hours after death." "But (says Mr. Leslie) I have 
 been told, by those in the habit of making casts, that on the second 
 day, the expression is generally improved, and even on the third 
 day it is often still finer. I have in several instances, been 
 ordered to make drawings of the dead, and though in every case 
 I have entered the room where the body lav somewhat reluctantly, 
 yet I have invariably felt reluctant to quit it." 
 
 " At Kreutzberg, near Brunn, there is a church, under the pave- 
 ment of which lie, in one vault, the bodies of twenty-five monks, 
 in open coffins. The dryness of the air has preserved them from, 
 decay, though the last buried has lain there for more than a cen- 
 tury. I visited the church with a party of ladies, who at first 
 hesitated to descend into the abode of the dead. We all, how- 
 ever, went down, each carrying a lighted taper, and such was the 
 fascination of this singular scene, that we lingered in it for some 
 time. The air was perfectly pure, and we seemed to be in another 
 world, with its own eternal interests effacing for the time all other 
 interests. It seemed to us a mistake that death should be repre- 
 sented by poets or by painters as a hideous phantom. We could not 
 contemplate those withered faces of old men, for they seemed all 
 old, and think of death otherwise than as a gentle friend. Their 
 attitudes were varied, and all had a kind of grace which, though 
 we knew it to be arranged by their iriends, seemed perfectly 
 
Grief for the Dead. 163 
 
 natural. One, the gardener, had a chaplet of withered leaves 
 round his head. All were clothed in the dress of their order ; 
 and their clothes, as well as their bodies, though the last were 
 dried to mummies, appeared to be little decayed." 
 
 "Lord Byron says, 'In death from a stab, the countenance pre- 
 serves its traits of feeling or ferocity, and the mind its bias to 
 the last. 5 I can only say that in all the casts I have seen from 
 those whose deaths have been violent or painful, I have noticed 
 the same repose of the features and the same faint indication of 
 a smile that assists in constituting the beauty of death in other 
 cases. Causes wholly unconnected with the state of mind or 
 feeling at the time of dissolution contribute, in individual cases, 
 to beautify the features. The cast taken, very imperfectly, by 
 Dr. Antommarchi, from the face of Napoleon, is more handsome 
 than any bust or portrait of him ; and, indeed, has the look of a 
 much younger man than he appears in the latest portraits. This 
 is easily accounted for. Illness had reduced the superabundant 
 fleshiness of the lower part of his face, and brought it back to the 
 condition of an early period ; and death, by leaving the mouth 
 slightly open, had destroyed that expression of selfish determina- 
 tion which the thin compressed lips give to every portrait of 
 Napoleon. The profile of the cast is the most perfectly beautiful 
 profile of a man I ever saw ; and it should here be noticed that, 
 as in this instance, the beauty added by death to a face originally 
 of very fine proportions has nothing to do with metaphysical 
 causes, so I believe it is the case in every instance ; the faint 
 smile being caused by the last slight convulsion after all con- 
 sciousness has ceased. 
 
 "The beauty of death is not easily explicable. How far its 
 strange fascination may arise from the idea suggested of a repose 
 compared with which that of the most tranquil sleep is agitation, 
 (says Leslie,) I will not pretend to determine. I knew a man of 
 the highest order of mind, a man of fine feelings, but of great 
 simplicity, and far above all affectation, who, standing by the 
 corpse of his wife, said f lt gives me very pleasurable sensa- 
 tions.' And yet, he truly loved her." Leslie's Autobiography. 
 
 GPJEE FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 Archbishop Whately has these admirable remarks: "As for 
 the grief which a man may be supposed to feel for the loss the 
 total and final loss of some who may have been dear to him on 
 earth, I have only this to remark, that a wise and good man in 
 this life, in cases where it is clear that no good can be done by 
 him, strives, as far as possible, to withdraw his thoughts from 
 evU which he cannot lessen, but which still, in spite of his efforts, 
 will often cloud his mind. We cannot, at pleasure, draw off our 
 M2 
 
164 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 thoughts entirely from painful subjects which it is in vain to 
 think of. The power to do this completely, when we will, would 
 be a great increase of happiness ; and this power, therefore, it is 
 reasonable to suppose, the blest will possess in the world to come, 
 and will be able, by no effort of the will, completely to banish and 
 exclude every idea that might alloy their happiness." Scripture 
 Revelations. 
 
 It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that when 
 the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or 
 affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most 
 powerfully and irresistibly. It would almost seem as though our 
 better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which 
 the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse 
 with the spirits of those whom we dearly loved in life. Alas ! 
 how often and how long may those patient angels hover above us, 
 watching for the spell that is so seldom uttered, and so soon 
 forgotten ! 
 
 It has even been observed that immoderate grief, if it does not 
 exhaust itself by indulgence, easily assumes the character of 
 superstition or weakness, or takes a type of insanity. 
 
 There is, in many minds, a fearful presentiment that great hap- 
 piness cannot be of long duration ; but if the prosperous periods 
 of life are those which seem to form the natural climax and ter- 
 minating point of life, they are those in which we can least bear 
 the loss of others. The sudden removal of one who is in the 
 very midst of his usefulness, in whose success we had " garnered 
 up our hearts," creates a revulsion of feeling which poor humanity 
 can ill support. It is the anticipation of re-union hereafter which 
 throws the only light that can penetrate the gloom of the mourner's 
 mind. He is yet to have a meeting beyond the grave ; and whilst 
 this idea mitigates grief, it renders the prospect of death itself 
 less terrible. It was in this way that Mrs. Garrick endeavoured 
 to remove the terrors of death, after her loss of the great actor. 
 Boswell tells us that in 1781, when Mrs. Garrick received com- 
 pany for the first time since her husband's death, she talked of 
 him with complacency ; and while she cast her eyes on his por- 
 trait which hung over the chimney-piece, said that " death was 
 now the most agreeable object to her." 
 
 INTERFERENCES OF THE DEAD WITH THE LIVING. 
 
 Isaac Taylor has a remarkable passage on this question, which, 
 he considers, " ought not to be summarily dismissed as a mere folly 
 of the vulgar." He says : 
 
 " In considering questions of this sort, we ought not to listen, for a 
 moment, to those frequent but impertinent questions that are brought 
 forward with the view of superseding the inquiry : such, for example, 
 
Antiquity of Burial Clubs. 165 
 
 as these : ' What good is answered by the alleged extra-natural occur- 
 rences ? ' or * Is it worthy of the Supreme Wisdom to permit them ? ' 
 and so forth. The question is a question, first, of testimony, to be 
 judged on the established principles of evidence, and then of phy- 
 siology; but neither of theology, or of morals. Some few human 
 beings are wont to walk in their sleep ; and during the continuance of 
 profound slumber, they perform, with precision aiid safety, the offices 
 of common life, and return to their beds, and yet are totally unconscious 
 when they awake, of what they have done. Now, in considering this 
 or any such extraordinary class of facts, our business is, in the first 
 place, to obtain a number of instances, supported by the distinct and 
 unimpeachable testimony of intelligent witnesses ; and then, being 
 thus in possession of the facts, to adjust them, as well as we can, to 
 other parts of our philosophy of human nature. Shall we allow an 
 objector to put a check to our scientific curiosity on the subject, for 
 instance, of Somnambulism, by saying, 'Some of these accounts have 
 turned out to be exaggerated or totally untrue ! ' or ' this walking in 
 the sleep ought not to be thought possible, or as likely to be permitted 
 by the Benevolent Guardian of human welfare t ' " Physical Theory of 
 Another Life. 
 
 DEATH CUSTOMS. 
 
 In many parts of Britain is prevalent a superstition, preserved 
 to us in an aphoristic form in the following distich : 
 
 Happy is the wedding that the sun shines on ; 
 Blessed is the corpse that the rain rains on. 
 
 Otherwise thus : 
 
 Sad is the burying in the sunshine ; 
 
 But blessed is the corpse that goeth home in rain. 
 
 In Brittany it is commonly believed that if any one draws a 
 likeness of another, and carries it away with him, he holds, at any 
 distance of time or place, an unlimited power over the original, 
 whose death he may cause, at any time, by the destruction of the 
 portrait ! 
 
 In the Diary of the Rev. John Ward, 16621681, we find this 
 curious entry : " Dr. Conyers dissected a persqn not long ago, that 
 died for love in London ; and they found (at least, as they fan- 
 cied,) the impression of a face upon his heart." 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF BURIAL CLUBS. 
 
 Mr. Kenrick, in his ingenious work on Roman Sepulchral 
 Inscriptions, adduces the following evidence of the existence of 
 burial clubs among the Romans from a monument found at 
 Lanuvium, a town of ancient fame for the worship of Juno 
 Sospita, about nineteen miles from Rome, on the Via Appia. 
 The inhabitants of this town appear, out of flattery towards the 
 Emperor Hadrian, in whose reign the marble was erected, to have 
 formed themselves into a college for paying divine honours to 
 
166 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 Diana and Antinous, with which they strangely combined that of 
 a burial club, not forgetting the festivities which formed so im- 
 portant a part of all acts of religion among the Romans. To 
 prevent disputes, the laws of the association were inscribed on 
 marble, and probably set up in the temple of the two deities. An 
 amphora of good wine was to be presented to the club by a new 
 member, the sum of 100 sesterces (about 15s.) was to be paid as 
 entry money, and five asses (little more than 2<) per month as 
 subscription. Their meetings were not to take place oftener than 
 once a month. If any one omitted payment for (so many) months 
 (the marble is here mutilated), no claim could be made, even 
 though he had directed it by will. In case of the death of one 
 who had paid his subscription regularly, 300 sesterces (2/. 5s.) 
 were allotted for his funeral expenses, out of which, however, 50 
 were to be set apart for distribution at the cremation of the body. 
 The funeral was to be a walking one. If any one died more than 
 twenty miles from Lanuvium, and his death was announced, three 
 delegates from the college were to repair to the place where he 
 had died, to perform his funeral, and render an account of it to 
 the people. Fraud was to be punished by a fourfold fine. Twenty 
 sesterces each were to be allowed to the delegates for travelling 
 expenses, going and returning. If the death had taken place 
 more than twenty miles from Lanuvium, and no notice had been 
 sent, the person who had performed the funeral rites was to send 
 a sealed certificate attested by seven Roman citizens, on the 
 production of which the usual sum for the expenses was to be 
 granted. No funeral of a suicide was to take place. There are 
 many other rules tending to preserve order and promote good 
 fellowship, but these are all which relate to the burial club. 
 This curious document is an additional proof how much ancient 
 life resembled modern life, when we obtain a view of it, as it were, 
 intus domique, through the medium of its monuments. 
 
 "GOD'S ACRE."* 
 
 This is a phrase applied to the churchyard, or burial-place, to 
 denote its sanctity. It is, of course, well known that in the 
 ancient days of the Church, these burial-places were formed round 
 the resting-places of famous saints. The same feeling may be 
 traced in later days. The burial-ground appertaining to St. George 
 the Martyr, Queen- square, Bloomsbury, is a long and narrow 
 slip of ground behind the Foundling Hospital. A strong prejudice 
 appears to have existed against this burial-place, and no person 
 was interred here till the ground was broken for the pious Robert 
 Nelson, author of Fasts and Festivals, whose character for piety 
 reconciled others to the place, and other interments followed 
 quickly. 
 
 * See an interesting work with this title, by Mrs. Stone. 
 
Antiseptic Burial Soils. 1 67 
 
 There is a similar instance of this veneration in the history of 
 Bunhill Fields, where, in the vault of his friend, Mr. Stradwick, 
 the grocer, on Snow-hill, in whose house he died, is buried, John 
 Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress. Modern curiosity has 
 marked the place of his interment with a brief inscription, but his 
 name is not recorded in the Register. So numerous have been, 
 and still are, the dying requests of his admirers to be buried as 
 near as possible to the place of his interment, that it is not pos- 
 sible to obtain a grave near him, the whole surrounding earth 
 being occupied by dead bodies to a very considerable distance. 
 
 "People like to be buried in company, and in good company. 
 The Dissenters regarded Bunhill Fields' burial-ground as their 
 Campo Santo, and especially for Bunyan's sake. It is said that 
 many have made it their desire to be interred as near as possible 
 to the spot where his remains are deposited." Southey. 
 
 EMBLEMS ON TOMBS. 
 
 The devices which we see on old tombs distinguish, by their 
 emblematic differences, the dead which they inclose. The legs of 
 crusaders were crossed : the right hand of prelates was raised as 
 if in benediction ; bishops bore the crozier in the left hand, abbots 
 in their right; less dignified priests bore a chalice; kings and 
 bishops had gloves on both hands. Officers of State and other 
 noblemen are represented with a glove on the right hand, for the 
 purpose of supporting a hawk, while the other glove is off and is 
 held in the left hand. Lions at the feet typify vigilance and 
 courage ; and human heads may be seen under the feet of one of 
 the figures in the Temple Church, denoting infidels slain in the 
 Crusades. Dragons under the feet pierced, as for example by the 
 staves of the abbots of Peterborough, express triumph over the 
 devil ; and sometimes an escalopshell would be engraven under 
 the cross, to denote that the occupant of the tomb had in lifetime 
 performed a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James at Compostella. 
 There are recorded many instances of bad taste in tombs. It 
 was, for example, a fashion at one time to represent on them 
 a body in a state of corruption. There is one of a Due de Croye 
 in a church near Louvain, where a skeleton is represented with 
 the worms preying on it. 
 
 ANTISEPTIC BURIAL SOILS. 
 
 In certain burial-places, human bodies are preserved for a 
 century and more, which is attributed to the antiseptic properties 
 of the soil. St. Michan's Yaults, Church-street, Dublin, possess 
 this property. The soil and walls of this crypt are a compound 
 
168 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 of argillaceous earth and carbonate of lime. This admixture 
 exercises a chemically absorbent influence on all ordinary earthy 
 and atmospheric moisture. Every one knows that moisture is, 
 perhaps, the greatest aid to decomposition. Amid the rains of 
 winter or the heats of summer the vaults of St. Michan, with the 
 exception of one small chamber, are uniformly free from damp; 
 and the consequence is the phenomenon referred to. The portion 
 which appears damp is destitute of any animal remains but bones. 
 In some of the dry compartments which are rarely opened, the 
 ornamental appendages of certain coffins shine as brilliantly as 
 when originally deposited there a circumstance which strikingly 
 attests the uncommon aridity of the walls and soil. The floor is 
 covered with dust as dry as that overlying a country road in 
 summer. Beneath the foundation is* a bed of silicious sand. A 
 nun, fully robed, was for half a century shown here, in high pre- 
 servation. 
 
 A vault possessing antiseptic properties is also shown beneath 
 the monastic chapel of the Kreutzberg, about two miles from 
 Bonn. Here are the corpses of several poor monks, in open 
 coffins, the bodies dressed in cowl and cassock, as on the day of 
 their dissolution. Here they were deposited between the years 
 1400 and 1713, and the extraordinary state of preservation in 
 which they have remained during that extensive lapse of time has 
 been attributed mainly to the dryness of the sandy soil which sur- 
 rounds them. The worsted stockings and grey leather shoes of 
 some are undecayed; and^the nails upon their bony fingers, and 
 the grey hair on their craniums are perfect. Notwithstanding the 
 bodies seem to be the size and weight of ordinary thin men, they 
 are so light, that one can be raised with a single finger.* 
 
 Sand is an agent for correcting putridity : hence, probably, the 
 practice of strewing floors with sand. 
 
 A correspondent of Notes and Queries relates (2nd S. vi. 156) : 
 " When I was a boy I was told, and I heard it with a strange 
 sensation of dread, that if an individual took up a handful of dust 
 thrown from a newly opened grave, he might know whether a good 
 or wicked person had been formerly buried there ; for, said the 
 informant, if the dust stirs in your hand, you may be sure that it 
 had once formed a portion of the body of a wicked man or woman ; 
 for " the wicked cannot rest anywhere," not even in the grave ! 
 
 DECAY OF THE HUMAN BODY. 
 
 "When putrefaction commences, there can, of course, be no 
 longer any doubt of the departure of life premising that the 
 putrefaction is general, and not of a local kind. There is nothing 
 
 * See the description, by Mr. Leslie, at page 162. 
 
Emblem of the Eesurrection. 169 
 
 more appalling and humiliating than the decomposition of the dead. 
 We may, indeed, persuade ourselves, that the dead are only silent 
 and immoveable ; out when changes gradually manifest themselves, 
 and we can no longer recognise the familiar features we have so 
 often looked upon, we see the greatness of that alteration, and feel 
 what it is to die. 
 
 The peculiar cadaverous odour of the body is well known to 
 most persons, and the appearances of incipient putrefaction need 
 no explanation. The finer changes are, perhaps, best indicated by 
 the placidity of the cornea, and the loss of transparency in the 
 eye. These can seldom be mistaken by medical men, though 
 death may undoubtedly take place before they are strikingly 
 apparent. Amongst other indications of decomposition the gravi- 
 tation and transudation of the blood to the surface on which the 
 body lies are important subjects for consideration, because they 
 have been mistaken by persons ignorant of such matters for indi- 
 cations of injuries and bruises : indeed, they often present lines 
 and marks closely resembling the extravasations produced by 
 blows : hence they are termed sugillations, from the Latin sugil- 
 latio, a black mark. 
 
 M. Bouchut has, in a memoir on apparent death, for which he 
 received a prize of 1,500 francs, replied to these questions : 
 " What are the distinctive characters of apparent death ? 2. What 
 are the means to prevent premature interment ? " 
 
 M. Bouchut states that the sounds of the heart, as indicated by 
 the stethoscope, are never entirely wanting, except in real death ; 
 and that the longest interval between the loud beats of the heart 
 is about six or seven seconds. He further insists on the complete 
 dilatation of the pupil of the eye as a corroborative sign of death, 
 remarking that, though contracted in the death-struggle, it after- 
 wards and speedily becomes dilated; so truly may we say that 
 " la pupille est lafen&tre de Fame." 
 
 Even the alterations which take place after the body is com- 
 mitted to the grave have engaged the attention of medical 
 inquirers. It seems not very probable that the features of the 
 dead can be recognised after fourteen or fifteen days' interment ; 
 and in three or four months all vestiges of the face are destroyed. 
 Abridged from Harrison on the Medical Aspects of Death. 
 
 EMBLEM OF THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 We see the Phoenix, with a glory of rays round its head, 
 perched upon the palm-tree, the Tree of Life, as a symbol of the 
 resuscitated and glorified body, in the mosaics of various Roman 
 apsides, as in those of the churches of the Saints Cosma and 
 Daraiano. We also see a similar bird perched upon the Tree of 
 Life in the Paradise represented in the apsis of S. Giovanni 
 
170 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 Laterano. St. Augustin, however, considered the Peacock to be 
 a symbol of the resurrection of the body, because its flesh was 
 believed to be incorruptible. But the peacock never takes the 
 place of the phoenix in the apsidial mosaics ; nor does the phoenix 
 ever take the place of the peacock on Christian sepulchral urns 
 and other monuments. 
 
 Dr. Barlow, from whose communication to the B^dlder these 
 observations are quoted, states it to IDC alleged that when the 
 palm-tree has decayed, the Arabs cut it down to the roots, and 
 burn it on the spot ; and the ashes being covered with a layer of 
 earth, a new shoot springs up, which in the course of a few years 
 becomes a strong tree. It would seem that we have here the 
 origin of the fabled phoenix rising renewed from the flames that 
 consumed it, as the bird and the tree bear the same name. This 
 is probably the reason why, in Christian symbolism, the phoenix 
 with a glory of rays was employed to signify the glorified body in 
 the resurrection. 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, among his erudite guesses, describes the 
 Phoenix as a bird of Paradise, "and alike the emblem of the 
 Resurrection and the Sun ; " again, " that it was a palm-tree, and 
 that it was only a mistake upon the homonymy of the Greek word 
 phcenix, which signifies a palm-tree." See Timbs's Popular Errors 
 Explained, pp. 117-8. 
 
 The Church of St. Giles' in the Fields, London, has a " Resur- 
 rection Gate/' with an elaborate bas-relief of the Day of Judgment. 
 This curious work of art is stated to have been taken from the 
 lich-gate of the former church. 
 
 FLOWERS ON GRAVES. 
 
 This rite scarcely belongs to the " Mysteries " of Death ; its 
 simplicity being an instinct of every stage of man's life the very 
 child seeking to 
 
 Pluck the frail flowers that gaily bloom, 
 
 And east as they fade away, 
 
 In garlands on its mother's tomb. 
 
 Or in the more touching couplet describing some children at play 
 among the tombs 
 
 Alas ! unconscious of the kindred earth, 
 That faintly echoed to the voice of mirth. 
 
 A drooping flower is an emblem of early death, a thought which 
 we remember to have seen amplified in some lines upon two 
 young children of the Rev. Joseph Hamilton, D.D., interred at 
 Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire : 
 
 As fades the flower in early spring, 
 When tempests sweep the land, 
 
Flowers on Graves. 171 
 
 So droops the tender infant's form 
 
 When seized by death's cold hand. 
 Farewell, sweet babes, the loss is ours, 
 
 For you are gone to rest ; 
 The Shepherd has but call'd his lambs, 
 
 To fold them to his breast. 
 
 One who felt acutely the sorrows as well as enjoyed the ecstasies 
 
 of life, has sung : 
 
 Flowers are the bright remembrancers of youth : 
 
 They waft back with their bland and odorous breath 
 
 The joyous hours that only young life knows, 
 
 Ere we have learn 1 d that this fair earth hides graves. 
 
 They bring the cheek that's mouldering in the dust 
 
 Again before us, ting'd with health's own rose, 
 
 They bring the voices we shall hear no more, 
 
 Whose tones were sweetest music to our ears : 
 
 They bring the hopes that faded one by one, 
 
 'Till nought was left to light our path but faith, 
 
 That we too, like the flowers, should spring to life, 
 
 But not like them again e'er fade or die. Lady Blessington. 
 
 Of the Pagan custom of strewing graves with flowers, we find 
 this beautiful record in Virgil ; where Anchises, grieving for Mar- 
 cellus, makes him say : 
 
 Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring, 
 Mix'd with the purple roses of the spring, 
 Let me with fun'ral flowers his body strew, 
 This gift, which parents to their children owe, 
 This unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow. 
 
 The rose has been for ages the favourite flower for funereal 
 purposes. Among the Greeks, the relatives of the deceased wore 
 garlands of roses during the days of mourning, as emblematical 
 of the shortness of life, which passes as quickly away as would 
 the beauty of those roses which form the mourner's crown. The 
 tombs of the dead were decorated with roses, under the idea that 
 they possessed the power of protecting the remains of the de- 
 ceased, and were peculiarly acceptable as an offering to their 
 manes. The Greeks also used the amaranthus, which is com- 
 monly regarded as the flower now known by the name of " ever- 
 lasting." Parsley and myrtle were likewise funereal plants. 
 The Romans were so fond of the rose, that we find inscriptions 
 which refer to legacies left in their wills for the express purpose 
 of providing roses, with which their tombs were annually to be 
 decorated. This custom has descended to our times. 
 
 Lord Byron writes from Bologna, June 7, 1819 : "Here, as in 
 Greece, they strew flowers on the tombs : I saw a quantity of 
 rose-leaves and entire roses scattered over the graves at Eerrara. 
 It has the most pleasing effect you can imagine." 
 
 The Romans are considered to have brought this custom into 
 England : such is the opinion of the Ttev, Owen Manning, the 
 
172 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 historian of Surrey, in which county, at Ockley, it has been, 
 until lately, the custom, from time immemorial, for betrothed lovers 
 to plant rose-trees at the head of the grave of a deceased lover, 
 should either party die before the marriage. Camden describes 
 the churchyard as thickly planted with rose-trees, in his time ; 
 Aubrey records the same custom; and John Evelyn, who lived 
 at Wotton Place, near Ockley, thus testifies the observance there 
 of the maidens yearly planting and decking the graves of their 
 defunct sweethearts with rose-bushes. Now, the Romans were 
 much at Ockley ; the Roman road (Stane-street) passes through 
 the village to this day; so that we are inclined to agree with 
 Mr. Manning that the rose-planting at Ockley is a relic of a 
 Roman custom. 
 
 At Barnes, in Surrey, on the south bank of the Thames, is an 
 interesting observance of this flower rite. On the south side of 
 the church, between two buttresses, inclosed bv wooden rails, a 
 few rose-trees are cultivated, in pursuance of the will of Mr. 
 Edward Rose, citizen of London, who, according to a tablet 
 affixed to the church wall, died in 1653, having bequeathed to 
 the parish of Barnes, the sum of 20/. for the purchase of an acre 
 of land, from the rent of which the churchwardens were enjoined 
 to keep in repair the paling of the inclosure, and maintain a 
 succession of rose-trees ; the surplus funds to be applied for the 
 benefit of the poor. 
 
 We find in a poem of the Saxons : 
 
 " Mark my hillock with the simple flower." 
 Shakspeare's Arviragus, in Cymbeline, says : 
 
 With fairest flowers, 
 
 Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
 I'll sweeten thy sad grave : thou shalt not lack 
 The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 
 The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins ; no, nor 
 The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 
 Outsweeten'd not thy breath. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, 
 To winter-ground thy corse. 
 
 And in Hamlet, ("that piece of Shakspeare's which appears 
 to have most affected English hearts,") the bewildered Ophelia 
 sings : 
 
 Larded all with sweet flowers ; 
 
 Which bewept to the grave did go, 
 
 With true-love showers ; 
 
 besides which we have the affecting flower-strewing scene. 
 
 The appropriateness of spring-flowers is thus touched upon by 
 Herrick : 
 
Flowers on Graves. 173 
 
 Virgins promis'd when I died, 
 That they would each primrose-tide, 
 Duly morn and evening come, 
 And with flowers dress my tomb ; 
 Having promis'd, pay your debts, 
 Maids, and here strew violets. 
 
 In Wales, where the custom is observed to this day, the white 
 rose is always planted on the grave of an unmarried female ; the 
 red rose is appropriated to any one distinguished for benevolence 
 of character. Here, too, the bed, the coffin, and the grave are 
 also strewed with flowers. We remember the rite at Hemel 
 Hempstead, in 1809, where a young boy dying at school, the 
 corpse and the open coffin, as well as the room in which it was 
 placed, were strewed with flowers ; and the schoolfellows of the 
 deceased, 100 in number, were admitted to view the mournful 
 scene. 
 
 The decoration of the corpse is mentioned by many poets. 
 Shakspeare, in Romeo and Juliet, makes Friar Lawrence say : 
 
 Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary 
 On this fair corse. 
 
 Sir Thomas Overbury concludes his character of " the fair and 
 the happy Milkmaid," with : " Thus .lived she, and all her care is 
 that she may die in the spring-time, to have store of flowers stuck 
 upon her winding-sheet." 
 
 The Yicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, in his Diary, (16481679,) 
 says : " Wee poor men steal into our graves with no greater noise 
 than can bee made by a sprigg of rosemary, or a black ribband." 
 
 Gay, in his Shepherd's Week the Dirge Pastoral, &c. has this 
 picture of the funeral of a village maiden : 
 
 To show their love, the neighbours far and near, 
 
 Followed with wistful look the damsel's bier. 
 
 Sprigg' d rosemary the lads and lasses bore, 
 
 While dismally the Parson walked before. 
 
 Upon her grave the rosemary they threw, 
 
 The daisy, butter-flower, and endive blue. 
 
 After the good man warn'd us from his text, 
 
 That none could tell whose turn would be the next ; 
 
 He said, that Heaven would take her soul, no doubt, 
 
 And spoke the hour-glass in her praise quite out. 
 
 To her sweet memory flowery garlands strung, 
 
 O'er her now empty seat aloft were hung. 
 
 With wicker rods we fenc'd her tomb around, 
 
 To warn from man and beast the .hallow'd ground ; 
 
 Lest her new grave the Parson's cattle raze, 
 
 For both his horse and cow the churchyard graze. 
 
 In a previous passage from the same poem we find this account 
 of the superstitions of the death-bed, about a century and a half 
 since : 
 
174 Phenomena of Death. 
 
 When Blouzelind expired, the wether's bell 
 Before the drooping flock toll'd forth her knell ; 
 The solemn death-watch click'd the hour she dy'd, 
 And shrilling crickets in the chimney cry'd ; 
 The boding raven on her cottage sate, 
 And with hoarse croaking warn'd her of her fate ; 
 The lambkin, which her wonted tendance bred, 
 Dropped on the plains that fatal instant dead ; 
 Swarm'd on a rotten stick the bees I spy'd, , 
 Which erst I saw when goody Dobson dy'd. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor says : "Though I should like a dry death, yet I 
 should not like a diry funeral. Some flowers strewed upon my 
 grave would do well and comely ; and a soft shower to turn these 
 flowers into a springing memory, or a fair rehearsal." The pious 
 John Evelyn also says : " We adorn their graves with flowers and 
 redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been 
 compared in Holy Scripture, to those fading beauties, whose roots 
 being buried in dishonour, rise again in glory." 
 
 But, the Garden, with its flowers and evergreens, is altogether 
 hallowed ground. "It speaks of a Christian people employed in 
 an occupation, which, above all others, is the parable that con- 
 veys the deepest truths to them which daily reads them silent 
 lessons, if their hearts would hear, of the vanity of earthly pomp, 
 of the beauty of heavenly simplicity, and purity, and lowliness of 
 mind, of contentment and unquestioning faith which sets before 
 them, in the thorns and thistles, a remembrance of their fallen 
 state in the cedar, and the olive, and the palm-tree, the promise 
 of a better country which hourly recalls to their mind the 
 Agony and the Burial of Him who made a garden the scene of 
 both, and who bade us mark and consider such things, how they 
 bud, and 'how they grow, 5 giving us in the vine a type of His 
 Church, and in the fig-tree of His Coming." (Quarterly Review) 
 
 In Roman Catholic burial-grounds, the planting and decorating 
 of graves has been a rite from time immemorial ; and in the Pro- 
 testant public cemeteries of England, the same observance is now 
 general ; although it was rarely seen in our churchyards. 
 
 The yew-tree is indigenous to this country; and when its 
 longevity, its durability, and the perpetual verdure it presents, are 
 taken into consideration, it is not surprising that the yew should 
 have been recognised as an emblem of the immortality of the soul, 
 and employed about our churchyards to deck the graves of the 
 deceased. 
 
THE EARLIEST SIN. 
 
 THE earliest wide-spread sin was violence. That wilfulness of 
 temper those germs of wanton cruelty, which the mother corrects 
 so easily in her infant, were developed in the earliest form of 
 human society into a prevailing plague of wickedness. The few 
 notices which are given of that state of mankind do not present a 
 picture of mere lawlessness, such as we find among the medieval 
 nations of Europe, but of blind, gross ignorance of themselves and 
 all around them. Atheism is possible now, but Lamech's pre- 
 sumptuous comparison of himself with God is impossible, and the 
 thought of building a tower high enough to escape God's wrath 
 could enter no man's dreams. We sometimes see in very little 
 children a violence of temper which seems hardly human : add to 
 such a temper the strength of a full-grown man, and we shall per- 
 haps understand what is meant by the expression that the earth 
 was filled with violence. Dr. Temple, on the Education of the 
 World. 
 
 THE GREAT SIN. DESTRUCTION OE THE OLD WORLD. 
 
 Through the transgression of the angels who were tempted by 
 the beauty of the daughters of Eve to unite themselves to a 
 species only a little lower than their own, the corruption of the 
 human race, and the enormity of their crimes before God, were fear- 
 fully augmented. A new sin contaminated mankind ; a monstrous 
 progeny had birth, powerful for evil beyond ordinary human beings, 
 "mighty men which were of old/' and a stain not arising from 
 Adam's transgression, infected the mixed offspring, each bearing 
 about with him not only a polluted human nature, "naturally 
 engendered," but an unclean spirit, supernaturally engendered. 
 
 It may be permitted for us to conjecture that it was this offence 
 and stain, beyond all others, which provoked the Almighty to 
 destroy the old world, in order that he might utterly exterminate 
 those semi-angelic families, which else, by gradual intermixture 
 would have polluted the whole race of man. 
 
 The mythologists, many of whose fables were certainly based on 
 authentic traditions, appear to have heard through the descendants 
 of Noah, of this forbidden intercourse, these "mighty men." 
 
176 Sin and Punishment. 
 
 They seem to allude to it in the story of the giants or demigods, the 
 sons of Coelus and Terra, of heaven and earth, who rebelled against 
 the Ruler of heaven, sought to invade his realms, and were by 
 him cast down and buried beneath the earth. Bishop Courtenay 
 on the Future States : Appendix. 
 
 SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 
 
 The followers of Mahomet and the inhabitants of Eastern coun- 
 tries are said to believe in the special interference of Providence in 
 each particular case : hence they value but little human life. If a man 
 is in peril, they do not exert themselves to extricate him ; but they 
 argue that if God wishes it, the man will surely die. No reason- 
 able man can doubt the truth of the proposition in this form, but 
 in their neglect they assume the whole case ; and the question we 
 have to consider is, whether the Creator does, by a special act, 
 will the death of a man, or any other event which takes place on 
 the globe, or has the world been constructed in obedience to laws ? 
 Natural science, deduced from the observation of facts, appears to 
 indicate that every thin<* in this great globe is governed by fixed 
 and immutable laws, and that nothing happens either by chance, 
 or by the special interposition of Providence, apart from these 
 general views. 
 
 One of the three letters written by the Duke of Wellington/h?^ 
 the field of Waterloo was a brief note, which, having enumerated 
 some who had fallen, ended thus emphatically : " I have escaped 
 unhurt ; the FINGER OF PROVIDENCE WAS ON ME." What the 
 impulse was which dictated these extraordinary words, we leave to 
 the opinion of those who read them. . . . When the dreadful fight 
 was over, the Duke's feelings, kept so long at the highest tension, 
 gave way ; and as he rode among the groans of the wounded, and 
 the reeking carnage, and heard the rout of the vanquished and the 
 shouts of the victors, fainter and fainter through the gloom of 
 night, he wept, and soon after wrote the words which we have 
 quoted from his letter. It is in such trying hours that man feels 
 his frail mortality, instinctively turns] to God, and referring his 
 actions to the will of Him who guides and governs all things, with 
 reverence says, " The finger of Providence was on me." 
 
 It was on the eve of this bloody contest that the great com- 
 mander uttered these memorable words : " Next to the calamity of 
 losing a battle is that of gaining a victory." 
 
 NEMESIS OR RETRIBUTION. 
 
 Nemesis Sacra is the Scripture doctrine of Retribution on Earth, 
 or the doctrine of punishment for sin even in this life. The 
 subject has been elaborately investigated in "A Series of la- 
 
Nemesis or Retribution. 177 
 
 quiries, Philological and Critical," in which the general conclu- 
 sions arrived at are thus expressed : 
 
 That the afflictions of this life, however they may be overruled in 
 favour of the good, so as to become the instruments of eternal blessed- 
 ness, are primarily chastisement for sin, agreeably to that famous 
 maxim, " Nisi peccata non flagella," 
 
 That retribution is not less apparent in the New Testament than in 
 the Old, among pagans than the believers in revelation. 
 
 That probably every transgression, whether committed by the 
 righteous or the wicked, the penitent or the impenitent, is punished in 
 a greater or less degree in this life, whether by the positive infliction of 
 evil, or the negation of good. At least, there is no record in Scripture 
 of any grave offence against the law, moral or divine, without the record 
 also of its chastisement. But if there were many, the mere omission 
 would not impugn the truth of the doctrine ; for as the holiness of God 
 .cannot change, his judicial administration must be in constant activity. 
 
 That according to the magnitude of the transgression/ so varies the 
 punishment, from the tremendous penalty of excision in the midst of 
 sin to the mildest forms of visitation, but that since both generally fall 
 within the ordinary course of human experience, they pass unobserved. 
 
 That in public visitations, while the impenitent are crushed, an open- 
 ing is made for the escape of the righteous and those disposed to become 
 righteous ; or at any rate, the evil is in some way overruled in their 
 favour. 
 
 That when chastisement is not thus overruled, but is permitted to 
 afflict the penitent, that permission is for a gracious purpose. Thus it 
 led David to repentance, and perfected the holiness of Job ; it became 
 salvation to Manasseh, and equally so to Nebuchadnezzar ; while to the 
 impenitent, it is not merely a judgment, but a curse, often involving 
 utter destruction. Thus it proved to Pharaoh and to Ahab, to Ahaziah 
 and Belshazzar. Afflictions, therefore, being to the former evidence of 
 the Divine love, designed to purify from the remaining corruptions 
 within, and to render meet for "the inheritance of the saints in light," 
 should be welcomed not only with gratitude but with joy. In many 
 cases they are a privilege as well as a blessing : " For unto you it is 
 given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer 
 for His sake." 
 
 That there are afflictions which bring with them more joy than 
 sorrow. What Christian deserving of the name has not felt the keen 
 thorns of repentance ? And who that has felt them, would exchange 
 them for the most exquisite of worldly pleasures ? 
 
 That though we read much in the New Testament of the sufferings 
 of Christ's followers, as if they were inseparable from the profession of 
 Christianity, by far the greater portion of them must be attributed to 
 times of peculiar trial, when the Jews passed from country to country 
 to move the Gentiles against the new converts, rather than to the in- 
 evitable lot of the Christian in every age and country. In ordinary 
 times, he has all the advantages of the worldling, and many of which 
 the worldling never dreamed. Eternal truth assures us that " godli- 
 ness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now 
 is, as well as of that which is to come." 
 
 That unless we could read the heart, and comprehend in all its details 
 the moral state of a man whether affliction is likely to harden or 
 improve him we cannot tell whether any special manifestation of it be 
 designed in judgment or in mercy. Owing, however, to the mixed 
 
 N 
 
178 Sin and Punishment. 
 
 character of every human being, we may safely assume that it generally 
 partakes in a greater or less degree of both. We have sinned, and 
 therefore we are punished: we often sigh after greater purity, and 
 therefore the very chastisement is made instrumental to that effect. 
 
 It should, however, be added that although the author of the 
 above work has exhibited in it much learning and critical acumen, 
 his reasoning is, in many cases, based upon bold alterations of the 
 authorized version of the Scriptures which will be much ques- 
 tioned by scholars. 
 
 Nemesis, in the Greek mythology, is a female divinity, who 
 appears to have been regarded as the personification of the 
 righteous anger of the gods. Herodotus was deeply impressed 
 with an ever-present Nemesis, which allows no man to be very 
 happy, or long happy with impunity. It has also been described 
 as a degree of good fortune sure to draw down ultimately corre- 
 sponding intensity of suffering from the hands of the envious 
 gods. Or, in other words, it is that every-day presentiment which 
 forebodes suffering or evil as sure to follow any piece of good 
 fortune. 
 
 Mr. J. A. St. John, in his able work, The Nemesis of Power y 
 interprets Nemesis as "the personification of Justice, and as, 
 therefore, engaged equallv in rewarding and in punishing. Her 
 movements are slow, but irresistible ; and she is ever at work in 
 human society, ensuring ultimate triumph to the Good, and per- 
 dition to the Wicked. She may be regarded, therefore, as the 
 inseparable attendant on Power, 'to uphold and encourage it when 
 exercised for the benefit of mankind, to repress and chastise it 
 when perverted to their injury or destruction." 
 
 BEPEESENTATIONS OE " THE DEVIL/' 
 
 The devil, as he has been commonly depicted, is a form of a 
 composite character, chiefly derived from the classical supersti- 
 tions of Greece and Rome. 
 
 The devil, as usually described, and still in magic lantern exhi- 
 bitions portrayed, is cloven-footed and horned, tailed and black, 
 and carries a pitchfork which corresponds with the two-pronged 
 sceptre of Pluto, King of Hell. Mythologists make the im- 
 portant distinction, that the sceptre of Neptune, indeed, was a 
 trident, or had three teeth; but the sceptre of Pluto had only 
 two. Not only his pitchfork but his blackness, the devil owes to 
 Pluto ; who, from his disadvantageous position beneath the sur- 
 face, is named Jupiter niyer, the black Jupiter. (Sen.) Cf. " atri 
 janua Ditis," (Virg^ "mgri regia caeca dei," (Ov.) 
 
 The tail, horns, a) id cloven feet of the evil one are due to the 
 Greek satyri, and to their equivalents, the Roman fauni. These, 
 as we all know, had horns, and fails, and cloven feet. But be it 
 
Picture of Hell. Utter Darkness. 1 79 
 
 borne in mind, as a connecting link, that the word rendered 
 " satyrs," in the Old Testament, has by some been understood to 
 signify demons or devils. (Is. xiii, 21; xxxiv. 13.) Hence the 
 confusion of the attributes. 
 
 Considering the many fearful representations of Satanic power 
 which we find in Scripture, does it not signally indicate the in- 
 fluence of folk-lore, and the abiding operation of popular tradition, 
 when we thus find our worst enemy known vernacularly to this 
 day rather as the embodiment of bygone superstitions, than as a 
 spiritual adversary, not to be combatted save by weapons drawn 
 from the Christian armoury ? Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No. 201. 
 
 In the year 1739, there appeared in England a translation from 
 the French of a Jesuit, Bougeant, entitled A Philosophical Amuse- 
 ment upon the Language of Beasts. Bougeant was sent to the prison 
 of La Fleche for publishing this work, but was soon released. 
 His theory is, that the soul of every living animal, man executed, 
 is a devil : every fly, every locust, every oyster, every infusorium, 
 is animated by a devil. He admits transmigration, or the number 
 of evil spirits in his system would be perfectly bewildering. 
 
 The personality and existing power of Satan seem to be very 
 much lost sight of in the present day, though plainly declared in 
 Scripture, which always represents him as being now at large, as 
 Prince of the power of the air," while the current tradition has 
 him now bound in Hell, into which he is to be cast at a time yet 
 future, according to the testimony of all Scripture. People are 
 thus put off their guard against his wiles, and led captive by him 
 at his will. See, on this subject, generally, a very valuable lecture 
 delivered to a Society in Cork, by the Rev. M. Chester, Vicar of 
 Bally clough, Mallow and an Essay by Mr. Maitland, of Glou- 
 cester, on the same subject. Note to Truths for the Times : On 
 the Intermediate State. By the Rector of Clonmore. 1860. 
 
 PICTURE OE HELL. UTTER DARKNESS. 
 Cowley, in his Davideis, book i. sings : 
 
 Beneath the silent chambers of the earth, 
 Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, 
 Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, 
 Gold which above more influence has than he ; 
 Beneath the dens where unfletcht tempests lie, 
 And infant winds their tender voices try, 
 Beneath the mighty ocean's wealthy caves, 
 Beneath the eternal fountain of all waves, 
 Where their vast court the mother- waters keep, 
 And undisturb'd by moons in silence sleep,* 
 
 * To give a probable reason of the perpetual supply of wateis to 
 fountains, it is necessary to establish an abyss or deep gulf of waters, 
 
 if 2 
 
180 Sin and Punishment. 
 
 There is a place deep, wondrous deep, below, 
 Which genuine night and horror does o'erflow ; 
 No bound controls th' unwearied space, but Hell, 
 Endless as those dire pains that in it dwell. * 
 Here no clear glimpse of the Sun's lovely face 
 Strikes through the solid darkness of the place ; 
 No dawning morn does her kind reds display ; 
 One slight weak beam would here be thought the day. 
 
 In a previous Ode The Plagues of Egypt Cowley has this 
 passage upon the fate of Pharaoh : 
 
 What blindness or what darkness did there e'er 
 Like this undocil King's appear ? 
 What e'er but that which now does represent, 
 And paint the crime out in the punishment. 
 From the deep baleful caves of hell below, *t* 
 Where the old mother Night does grow, 
 
 into which the sea discharges itself, as rivers do into the sea, all which 
 maintain a perpetual circulation of water, like that of blood in a man's 
 body ; for to refer the originality of all fountains to condensation, and 
 afterwards dissolution of vapours upon the earth, is one of the most un- 
 philosophical opinions in all Aristotle. And this abyss of waters is very 
 agreeable to the Scriptures. Jacob blesses Joseph with the blessings of 
 the heayens above, and with the blessings of the deep beneath ; that 
 is, with the dew and rain of heaven, and with the fountains and rivers 
 that arise from the deep ; and Esdras, conformably to this, asks, what 
 habitations are in the heart of the sea, and what veins in the root of 
 the abyss ? So at the end of the Deluge, Moses says that God stopt 
 the windows of heaven, and the fountains of the abyss. 
 
 And undisturb'd by moons in silence sleep. For I suppose the moon 
 to be the principal if not the sole cause of the ebbing and flowing of 
 the sea, but to have no effect upon the waters that are beneath the sea 
 itself. 
 
 * This must be taken in a poetical sense ; for else, making Hell to 
 be in the centre of the earth, it is far from infinitely large or deep ; 
 yet, on my conscience, wherever it be, it is not so strait, as that crowd- 
 ing and sweating should be one of the torments of it, as is pleasantly 
 fancied by Bellarmin. Lessius, in his book De Morib. Divinis, as if he 
 had been there to survey it, determines the diameter lo be just a 
 Dutch mile. But Bibera, (upon and out of the Apocalypse,) allows 
 Pluto a little more elbow-room, and extends it to 1,600 furlongs, that 
 is 200 Italian miles. Virgil, (as good a divine for this matter as either 
 of them, ) says, it is twice as deep as the distance betwixt heaven and 
 earth. Hesiod is more moderate. Statius puts it very low, but he is not 
 so punctual in the distance : he finds out a hell beneath the vulgar one, 
 which uEschylus mentions also. The Scripture terms it Utter Darkness. 
 
 The room in St. James's Palace, formerly appropriated to the game 
 of Hazard, was remarkably dark, and conventionally called by the 
 inmates of the palace, "Hen" ; whence, and not as generally supposed, 
 from their own demerits, the term became applied to gaming-houses 
 generally. 
 
 f Chap. v. 21. Even darkness that may be felt. The Vulgar, Tarn, 
 denser (tenebrce) ut palpari queant. Whether this darkness was really 
 in the air, or only in their eyes, which might be blinded for the time ; 
 
The Wheel of Eternal Punishment. 181 
 
 Substantial Night, that does declaim 
 
 Privation's empty name, 
 
 Through secret conduits monstrous shapes arose, 
 Such as the Sun's whole force could not oppose, 
 
 They with a solid cloud 
 
 All heaven's eclipsed face did shroud. 
 Seem'd with large wings spread o'er the sea and earth, 
 To brood up a new chaos his deformed birth. 
 And every lamp and every fire, 
 Did at the dreadful sight wink and expire, 
 To the empyrean source all streams of light seem'd to retire. 
 The living men were in their standard houses buried ; 
 But the long night no slumber knows, 
 But the short death finds no repose. 
 Ten thousand terrors through the darkness fled, 
 And ghosts complain' d, and spirits murmured ; 
 And fancie's multiplying sight 
 View'd all the scenes invisible of night. 
 
 THE WHEEL OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 As the wicked (says Drexelius,) delight to consume their days 
 in a circle of pleasure, God will appoint them a circle, but it shall 
 be a circle of torments, which will never have an end. This was 
 foretold by holy David : " Thine arrows," says he, ( ' went abroad ; 
 the voice of thunder was heard round about." (Ps. Ixxvii. 17, 18.) 
 Famine, war, pestilence, disease, calamities, death, and all other 
 afflictions, under which we often languish in this life, are the arrows 
 of the Lord ; these, however, soon fly over us ; they swiftly pass 
 from one another ; but the voice of His thunder, the voice of His 
 anger and heavy displeasure, like a wheel that is always in motion, 
 shall sound about the infernal regions from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting.* 
 
 or whether a suspension of light from the act of illumination in that 
 country ; or whether it were by some black, thick, and damp vapour 
 which possessed the air ; it is impossible to determine. I fancy that the 
 darkness of hell below, which is called Utter Darkness, arose, and over- 
 shadowed the land ; and I am authorised by the Wisdom of Solomon, 
 chap. xvii. v. 14, where he calls it as Night that came upon them out of 
 the bottom of inevitable hell ; and, therefore, was the more proper to 
 be (as he says after) as an image of that darkness which should after- 
 wards receive them. 
 
 * Hence the mythological fable of the punishment of Ixion, the son 
 of Phlegyas, King of Thessaly, who treacherously murdered his father- 
 in-law. For this crime he was abhorred and shunned by the neighbouring 
 princes, when Jupiter, from pity, took him up to heaVen. Provoked at 
 his ingratitude and criminality, the sovereign of Olympus struck him 
 to Tartarus by lightning, and ordered Mercury to tie him with serpents 
 to a wheel, which, turning continually round, rendered his punishment 
 eternal : 
 
 Ixion and Pirithous I could name, 
 
 And more Thessalian chiefs of mighty fame. 
 
 Dryden's Virgil. 
 
1 82 Sin and Punishment. 
 
 This wheel, as if filled with gunpowder, when once it takes fire, 
 shall burn to all eternity. " A fire is kindled in mine anger, and 
 shall burn unto the lowest hell." (Deut. xxxii. 22.) There is 
 another circle which is likewise eternal, a continual changing 
 from the extremes of heat and cold. " Drought and heat consume 
 the snow-waters, and so does the grave those which have sinned." 
 (Job xxiv. 19.) This is more expressly intimated to us by the 
 "weeping and gnashing of teeth," which are mentioned by St. 
 Matthew. 
 
 Upon the above passage the Rev. H. P. Dunster, the editor of 
 D. Dunster's translation of the Reflections on Eternity of Jeremiah 
 Drexelius, notes : 
 
 " That a continual changing from the extremes of heat and cold 
 forms a portion of the punishment of the damned is a very common 
 notion among the old writers, and is founded upon one or two 
 passages in holy writ." The idea has been beautifully embodied by 
 Milton, in Paradise Lost, b. ii. : 
 
 Thither by harpy-footed fairies hal'd 
 
 At certain revolutions, all the damn'd 
 
 Are brought ; and feel by turns the bitter change 
 
 Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, 
 
 From beds of raging fire to starve in ice 
 
 Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine 
 
 Immoveable, in fix'd and frozen round, 
 
 Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire. 
 
 Shakspeare also describes the same, in Measure for Measure, 
 Act iii. : 
 
 Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 
 To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot ; 
 This sensible warm motion to become 
 A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit 
 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 
 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice. 
 
 THE FALLEN ANGEL. 
 
 With admirable union of pathos and sublimity has Milton 
 represented the fallen angel exclaiming, 
 
 Farewell, happy fields, 
 
 Where joys for ever dwell : Hail, horrors, hail 
 Infernal world ! and thou profoundest Hell 
 Receive thy new possessor ; one who brings 
 A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. 
 
CRUCIFIXION was the common mode of punishment among the 
 Persians, Carthaginians, and Romans; and the latter, at the 
 urgent and tumultuous solicitations of the Jews, were the execu- 
 tioners in the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The cross was the punishment inflicted by the Romans on 
 servants who had perpetrated crimes ; on robbers ; assassins ; and 
 rebels ; among whicn last Jesus was reckoned, on the ground of 
 his making himself King or Messiah (Luke xxiii. 1 5, 13 15). 
 
 The words in which the sentence was given, were as follows : 
 " Thou shalt go to the cross" The person to be punished, was 
 deprived of all his clothes, excepting something around the loins. 
 In this state of nudity, he was beaten, sometimes with rods, but 
 more generally with whips. Such was the severity of this flagella- 
 tion that numbers died under it. Jesus was crowned with thorns, 
 and made the subject of mockery; but nothing of this kind could 
 be legally done, or, in other words, insults of this kind were not 
 among the ordinary attendants of crucifixion. They were owing 
 in this case, solely to the petulant spirit of the Roman soldiers. 
 
 The criminal having been beaten, was subjected to the further 
 suffering of being obliged to carry the cross himself to the place of 
 punishment, which was commonly a hill near the public way, and 
 out of the city. The place of crucifixion at Jerusalem was a hill 
 to the north-west of the city. 
 
 The cross, a post, otherwise called the unpropUiom or infamous 
 tree, consisted of a piece of wood erected perpendicularly, and in- 
 tersected by another at right angles near the top, so as to resemble 
 the letter T. The crime for which the person suffered, was in- 
 scribed on the transverse piece near the top of the perpendicular one. 
 
 There is no mention made in ancient writers of anything on 
 which the feet of the person crucified rested. Near the middle, 
 however, of the perpendicular beam, there projected a piece of 
 wood, on which he sat, and which served as a support to the body ; 
 the weight of which might otherwise have torn away the hands 
 from the nails driven through them. Here we see the ground of 
 certain phrases as " To ride upon the cross ; " " to be borne upon 
 the cross ; " " to rest upon the sharp cross," &c. 
 
 The cross, which was erected at the place of punishment, and 
 
184 The Crucifixion of Our Lord. 
 
 firmly fixed in the ground, rarely exceeded 10 feet in height. The 
 nearly naked victim was elevated to the small projection in the 
 middle ; the hands were then bound by a rope round the transverse 
 beam, and nailed through the palms. Hence the expressions : " to 
 mount upon the cross ; " " to leap upon the cross ; " " to bring 
 one upon the cross/ 5 &c. 
 
 The Jews, in the times of which we are speaking, viz. whilst 
 they were under the jurisdiction of the Romans, were in the habit 
 of giving the criminal, before the commencement of his sufferings, 
 a medicated drink of wine and myrrh. (Prov. xxxi. 6.) The 
 object of this was to produce intoxication, and thereby render the 
 pains of crucifixion less sensible to the sufferer. This beverage 
 was refused by the Saviour, for the obvious reason that he chose 
 to die with the faculties of his mind undisturbed and unclouded. 
 It should be remarked that this sort of drink, which was, probably, 
 offered out of kindness, was different from the vinegar, which was 
 subsequently offered to the Saviour, by the Roman soldiers. The 
 latter was a mixture of vinegar and water, denorninated^0s#, and 
 was a common drink for soldiers in the Roman army. 
 
 The degree of anguish was gradual in its increase, and the cruci- 
 fied person was able to live under it, commonly till the third, and 
 sometimes till the seventh day. Pilate, therefore, being surprised 
 at the speedy termination of the Saviour's life, inquired in respect 
 to the truth of it of the centurion himself, who commanded the 
 soldiers. In order to bring; their life to a more speedy termination, 
 so that they might be buried on the same day, the bones of the 
 two thieves were broken with mallets ; and in order to ascertain 
 whether Jesus was really dead, or whether he had merely fallen 
 into a swoon, a soldier thrust his lance into his side, (undoubtedly 
 his left side,) but no signs of life appeared. If he had not been 
 previously dead, a wound of this kind in his side would have put 
 a period to his life, as has been shown, both by the physician 
 Eschenbach, and by Gruner. The part pierced was the peri- 
 cardium : hence lymph and blood flowed out. 
 
 There is sufficient proof that the physical cause of the death of 
 our blessed Saviour was the rupture of His sacred heart, caused by 
 mental agony. Dr. Macbride, in his Lectures on the Diatessaron, 
 quotes from the Evangelical Register of 1829 some observations of 
 a physician, who considers the record concerning the blood and 
 water as explaining (at least to a mere scientific age) that the real 
 cause of the death of Jesus was rupture of the heart, occasioned by 
 mental agony. Such rupture, it is stated, is usually attended by 
 instant death, without previous exhaustion, and by the effusion 
 into the pericardium of blood, which, in this particular case, 
 though scarcely in any other, separates into its two constituent 
 parts, so as to present the appearance commonly termed blood and 
 water. Thus the prophecy, "Reproach hath broken my heart" 
 
The Crucifixion of Our Lord. 185 
 
 (Psalm Ixix. 20), was fulfilled, as were so many others, in the 
 momentous circumstances of the Crucifixion, to the very letter. 
 
 Dr. Stroud, by the publication, in 1847, of his Treatise on the 
 Physical Came of the Death of Christ, is considered to have thrown 
 a new light upon this solemn inquiry. In this work, the doctor's 
 application of the science of physiology is brought into juxta- 
 position with the light of revelation ; and the two establish the 
 conclusion, that the bursting of the heart from mental agony was 
 the physical cause of the death of Christ. (Selected and condensed 
 from three communications to Notes and Queries, 2d Series, No. 25.) 
 
 The Head, the Hope, the Supporter of those who gave their bodies 
 to be burnt drank Himself of a bitter cup. Of all the devices of cruel 
 imaginations, Crucifixion is the master-piece. Other pains are sharper 
 for a time, but none are at once so agonising and so long. One aggra- 
 vation, however, was wanting, which, owing to the want of knowledge 
 in painters, is still, we believe, commonly supposed to have belonged to 
 the punishment. The weight of the body was borne by a ledge which 
 projected from the middle of the upright beam, and not by the hands 
 and feet, which were probably found unequal to the strain. The frailty 
 of man's frame comes at last to be its own defence ; but enough re- 
 mained to preserve the pre-eminence of torture to the cross. The pro- 
 cess of nailing was exquisite torment, and yet worse in what ensued 
 than in the actual infliction. The spikes rankled, the wouiius inflamed, 
 the local injury produced a general fever, the fever a most intolerable 
 thirst ; but the misery of miseries to the sufferer was, while racked 
 with agony, to be fastened in a position which did not permit him even 
 to writhe. Every attempt to relieve the muscles, every instinctive 
 movement of anguish, only served to drag the lacerated flesh, and 
 wake up new and acuter pangs ; and this torture, which must have 
 been continually aggravated until advancing death began to lay it to 
 sleep, lasted on an average two or three days. Quarterly Review. 
 
 With these harrowing details in the mind's eye, a painting of 
 the Crucifixion is sometimes viewed by unthinking persons, 
 who ill appreciate the painter's art, and least of all, Christian art, 
 such persons, we say, look upon this sublime work merely as a 
 representation of physical suffering. We have heard Albert 
 Durer's grand picture of the Crucifixion, in one of the churches of 
 Nurenberg, and made familiar to us by the finely executed German 
 prints, objected to, on the above account ; but the mind of the 
 devout Christian regards it not as a scene on earth, but "as the 
 universal frame of Nature giving testimony to Christ's divinity." 
 (See Things not generally Known, First Series, page 98.) 
 
 The Socrates of Plato blessing the executioner who in tears ad- 
 ministered to him the cup of poison, is a noble conception : but how 
 poor compared with Jesus, the Son of God, " in the midst of ex- 
 cruciating tortures praying for his merciless tormentors ! " How 
 touchingly are these sufferings described in the following stanzas 
 from " Christ's Passion," by Cowley, " taken out of a Greek Ode, 
 written by Mr. Masters, of New College, in Oxford : " 
 
186 The Crucifixion of Our Lord. 
 
 Methinks I hear of murther'd men the voice, 
 Mix'd with the murtherers' confused noise, 
 
 Sound from the top of Calvary ; 
 My greedy eyes fly up the hill, and see 
 Who 'tis hangs there the midmost of the three : 
 
 Oh how unlike the others He ! 
 
 Look how he bends his gentle head with blessings from the tree ! 
 His gracious hands ne'er stretch'd but to do good, 
 
 Are nail'd to the infamous wood ; 
 
 And sinful man does fondly bind 
 The arms, which he extends t' embrace all human kind. 
 
 Unhappy man, canst thou stand by, and see 
 All this, as patient as he ? 
 Since he thy sins does bear, 
 Make thou his sufferings thine own, 
 And weep, and sigh, and groan, 
 And beat thy breast, and tear 
 Thy garments, and thy hair, 
 And let thy grief, and let thy love 
 Through all thy bleeding bowels move. 
 
 Dost thou not see thy Prince in purple clad all o'er, 
 
 Not purple brought from the Sidonian shore, 
 
 But made at home with richer gore ? 
 Dost thou not see the roses, which adorn 
 
 The thorny garland by him worn ? 
 
 Dost thou not see the livid traces 
 
 Of the sharp scourge's rude embraces ? 
 
 If thou feelest not the smart 
 
 Of thorns and scourges in thy heart, 
 
 If that be yet not crucify 'd, 
 Look on his hands, look on his feet, look on his side. 
 
 Open, oh ! open wide the fountains of thine eyes, 
 
 And let 'em call 
 Their stock of moisture forth, where it lyes, 
 
 For this will ask it all. 
 
 'Twould all (alas !) too little be 
 
 Though thy salt tears came from a sea : 
 
 Canst thou deny Him this, when He 
 Has open'd all his vital springs for thee ? 
 Take heed ; for by his side's mysterious flood 
 
 May well be understood 
 That He will still require some waters to his blood. 
 
 We add two commemorations in meditative verse : 
 
 LOQUITUR CRUCIFIXUS. 
 
 man, look what shame for thee 
 Willingly I take on me : 
 See my bodie scourged round, 
 That it forms but all one wound, 
 Hanging up 'twixt earth and sky, 
 Mocked and scorned by all goes by. 
 See my arms stretched wide and open, 
 And my sinews torne and broken. 
 See upon the cross I hang, 
 
Knowledge of God before the Time of Christ 187 
 
 View these nails with bitter pang, 
 Which my own weight doth not tear, 
 But thy weighty sins I bear. 
 See my head, O me, forlorne, 
 Pierced deepe with cruel thorne, 
 Which so long thereon hath stood 
 That the twig runs down with blood. 
 View my feet, and see my side, 
 Pierced and plowed with furrows wide. 
 See, all comfort from me taken, 
 Both of heaven and earth forsaken ; 
 And not one, with word or deed, 
 Pities me while here I bleed. 
 Yea, they all that stand in hearing, 
 Mocke me for my patient bearing, 
 And with scoffs augment my sore, 
 When with bitter paine I roar. 
 Eli ! Eli ! I am dying ! 
 Hark ! they mocke me too for crying. 
 This I beare for thine amiss : 
 Was there ever paine like this ? 
 Yea, and I do most fear that, 
 Lest thou, man, shouldst prove ingrat. 
 Now thou dost but make me smart ; 
 But in that thou killst my heart. 
 From t( Diners Deuout and Zealous Meditations." Harleian MSS. 
 
 THE CEOSSE OF CHRIST. 
 
 Rise, my soul, with thy desires to heaven, 
 
 And with divinest contemplation use 
 Thy time, where time's eternity is given ; 
 
 And let vain thoughts no more my thoughts abuse, 
 But down in midnight darkness let them lie ; 
 So live thy better, let thy worst thoughts die. 
 
 And thou, my soul, inspired with holy flame, 
 
 View and review, with most regardful eie, 
 That holy crosse, whence thy salvation came, 
 
 On which thy Saviour and thy sin did die ; 
 For in that sacred object is much pleasure, 
 And in that Saviour is my life, my treasure. 
 
 To thee, Jesu ! I direct mine eies, 
 To thee my hands, to Thee my humble knees ; 
 
 To thee my heart shall offer sacrifice, 
 To thee my thoughts, who my thoughts only sees ; 
 
 To thee myself myself and all, I give ; 
 
 To thee I die, to thee I only live.-^V Walter Raleigh. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD BEFORE THE TIME OF CHRIST. 
 
 Not a single philosopher had any idea of a God of such an 
 exalted character, as to be the agent in the construction of the 
 Universe, till Anaxagoras, the disciple of Hermotimus. This 
 philosopher came to Athens in the year 456 before Christ, and 
 first taught that the world was organized or constructed by some 
 
188 The Crucifixion of Our Lord. 
 
 mind, or mental being, out of matter, which it was supposed, had 
 always existed. Socrates, Plato, and others, adopted, illustrated, 
 and adorned this opinion. 
 
 Aristotle, on the contrary, supposed the world to have existed 
 in its organized form eternally, and that the Supreme Being, who 
 was co-existent, merely put it in motion. 
 
 The Epicureans believed that a fortuitous concurrence of atoms 
 was the origin of all things. Many were atheists; many were 
 sceptics who doubted and assailed every system of opinions. 
 
 Those who maintained the existence of a framer or architect of 
 the world, (for no one believed in a creator of it,) supported the 
 opinion of the existence of an animating principle in matter, which 
 originated from the supreme architect, and which regulated the 
 material system. 
 
 Things of minor consequence, especially those which influenced 
 the destiny of man, were referred by all classes, to the govern- 
 ment of the gods, who were accordingly the objects of worship, 
 and not the Supreme Architect. Paul gives a sufficiently favour- 
 able representation of this defective knowledge of God. (Rom. i. 
 19 24.) After all, it may be the subject of an inquiry, whether 
 Anaxagoras or Hermotimus had not learnt some things respecting 
 the God of the Hebrews from those Jews, who were sold as slaves 
 by the Phoenicians, into Greece (Joel iii. 6) ; or from the Phoenicians 
 themselves, who traded in Ionia and Greece ; and whether these 
 philosophers did not thus acquire that knowledge, which was 
 thought to have originated with themselves. Perhaps they de- 
 rived their notions of an Eternal Architect from the doctrine of 
 the Persians respecting Hazaraum, or the endless succession of 
 time, and Ormuz who acted the part of the creator of the world. 
 However this may be, we observe on this topic, 
 
 1. That the Hebrews remained firm to their religion, before 
 their acquaintance with Grecian philosophy, although many re- 
 ceded from it, after forming such an acquaintance. 
 
 2. The philosophic doctrine respecting the architect of the 
 world rested on arguments of so subtle a kind, that they could 
 not have been understood by the Jewish populace, and therefore, 
 could not have been applied by them, to confirm their minds in 
 religious truth. According to Cicero, De Natura Deorum, lib. i. 
 6, such was the contention, even among the learned, with respect 
 to the doctrine of the gods, that those who had the most strength 
 and confidence on their side were compelled to doubt. Dr. Jahn's 
 Manual of Biblical Antiquities, pp. 362-3. 
 
 " CHRIST THE MORAL SAVIOUR." 
 
 Baron Bunsen, whose Biblical Researches occupy so large a 
 share of the public mind, stands at the furthest pole from those 
 
Christ the Moral Saviour. 189 
 
 who find no divine footsteps in the Gentile world. He believes 
 in Christ, because he first believes in God and in mankind. In 
 this he harmonizes with the Church Fathers before Augustin, 
 and with all our deepest Evangelical schools. In handling the 
 New Testament he remains faithful to his habit of exalting 
 spiritual ideas, and the leading characters by whose personal im- 
 rjulse they have been stamped on the world. Other foundation 
 for healthful mind or durable society, he suffers no man to lay, 
 save that of Jesus, the Christ of God. In Him he finds brought 
 to perfection that religious idea which is the thought of the 
 Eternal, without conformity to which our souls cannot be saved 
 from evil. He selects for emphasis such sayings as, " / came to 
 cast fire upon the earth, and how I would it were already kindled ! 
 I have a baptism to be baptised with } and how am I straitened until 
 it be accomplished!" In these he finds the innermost mind of 
 the Son of Man, undiramed by the haze of mingled imagination 
 and remembrance, with which his awful figure could scarcely fail 
 to be at length invested by affection. The glimpses thus afforded 
 us into the depth of our Lord's purpose, and his law of giving 
 rather than of receiving, explain the wonder-working power with 
 which he wielded the truest hearts of his generation, and cor- 
 respond to his life and death of self-sacrifice. This recognition of 
 Christ as the moral Saviour of mankind may seem to some Baron 
 Bunsen's most obvious claim to the name of Christian. Dr. Wil- 
 liams ; Essays and Reviews. 
 
 [Christian Charles Bunsen, the profound scholar, passed from 
 among us, at a patriarchal age, at Bonn, on Nov. 28, 1860, and 
 was buried on Dec. 1. The coffin was wreathed with evergreens, 
 intermingled with garlands of flowers, most of them presented by 
 friends ; besides a bunch of flowers and a wreath which the 
 Princess of Prussia had a few days previously sent to the Baron 
 as a mark of sympathy and remembrance. The coffin being 
 placed in the centre of the library, and the clergy and mourners 
 having arrived, a favourite hymn of the Baron was played on the 
 organ : the body was then borne by the handles by his sons, son- 
 in-law, and secretaries, who were relieved by students of the 
 University, and was thus carried to the grave, where the family 
 and connexions of the deceased sprinkled earth upon the coffin : 
 it was then left on the platform over the grave, covered with 
 flowers, and not lowered to its last resting place till all the 
 mourners had departed.] 
 
flf % 
 
 AN epidemic terror of the end of the world has several times 
 spread over the nation. The most remarkable was that which 
 seized Christendom about the beginning of the eleventh century, 
 when, in Prance, Germany, and Italy, fanatics preached that the 
 thousand years prophesied in the Apocalypse as the term of the 
 world's duration were about to expire, and that the Day of Judg- 
 ment was at hand. This delusion was discouraged by the Church, 
 but it spread rapidly among the people. The scene of the Last 
 Judgment was expected to be at Jerusalem, where, in the year 
 1000, a host of pilgrims, smitten with terror as with a plague, 
 awaited the coming of the Lord. 
 
 "There may," says Dr. Williams, "be a long future during 
 which the present course of the world shall last. Instead of its 
 drawing near the close of its existence, as represented in Miilenna- 
 rian or Rabbinical fables, and with so many more souls, according 
 to some interpretations of the Gospel of Salvation, lost to Satan 
 in every age and in every nation, than have been won to Christ, 
 that the victory would evidently be on the side of the Eiend, we 
 may yet be only at the commencement of the career of the great 
 Spiritual Conqueror even in this world. Nor have we any right 
 to say that the effects of what He does upon earth shall not 
 extend and propagate themselves in worlds to come. But under 
 any expectation of the duration of the present secular constitu- 
 tion, it is of the deepest interest to us, both as observers and as 
 agents, placed evidently at an epoch when humanity finds itself 
 under new conditions, to form some definite conception to our- 
 selves of the way in which Christianity is henceforward to ac- 
 upon the world which is our own." Essays and Reviews. 
 
 The Epistle of St. James, from his prophetical office, possesses 
 a special interest from its conveying to us a picture of the end 
 of the world. Dr. Wordsworth, in his Commentary upon this 
 Epistle, says : 
 
 " The last days of Jerusalem are, as we know from Christ Himself, 
 prophetical and typical of the last days of the world. The sin?? of tho- 
 last days of Jerusalem will be the sins of ihe last days of the world. 
 
The End of the World foretold. 191 
 
 Hollow professions of religion, empty shows and shadows of faith, par- 
 tiality and respect of persons, slavish idolatry of riches, observance of 
 some of God's commandments, with open and impious defiance of 
 others ; arrogant assumption of the office of religious teaching, without 
 due call and authority ; encouragement and patronage of those who set 
 themselves up to be spiritual guides ; sins of the tongue, evil speaking 
 against man and God ; envying and strife, factious and party feuds, 
 wars and fightings; adulteries, pride, and revelry; low woiidliness, 
 and presumptuous self-confidence; a Babel-like building up of secular 
 plans and projects, independently of God's will, and against it ; vain- 
 glorious display of wealth ; hardheartedness towards those by whose 
 industry that wealth is acquired ; self-indulgence and sensuality ; an 
 obstinate continuance in that evil temper of unbelief which rejected and 
 crucified Christ : these were the sins of the last days of Jerusalem as 
 described by St. James ; for these she was to be destroyed by God ; for 
 these she was destroyed ; and her children were scattered abroad, and 
 have now been outcasts for near two thousand years. Here is a pro- 
 phetic picture of the world's state in the last days. Here is a prophetic 
 warning to men and nations, especially to wealthy commercial nations 
 in the last times." 
 
 The following eloquent exposition of this great question is 
 abridged from the Saturday Review, April 14th, 1860 : 
 
 The belief that all human affairs will at some time or other be 
 terminated by one tremendous dramatic catastrophe that the 
 whole history of the human race leads up to that result, and that 
 the epoch at which it will take place is capable of being foretold 
 commends itself so powerfully to the imagination of mankind, 
 and is met with under so many different forms in various coun- 
 tries and at various epochs of human history, that it is well worth 
 while to consider what are the natural foundations on which it 
 rests. It is most unquestionably true that, in times and countries 
 where there has been any intellectual activity at all, men have 
 shown a disposition to attribute to the history of the human race 
 a sort of dramatic unity. Traces of this tendency are to be found 
 in the classical visions of ages of gold, silver, brass, and iron in 
 the Hindoo cycles and avatars m the ancient Rabbinical tradi- 
 tions to which a certain number of idle pretenders to learning still 
 profess to attach importance in our own days and in the eager- 
 ness with which the Christian world has in all ages deduced from 
 the Bible, not merely the general doctrine (which is not discussed 
 here) that the present dispensation will conclude at a given time, 
 and in a visible and, so to speak, dramatic manner, but the specific 
 opinion that that final consummation was at hand on many diffe- 
 rent occasions. Every one knows that certain classes of society 
 in the present day receive the expressions of this opinion not only 
 with favour, but with a sort of avidity ; and most of us are pro- 
 bably aware that at particular periods as, for example, at the 
 beginning of the eleventh century the conviction that the end 
 of the world was actually approaching prevailed so universally as 
 to produce very serious effects indeed upon the current business 
 
192 The End of the World foretold. 
 
 and proceedings of society. There are, indeed, some arguments 
 produced in favour of specific predictions upon the subject which 
 are so feeble that they can hardly weigh with any one Qualified to 
 appreciate the answers to them, though they are at times urged 
 with a dishonesty which requires exposure; but the sentiment 
 which gives these arguments their real weight is a very different 
 and a far more important matter, and deserves closer and more 
 sympathetic examination than it usually receives. 
 
 The tendency of men to believe that the world will come to an 
 end, and to dally with and in some degree to welcome the antici- 
 pation, is only one form of their impatience of the conditions 
 under which they think and live, and the impatience is one which 
 is neither ignoble nor altogether unreasonable. Rude ages and 
 populations are, to an immense degree, opposed by the routine of 
 daily life, and in more cultivated times a somewhat similar result 
 is produced by the wide diffusion of scientific methods of .thought 
 and observation. The thought presses on the mind that the thing 
 that hath been the same shall also be that the world* and all 
 that is in it, and all the other worlds by which it is surrounded, 
 are a huge dead machine, grinding on eternally according, -to its 
 own principles, and coming back perpetually at regular intervals 
 to the same result. 
 
 The conception of the End of the World is a welcome one. It is 
 a sort of opportunity for the spiritual nature of man to defy its 
 material antagonist. It is a grand and an elevating thought that 
 at some time, and under some circumstances, all that we see, and 
 touch, and weigh, and measure, will cease to be ; and that the 
 spirits of men will be recognised, whether for good or for evil, as 
 the real substances of which the heavens and the earth are the 
 mere accidents. Every generation is guided, and to a great extent 
 governed, by ideal conceptions ; and the conceptions which influ- 
 ence any given age are indicated by the abstract words which 
 find most favour with it. In our own times, phrases like ' ' pro- 
 gress " and " civilization " point to a view of life which to many 
 minds is utterly intolerable. They imply some such dream as this 
 The time will come, and is now coming, when war shall be un- 
 known, when crime shall cease, when comfort shall be universal, 
 and when life, almost freed from disease, shall be prolonged some 
 years beyond its present limit. Every year will bring forth inven- 
 tions which will economise labour and diffuse the knowledge of 
 principles that will give an ease, a gentleness, and a regularity to 
 life which exists at present only amongst affluent and privileged 
 classes. Such is the sort of ideal which in a thousand ways is 
 hinted at. 
 
 The world in which we live is a moral problem already, and one 
 which is at times distressing, but such a lubberland as that could 
 only be made tolerable by the prospect of its speedy end. That 
 
Geological Future of the Universe. 193 
 
 men really passed through six thousand years of trial and suffering 
 in order that there might be at last a perpetual succession of com- 
 fortable shopkeepers, is a supposition so revolting to the moral 
 sense that it would be difficult to reconcile it with any belief at all 
 in a Divine Providence. The expectation that the world that 
 is, that human society will some day come to an end, is based 
 upon the belief that man is something more than the complement 
 to brute matter, and that it is he who imparts dignity and interest 
 to the planet in which he lives, and does not receive his importance 
 from it. It follows from such a belief that the narrow and limited 
 range of human faculties, the ceaseless strife and bottomless con- 
 fusion of human passions, the struggle between moral good and 
 evil each of which, as far as human eyes can see, is not only 
 antagonistic but necessary to the other are not mere processes 
 tending to work out their own solution here in some future genera- 
 tion, but tremendous and awful mysteries which can never be re- 
 conciled until some final decision and judgment is pronounced upon 
 them. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE. 
 
 On the whole, the groups and systems of the geologist imper- 
 fectly interpreted as they yet undoubtedly are present a long 
 series of mineral mutations, and of vital gradation and progress, 
 Not progress from imperfection to perfection, but from humbler 
 to more highly organised orders, as if the great design of Nature 
 had been to ascend from the simple conception of materialism to 
 the higher aims of mechanical combination, from mechanism to the 
 subtler elimination of mind, and from mentalism to the still nobler 
 attribute of moralism, as developed alone in the intellect and soul 
 of man. From the lowly sea-weeds of the silurian strata and 
 marsh-plants of the old red sandstone, we rise (speaking in general 
 terms) to the prolific clubmosses, reeds, ferns, and gigantic en- 
 dogens of the coal measures ; from these to the palms, cy cads, and 
 pines of the oolite ; and from these again to the exogens or true 
 timber-trees of the tertiary and current eras. So also in the 
 animal kingdom : the graptolites aad trilobites of the silurian seas 
 are succeeded by the higher Crustacea and bone-clad fishes of the 
 old red sandstone ; these by the sauroid fishes of the coal-measures ; 
 the sauroid fishes by the gigantic saurians and reptiles of the 
 oolite ; the reptiles of the oolite by the huge mammalia of the 
 tertiary epoch ; and these in time give place to existing .species, 
 with man as the crowning form of created existence. This idea 
 of gradulation implies not only an onward change among the rock- 
 materials of the earth, but also, as plants and animals are in- 
 fluenced in their forms and distributions by external causes, new 
 phases, and arrangements of vitality the creation of new species, 
 
 o 
 
194 The End of the World foretold. 
 
 and the dropping out of others from the great scheme of animated 
 nature. And such is the fact even with Respect to the current era. 
 The mastodon, mammoth, and other huge pachyderms that lived 
 from the tertiary into the modern epoch have long since become 
 extinct, leaving their bones in the silts and sands of our valleys. 
 The elk, urus, bear, wild-boar, wolf, and beaver are now extinct 
 in Britain ; and what takes place in insular districts must also 
 occur, though more slowly, in- continental regions. The dodo of 
 the Mauritius, and the dinornis of New Zealand, are now matters 
 of history ; and the same causes that led to the extinction of these, 
 seem hurrying onward to the obliteration of the beaver, ostrich, 
 elephant, kangaroo, and other animals whose circumscribed pro- 
 vinces are gradually being broken in upon by new conditions. 
 
 Such facts as these, taken in connexion with the physical 
 changes that are occasionally taking place on the surface of the 
 globe, necessarily lead to speculations as to the conditions and 
 phases of the Future. Respecting these, however, it were in vain 
 to offer even the widest conjecture. Subjected as our planet is to 
 the numerous modifying causes already described, we know that 
 vast changes are now in progress, and that the present aspect of 
 nature will not be the same as those she must assume in the eras 
 that are to follow. But what may be the nature and amount of 
 these changes, what the new conditions brought about by them, 
 or what the races of plants and animals adapted by these con- 
 ditions, science has yet no available means of determining. This 
 only the philosophical mind rests assured of, that be the future 
 vicissitudes of the globe what they may, they will continue to be 
 the harmonious results of Law and of Order ; and that, as through- 
 out the whole of the future, the great COSMICAL DESIGN which 
 geology now labours to reveal, will be steadily upheld by the Omni- 
 scient omnipotence of Him " with whom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning." Advanced Text-Book of Geology, by David 
 Page, E.G.S. 
 
 * In the widespread attention recently paid to the study of unful- 
 filled prophecy, certain writers have been ignorantly charged with 
 prophesying the End of the World ; whereas they foretell what is 
 written rather than attempt to foretell what is about to come to pass. 
 They pretend to no interior inspiration ; but state their conclusions a" 
 inferences from the inspired record, accepting it alone as their only 
 premises, and leaving to their readers to acquiesce or otherwise in their 
 deductions. Thus, the Kev. Dr. Gumming shows, very forcibly, the 
 year 1867 as the eve of the world's long predicted Millennial Kest ; 
 and he quotes an array of names who concur with him in looking to 
 1867 as a great crisis a testing crisis intersected by the various lines 
 of prophetic dates. See "The School of the Prophets," Times, Nov. 3, 
 1859, a comprehensive view of the subject admirably adapted for its 
 place. 
 
after 
 
 THE DEAD KNOW NOT ANY THING. 
 
 ARISTOTLE thought that the Dead are affected in the other 
 world, by the honour or the reproach which is variously ascribed 
 to their memory in this. 
 
 How forcibly is this strange belief of the Stagirite falsified in this 
 Scriptural evidence " of Man's Ignorance of the Men and Things 
 of this World after his departure hence :" 
 
 Thou destroyest the hope of man : thou prevailest for ever against 
 him, and he passeth : thou changest his countenance, and sendest him 
 away : his sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not ; and they are 
 brought low, but he perceivethit not of them. Job xiv. 19, 20, 21. 
 
 But the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a 
 reward, for the memory of them is forgotten : Also their love and their 
 hatred, and their envy is now perished ; neither have they any more a 
 portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun. Ecclesias. 
 ix. 5, 6. 
 
 Doubtless, thou art our father ; though Abraham be ignorant of us ; 
 and Israel acknowledge us not. Isa. Ixiii. 16. 
 
 PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 The vain custom of offering prayers to God on behalf of the 
 Dead existed at a very early period after the death of the primi- 
 tive teachers of Christianity. Tertullian (A.D. 200) says that the 
 custom prevailed before his time. During the third and fourth 
 centuries, prayers were offered for the Dead with the belief that 
 they benefited the departed in various ways. Dr. Burton speaks 
 apologetically of this practice : he says, in effect, that in the 
 second and third centuries Christians were agreed that the soul 
 was, in its disembodied state, not insensible or asleep, but in a 
 place apart, where it enjoyed a foretaste of the happiness which 
 awaited it hereafter. It was also believed by a large portion of 
 Christians that the resurrection of the righteous would take place 
 before the final resurrection of all mankind at the day of judgment. 
 When they spoke of the first resurrection, they meant that the 
 righteous would rise and reign with Christ upon earth a thousand 
 years, at the end of which period the general resurrection would 
 o2 
 
196 Man after Death. 
 
 take place. Burton assumes, that it was natural for them to add 
 to this belief, that the souls of the righteous, while they were in 
 their separate abode, were anxiously looking forward to the time 
 of the first resurrection, when they would be released from con- 
 finement ; and their surviving friends did not think it improper 
 to make it a subject of prayer to God, that He would be pleased ' 
 to hasten the period when those who had departed in His faith 
 and fear might enter into His heavenly kingdom. Dr. Burton 
 assumes that this was the only^ sense in which prayers were offered 
 for the dead ; that the primitive Christians did not think their 
 prayers could affect the present or future condition of those who 
 were departed. 
 
 The testimonies, however, of the Christian fathers, prove that 
 this is a very partial view of the practice. It is clear that the 
 prayers were directed to the following particulars: That God 
 would receive such persons to Himself; that He would grant 
 them forgiveness of all remains of sin and imperfection ; that He 
 would allow them an early share in the millennial reign of Christ 
 on earth, and favour at the Day of Judgment, (when they supposed 
 that all men would pass through a fire of purgation,) and an 
 augmentation of their reward and glory in the state of final 
 blessedness. It is certain also that prayers were offered for those 
 who had died in sin, in hope of mitigating their sufferings, or 
 rendering their condemnation more tolerable. The Church of 
 England, at one time, encouraged this practice. In an ancient 
 service-book, in the place of the present " Thanksgiving," there 
 occurs the following : " We commend unto Thy mercy, Lord, 
 all other Thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the 
 sign of faith, and now do rest in sleep of peace : Grant unto them, 
 we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and everlasting peace," &c. The 
 practice is, however, strongly condemned in the Homilies, and any 
 passages in the Common Prayer which tended to encourage this 
 erroneous and unscriptural usage, have been expunged. Eccle- 
 siastical Dictionary, by the Rev. John Farrar. 
 
 THE CONDITION OF MAN AFTER DEATH. 
 
 That the ancient Hebrews, that the Patriarchs themselves, had 
 some idea of a future life, is evident ; although we must acknow- 
 ledge their information on the subject to have been limited and 
 obscure. 
 
 1. "From the distinction which is made between the subterra- 
 nean residence denominated Sheol ; and the grave, or place of 
 interment for the body.* 
 
 * Gen. xxv. 8 ; xxvii. 35 ; xlix. 33 ; 1. 210 ; Numb. xx. 2426 ; 
 Deut. xxxi. 16 ; xxxiv. 7 ; 1 Kings xi. 43. 
 
The Condition of Man .after Death. 197 
 
 2. That they believed in the existence of the spirit after the 
 death of the body, is evident likewise from the credit which they 
 were disposed to give to the art of necromancy, by means of 
 which the Jews believed that the spirits of the dead were summoned 
 back to the present scene of existence.* 
 
 The objection which is sometimes made, viz. that persons whose 
 minds are under the influence of superstition are very inconsistent 
 with themselves and in their opinions, does not avail anything in 
 the present case ; for it would, in truth, be a miracle of incon- 
 sistency, if those persons who believed that departed spirits were 
 no longer existing, should, nevertheless, give full credit to the 
 ability of such non-existent spirits, to reveal the mysteries of the 
 future. 
 
 The belief of the ancient Hebrews, therefore, on this subject 
 was, that the spirits of the dead were received into Sheol, which 
 is represented as a large subterranean abode, j* into which we are 
 told that the wicked were driven suddenly, their days being cut 
 short ; but the good descended into it tranquilly, and in the fulness 
 of their years. 
 
 This very spacious dwelling-place for those who have gone 
 hence, is often described as sorrowful, and as the land of darkness 
 and the shadow of death, Job x. 21 ; Ps. vi. 5 ; Ixxxviii. 11 12 ; 
 cxv. 17 ; Is. xxxviii. 18 ; but in Is. xiv. 9, et seq., it is represented 
 as full of activity ; and in other places, as we may learn from Job 
 xxvi. 5, 6, and 1 Samuel xxviii. 7, more than human knowledge is 
 ascribed to its inhabitants, which is, indeed, implied in the trust 
 which was reposed in necromancers. In this abode, moreover, the 
 Departed Spirits rejoice in that rest so much desired by the 
 Orientals, (Job iii. 13) ; and there the living hope to see once more 
 their beloved ancestors and children ; and there also the servant 
 is at length freed from his master, and enjoys a cessation from his 
 labours : " There the wicked cease from troubling, there the 
 weary be at rest." Job iii. 13 19. 
 
 That the ancient Hebrews believed the good and the bad to be 
 separated in Sheol, although it might be inferred from their ideas 
 of the justice and benignity of God (Matt. xxii. 32), cannot be 
 proved by any direct testimony. The probability, however, that 
 this was the case, seems to be increased, when it is remembered 
 that the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, who in chapter iii. 18, 
 speaks somewhat hesitatingly of the immortality of the soul, says, 
 in chapter xii. 7, that " the spirit shall return to God who gave it; " 
 [and, although he nowhere in express terms holds up the doctrine 
 of future rewards and punishments, yet he informs us in chap. 
 
 * Lev. xix. 31 ; xx. 6, 7, 26, 27 ; Deut. xviii. 11 ; 1 Sam. xviii. 3, 10 ; 
 2 Kings xxiii. 24 ; 1 Chron. x. 13 ; Is. xix. 3 ; xxix. 4 ; Ivii. 9 ; comp. 
 Zech. xiii. 26. 
 
 f Gen. xxxvii. 35 ; comp. Numb. xvi. 3033 ; Deut. xxxii. 22. 
 
198 Man after Death. 
 
 xiii. 14, of something very similar to it, viz. " That God shall bring 
 every good work into judgment ', with every secret thing, whether good 
 or evil"~\ 
 
 "We have not authority, therefore, to say positively that any 
 other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue the 
 good and to avoid the evil, than those which were derived from 
 the rewards and punishments of this life. That these were the 
 motives which were presented to their minds in order to in- 
 fluence them to pursue a right course of conduct, is expressly 
 asserted in Isaiah xxvi. 9, 10, and may be learnt also from the 
 imprecations which are met with in many parts of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 The MeJiestmi, who were disciples of Zoroaster, believed in the 
 immortality of the soul, in rewards and punishments after death, 
 and in the resurrection of the body; at the time of which resur- 
 rection, all the bad would be purged by fire, and associated with 
 the good. (See Zend-Avesta ; comp. Ezek. xxxvii. 1 14.) 
 
 There is some uncertainty respecting the passages in Daniel, 
 xi. 2, 3, 13 ; but it is possible that they may be a confirmation of 
 the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead ; and it is very clear 
 that Haggai (ii. 23,) speaks of some state of glory after the 
 termination of the present life. (Compare Zech. lii. 7.) These 
 sentiments of the later prophets, which are perfectly in unison 
 with what is said of the justice and clemency of God in other 
 parts of the Old Testament, were at length adopted by the Jews 
 generally, with the exception of the Sadducees, against whom they 
 are defended in the apocryphal books of Maccabees and 
 Wisdom. 
 
 Thus the Jews were gradually prepared to receive that broader 
 and fuller light which Jesus shed upon them, see 2 Tim. i. 10. 
 Dr. Jahn's Manual of Biblical Antiquities, pp. 363 5. 
 
 Bishop Hall, (Invisible World: Of the Souls of Men,) says : 
 
 That the soul, after separation from the body, hath an independent 
 life of its own, is so clear a truth, that the very heathen Philosophers, 
 by the dim light of nature have determined it for irrefragable : In so 
 much as Aristotle himself, (who is wont to bear ill for his opinion of 
 the soul's mortality,) is confidently reported to have written a book of 
 the Soul separate, which Thomas Aquinas, in his (so late) age, pro- 
 fesses to have seen : Sure I am that his Master Plato, and that heathen 
 Martyr, Socrates (related by him) are full of divine discourses of this 
 kind. In so much as this latter, when Crito was asking him how he 
 would be buried : I perceive (said he) I have lost much labour, for I 
 have not yet persuaded my Crito, that I shall fly clear away, and leave 
 nothing behind me ; meaning that the soul is the man, and would be 
 ever itself, when his body should have no being ; And in Xenophon, (so 
 Cicero cites him,) Cyrus is brought in saying Nolite arbitrari, &c. 
 Think not, my dear sons, that when I shall depart from you, I shall then 
 cease to have any being ; for even while I was with you, ye saw not the 
 soul which I had, but yet ye well saw, by those things which I did, that 
 
The Condition of Man after Death. 199 
 
 there was a soul within this body : Believe ye, therefore, that though 
 ye shall see no soul of mine, yet it shall still have a being. Shortly, all 
 but a hateful Epicurus have agreed to this truth : and if some have 
 fancied a transmigration of souls into other bodies ; others a passage to 
 the stars wLich formerly governed them ; others to I know not what 
 Elysian fields ; all have pitched upon a separate condition. 
 
 In the work entitled Mortal Life, and the State of the Soul after 
 Death, we read : " If man, or rather the soul of man, did not live 
 in a former state, then the Almighty creates a new soul for every 
 person who is born. There is, in short, a constant creation of souls. 
 Our material frames may continue their kind, similar bodies to 
 themselves by the delegated power of God ; but they cannot be 
 supposed to create souls. We commonly believe that God creates 
 souls at the time these bodies are produced which they are to in- 
 form." Mr. Samuel Blair also records his opinion that "the soul 
 is a real creation as well as the body, although a different sub- 
 stance ; " * and Lord Brougham remarks that while the material 
 world affords no example of "creation, of mind this cannot be said ; 
 it is called into existence perpetually before our eyes."f Dr. 
 Cromwell considers all these notions greatly below right, and even 
 reverent, ideas of the operations of the Deity. Dr. Millingen, on 
 the other hand, considers that " we are born with a soul ; " but 
 then arises the question, at what period the immortal essence 
 joins the embryonic existence. Another theory is that " whenever 
 a body is completely organised, there is a general law in nature, 
 by which, without any particular interposition of the Deity, a soul 
 immediately attaches itself to it ; " but this, Dr. Priestley adds, 
 " supposes the pre-existence of all human souls ; which, indeed, 
 was the original doctrine of the soul, and what he thinks to be 
 necessary to make the system complete and consistent." J 
 
 Dr. Cromwell then refers to the opinion of modern physiologists, 
 that soul and body, unitedly, may, after all, be only a proper re- 
 production; for that, allowing the soul to be essentially distinct 
 from, it may be an essence comprehended by, one of those minute 
 cells, in which every organised fabric, animal or vegetable, has 
 been discovered to originate. (See MorelTs Elements of Psychology, 
 Part I.) 
 
 Examples are not less rife, (says Dr. Cromwell,) of the im- 
 materialistic faith that the human soul comes immediately from 
 God, and is of the very nature indeed, so to speak, a very frac- 
 tion of God. It is beyond question that this doctrine prevailed 
 with all such of the ancients as held that of the immateriality of 
 the soul. The Indian or Egyptian philosopher never doubted it : 
 it reigned from Plato, if not from Pythagoras, to Seneca, and 
 Epictetus among the Greeks and Romans ; and it was a marked 
 
 * Mind and Matter, p. 133".' i: f Disc. Nat. Theology, p. 110. 
 
 J Priestley in Correspondence with Price, p. 372. 
 
200 Man after Death. 
 
 feature of the new Platonism of Alexandria. Plotinus, dying, ex- 
 claimed "I am struggling to liberate the divinity within me." 
 The pious James Montgomery sings : 
 
 The sun is but a spark of fire, 
 
 A transient meteor in the sky ; 
 The soul, immortal as its Sire, 
 
 Shall never die. 
 
 " We are all emanations from the Infinite Essence," says 
 Morell ; and Mr. Blair states that he once heard an eloquent 
 preacher say in the pulpit, "the soul is apart of God himself, and 
 is deatliless and indestructible ; " thus nearly repeating Plutarch : 
 "The soul is not God's mere work, but a part of himself: its 
 creation was not by him, but from him, and out of him." 
 
 Dr. Cromwell urges that the progress of physiology indicates 
 that psychology will hereafter not alone be based upon but moulded 
 by it ; and foretells that in due time will follow the common ad- 
 mission that the capacities called those of the Mind, are, by a law 
 of the human creature, " determined by the size, form, and con- 
 stitution of the Brain, the form, size, and qualities of which are 
 transmitted by hereditary descent." 
 
 "TO THE HOLY SPIRIT." 
 
 A remarkable instance of sacred poetry becoming the household 
 words of the poor is presented in the following, from Herrick's 
 " Noble Numbers," which, some fifty years since, was repeated 
 by a poor woman in the ninety-ninth year of her age, named 
 Dorothy King. This beautiful Litany and four others, she had 
 learned from her mother, who was apprenticed to Herrick's suc- 
 cessor in the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. She called 
 them her prayers, which, she said, she was in the habit of putting 
 up in bed, whenever she could not sleep. She had no idea that 
 these poems had ever been printed, and could not have read them 
 if she had seen them. 
 
 HIS LITANY, 
 
 To the Holy Spirit. 
 
 In the hour of my distress, 
 When temptations me oppress, 
 And when I my sins confess, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When I lie within my bed, 
 Sick in heart, and sick in head, 
 And with doubts discomforted, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When the home doth sigh and weep, 
 And the world is drown'd in sleep, 
 Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 
Life after Death. Reunion of Soul and Body. 201 
 
 When the passing-bell doth toll, 
 And the furies in a shoal, 
 Come to fright a parting soul, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When the tapers now burn blue, 
 And the comforters are few, 
 And that number more than true, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When the priest his last hath pray'd, 
 And I nod to what is said, 
 'Cause my speech is now decay'd, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When (God knows) I'm toss'd about 
 Either with despair or doubt, 
 Yet before the glass be out, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When the tempter me pursu'th 
 With the sins of all my youth, 
 And half damns me with untruth, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When the flames and hellish cries, 
 Fright mine ears, and fright mine eyes, 
 And all terrors me surprise, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 When the judgment is reveal' d, 
 And that open'd which was seal'd, 
 When to thee I have appeal' d, 
 
 Sweet Spirit, comfort me ! 
 
 LIFE AFTER DEATH. REUNION OF THE SOUL AND BODT. 
 
 The unequal distribution of good and evil in this world proves 
 tnat there must be another state, where the good will be rewarded 
 and the wicked punished : since, it is not possible that a Being of 
 perfect justice and holiness, of infinite wisdom and power, should 
 have so ordered things that obeying him and our own conscience 
 should ever make us miserable, and disobeying them prove bene- 
 ficial to us on the whole. Strongly as this argument proves the 
 doctrine of a life after death, it is considerably strengthened by 
 the universal agreement of mankind, with but few exceptions. 
 Not only Jews, but all the nations of the world, learned or un- 
 learned, ancient or modern, appear to have been persuaded that 
 the souls of men continue after death. 
 
 The full reward of good persons deceased is not yet bestowed 
 upon them, nor the full punishment of the wicked inflicted ; since 
 these things are to follow the General Resurrection. The state of 
 those that die in the Lord is not a state of insensibility ; since 
 our Saviour describes the soul of Lazarus as " carried by angels 
 into Abraham's bosom," and there " comforted ;" and he promised 
 the penitent robber upon the cross, that he should be "that day 
 
202 Man after Death. 
 
 with him in paradise :" hence, this cannot be a state of insensi- 
 bility, but happiness. 
 
 That the bodies of all men shall be raised up again, and re- 
 united to their souls is reasonable : for God is infinite both in 
 power and knowledge ; and it is, unquestionably, as possible to 
 bring together and enMven the scattered parts of our body again, 
 as it was to make them out of nothing, and give them life at first. 
 This doctrine is probably implied in that general promise made to 
 our first parents that " the seed of the woman should bruise the 
 serpent's head," destroy his power, and consequently take away 
 the curse under which he had brought mankind. For as part of 
 that curse consists in the death of the body, it cannot be com- 
 pletely taken away but by the resurrection of the body. (" That 
 which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.") 
 
 Abraham had so strong a belief in this, that he was willing, 
 on the Divine command, to sacrifice his son; reasoning, as the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, " that God was able to raise 
 him up, even from the dead." 
 
 Job says : " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall 
 stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my 
 skin this body be destroyed, yet in my flesh shall I see God." 
 Elijah being taken up alive into heaven, must also have given an 
 expectation that the body, as well as the soul, was to partake of 
 future happiness. 
 
 It is a question about which commentators are much divided, 
 whether Job expresses in these words his firm belief of a resur- 
 rection in the body to happiness after death ; or only of God's 
 interposition in his favour oefore he died, to vindicate his cha- 
 racter from the unjust imputations of his friends. The truth was 
 not yet revealed. 
 
 Mind could not then grasp the doctrine of the Resurrection of the 
 flesh, still less (of course) could language consciously express it ; and 
 yet it may have been a thing spirituaSy discovered by the faithful, 
 from the first hour that the promise of a Redeemer was given. Dim, 
 indistinct, impalpable, in short, a mystery, so far as intellectual appre- 
 hension was concerned, it may nevertheless have wrought upon the 
 spirit with an influence scarcely less mighty than it does now, when, it 
 is read in the full light of the risen Jesus. 
 
 That which, in fact, " was from the beginning of the Word of Life,** 
 we upon whom the ends of the world are come have heard, yea, have, 
 in a manner, " seen with our eyes, and have looked upon, and our hands 
 have handled." For the life which Job discerned, if at all, so dimly, 
 distantly, and indistinctly the life of the body after the soul has fled 
 from it, and it has mingled with the dust that life has been manifested 
 to us in Christ, who is the life * and we have seen it, though not with 
 our own eyes, with the eyes of Christian forefathers with whom, through 
 the Spirit, we are one in the Communion of Saints. Job, a Course of 
 Lectures, by J. E. Kempe, Rector of St. James's. 
 
Cfxe Jftttemttrmte State, 
 
 THE Intermediate State is the condition of the righteous im- 
 mediately after their departure from this life, and between that 
 event and the General Resurrection. That this will be a state of 
 repose from the sufferings that mortality is heir to, may be 
 thought sufficiently plain from the declaration of St. John in the 
 Revelation, that to those who " die in the Lord," their death will 
 be the introduction to a state of undisturbed tranquillity : they 
 will "rest from their labours." That it will be their immediate 
 introduction to a state of enjoyment also, may, perhaps, be inferred 
 from the clause, "and their works do follow them;" that is, the 
 rewards consequent on their former works. 
 
 But there is stronger foundation for the opinion that the 
 righteous will enter upon a state of enjoyment immediately after 
 their dissolution. From the parable of the rich man and Lazarus 
 the former in torments, and the latter in Abraham's bosom, it 
 is inferred that death is at once followed by a condition of con- 
 scious comfort or torment ; for the parable supposes the continu- 
 ance upon earth of the "five brethren" of the rich man, in a 
 state of prolonged trial and responsibility, at the same time that 
 it represents Lazarus as " comforted," and the rich man as " tor- 
 mented." It is, therefore, argues Bishop Mant, to be understood 
 as describing, on the part of those who were dead, the condition 
 which they were allotted before the Day of Judgment. 
 
 The Bishop maintains, also, that the language of our blessed 
 Redeemer to the dying malefactor on the cross, recognises the 
 same notion. But the completes t exposition of the doctrine of 
 Holy Writ on this subject is considered by Dr. Mant to be found 
 in the following collect in the "Order for the Burial of the 
 Dead" one of the most impressive portions of that admirable 
 service of our scriptural Church : 
 
 Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart 
 hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they 
 are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are -in joy and felicity ; we 
 give Thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver this 
 our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world ; beseeching Thee 
 that it may please Thee of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplisb 
 
204 The Intermediate State. 
 
 the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom ; that we, with 
 all those that are departed in the true faith of thy holy name, may have 
 our perfect consummation and Hiss, both in body and soul, in thy 
 eternal and everlasting glory ; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 
 
 Still, this is but an instalment of enjoyment, and will be suc- 
 ceeded by another state of yet superior happiness, "when the 
 trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, 
 and we shall be changed;" and when the crown of righteousness 
 shall be given to " all those who love the Lord's appearing " 
 " by the Lord, the righteous Judge," in the presence of assembled 
 men and angels, "on that day." (2 Tim. iv. 8.) Such is the 
 argument of Bishop Mant, which must carry conviction by its 
 clearness and simplicity. 
 
 Archbishop Whately, in his Scriptural Revelations, having con- 
 sidered the prevailing view of the subject, goes on to say : 
 
 " The only alternative the only other possible supposition is, that 
 the soul remains in a state of profound sleep of utter unconsciousness 
 during the whole interval between its separation from the body by 
 death, and its reunion at the Resurrection. One objection to the re- 
 ception of this supposition in the minds, I apprehend, of many persons 
 an objection which affects the imagination, though not the under- 
 standing is, that it seems as if there were a tedious and dreary inter- 
 val or non-existence to be passed, by such as should be supposed to 
 sleep, perhaps for some thousands of years, which might elapse between 
 their death and the end of the world. The imagination represents a 
 wearisome length of time during which (on this supposition) those that 
 sleep in Christ would have to wait for His final coming to reward them. 
 We fancy it hard that they should be lost both to the world and to 
 themselves destitute of the enjoyments both of this life and of the 
 next, and continuing for so many ages as if they had never been born. 
 
 "Such, I say, are the pictures which the imagination draws; but 
 when we view things by the light of the understanding, they present a 
 very different aspect. Reason tells us (the moment we consider the 
 subject), that a long and a short space of time are exactly the same to 
 a person who is insensible. All our notion of time is drawn from the 
 different impressions on our minds succeeding one another : so that 
 when any one loses his consciousness (as in the case of a fainting fit, or 
 of those recovered from drowning, suffocation, or the like) he not only 
 does not perceive the length of the interval between the loss of his con- 
 sciousness, and the return of it, but there is (to him] no such interval ; 
 the moment at which he totally lost his sensibility seems (and is, to 
 him) immediately succeeded by the moment in which he regains it. ... 
 It will often happen, when any one sleeps very soundly, that the 
 moment of his waking shall appear to him immediately to succeed that 
 of his falling asleep ; although the interval may have been many hours. 
 Something of the same kind has been observed in a few instances of 
 madness, and of apoplexy ; in which all the ordinary operations of the 
 mind having been completely suspended for several years, the patients, 
 on the recovery of their senses, have been found totally unconscious of 
 the whole interval, and distinctly remembering and speaking of, as 
 having happened on the day before, events which occurred before the 
 seizure ; so that they could hardly be brought to believe, that whole 
 years had since elapsed." (The author of the work here adds in a note 
 
Opinions concerning the State of the Dead. 205 
 
 " a case occurred within my own knowledge, not long ago, of a sick 
 person who fell into a kind of trance which lasted several weeks ; and 
 immediately on her revival she asked for some grapes, which had been 
 brought into her room just befere she became insensible.") 
 
 " From considering such instances as these," he goes on to say, " as 
 well as from the very nature of the case, any one may easily convince 
 himself, that if ever a total insensibility takes place, so that all action 
 of the mind is completely suspended, the time during which this con- 
 tinues, whether a single minute, or a thousand years, is, to the person 
 himself, no time at all. In either case, the moment of his reviving must 
 appear to him immediately to succeed that of his sinking into uncon- 
 sciousness ; nor could he possibly be able to tell afterwards, from his 
 own sensations and recollections, whether his state of suspended anima- 
 tion had lasted an hour, a day, or a century. 
 
 "To all practical purposes, that is, to each, a long or a short time, 
 which is such to his perceptions. Some of you may probably have 
 known what it is to pass a night of that excessive restlessness, which 
 accompanies some particular kinds of illness. Such persons will easily 
 remember (what no one else can fully conceive) how insufferably tedious 
 a single night will in such a case appear ; how enormously long the in- 
 terval seemed to be between the times of the clock's striking ; how they 
 seemed to feel as if morning would never arrive. And if it has happened 
 that the next night the patient was completely relieved, and slept quite 
 soundly, the very same number of hours, which the night before had 
 seemed to him an age, would appear but a moment. The clock, indeed, 
 he is well aware, has made the same movements in the one case as in 
 the other ; but relatively to the sick man himself, and as far as his 
 feelings are concerned, the one night will have been immensely shorter 
 than the other. 
 
 " The long and dreary interval, then, between death and the Day of 
 Judgment (supposing the intermediate state to be a profound sleep), 
 does not exist at all, except in the imagination. To the party concerned 
 there is no interval whatever; but to each person (according to this sup- 
 position) the moment of his closing his eyes in death, will be instantly 
 succeeded by the sound of the last trumpet, which shall summon the 
 dead ; even though ages shall have intervened. And in this sense the 
 faithful Christian may be, practically, in paradise the day he dies. The 
 promise made to the penitent thief, and the Apostle Paul's wish ' to 
 depart, and to be with Christ,' which, he said, was ' far better ' than to 
 remain any longer in this troublesome world, would each be fulfilled to 
 all practical purposes, provided each shall have found himself in a state 
 of happiness in the presence of his Lord, the very instant (according to 
 his own perception) after having breathed his last in this world." 
 
 OPINIONS CONCERNING THE STATE OE THE DEAD. 
 
 It may next be important as well as interesting to examine a 
 few of the ancient notions upon this great question. 
 
 Origen taught, that " Such as depart out of this life after the 
 common course of death, are disposed of according to their deeds 
 and merits, as they shall be judged to be worthy : some into the 
 place which is called hell, others into Abraham's bosom, and 
 through divers other places and mansions." St. Hilary taught 
 otherwise. All the faithful, according to him, were to be in 
 
206 The Intermediate State. 
 
 Abraham's bosom, while the wicked are "hindered from coming 
 by the gulf interposed between them." Lactantius taught, that 
 all the souls, both of the righteous and the wicked, should be 
 " detained in one common custody, until the time come when the 
 great Judge doth make trial of their doings ; " i.e. by exposing 
 them to a mysterious flame which shall burn the wicked, and do 
 service to the righteous, who have " something in them that will 
 repel or put back the force of the flame ! " And the Greek Church, 
 differing from the rest in this, taught that (according to Luke xiii. 
 28, 29, 30,) men entered Abraham's bosom at the resurrection. 
 " The bodv is buried in the earth, but the soul goeth in unknown 
 
 S laces, waiting for the future resurrection of the dead : in which, 
 gracious Saviour, make bright thy servant, place him together 
 with the saints, and refresh him in the bosom of Abraham." We 
 need not mention the opinion of St. Ambrose, who was not taught 
 by the Apostles to say that " they that come not unto the first re- 
 surrection, but are removed out of the second, shall be burned (in 
 purgatorial fire) until they fulfil the times between the first and the 
 second resurrection ; or if they have not fulfilled them, they shall 
 remain longer in punishment." Nor need we attach much weight 
 to that of Augustin, who taught that souls went into certain 
 "hidden receptacles," into which the souls of God's children 
 might carry some of their lighter faults, which would hinder them 
 from attaining lieaven ; but from which they might be released by 
 the prayers and alms deeds of the living. (Authorities from Tracts 
 for the Times, No. 72.) 
 
 Let any one, (says Bishop Courtenay,) who maintains that these 
 individual writers, or churches, were in possession of an oral 
 apostolic tradition concerning the dead, state what that tradition 
 contained, and what it did not ; and inform the world how he, by 
 the light of reason, can distinguish the truth of God, as contained 
 in uninspired writings, from the errors of man. 
 
 Bishop Courtenay 's able work, the Future States, was originally 
 published in 1833, and reprinted in 1857. In the latter edition 
 the author explains, " Time has not changed the writer's belief, 
 that the soul of man is naturally mortal being, when separate 
 from the body, naturally incapable of independent consciousness ; 
 that without the Redeemer it can have no life, and that, even 
 through the Redeemer, it has none until the Day of Redemption. 
 He cannot accept the popular notion, that ' the saints which sleep ' 
 are all awake, and that ' the dead ' are now alive." 
 
 The Bishop then proceeds, on a question of the interpretation 
 of certain unfulfilled prophecies, to modify and retract an opinion 
 formerly maintained. There are not a few persons who suppose, 
 that the soul of a believer, upon its separation from the body, is 
 immediately in a heavenly state, with Christ and the holy angels, 
 and the saints of all former generations : and that, secondly, at 
 
Paradise and Heaven. 207 
 
 the commencement of the Millennium, the body being restored to 
 the soul, it lives and reigns with Christ, on the present earth, 
 with greater glory still ; and that, in the third place, having, at 
 the expiration of the thousand years of triumph, been put upon 
 its trial, and solemnly "judged out of the things written in the 
 books," and ascertained to be " found written in the Book of 
 Life," it enters upon its final and eternal condition. 
 
 Thus are two intermediate states, possibly of many thousand 
 years' duration, interposed between the present world, and that 
 promised in the closing pages of the Divine revelation. 
 
 The second of these supposed intermediate states it is thought 
 will be preceded by a general conversion of the Jews, and the 
 resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, 
 and all the saints without exception, of whom those who are the 
 seed of Abraham shall occupy the land of Israel, enjoying the 
 visible presence and personal government of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Persuaded that these anticipations will not be realized, the 
 Bishop has endeavoured to show that all the Divine promises to 
 Abraham and his seed shall be fulfilled in a heavenly Canaan, 
 after the present heaven and earth have passed away. This inter- 
 pretation of the prophecy he would now so far retract, as to 
 admit that a conversion of the Jewish people to the Christian 
 faith, and their consequent restoration to the land whence they 
 have been banished, will precede the Millennium : a retraction, 
 however, in no wise affecting the main positions, that " it is ap- 
 pointed unto men once to die ; and after that the judgment," 
 and that not until the judgment can they, unless in rare and ex- 
 ceptional cases, " enter into the Life Eternal." 
 
 PARADISE AND HEAVEN. 
 
 " Paradise," writes Dr. Hales, " is the region appropriated to 
 good souls." The learned Parkhurst observes, that " Paradise is 
 the blessed state of faithful souls between death and the resur- 
 rection. Such is the sense of Paradise in the New Testament." 
 Dr. Whitby remarks " Our Saviour must have used the word 
 Paradise in the same sense in which the Jews understood it, the 
 place of happiness into which pious souls, when separated from 
 the body, are immediately received." And Bishop Horsley says : 
 "Of this place (Paradise,) we know little except to those who 
 die in the Lord it is a place of comfort and rest ; not a Paradise 
 of eternal sleep and senselessness, but a place of happy rest and 
 tranquil hope." 
 
 "To him that overcometh," our Lord declareth by St. John, 
 "I will give to eat of the tree of life that groweth in the midst of 
 the Paradise of God." This, (says Bishop Courtenay,) is evidently 
 
208 The Intermediate State. 
 
 a promise of a reward after the General Resurrection,* when the 
 redeemed shall be permitted to eat of the precious fruit men- 
 tioned in the last chapter of the Apocalypse. The same place of 
 bliss was beheld in vision by St. Paul, who was "caught up into 
 Paradise," and there heard unutterable words. Into the same 
 place, the believing robber f was probably admitted as soon as 
 Jesus himself entered it. But notwithstanding the weight due to 
 the expression, " To-day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise," it 
 may be questioned whether our Lord entered Paradise before his 
 ascension, or at the earliest before his resurrection. For was He 
 in the place to which St. Paul was " caught up," in a region 
 belonging to those new heavens which are eventually to " come 
 down from God," at the very time of his descent into Hades ? 
 Was he, was his human soul, at once above earth and below 
 it, of whom St. Paul says that " he who ascended first descended 
 into the lower parts of the earth " ? This seems improbable ; and 
 Bishop Courtenay considers, that if a strict interpretation of the 
 expression "to-day" be contended for, there is no alternative but 
 to place Paradise oelow, in Hades, into which our Lord's human 
 soul most certainly descended. The Bishop admits the incon- 
 venience of the alternative; and adds, "Paradise is probably 
 above, and was entered by our Lord at his ascension. The ques- 
 tion is certainly obscure ; but whatever may be understood by 
 Paradise, it can never be shown that Christians in general have a 
 better claim to be admitted to the privilege of the robber, f than 
 they have to be translated or transfigured with Enoch, Elijah, 
 and Moses." 
 
 That Paradise is not Heaven appears from this fact that 
 throughout the Scriptures, from the beautiful Prayer of Solomon, 
 at the consecration of the Temple, "Hear Thou in Hea ven, Thy 
 dwelling-placed to the prayer of our Saviour Himself, "Our 
 Father, which art in Heaven / " heaven is pointed out as pecu- 
 liarly God's throne. Further, we are informed that "No man 
 hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, 
 even the Son of man which is now in heaven." (John iii. 13.) 
 "David is not ascended into heaven." (Acts ii. 34.) Again, 
 after our Saviour's resurrection, when He appeared unto Mary, 
 His words, were, " Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my 
 Father" ' He had been in Paradise, but had not yet ascended 
 to God, 
 
 * For the other rewards for those who overcome, are not immediately 
 consequent on death. The departed saints have not yet received 
 "po\* 
 nor a 
 throne." 
 
 t Not thief, but robber, or bandit, such as carry on their wicked 
 trade in Italy and Spain at the present day. 
 
The Soul's Immortality. 209 
 
 HEATHEN PHILOSOPHY OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 In an able tract on Futurity., written by Mr. W. Merry, of 
 Berkshire, (and which, fortunately for the spiritual interests of its 
 readers, has had an extensive circulation,) the writer takes a view 
 of the State of the Soul after Death, differing from that of Bishop 
 ourtenay. To the inquiry of unspeakable interest What be- 
 comes of man's spirit when no longer animating his mortal frame, 
 the writer of the above tract replies : " The Spirit lives ! Abra- 
 ham and his descendants who had died and were buried, still 
 lived ; God was still their God, and so declared to be because He 
 is not the God of the dead, but of the living" Mr. Merry's 
 view of Job's declaration altogether differs from that of Dr. 
 Courtenay. "How emphatically," (says the former,) "does Job, 
 1500 years before our Saviour appeared on earth, express his faith 
 not only in the immortality of his spirit, but in the resurrection of 
 his body." The value of the words, "I know that my Redeemer 
 liveth," et seq. is weighty indeed, when we read in an earlier 
 chapter, (Job i. 8,) the character of Job in God's sight. "And 
 the Lord said, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there 
 is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one 
 that feareth God and escheweth evil." 
 
 Dr. Hammond has thus briefly expressed the sum of human 
 knowledge upon this vital question : " The souls of the just are 
 already in the hands of God, and it is certain that their bodies 
 will be raised, and again united to them by his Almighty power." 
 
 Although we owe to Revelation the reality of this solemn fact, 
 it was believed in heathen philosophy before our Saviour's appear- 
 ance on earth. Notwithstanding there exist no ancient writings 
 approaching, even by many hundred years, the antiquity of the 
 Bible, we know that 500 years previously, down almost to the 
 commencement of the Christian era, that is, from the age of' 
 Socrates to that of Cicero, (omitting all uncertain mention of 
 Pythagoras, a century earlier,) the immortality of the soul, and 
 its happiness or misery after death, were reasoned upon and 
 maintained. Socrates, when condemned to death by the thirty 
 tyrants of Athens, for "not acknowledging the gods, which the 
 state acknowledged," and for " introducing new divinities," passed 
 his last moments in calm and confident argument with his friends, 
 respecting the nature of the new and immortal existence about to 
 open to him. "I should be inexcusable," he observed, "in 
 despising death, if I were not persuaded that it will conduct me 
 into the society of great and good men ; " and, in reply to the 
 question of his friend Crito, as to his burial, he says, " Is it not 
 strange, that after all that I have said to convince you, that I am 
 going to the society of the happy, that Crito still thinks that this 
 
210 
 
 The Intermediate State. 
 
 body, which will soon be a lifeless corpse, is Socrates ? Let him 
 dispose of my body as he pleases, but let him not mourn over it 
 as if it were Socrates." So likewise, and in the same strain, does 
 Cicero speak of death, as the glorious day when he shall go into 
 the great assembly of spirits, and shall be gathered to the best 
 and bravest of mankind who have gone before him. 
 Mr. Merry adds : 
 
 That the human mind should thus have arrived by philosophical de- 
 duction, assisted probably by tradition, however faint and remote, 
 gathered from the Egyptians, and running back to Patriarchal origin, 
 is not here brought forward as an evidence of truth ; but as showing 
 how gratefully sensible we should be, of the inestimable advantage 
 enjoyed by the Christian over the Heathen world. That prospect of 
 futurity, which was dimly perceived, and by the most learned only, the 
 w master-minds of the Grecian and Roman empires, is in our own day 
 brought home with joyful certainty, to the cottage-door of the humblest 
 and the poorest. 
 
 Their philosophy which Plato, and after him, Cicero, define to be 
 "Scientia rerum Divinarum et humanarum cum causis," was a well- 
 conceived and pleasing hypothesis ; but vouchsafes to us immutable 
 truths, established on the sure evidence of the Bible, and which are 
 open to all who have ears to hear, the unlearned and the learned. 
 
 If we do not recognize this Platonic doctrine, what becomes of 
 the dictum which our polished Essayist has put into the mouth 
 of the noble Roman, in the classic play of Cato : 
 
 It must be so Plato, thou reason' st well 
 
 Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 
 This longing after immortality ? 
 
 Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror 
 
 Of falling into nought ? Why shrinks the soul 
 
 Back on itself, and startles at destruction ? 
 
 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 
 
 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 
 And intimates eternity to man ; 
 
 Eternity ! thou pleasing, dreadful thought ! 
 
 Through what variety of untried being, 
 
 Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ? 
 
 The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me. 
 
 .... If there's a Power above 
 
 (And that there is all nature cries aloud 
 
 Through all her works) 
 
 He must delight in virtue ; 
 
 And that which he delights in must be happy. Addison. 
 
 THAT MAN MUST BE IMMORTAL. 
 
 \j Bishop Courtenay, in his able work on The Future States, con- 
 jj 5 siders, at some length, the opinion that Man must be immortal, 
 \cJ drawn from the wonderful skill and care shown in his structure. 
 3 He argues, that for all we know, these contrivances may be, in 
 ^ themselves, as important as the end human existence and wel- 
 
That Man must be Immortal. 211 
 
 fare ; and that the importance of the end may depend on its being 
 effected by means of such contrivances. Next, that if human 
 existence were itself, and without reference to the means, the 
 highest of all ends, the analogy of inferior nature shows that even 
 the greatest things are perishable : and further, that if man be 
 destined, through the excellence of his nature, for perpetuity, the 
 species, not all the individuals of the species, will continue : and 
 while there are, moreover, considerable difficulties in the way of 
 the supposition, that the species would attain a higher degree of 
 perfection in a disembodied state than in the present world. And, 
 finally, that nearly equal solicitude has been manifested by the 
 Creator in providing for the welfare of the inferior creation ; and 
 this, notwithstanding that man is at the head of that creation, and 
 is the sole creature capable of comprehending and admiring the 
 words of God, and of recognizing the Maker with gratitude and 
 veneration, not with a view, solely or chiefly, to the gratification 
 of the human race. The beautiful diversity of structures, and of 
 other contrivances, which we find actually to prevail in the animal 
 and vegetable kingdoms, is indeed calculated to excite pleasure 
 and wonder in the minds of all, gratitude and veneration in 
 those whose thoughts ascend to the First Cause ; but it would be 
 inconsistent with those very feelings so to limit the Creator's 
 bounty and contract the dimensions of the scheme of nature ; as 
 unreasonable as to suppose that the stars were set in heaven only 
 to give light to our globe, or display to us the extent of creative 
 power. 
 
 If all, or the greater part of the arguments (continues the Bishop,) 
 which have been here employed, in proof of the dependence and 
 connexion of mind on organized matter, and on animal life, be 
 correct, tie ere arises, in the opinion of the writer, a very strong 
 presumption that the death of the body will cause a cessation of 
 all the activity of the mind, by way of natural consequence ; to 
 continue for ever, unless the Creator should interfere ; and restore, 
 by a fresh exertion of His power, either the soul alone, or the 
 soul and body together. 
 
 In the next Book f ' Moral Evidence of a Future Life " Dr. 
 Courtenay argues that the light of the moral faculties of man, ap- 
 pearing to be more immediately derived from a celestial source than 
 any other which the Father of Lights has conferred on us, seem 
 peculiarly calculated to assist in the investigation of the more 
 abstruse and mysterious parts of His designs ; and may reveal to 
 our hopes, though dimly and doubtfully at best, things beyond 
 the reach of mere intellect ; but which Revelation alone can fully 
 disclose. When, "by the aid of these faculties, we come to under- 
 stand, in some degree, the true moral condition of man ; and his 
 relations to God, not as a Maker only, but as a Moral Governor, 
 who interferes with all events, in the history both of nations and 
 P2 
 
212 The Intermediate State. 
 
 individuals ; and, notwithstanding the apparent abandonment of 
 all the details of that history to the operation of blind natural 
 causes, brings about in the end, through their instrumentality, 
 great moral purposes of his own ; and when rendered more con- 
 fident by this addition to our knowledge, we attempt to decide for 
 what ends this human race, seemingly so perishable, was called 
 into existence, we are led to extend our views beyond this world, 
 the hope of immortality becomes no longer a baseless vision.* 
 
 " Man we believe to be immortal," says the eloquent author of 
 The Physical Theory of Another Life, " Man we believe to be im- 
 mortal, (revelation apart,) not because his mind is separable from 
 animal organization ; but because his intellectual and moral con- 
 stitution is such as to demand a future development of his nature. 
 Why should that which is immaterial be indestructible ? None 
 can tell us ; and on the contrary we are free to suppose that there 
 may be immaterial orders, enjoying their hour of existence, and 
 then returning to nihility." 
 
 encouraging views or the JJivme economy, 
 think that man was created for purposes which cannot all meet 
 their accomplishment in this world, and will find it in another ; 
 and to conjecture that after death, the Creator may again put 
 forth His power, ill order to restore the spirit that had returned 
 to him,f and rebuild the structure that could not preserve itself 
 from decay. 
 
 * The line of argument here alluded to is followed out by Dr. Chal- 
 mers, in his Bridgewater Treatise, in the chapter On the Capacities of 
 the World for making a Virtuous Species Happy. 
 
 spirit " means no more) His creatures live ; when the Giver resumes it, 
 they die. So in Job, chap. iii. v. 34, " The Spirit of God hath made 
 me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." And (chap, 
 xxxv. v. 14,) "If God gather unto Himself his spirit and his breath, all 
 flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." The 
 breath of life breathed into the nostrils of Adam was animal merely. 
 For compare Genesis, chap. vii. v. 13, " All (animals) in whose nostrils 
 was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." 
 
" " THE Christian's hope," says Archbishop Whately, " as founded 
 on the promises contained in the Gospel, is the Resurrection of the 
 Body."* Again, Isaac Taylor assures us that "what the Chris- 
 tian Scriptures specifically affirm is the simple physiological fact of 
 tico species of corporeity destined for (assigned to) Man : the first, 
 that of our present animal and dissoluble organization; the 
 second, a future spiritual structure, imperishable, and endowed 
 with higher powers and many desirable prerogatives." f 
 
 The assertions of Scripture, plainly interpreted, show that 
 Holy Writ instructs man to expect no future life that shall be 
 unconnected with and independent of physical restoration. Death, 
 for the period of his cold reign, is the cessation of all vitality, 
 and, consequently, the actual though not final extinction, along 
 with every corporeal power of the soul. Scripture and philo- 
 sophy, however, unite in the non-encouragement of certain notions 
 associated with the decease of relatives and friends, to not a few 
 of whom consolation comes with the thought that the soul of him 
 or her departed is in Heaven, not waiting for the Judgment that 
 should decide its fate. To not a few, moreover, 
 
 It is a beautiful belief 
 
 That ever round our head, 
 Are hovering, on angel wings, 
 
 The spirits of the dead. 
 
 The beauty is, however, but poetical; and a firm faith in the 
 Christian Resurrection should not be the less sustaining; for, 
 agreeably to Christianity, the period of the separation of the 
 beloved one taken and the sorrowing one left, is computable alone 
 by the farther length of the sorrower's stay in this world ; the 
 moment of death being to both the virtual moment of re-union. 
 Whenever " total insensibility takes place, the time during which 
 this continues, whether a single minute or a thousand years, is to 
 the person himself no time at all : in either case, the moment of 
 his reviving must appear to him immediately to succeed that of 
 his sinking into unconsciousness ; nor could he possibly be able 
 to tell afterwards whether this state had lasted an hour, a day, or 
 a century."J 
 
 * Scripture Revelations of a Future Life. 
 f Physical Theory of Another Life. " % Scripture Revelations. 
 
The Christian Resurrection. 
 
 What eloquence and pathos are blended in the following pas- 
 sage from the Breathings of the Devout Soul, by Bishop Hall: 
 
 What a comfort it is, O Saviour, that thou art the first fruits of 
 them, that sleep ! Those, that die in thee, do but sleep. Thou 
 saidst so once of thy Lazarus, and sayest so still of him again : 
 he doth but sleej) still. His first sleep was but short ; this latter, 
 though longer, is no less true : out of which he shall no less 
 surely awaken, at thy second call; than he did before, at thy 
 first. His first sleep and waking was singular ; this latter is the 
 same with ours : we all lie down in our bed of earth, as sure to 
 wake as ever we can be, to shut our eyes. In and from thee, 
 blessed Saviour, is this our assurance, who art the first fruits of 
 them that sleep. The first handful of the first-fruits was not pre- 
 sented for itself, but for the whole field, wherein it grew : the 
 virtue of that oblation extended itself to the whole crop. Neither, 
 didst thou, O blessed Jesu, rise again for thyself only ; but the 
 power and virtue of thy resurrection reaches to all thine : so thy 
 chosen vessel tells us, Christ, the first fruits, and afterwards, they 
 that are Chrises at his coming ; 1 Cor. xv. 23. So as, though the 
 resurrection be of all the dead, just and unjust, Acts xxiv. ]5 ; yet, 
 to rise by the power of thy resurrection, is so proper to thine 
 own, as tnat thou, Saviour, hast styled it, the resurrection of 
 the just : Luke xix. 14 ; while the rest shall be dragged out of 
 their graves, by the power of thy godhead, to their dreadful judg- 
 ment. Alreadv, therefore, Jesu, are we risen in thee; and as 
 sure, shall rise in our own persons. The locomotive faculty is in 
 the head : thou, who art our Head, art risen ; we, who are thy 
 members, must and shall follow. Say then, O my dying body, 
 say boldly unto death, Rejoice not over me, mine enemy, for 
 though I fall, yet I shall rise again : M-icah vii. 8. Yea, Lord, 
 the virtue of thy first-fruits diffuseth itself, not to our rising only, 
 but to a blessed immortality of these bodies of ours : for as thou 
 didst rise immortal and glorious, so shall we 'by and with thee ; 
 Who shall change these vile bodies, and make them like to thy 
 glorious body : Phil. iii. 21. The same power that could shake off 
 death, can put on glory and majesty. Lay them down, therefore, 
 O my body, quietly and cheerfully ; and look to rise in another 
 hue : thou art born in corruption, thou shalt be raised in incorrup- 
 tion ; thou art sown in dishonour, thou shalt be raised in glory ; 
 thou art sown in weakness, but shalt be raised in power ; 1 Cor. 
 xv. 42, 43. 
 
 Baron Bunsen, in the second volume of the Divine Government 
 in History, seems to imply that if he recoils from the fleshly resur- 
 rection and Judaic millennium of Justin Martyr, he still shares the 
 aspirations of the noblest philosophers elsewhere, and of the 
 firmer believers among ourselves, to a revival of conscious and 
 individual life, in such a form of immortality as may consist with 
 
Resurrection of the same Body. 215 
 
 union with the" Spirit of our Eternal lifegiver. (Dr. R. Williams ; 
 Essays and Reviews) In the same able work, Dr. Temple, in his 
 eloquent essay on the Education of the World, says : 
 
 " The spirituality of God involves in it the supremacy of con- 
 science, the immortality of the soul, the final judgment of the 
 human race. Eor we know the other world, and can only know 
 it, by analogy, drawn from our own experience. With what, 
 then, shall we compare God ? With the spiritual or the fleshly 
 part of our nature ? On the answer depends the whole bent of 
 our religion and of our morality. Eor that in ourselves which 
 we choose as the nearest analogy of God, will, of course, be looked 
 on as the ruling and lasting part of our being. If He be one and 
 spiritual, then the spiritual power within us, which proclaims its 
 own unity and independence of matter by the universality of its 
 decrees, must be the rightful monarch of our lives ; but if there 
 be Gods many and Lords many, with bodily appetites and animal 
 passions, then the voice of conscience is but one of those wide- 
 spread delusions, which, some for a longer, some for a shorter 
 period, have, before now, misled our race/' 
 
 RESURRECTION OF THE SAME BODY. 
 
 This expression is used to denote the revivification of the 
 human bodv after it has been forsaken by the soul, or the reunion 
 of the soul hereafter to* the body which it had occupied in the 
 present world. It is admitted that there are no traces of such a 
 doctrine in the earlier Hebrew Scripture. It is not to be found 
 in the Pentateuch, in the historical books, or in the Psalms ; for 
 Ps. xlix. 15 does not relate to this subject; neither does Ps. civ. 
 29, 30, although so cited by Theodoret and others, The cele- 
 brated passage of Job xix. 25, et seq. is quoted: 
 
 For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
 latter day upon the earth : 
 
 And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
 shall I see God ; 
 
 Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not 
 another ; though my reins be consumed within me. 
 
 This passage has been strongly insisted upon in proof of the 
 early belief of this doctrine ; but the most learned commentators 
 are agreed, and scarcely any one at the present day disputes, that 
 such a view of the text arises either from mistranslation, or mis- 
 apprehension, and that Job means no more than to express a 
 confident conviction that his then diseased and dreadfully cor- 
 rupted body should be restored to its former soundness ; that he 
 should rise from the depressed state in which he lay to his former 
 prosperity; and that God would manifestly appear (as was the 
 
216 The Christian Resurrection. 
 
 case) to vindicate his uprightness. That no meaning more recon- 
 dite is to be found in the text, is agreed by Calvin, Mercier, 
 Grotius, Leclerc, Patrick, Warburton, Durell, Heath, Kennicott, 
 Doderlein, Dathe, Eichorn, Jahn, De Wette, and a host of others. 
 That it alludes to a resurrection is disproved thus : 
 
 1. The supposition is inconsistent with the design of the poem and 
 the course of the argument, since the belief which it has been supposed 
 to express, as connected with a future state of retribution, would in a 
 great degree have solved the difficulty on which the whole dispute 
 turns, and could not but have been alluded to by the speakers. 
 
 2. It is inconsistent with the connexion of the discourse ; the reply of 
 Zophar agreeing not with the popular interpretation, but with the 
 other. 
 
 3. It is inconsistent with many passages in which the same person 
 (Job) longs for death as the end of his miseries, and not as an introduc- 
 tion to a better life, (iii.; vii. 7, 8 ; x. 20, 22 ; xiv.; xvii. 11, 16.) 
 
 4. It is not proposed as to a topic of consolation by any of the friends 
 of Job ; nor by Elihu, who acts as a sort of umpire ; nor by the 
 Almighty Himself in the decision of the controversy. 
 
 5. The later Jews, who eagerly sought for every intimation bearing 
 on a future life which their Scriptures might contain, never regarded 
 this as such ; nor is it once referred to by Christ or his apostles. From 
 Dr. Kitto's Encyclopaedia of Biblical Literature. 
 
 In 1856, there appeared a tract entitled "The Resurrection of 
 the same Body not an article of the Christian Faith ; " containing 
 the remarks of John Locke upon this subject, extracted from his 
 Reply to the Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter. 
 The same tract contains the opinions of Bishop Newton ; Arch- 
 bishop Whately ; Bishop Watson ; Dr. Burton ; and Dr. Burnet, 
 Master of the Charter-House. The opinion of the latter is very 
 concise : 
 
 " Whether we are to rise with the same bodies we lie down with 
 in the grave. Thereby we mean the numerical body, with the 
 same matter and the same particles. This is a most celebrated 
 question, though, in my opinion, more curious than necessary : it 
 is not of any great consequence to us whether we shall have the 
 same particles, or others of equal dignity and value, or what shall 
 become of our cast-off* carcases when we shall live in light with 
 angels." 
 
 * But as we neglect the hairs cut off from our beards, so, when the 
 Divine Spirit goes out from a man, what will become of the receptacle ? 
 Whether fire shall burn it, or beasts tear it in pieces, or the earth cover 
 it, no more belongs to him, than what happens to a new-born child. 
 Sen. Epist. 
 
Jfwtuxe 
 
 THE DAY OE JUDGMENT. 
 
 HUMAN philosophy, (says Bishop Courtenay,) both natural and 
 moral, has been proved by experience as unable to approach the 
 truths revealed in Scripture concerning the Day of Judgment, as 
 to decide the fate of a disembodied soul. It can indeed, furnish 
 some reasons for conjecturing that our present earth shall finally 
 be broken up and ruined, if not actually annihilated. (See pages 
 193-194.) But that all shall be together abolished, that one period 
 shall be the fulness of time for all, is contrary to every antici- 
 pation. "The day of the Lord," nevertheless, shall come as a 
 thief in the night, suddenly as the deluge ; and the heavens shall 
 be rolled together as a scroll, the elements shall melt with fervent 
 heat, and all things being on fire, shall be dissolved ; the earth 
 and heavens shall flee away before the face of God, and no place 
 
 be found for them. So it is written, so it is decreed. 
 * * * * # 
 
 The principles upon which judgment shall be executed on the 
 " Dreadful Day," are yet more remote from human conjectures 
 than is the universality of the judgment. That our earth and all 
 visible worlds shall on one and the same day be abolished utterly ; 
 that nevertheless the human race, even all in whose nostrils has 
 ever been the breath of life, shall in bodily form survive that 
 awful period ; that new heavens and a new earth shall be created, 
 not to be destroyed, but to endure for all eternity; these are 
 truths which, one and all, baffle the researches and should humi- 
 liate the pride of human philosophy. But it is a still greater 
 wonder, (an apparent evil, too, more extensive and more desperate 
 than any which philosophy can detect ; and which in all our 
 inquiries concerning the origin of evil should be carefully kept in 
 sight,) that a few only of mankind shall rejoice in the restitution 
 of all things ; a few only shall receive the gift of eternal life ; 
 while the many, not being rescued by the Redeemer from their 
 natural fate, shall go away into eternal punishment, and suffer 
 a second death. 
 
 On this subject of future punishment, both as regards its dura- 
 tion, and the number of those to whom it will be awarded, God's 
 
 
218 The Future States. 
 
 Revelation far surpasses our conjectures. For His dealings with 
 man partake of His own infinity. No moral reasonings, no alarm 
 of a guilty conscience, could enable a heart unvisited by the grace 
 of God to draw so broad a line of distinction, to divide the human 
 race into classes so unequal in amount, and whose destinies 
 should differ infinitely. The actual extent of human depravity 
 and guilt, and consequently, the severity of punishment, would 
 not have been known, but for Revelation. That all had so far 
 erred, and altogether become abominable, that a superhuman 
 sacrifice was necessary to atone for their guilt, and a supernatural 
 impulse upon their hearts to enable them to please God, are truths 
 beyond reason, yet on which turns the whole history of man, pre- 
 sent and future ; and by which alone can be explained the wide 
 distinction which shall be made hereafter. With God there shall 
 be no neutrality, for man no middle state, less blissful than, 
 heaven, more tolerable than hell ; for none shall be accepted but 
 through the Redeemer : for the rest remains only " a fearful 
 looking for of judgment and fiery indignation." 
 
 Cowley, in his Pindaric Ode The Resurrection draws this 
 fearful picture of the Last Great Day. After telling us that 
 Yirgil shall see the whole World burnt to ashes like Troy, he 
 proceeds : 
 
 Whom Thunder's dismal noise * 
 And all that Prophets and Apostles louder spake, 
 
 And all the creatures' plain conspiring voice 
 Could not, whilst they liVd, awake, 
 This mightier sound shall make 
 When dead t' arise 
 And open tombs, and open eyes, 
 To the long sluggards of five thousand years.f 
 This mightier sound shall wake its hearers' ears. 
 Then shall the scattered atoms crowded come 
 Back to their ancient home, 
 Some from Birds, from Fishes some, 
 
 * The Poet notes: "No natural effect gives such impressions of 
 "Divine fear as Thunder; as we may see by the examples of some 
 wicked Emperors, who though they were atheists, and made themselves 
 gods, yet confessed a greater Divine power when they heard it, by 
 trembling and hiding themselves. And Lucretius speaks it of Epicurus, 
 as a thing extraordinary and peculiar of him, that the very sound of 
 Thunder did not make him superstitious. Yet the Prophets and 
 Apostles' voice is truly termed louder ; for, as St. Paul says, the Voice 
 of the Gospel was heard over all the habitable world." 
 
 f The ordinary traditional opinion is, that the World is to last six 
 thousand years, and that the seventh thousand is to be the Rest or 
 Sabbath of thousands : but I could not say sluggards of six thousand 
 years, " because some of them would be found alive who had not so 
 much as slept at all. The next perfect number, (and verse will admit 
 of no broken ones,) was five thousand." By this license, however, the 
 .World loses one thousand years ! 
 
The Happiness of Heaven. 219 
 
 Some from Earth, and some from Seas, 
 
 Some from Beasts, and some from Trees. 
 
 Some descend from Clouds on high, 
 
 Some from Metals upwards fly, 
 
 And where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands 
 
 Meet, salute, and join their hands. 
 
 As dispers'd soldiers at the trumpet's call 
 
 Haste to their colours all. 
 
 Unhappy most, like tortur'd men, 
 
 Their joints new set, to be new rack't again. 
 
 To mountains they for shelter pray, 
 
 The mountains shake, and run about no less coufus'd than they. 
 
 THE HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN. 
 
 The Happiness of Heaven will be a happiness of vision and of 
 knowledge ; and we shall there pass from the weakness of our 
 native ignorance, from the dark and twilight of our former notions 
 into the broad light of an everlasting day a day which shall leave 
 nothing undiscovered to us, which can be fit for us to know. 
 Reason being then unclogged from the body, shall have its full 
 flight, and a free, uncontrolled passage into all things intelligible. 
 We shall then surmount those beggarly rudiments and mean helps 
 of knowledge, which now by many little steps gradually raise us 
 to some short speculation of the nature of things ; our knowledge 
 shall be then intuitive and above discourse, not proceeding by a 
 long circuit of antecedents and consequents, as now, in the vale 
 of imperfection, it is forced to do ; but it shall then fully inform 
 the whole mind, and take in the whole object, by one single and 
 substantial act. 
 
 Again, we are told, that in a future and a higher state of 
 existence, the chief occupation of the blessed is that of praising 
 and worshipping the Almighty. But is not the contemplation of 
 the great works of the Creator, and the study of the ordinances 
 of the great Lawgiver of the universe, in itself an act of praise 
 and adoration ? and if so, may not one at least of the sources of 
 happiness which we are promised in a future state of existence 
 one of the rewards for a single and reverential pursuit after truth 
 in our present state of trial, consist in a development of our 
 faculties, and in the power of comprehending those laws and pro- 
 visions of Nature with which our finite reason does not enable us 
 at present to become cognisant ? 
 
0f taty 0%r bg % 
 
 EVIDENCES OF THE RECOGNITION. 
 
 BISHOP KING, in a poem entitled the Exequy, (17th century,) 
 thus apostrophises the person whose departure from this life 
 was the occasion of the composition : 
 
 Never shall I 
 
 Be so much blessed as to descry 
 A glimpse of thee, till that day come 
 Which shall the earth to cinders doom, 
 And a fierce fever must calcine 
 The body of this world like thine, 
 (My little world !) that fit of fire 
 Once off, our bodies shall aspire 
 To our souls' bliss : then we shall rise 
 And view ourselves with clearer eyes 
 In that calm region, where no night 
 Can hide us from each other's sight. 
 
 After some intervening passages, the poem concludes thus : 
 
 The thought of this bids me go on, 
 
 And wait my dissolution 
 
 With hope and comfort. Dear (forgive 
 
 The crime !) I am content to live 
 
 Divided with but half a heart 
 
 Till we shall meet and never part. 
 
 These quaint lines exemplify an opinion which prevails very 
 generally among Christians : namely, that in the future state of 
 happiness of the blessed, they who have known and loved each 
 other in this world will be the subjects of mutual recognition, and 
 will be re-united and associated with each other, and contribute to 
 each other's delight in that condition of perpetual blessedness. 
 
 Bishop Mant observes that very little is said in Holy Writ, 
 which can be judged to bear directly upon this subject ; but, in 
 the absence of this specific testimony, he does not desire to dis- 
 credit the opinion, since it is calculated to enhance the innocent 
 delights, and to alleviate the unavoidable sufferings of this present 
 life ; and to improve us in virtue, as well as to further our consola- 
 tion and enjoyment. Scripture does not contain anything that 
 militates against the opinion; but on the contrary, makes it 
 highly probable. 
 
The Recognition of each other ly the Blessed. 221 
 
 Under the Old Testament, comfort was derived from the per- 
 suasion, that in a future life a re-union would be effected of those 
 ties of affection which had been severed in this life. In what 
 affecting language David explains the motives of his conduct, first 
 during the illness, and then after the 'death, of his child : " While 
 the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept : for I said, Who can 
 tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live ? 
 But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast ? Can I bring him 
 back again ? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." 
 (2 Sam. xii. 23.) Prom his own explicit avowals, David comforted 
 himself with the assurance, that the child whom God had taken 
 from him in this life, he would restore ' o him in the life to come. 
 
 Erom several passages in the Epistles, Dr. Mant derives a very 
 considerable probability that St. Paul anticipated on the last day 
 a personal knowledge of those on his part, and a personal re-union 
 with them, with whom he had been connected in this life by the 
 ties of personal offices and kind affection. That the recognition 
 would be mutual, seems to be a matter of course. And it may, 
 Dr. Mant apprehends, be further assumed, that the same faculty 
 of recognition which would exist at the " day of Christ," and the 
 commencement of the future state of existence, would be per- 
 petuated during its continuance ; and that a faculty which should 
 be allowed to St. Paul, and to those with whom he was thus con- 
 nected, would not be withholden from others, who had stood in 
 relations of mutual attachment and endearment whilst on earth. 
 
 The language of our Lord with reference to the Day of Judg- 
 ment also renders this recognition of each other extremely 
 probable. 
 
 The Transfiguration of our Saviour, as recorded by St. Mat- 
 thew xvii. and St. Mark ix. is not only proof of this recognition. 
 Moses and Elias were talking with Jesus. Moses and Elias must 
 then have been alive : not two unknown but two specific persons. 
 It cannot properly be said that " Peter and James, and John his 
 brother," the disciples present, recognised those whom they had 
 never known in life; but the identity of Moses and Elias is 
 declared, and that of course involves the question of recognition. 
 Again, in the parable of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom,* and the 
 rich man in torment, identity of persons, and recognition after 
 death, are presented to us as facts in the understood order of 
 Providence. 
 
 That these are indeed the facts, may be clearly comprehended also 
 from the definite and distinctive position of man in the sight of God. 
 " Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name" (Is. 
 
 * Alluding to the custom of those days, when men reclined at 
 length, side by side, at their feasts, instead of sitting. Thus, also, St. 
 John is described as "leaning on Jesus's bosom," at the last supper. 
 
 
222 The Recognition of each other ly the Blessed. 
 
 xliii. 1.) "I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will 
 confess his name before my Father and before His angels." (Rev. iii. 5.) 
 St. Paul speaks of those whose names are in the book of life ; and St. 
 James of those whose names are not in the book of life. And numerous 
 other passages might be quoted to show that the Christian especially 
 will stand before God in heaven as personally and as individually known 
 and distinguishable from his fellow beings as he now stands before God 
 and man on earth. The deduction is obvious: where individuality 
 exists, recognition is a necessary consequence. If, with our present 
 limited faculties, men know each other after long absence, and change 
 from youth to age, is it possible that redeemed man, with the enlarged 
 perceptions of a higher existence, can fail to recognise the earthly 
 friends who were the faithful solace of their life's pilgrimage? On 
 Futurity, ly W. Merry. 
 
 The mutual recognition of the redeemed in glory is demon- 
 strated in a calm and convincing spirit by the Hev. J. A. Killeen, 
 in his popular work entitled Our Friends in Heaven. The Scrip- 
 tural argument is ably conducted throughout ; and in the Ap- 
 pendix to the work, the doctrine of mutual recognition after death 
 is shown to be a truth acknowledged by the heathen Homer, 
 (always understood to express the views and feelings of his age 
 and country :) he uniformly describes the departed as recognising 
 each other, and conversing together in their disembodied con- 
 dition. Thus, when Ulysses is permitted to visit the world of 
 spirits, his mother recognises him ; so also, the soul of Achilles 
 recognises Ulysses ; and the prophet Tiresias, not only recognises 
 him, but predicts his coming fortunes. In Hades, Achilles recog- 
 nises Agamemnon, from whom he receives an account of what had 
 occurred on earth since his decease. Here too, Ulysses sees the 
 souls of the suitors he had slain. Achilles, too, talks with Ulysses, 
 comparing his former with his present state, and wishes to know 
 from his earthly visitant whether his son strove to "rival his 
 father's godlike deeds." 
 
 So also we find Sophocles make Antigone, when about to 
 endure a cruel death, exclaim, 
 
 Oh ! my deep dungeon ! my eternal home ! 
 Whither I go to join my kindred dead ; 
 But still I have great hopes I shall not go 
 Unwelcomed, to my father, nor to thee, 
 My mother ! Dear to thee, Eteocles, 
 Still shall I ever be. 
 
 JEschylus, in his Perste, represents the soul of Darius as still 
 possessing the thoughts and feelings of his former life; and in 
 the address which he delivers, this departed spirit is exhibited as 
 retaining a perfect recollection of his former history. 
 
 Socrates, in his apology before his judges, thus bears testimony 
 to the doctrine of mutual recognition and companionship in the 
 life to come : "Will it not be unspeakably blessed, when escaped 
 from those who call themselves judges, to appear before those 
 
The Recognition of each other l>y the Blessed. 223 
 
 who truly deserve the name, such as Minos, Rhadamanthus, 
 jEacus, and Triptolemus, and to associate with all who have 
 maintained the cause of truth and righteousness ; or again to 
 converse with Orpheus and Musseus, and Hesiod and Homer ; at 
 how much would any of you purchase this ? Be assured I would 
 choose to die often, if these things be true ; for to me delightful 
 would be the communion with Palamedes, Ajax the son of Tela- 
 mon, and others of the ancients who died in consequence of an 
 unjust sentence pronounced urjon them !" 
 
 Virgil describes jEneas as visiting the realms of the departed, 
 and there recognising, and being recognised by, the spirits 
 he met : 
 
 The gladsome ghosts in circling troops attend, 
 
 And with unwearied eyes behold their friend, 
 
 Delight to hover near, and long to know, 
 
 What business brought him to the realms below. ^Eneid, vi. 
 
 His father Anchises 
 
 Meets him with open arms and falling tears. 
 " Welcome," he said, " the gods' undoubted race, 
 . long expected to my dear embrace. 
 "Pis true, computing time, I now believed 
 The happy day approached nor are my hopes deceived." 
 
 ^Eneid, vi. 
 
 Cicero, (de Senectute,) declares his belief in the doctrine of re- 
 cognition thus emphatically : 
 
 "I feel impelled by the desire of joining the society of my two 
 departed friends, your illustrious fathers, whom I reverenced and 
 loved. I desire not only to meet those whom I myself knew, but 
 those of whom I have heard or read, or regarding whom I myself 
 have written. Oh, illustrious day, when I shall go hence to that 
 divine council and assembly of souls, when I shall escape from 
 this crowd and rabble ; for I shall go, not only to those illustrious 
 men of whom I have before spoken, but also to my Cato, than 
 whom one more excellent or illustrious in goodness was never 
 born. He himself consoled me, judging that our distance and 
 parting would not long continue." 
 
 "Thus," says Mr. Killeen, "we find that the poets and philo- 
 sophers of both Greece and Rome comforted themselves with the 
 hope of recognition and reunion after death. They did not con- 
 sider that death destroyed either friends or friendship ; and they 
 looked forward to spending an eternity of love with them in the 
 Elysian plains, the Hesperian gardens, or the far-off Islands of 
 the Blest." 
 
 The reverend author then shows that this belief in a future 
 recognition has not been confined to the ancient Pagans. The 
 Heathen of modern times have adopted the same doctrine. Dr. 
 Robertson records that upon the death of a Cazique, or American 
 
224 TJie Recognition of each other ~by the Blessed. 
 
 chief, certain of his wives, favourites, and slaves, were put to 
 death, and interred with him, that he might appear with the same 
 dignity in his future station. The burning of Hindoo widows 
 was founded on a similar belief : they prayed to abide in heaven 
 with their husbands as many years as there were hairs on their 
 heads. Porphyry tells us that the Hindoo Gymnosophists, or 
 barefooted philosophers, were wont to send messages to their 
 departed friends by those who were about to commit suicide. The 
 natives of Dahomey entertain the same belief: when the King 
 is anxious to send to his forefathers an account of any remarkable 
 event, he delivers the message to the person who happens to be 
 nearest to him, and then orders his head to be chopped off imme- 
 diately, so that as a courier he may convey the intelligence to the 
 King's friends in the land of spirits. In Guinea, when a King 
 dies, many persons are slain, that they may live again with him in 
 another world. 
 
 " Similar customs and ideas have been found existing among the 
 Danes, the Chinese, the Brazilians, the people of Macassar and 
 Japan, all which, though often denied by superstitious and cruel 
 rites, betoken the aspirations of the human spirit, and prove that 
 humanity, even in its most degraded phases, still retains the 
 purest of its social affections, and longs for everlasting friendship 
 with those it loves." * 
 
 The Members of the Primitive Church were remarkable for 
 their love of their dead, which they strongly showed by sacrifices, 
 by honourable burial, and by visiting their tombs thus aiming to 
 realize a secret and invisible communion with their deceased 
 friends, and to come, as it were, into a sort of spiritual contact 
 with their dead. Hence they loved to have their burial-places 
 around their churches. Neander says that the anniversary of the 
 decease of their friends was observed as a birthday to a nobler ex- 
 istence. That on this day " it was usual to partake of the Supper 
 of the Lord, in the consciousness of an inseparable communion 
 with those who had died in Christ ; " and he adds, " a gift was laid 
 on the altar in their names, as if they were still living members of 
 the Church." Cyprian consoled his church at Carthage, when 
 multitudes had been swept away by pestilence with this healing : 
 
 " We ought not to mourn for those who, by the summons of 
 the Lord, are delivered from the world, since we know they are not 
 lost, but sent before us that they have only taken their leave of 
 us, in order to precede us. We may long for them as we do for 
 those who are on a distant voyage, but not lament them. Why 
 do we not ourselves wish to depart out of this world, or why do 
 we mourn our departed ones as lost ? Why do we not hasten to 
 see our country, to greet our parents ? There await us a vast 
 multitude of dear ones fathers, mothers, and children, who are 
 * Our Friends in Heaven. Appendix, 8th Edit. 
 
The Translation of Enoch. 225 
 
 already secure of their own salvation, and anxious only for ours. 
 What a mutual joy to them and us, when we shall come into their 
 presence and embrace ! Church History, vol. i. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OP ENOCH. 
 
 The history of the prophet to whom the book of Enoch is 
 attributed, or rather whose visions it relates, is recounted as fol- 
 lows in Gen. v. 18 24 : " Jared, at the age of 162, begat Enoch ; 
 who, at the age of 65, begat Methuselah, and afterwards walked 
 with God 300 years, and begat sons and daughters. All the days 
 of Enoch were 365 years. He walked with God, and was not, for 
 God took him." (Compare Ecclesiasticus xliv. 16; Heb. xii. 5.) 
 The translation of Enoch has been compared with the ancient 
 mysterious burial at sunrise of noble and comely youths who pre- 
 maturely died. They are said to have been not really dead, but 
 carried up alive to the region of light, in consequence of their 
 being loved by the Supreme Bein^. The story of Ganymede is an 
 instance. (See the learned disquisition on the subject in Mont- 
 faucon's Religion des Ganlois, torn. ii. p. 305, &c. ; and in his Ex- 
 plication des Textes difficiles, torn. i. p. 132.) Hence the well- 
 known axiom, ' f He whom the gods love dies young." Plutarch, 
 De Comolalione Philosoph. 
 
 The Translation of Enor.h has been commemorated by Thomas 
 Peyton, a learned and pious poet, in his Glasse of Time ; published 
 in 1620 : 
 
 God re-ascends, and lets the world alone, 
 
 Takes Enoch vp, that liu'd therein to mone, 
 
 Waile, grieve, lament, the abuses which he saw 
 
 Committed were against the conscience, law 
 
 Of noble stature, in that sinful age ; 
 
 Small hope to mend, when hope could not assuage 
 
 The furious current of this streame and tide 
 
 To good (sweete saint) with these foule men to bide. 
 
 The angels bright, and all the powers diuine, 
 
 Before thy face in glittering robes do shine, 
 
 Their number more than are the stars and sands, 
 
 With golden censers in their pure white hands, 
 
 Winged with fame to mount the highest heauens, 
 
 Eanck't all in order, must'ring iust by seauens, 
 
 Descending, sweetely on thy louely brest, 
 
 To bring both soule and body to their rest. 
 
 By safe conueyance, in a chariot fram'd 
 
 Of burnisht gold, the horse with loue inflam'd 
 
 Mount vp the aire with stately stomach fierce, 
 
 And at the last the brazen wall doth pierce ; 
 
 Where like a Prince that Paradise had gain'd 
 
 Of Eue and Adam thou art entertain' d, 
 
 With farre more love within so braue a field, 
 
 Then all the world and all therein can yeeld ; 
 
 There thou dost line when they are wrapt in dust 
 
 The seuenth from them, tipe of our Sabaoth iust. 
 
 
 
226 The Recognition of each other ~by the Blessed. 
 
 " MARRIAGES ARE MADE IN HEAVEN." 
 
 The origin of this beautiful proverb is thus explained. 
 
 Normal marriages being so innocent of all premeditation by man, 
 can only be ascribed to the will of " the angel " espoused, or to 
 fate, in either case, (for ce cjui femme vent, Dieu le veut) to the 
 will of Heaven. After marriage, another sense may appear in the 
 saying, viz. that expressed in the words of St. Francis de Salis : 
 " Marriage is a state of continual mortification ;" and hence a 
 sacrament for human salvation. Again, in suggesting the meaning 
 of this phrase, we are led to the well-known beautiful myth of 
 Plato, according to which, in a true marriage, the two counter- 
 parts have met by destiny, and form a perfect homo. The account 
 in Genesis (chap, ii.) is not to a dissimilar effect. In this view, 
 marriages are those whom God has joined only. (Mark x. 9.) In 
 a literal sense, the phrase in question clearly expresses an im- 
 possibility; since in heaven are no marriages (Mat. xxii. 30) 
 according to the usual interpretation; though some may take 
 refuge in the beautiful evasion of Swedenborg who says that in 
 the next world, the married couple will become one angel. 
 
 Had not this saying an astrological foundation ? Sir Kenelm 
 Digby says of his own marriage : 
 
 In the first place, it giveth me occasion to acknowledge and admire 
 the high and transcendent operations of the celestial bodies, which con- 
 taining and moving about the universe, send their influence every way 
 and to all things ; and who, although they take not away the liberty of 
 free agents, yet do so strongly, though at the first secretly and in- 
 sensibly, work upon their spiritual part by means of the corporeal, that 
 they get the mastery before they be perceived ; and then it is too late 
 to make any resistance. For from what other cause could proceed this 
 strong knot of affection, which, being tied in tender years, before any 
 mutual obligations could help to confirm it, could not then be torn 
 asunder by long absence, the austerity of parents, other pretenders, 
 false rumours, and other the greatest difficulties and oppositions that 
 could come to blast the budding blossoms of an infant love, that hath 
 since brought forth so fair flowers and so mature fruit ? Certainly, the 
 stars were at the least the first movers, &c. Private Memoirs of Sir K. 
 Digby, 1811, pp. 1011. 
 
 " THE BUSINESS OF THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN. 
 
 What a singular book is this, by father Lewis Henriquez ; 
 printed at Salamanca in 1631. He attempts to prove, in the 
 twenty-second chapter, "That every saint shall have his particular 
 place in heaven ; and Christ a most magnificent palace ! That there 
 shall be large streets, great piazzas, &c." He says in the twenty- 
 fourth chapter, " That there shall be a sovereign pleasure in kiss- 
 ing and embracing the bodies of the blest ; that there shall be 
 
The New Heavens and Earth. 227 
 
 pleasant baths, and that they shall bathe in each other's sight. 
 That they shall swiin like fishes; and sing as melodiously as 
 nightingales, c." He affirms, in the forty-seventh chapter, 
 "That the men and women shall delight themselves in masquerades, 
 feasts, and ballads ; " and in the fifty-eighth, " That the angels 
 shall put on women's habits, and appear to be saints in the dress 
 of ladies, with curls and locks, waistcoats and fardingales, &c." 
 See the " Moral practice of the Jesuits" by the doctors of Sor- 
 bonne ; it has been translated into English, and published in 1671. 
 Spence's Anecdotes. Supplement, 1757. 
 
 THE NEW HEAVENS AND EARTH. 
 
 Bishop Mant, in his volume on the Happiness of the Blessed, 
 refers to several passages in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 indicating the excellence of the future residence of the blessed. 
 Thus, he figuratively speaks of it as "Mount Sion," "the joy of 
 the whole earth" (Ps. xlviii. 2) ; and he further mentions it, by 
 a different modification of the same figure, as " the city of the 
 living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." He elsewhere refers to the 
 same celestial abode, in speaking of Abraham sojourning " in the 
 land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles 
 with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise ; 
 for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder 
 and maker is God." (Heb. xi. 10.) He then speaks of God 
 having prepared a city for the descendants of Abraham who died 
 in the faith ; and of the descendants of Abraham after the Spirit, 
 or the members of the Christian Church, the same Apostle says : 
 " Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come." 
 (Heb. xiii. 14.) 
 
 All these passages point to the superior excellence and value of 
 that celestial abode which is prepared for God's faithful servants 
 in the world to come. But the book of Revelation of St. John 
 supplies individual features of the magnificence, beauty, and enjoy- 
 ment of "the holy city, prepared as a bride adorned for her 
 husband," " having the glory of God." 
 
 {t And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all 
 manner of precious stones. . . . And the twelve gates were twelve 
 pearls ; every gate was of one pearl ; and the street of the city was 
 pure gold, as it were transparent glass." "And the city had no need 
 of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it ; for the glory of God did 
 lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them 
 which are saved shall walk in the light of it ; and the kings of the 
 earth do bring into it their glory and honour." And it had " a pure 
 river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of 
 God and of the Lamb. And in the midst of the street of it, and on 
 either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bare twelve manner 
 of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month ; and the leaves of the tree 
 were for the healing of the nations." 
 
 In whatever manner such portraits as these are to be understood ; 
 Q 2 
 
228 The Recognition of each other by the Blessed. 
 
 whether it be that the most beautiful and] splendid productions of the 
 earth will be enjoyed in full perfection by the inhabitants of the hea- 
 venly state ; agreeably to the idea ascribed to Raphael by our great 
 poet, 
 
 What if earth 
 
 Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
 Each to other like, more than on earth is thought ; 
 
 Paradise Lost. 
 
 or that the representations of heavenly things are set before us in a 
 figurative manner, as calculated to impress us with a more lively sense 
 of their value and delightfulness, when shadowed forth under the 
 images of those things which are esteemed on earth most precious and 
 delightful ; in either case they seem intended to place most expressively 
 before our thoughts the leauty and magnificence of the future abode of 
 the blessed, 
 
 The pleasant garden, and the crystal stream, 
 
 The tree of life which bears on every bough, 
 
 Fruits fit for joy or healing ; on the brow, 
 
 Of glorious gold a living diadem ; 
 '. On thrones which blaze with many a radiant gem ; 
 
 The branching palms ; the raiment white as snow ; 
 
 Are these the joys that heaven's abodes bestow? 
 
 Or may they rather earth-formed figures seem 
 
 Of heavenly bliss ? To me it matters not, 
 
 If I but reach the mark, whate'er the prize 
 
 Of God's high calling. Be content that what 
 
 Is told, is told us by the only Wise : 
 
 And blest, supremely blest, must be the lot, 
 
 Which Christ hath purchased, and which God supplies. 
 
 Bishop Mant. 
 
 " We look (says St. Peter) for new heavens and a new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." And it seems evident, that the 
 proper abode of man will be not in the new heavens, but on the new 
 earth. For St. John writes, " And I saw a new heaven and a new 
 earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; 
 and there was no more sea." 
 
 By the new earth, and the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which 
 St. John saw coming down from God, out of heaven, the future 
 place of abode of the followers of Christ, of all who shall have 
 attained unto immortality, we must not understand a merely 
 spiritual world, or state, but literally a place of happiness, and 
 (perhaps it may not be incorrect to say,) a substantial seat of bliss. 
 
 May we not (asks Bishop Courtenay) be permitted to conjec- 
 ture that this great city shall become THE ABODE OF ALL LIVING 
 BEINGS : not only of angelic creatures and of the redeemed from 
 the present earth, but of all the rational and beatified inhabitants 
 of all now existing worlds. And that its foundations shall extend, 
 beyond the "flaming walls of the world" that now is, through 
 spaces immeasurable by mortal man ? Tor the New Jerusalem 
 shall not, like the old, occupy a small part of the earth, but rather 
 like the Christian church, as foreseen by Isaiah, when " the earth 
 
The New Heavens and Earth. 229 
 
 shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters that 
 cover the depths of the sea/ 7 * it shall be co-extensive with the 
 plain on which it stands. All abominable and condemned things 
 shall be not without Jerusalem, yet upon the earth, like the 
 gehenna of the Jews, where the dead and the filth of the city 
 were consumed with fire ; but beyond both, far from the Divine 
 presence. Yet shall the immense tracts of the new earth be 
 traversed with ease by the gloriously embodied spirits that inhabit 
 them, for " there shall be no more sea," nothing, it may be, to 
 impede the interchange of happiness and intimate communion of 
 saints ; and they, wandering where they will, even to the utter- 
 most parts, shall still be led by the hand of God, still bask in the 
 full splendour of " uncreated rays," still be sitting with Christ in 
 his throne, even as he also is set down with the Father in his 
 throne. 
 
 The philosopher may argue, upon principles merely physical, 
 upon the blending of mind and matter, and the modifications of 
 matter, which shall enter into the constitution of the glorified 
 bodies, or of the earth which they shall inhabit. To such argu- 
 ments Bishop Courtenay thus forcibly replies : 
 
 Yet, when we learn from Kevelation, that a change shall be effected 
 in the bodies of the saints at the last day, in which every thing that is 
 of the earth and earthy, the whole nature, as it would seem, of the 
 first man, a creature of the dust shall be rejected ; and that on the 
 same Great Day the elements shall be dissolved, the earth burned up, 
 and the whole material heavens, including even light, apparently the 
 purest, and most imperishable of material things, shall be utterly 
 abolished, there is much ground for doubt whether any thing par- 
 taking of the nature of matter will be suffered to remain : if, indeed, 
 we may not hold the abolition of all matter for certain, since "all 
 things that are made" and "which can be shaken" will be removed at 
 the Great Day. And perhaps nothing has been revealed concerning 
 the future state of the blessed, which more strongly shows the spiritu- 
 ality of their condition, than this abolition of material light. The city 
 shall inhabit, shall enjoy, without the aid of the solar heavens, a per- 
 petual day : 
 
 Nor sun, nor moon they need, nor day nor night, 
 God is their temple, and the Lamb their light. 
 
 It is difficult to suppose that any thing resembling the emanation of 
 material rays is intended, though such a notion is encouraged by the 
 appearance of Christ at his transfiguration, when " his face did shine as 
 the Sun, and his raiment was white as the light ;" (Matt. c. xviii.) and 
 without some supposition of the kind, the vision of the heavenly Jeru- 
 salem fades completely from before the eye of the imagination. 
 
 The future existence of the blessed then will be, not in the present 
 visible heavens ; for these, though they constitute the material throne 
 of God, and are the stage and proper sphere of the agency of many 
 
 So in Lowth's translation. 
 
230 The Recognition of each other "by the Blessed. 
 
 angelic beings, are but symbols and figures of the true, and will at a 
 destined period, pass away, and give place to new heavens ; nor will it 
 consist simply in a spiritual communion with the Father of Spirits, 
 without any certain locality ; for men will still be embodied, and en- 
 joying a certain corporeal proximity to Christ, after the likeness of 
 whose glorious body they will be fashioned, having " spiritual bodies," 
 and whether with any remnant of materiality we know not but their 
 future life will be ON THE NEW EARTH AND IN THE HOLT CITY. 
 
 One of the latest flights of scientific conjecture is the following, 
 by Sir David Brewster, in his eloquent advocacy of the doctrine 
 of " More Worlds than One," arguing for their peopling, as lc the 
 Abodes of the Blest : " 
 
 Man, in his future state of existence, is to consist, as at pre- 
 sent, of a spiritual nature residing in a corporeal frame. He must 
 live, therefore, upon a material planet, subject to all the laws of 
 matter, and performing functions for which a material body is 
 indispensable. We must consequently find for the race of Adam, 
 if not races that may have preceded him, a material home upon 
 which they may reside, or by which they may travel, by means 
 unknown to us, to other localities in the universe. At the present 
 hour, the inhabitants of the earth are nearly a thousand millions ; 
 and by whatever process we may compute the numbers that have 
 existed before the present generation, and estimate those that are 
 yet to inherit the earth, we shall obtain a population which the 
 nabitable parts of our globe could not possibly accommodate. If 
 there is not room, then, on our earth for the millions of millions 
 of beings who have lived and died upon its surface, and who may 
 yet live and die during the period fixed for its occupation by man, 
 we can scarcely doubt that their future abode must be on some of 
 the primary or secondary planets of the solar system, whose in- 
 habitants have ceased to exist like those on the earth, or upon 
 planets in our own or in other systems which have been in a state 
 of preparation, as our earth was, for the advent of intellectual life. 
 
STUDY OF THE BIBLE.* 
 
 How utterly impossible it would be in the manhood of the 
 world, to imagine any other instructor of mankind than the 
 Bible. And for that reason, every day makes it more and more 
 evident that the thorough study of the Bible, the investigation of 
 what it teaches and what it does not teach, the determination of 
 the limits of what we mean by its inspiration, the determination 
 of the degree of authority to be ascribed to the different books, if 
 any degrees are to be admitted, must take the lead of all other 
 studies. He is guilty of high treason against the faith who fears 
 the result of any investigation, whether philosophical, or scientific, 
 or historical. And therefore nothing should be more welcome 
 than the extension of knowledge of any and of every kind for 
 every increase in our accumulations of knowledge throws fresh 
 light upon the real problems of the day. If geology proves to us 
 that we must not interpret the first chapters of Genesis literally ; 
 if historical investigation shall show us that inspiration, however 
 it may protect the doctrine, yet was not empowered to protect the 
 narrative of the inspired writers from occasional inaccuracy ; if 
 careful criticism shall prove that there have been occasionally 
 interpolations and forgeries in that Book, as in many others ; the 
 results should still be welcome. Even the mistakes of careful 
 and reverent students are more valuable now than truth held in 
 unthinking acquiescence. The substance of the teaching which 
 we derive from the Bible will not really be affected by anything 
 of this sort ; while its hold upon the minds of believers, and its 
 power to stir the depths of the spirit of man, however much 
 weakened at first, must be immeasurably strengthened in the end, 
 by clearing away blunders which may have been fastened on it by 
 human interpretation. 
 
 # " # # % -jf # -jf 
 
 Though the study of the Bible must be for the present and for 
 some time the centre of all studies, there is meanwhile no study 
 of whatever kind which will not have its share in the general 
 effect. At this time, in the maturity of mankind, as with man in 
 the maturity of his powers, the great lever which moves the world 
 is knowledge, the great force is the intellect. St. Paul has told 
 *_ For these two extracts the editor is indebted to Essays and Reviews. 
 
232 Adversaria. 
 
 us " that though in malice we must be children, in understanding 
 we ought to be men." And this saying of his has the widest 
 range. Not only in the understanding of religious truth, but in 
 all the exercise of the intellectual powers, we have no right to 
 stop short of any limit but that which nature, thaj; is, the decree 
 of the Creator, has imposed on us. In fact, no knowledge can 
 be without its effect on religious convictions ; for if not capable 
 of throwing direct light on some spiritual questions, yet in its 
 acquisition knowledge invariably throws light on the process by 
 which it is to be, or has been, acquired, and thus affects all other 
 knowledge of every kind. 
 
 If we have made mistakes, careful study may teach us better. 
 If we have quarrelled about words, the enlightenment of the 
 understanding is the best means to show us our folly. If we 
 have vainly puzzled our intellects with subjects beyond human 
 cognizance, better knowledge of ourselves will help us to be 
 humbler. Life, indeed, is higher than all else ; ana no service 
 that man can render to his fellows, is to be compared with the 
 heavenly power of a life of holiness. But next to that must be 
 ranked whatever tends to make men think clearly and judge 
 correctly. So valuable, even above all things (excepting only 
 godliness), is clear thought, that the labours of the statesman are 
 far below those of the philosopher in duration, in power, and in 
 beneficial results. Thought is now higher than action, unless 
 action be inspired with the very breath of heaven. For we are 
 now men, governed by principles, if governed at all, and cannot 
 rely any longer on the impulses of youth, or the discipline of 
 childhood. We quote these able remarks from Dr. Temple's 
 Education. 
 
 Professor Jowett, in a paper on the Religious Tendencies of the 
 Age, observes : 
 
 There is a wide distinction between the interpretation and the 
 application of Scripture. The latter is of much wider extent than 
 the former. " Interpretation is the province of few ; it requires 
 a finer perception of language, and a higher degree of cultivation, 
 than is attained by the majority of mankind. But applications 
 are made by all, from the philosopher reading God in History, to 
 the poor woman who finds in them a response to her prayers, and 
 the solace of her daily life. In the hour of death we do not want 
 critical explanations ; in most cases those to whom they would be 
 offered are incapable of understanding them. A few words, 
 breathing the whole sense of the Christian world, such as ' I know 
 that my Redeemer liveth,' (though the exact meaning of them 
 may be doubtful to the Hebrew scholar) ; ' I shall go to him, but 
 he shall not return to me ;' touch a chord which would never be 
 reached by the most skilful exposition of the argument of one of 
 St. Paul's Epistles." 
 
Serpent Worship. 233 
 
 SERPENT WORSHIP. 
 
 There is scarcely a heathen nation that has not adopted some 
 deity in the form of a serpent. Among those who were foremost 
 in this form of idolatry were the Egyptians, who built chapels 
 underground, where they carefully fed and worshipped them. In 
 the time of Herodotus, serpents were kept tame at Thebes, 
 adorned with jewels, and consecrated to Jupiter. When they died 
 they were buried with divine honours, and placed in urns in the 
 temple of Jupiter.* And, according to jElian, they were admitted 
 into the houses of the Egyptians, and there treated as house- 
 hold gods. It is said that Jotham, king of Israel, built much on 
 the wall of Ophel, that is, the serpent God ; and this animal was 
 the form under which the Cnaphis or Agathodsemon of the Egyp- 
 tian pantheon was worshipped by the inhabitants of the Thebaid. 
 
 But, although this creature was worshipped by many nations 
 in the east, the Babylonians, Arabians, Scythians, Phoenicians, 
 Macedonians, and many others ; yet in India, and more particularly 
 on the coast of Malabar, this form of worship attained its greatest 
 height of absurdity. The king of Calicut, who was formerly the 
 most powerful of all the Malabar princes, and whose title was no 
 less than " God upon earth/ 3 was so much enslaved by the worship 
 of this creature as to have temples built purposely for them, where 
 they were held sacred and made the guardians of all their houses, 
 persons, and property. So highly was the serpent considered in 
 the east that, wherever it was figured or painted, the place was 
 held sacred, and the ground consecrated ; and the most exalted 
 honour that could be conferred upon a hero was to style him " born 
 of a serpent. 53 Thus, Alexander the Great, who suffered himself 
 to be called God, and Scipio Africanus, were both said to be born 
 of serpents. So likewise was the companion of Cadmus, the giant 
 in Homer, and a certain prophet in Pausanias ; nay, whole tribes 
 went by the name of serpent. This was the case with some people 
 inhabiting Cyprus and around the Hellespont. Even in the primi- 
 tive church there was a sect called Ophites, because they worship- 
 ped the serpent that betrayed Eve, and therefore ascribed super- 
 natural knowledge to that animal. 
 
 But the most probable origin of Serpent -worship would seem to 
 take its rise in the corrupt and perverted constructions which were 
 put upon the history of Adam and Eye by heathen nations, many 
 of which seem to have received sufficient intimation of this event, 
 and of the record made by Moses, to account for many strange 
 perversions which we read of in mythology. Indeed, in the 
 
 * Eutropius, lib. ii. He states also that another serpent was worshipped 
 in a tower at Miletus, in Egypt, where there was a priest and other 
 officers attending it. It was fed daily with meal and honey. 
 
234 Adversaria. 
 
 Phoenician theology the creation is described almost in the same 
 manner as that of the pentateuch. 
 
 SYMBOLICAL FIGURES FROM NINEVEH. 
 
 The visitor to the British Museum who curiously examines the 
 winged bulls, lions, and other mysterious figures from Nineveh, 
 can scarcely fail to be convinced that they are not mere sculptural 
 ornaments but symbols of certain mysteries and ceremonies of the 
 primeval religion of Assyria. The era of these sculptures is so 
 remote, and the traditions respecting them so obscure, that the 
 inquiry into their signification is difficult, and the conclusions 
 arrived at unsatisfactory : still some attempt has been made to pene- 
 trate the mystery which surrounds them. The chief mythological 
 figures are the winged bull with a man's face ; the winged lion 
 with a man's face ; the winged man with a fir-cone in one hand 
 and a square basket or vessel in the other ; and a man with the 
 head and wings of an eagle or hawk. The hypothesis which Mr. 
 Eavenshaw, in a paper read to the Asiatic Society, maintains with 
 respect to them is, that they are, as already surmised by Mr. 
 Layard, the originals of the cnerubim of Ezekiel ; that they were 
 likewise the originals of the apocalyptic beasts of St. John; and 
 that, slightly modified, they were afterwards adopted, and are now 
 used, as the symbols of the four Evangelists. Further, that they 
 were originally invented by the Magi and Chaldeans as astrono- 
 mical symbols of the equinoctial and solstitial points ; that they 
 represent in fact the four seasons spring, summer, autumn, and 
 winter ; and perhaps also the four winds and the four elements. 
 
 In support and illustration of these views, the writer enters 
 into an examination of the passages in the Old Testament and in 
 other writings, regarding the cherubim, showing that there is no 
 authority in Scripture for supposing them to be bodiless infants, 
 and comes to the conclusion that the face of a cherub was in 
 reality the face of a bull. At an early period of the Christian 
 Church these winged animals were adopted as the symbols of the 
 Eour Evangelists. The winged lion was assigned to St. Mark, as 
 the symbol of strength ; the winged ox to St. Luke, as the symbol 
 of sacrifice ; the eagle and chalice to St. John, as the symbol of 
 contemplation ; and the winged man with a cup and hatchet to 
 St. Matthew, as the symbol of power. The employment of these 
 figures as astronomical symbols formed the next branch of in- 
 quiry, and the conclusions were that the colossal bulls are symbols 
 of the sun in Taurus, or the vernal equinox ; that the winged man 
 is Mitra or Serosh, the guardian of the autumnal equinox ; and 
 the winged man-lion and eagle-headed man the symbols of the 
 solstices, being the four cherubim who watched the gates of 
 Heaven, and upheld the Zodiac. 
 
Evidences of Christianity Changes in Opinion. 235 
 
 As regards the other mythological figures, it is probable that 
 the man with a goat in his arms represents the constellation 
 Capricorn, and the fish-god, that of Pisces. All the names of the 
 gods found in the Nineveh inscriptions will probably, on further 
 inquiry, prove to be the names of constellations, stars, or planets, 
 chosen as the guardian angels of nations, kings, or individuals. 
 The mystic tree, which forms so conspicuous an object in the 
 sculptures, has evidently some astronomical signification. The 
 number of its rosettes 'or leaves vary considerably, but never 
 exceed thirty ; and the winged circle, or the new moon and some 
 stars, are generally seen above it. Hence it seems probable that 
 these trees were orreries showing the month, day, or season which 
 is being celebrated by the winged figures or priests who arc re- 
 presented in connection with them. The winged circles or eyes, 
 which are frequently placed above the sacred tree, and seem to 
 form the principal object of adoration, so closely resemble the 
 winged globes on the portals of the Egyptian temples, that it is 
 difficult to disbelieve the identity of their origin. At first they 
 were probably typical of time, but came afterwards to be looked 
 upon as the symbols of Ormuzd, the active creator and source of 
 all good. These speculations may appear more curious than pro- 
 fitable ; still it cannot be uninteresting to inquire what were the 
 ideas of men 3,000 years ago, when the earth was comparatively 
 young ; to learn what were the traditions of Asia as to the origin 
 and destiny of the human race, and what notions were then 
 entertained as to the Creator and Governor of the universe. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY CHANGES IN OPINION. 
 
 If we compare the general tone, character, and pretensions of 
 those works which, in our schools and colleges, have been regarded 
 as the standard authorities on the subject of "the Evidences," 
 we must acknowledge a great change in the taste or opinions of 
 the times from the commencement of the last century to the 
 present day ; which has led the student to turn from the erudite 
 folios of Jackson and Stillingfleet, or the more condensed argu- 
 ments of Clarke On the Attributes, Grotius de Feritate, and Leslie's 
 Method with the Deists, the universal text books of a past genera- 
 tion, to the writings of Lardner and Paley ; the latter of whom, 
 in the beginning of the present century, reigned supreme, the 
 acknowledged champion of revelation, and the head of a school, 
 to which numerous others, as Campbell, Watson, and Douglas, 
 contributed their labours. But more recently, these authors have 
 been in a degree superseded, by a recurrence to the once com- 
 paratively neglected resources furnished by Bishop Butler ; of so 
 much less formal, technical, and positive a kind, yet offering wider 
 and more philosophical views of the subject ; still, however, not 
 
236 A dversaria . 
 
 supplying altogether that comprehensive discussion which is 
 adapted to the peculiar tone and character of thought and existing 
 state of knowledge in our own times. 
 
 * * * # % % 
 
 At the present day,, the " evidential " view of miracles, as the 
 sole or even the principal external attestation to the claims of a 
 Divine revelation, is a species of reasoning which appears to have 
 lost ground even among the most earnest advocates of Christianity. 
 It is now generally admitted that Paley took too conclusive a view 
 in asserting that we cannot conceive a revelation substantiated in 
 any other way. And it has been even more directly asserted by 
 some zealous supporters of Christian doctrine that the external 
 evidences are altogether inappropriate and worthless. 
 
 CHRISTIAN REVELATION WHY FIRST GIVEN TO THE WEST. 
 
 It has been customary to argue that, a priori, a supernatural 
 revelation was to be expected at the time when Jesus Christ was 
 manifested upon the earth, by reason of the exhaustion of all 
 natural or unassisted efforts for the amelioration of mankind. The 
 state of the world, it has been customary to say, had become so 
 utterly corrupt and hopeless under the Roman sway, that a neces- 
 sity and special occasion was presented for an express divine inter- 
 vention. Our recently enlarged ethnographical information shows 
 such an argument to be altogether inapplicable to the case. If 
 we could be judges of the necessity for a special divine inter- 
 vention, the stronger necessity existed in the East. There im- 
 mense populations, like the Chinese, had never developed the idea 
 of a personal God, or had degenerated from a once pure theological 
 creed, as in India, from the religion of the Yedas. Oppressions 
 and tyrannies, caste-distinctions, common and enormous vices, a 
 polluted idolatrous worship, as bad as the worst which disgraced 
 feome, Greece, or Syria, had prevailed for ages. 
 
 It would not be very tasteful, as an exception to this descrip- 
 tion, to call Buddhism the gospel of India, preached to it five or 
 six centuries before the Gospel of Jesus was proclaimed in the 
 nearer East. But on the whole it would be more like the realities 
 of things, as we can now behold them, to say that the Christian 
 revelation was given to the western world, because it deserved 
 better and was more prepared for it than the East. Philosophers, 
 at least, had anticipated in speculation some of its dearest 
 hopes, and had prepared the way for its self-denying ethics. 
 Dr. Williams ; Essays and Reviews. 
 
 THE HOLY THORN AT GLASTONBURY. 
 
 This miraculous tree grew in the grounds of the famous abbey 
 of Glastonbury, in Somerset. The tradition is briefly, that when 
 
The Holy Thorn at Glastonbury. 237 
 
 Joseph of Arimathea came to Britain, to preacli Christianity, A.D. 
 63, Arviragus, then king, gave them the isle of Avalon, in Somerset, 
 afterwards called by the Saxons Glastonbury. On Joseph's arrival, 
 having a hawthorn-stick in his hand, he stuck it in the ground, 
 when it grew and blossomed on Christmas-day, to the great amaze- 
 ment of the people. Several thorns of this kind were in after ages 
 planted in the neighbourhood, which budded and blossomed in 
 the depth of winter ; and some ten years since, a thorn of this 
 kind, which was observed not to have a single blossom on it on 
 Christmas-eve, was seen in blossom next day. 
 
 Warner, in his History of the Abbey, states that the Thorn had 
 two trunks, or bodies, till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in whose 
 days a saint-like Puritan taking offence at it hewed down the 
 biggest of the two trunks, and had cut down the other body in all 
 likelihood, had he not been miraculously punished by cutting his 
 leg, and one of the chips flying up to his head, which put out one 
 of his eyes. . . . The remaining trunk is described to have been as 
 great as the ordinary body of a man, that it was a white thorn, but 
 was so cut and mangled in the bark, by people cutting their names on 
 it, that it was a wonder how the sap and nutriment were conveyed 
 to the root and branches, which were also maimed and broken by 
 comers. Yet the arms and boughs were widely spread, and bore 
 hawes as plentifully as others do. 
 
 In a word, the blossoms of this tree were such curiosities 
 beyond seas, that the Bristol merchants carried them into foreign 
 parts : it grew upon, (or rather near,) the top of a hill in a 
 pasture bare and naked of other trees, and was a shelter for cattle 
 feeding there, by reason whereof the pasture being great, and the 
 cattle many, round about the tree the ground was bare and beaten 
 as any trodden place. Yet this trunk was likewise cut down by a 
 "military saint" in the time of Charles I. In 1826, however, 
 when Warner wrote, there were divers trees from it by grafting 
 and inoculation, preserved in the town and country adjacent: 
 amongst other places, there was one in the garden of a currier in 
 the principal street of Glastonbury ; a second at the White Hart 
 inn ; and a third in the garden of William Strode, Esq. u There 
 is, (adds Warner,) a person about Glastonbury, who has a nursery 
 of them, who, Mr. Paschal tells us he is informed, sells them for 
 a crown a piece, or as much as he can get." 
 
 Collinson in his History of Somersetshire, states that besides the 
 Holy Thorn, there grew in the Abbey churchyard, on the north side 
 of St. Joseph's chapel, a walnut-tree which never budded forth before 
 the feast of St. Barnabas, (June 11) ; but on that very day shot 
 forth leaves, and flourished. This tree disappeared, and in its 
 place grew a very fine walnut-tree of the common sort. It is 
 strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the credu- 
 lous ; and though not an uncommon walnut, King James, Queen 
 
238 Adversaria. 
 
 Anne, and many of the nobility of the realm, even when the 
 times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave large sums of 
 money for cuttings of the original tree. 
 
 Glastonbury too was famous for its Mineral Waters, which, ac- 
 cording to Holinshead, cured King Arthur of his wounds. Their 
 fame slept for ages ; but in 1751, at Glastonbury, a man who had 
 been thirty years afflicted with asthma, dreamed that he was told 
 if he drank of certain waters near the Chain Gate, seven Sunday 
 mornings, he should be cured ; which he accordingly did, became 
 well, and attested the cure upon oath. This was rumoured abroad, 
 and it was computed that 10,000 persons shortly afterwards visited 
 Glastonbury to drink the waters there, for "various distempers." 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MISSION. 
 
 In this beneficent work, we see the necessity of grasping the 
 marvels of God's love and comprehending somewhat of the mys- 
 teries of the everlasting counsels of our redemption, of the love of 
 Christ, and the sympathy of the Cross, which penetrates each 
 individual soul. The eve of God is over every one, under the 
 greatest tumult and confusion of worldly trouble ; and His tender 
 compassion is as full to each one of the innumerable souls of men 
 as if that single soul was alone on a desert island. When this 
 great truth of the tender care of God for each soul is realized, this 
 further idea must be grasped viz., that the Church of Christ, His 
 witness on earth, if she is faithful to her mission, must reproduce 
 among men this tender loving care of her Lord. Compassion for 
 the weak, the tempted, and the fallen, must be her special care. 
 The world passes these by with scorn ; but in all ages the Church 
 has strewed Christendom with hospitals, penitentiaries, lazar- 
 houses, and infirmaries, while her children have ministered aye, 
 the noblest born in prison and by the sick-bed, and even the 
 purple pride of kings bent to wash the feet of outcasts. Where 
 such things die out, all true service dies also ; and then a cold 
 unsympathising world reasserts its accursed supremacy. When a 
 great religious enterprise is proposed, the world always suggests 
 difficulties, calls it ill-timed, disturbing to family arrangements 
 and comforts ; and as rubbing so unceremoniously the brightness 
 of a tinselled decency it calls it unpractical, fanciful, exaggerated, 
 romantic. Yes, it must be so; for to such a temper what an 
 exaggeration is the Cross ! what a mystery that the Eternal Sou 
 should hang on it ! how incomprehensible that unchanging love 
 can, in the hour of its agony, remember the dying malefactor ! 
 The Church is ever contending against this spirit ; and blessed is 
 that branch of the Church stirred up to any special protest which, 
 stretching beyond that of a martyred band, should revive the 
 dying embers of a nation's love. To a certain extent such is the 
 
The Christian Mission. 239 
 
 nature of all Missionary zeal. However accidentally fashionable, 
 all such fashions are esteemed by the world a waste, an extrava- 
 gance, an absurdity. Such acts in reality give us clearer visions 
 of the Cross, closer access to it, more of its saving power. This 
 good work tends to break up the dead level of respectability, and 
 the yet deeper lethargy of questioning unbelief, healing intestine 
 divisions, abating party spirit, and fanning to a flame the flicker- 
 ing emblems of our love to God and man. Note its special cha- 
 racteristics. First, it is the highest intellect of our Universities 
 going forth, for the love of Christ, to bless the most ignorant and 
 the most barbarous. Secondly, it is the Church going forth in 
 the completeness of her Apostolic organisation to spread the 
 Gospel among the outcasts of her people. These are the ventures 
 of faith which win an Apostle's crown, not only for their leader 
 but for all whence they spring. This movement is, first a sign of 
 good amidst our suspicions, divisions, hard language about one 
 another, strong scepticism as to the truth ;of God, showing the 
 energy yet inherent in our branch of the Church. Secondly, it 
 strengthens and revives our home-life, it being true now, as in all 
 ages of the Church, that " There is that scattereth and yet in- 
 creaseth," and that " The soul of the bountiful shall be made fat." 
 We have kept the good deposit at once in doctrine, in discipline, 
 and in succession : we may say our English prayers and read our 
 English Bibles in peace ; we consecrate an unmutilated Eucharist, 
 maintain an unmutilated creed, set forth the Cross of Christ 
 simply, yet cling dutifully to His Body, the Church ; cherish the 
 glorious memory of His departed saints, inherit the transmitted 
 authority of His undying Apostleship. Oh ! in this coming, Com- 
 munion wrestle with God, dear brethren, in prayer for yourselves, 
 for those going out,* and resolve not to let Him go unless He 
 bless us. Think of the greatness of this enterprise, of the dangers 
 to be encountered, the blessings to be conveyed, and the souls to 
 be saved ! Think of your own need, your coldness, your luke- 
 warm service, your lack of love, restrained prayers and chilled 
 thanksgivings, and, thinking thus, pray mightily ; for interces- 
 sion opens many a heart. To the assurance of God's abiding 
 presence, what shall we add that shall not weaken these words ? 
 Oh ! thou shalt know in that desert land the secret of His pre- 
 sence ; thou shalt see as men see not in their peaceful homes, the 
 nail-pierced hand, and the crowned brow ; and thou shalt find, as 
 all great saints have found, that He is better than all else ; when 
 all leave thee He shall be closest to thee, shall change labour to 
 rest, suffering into ease, anguish into glory, and, if need be, the 
 martyr's suffering to a martyr's victory. 
 
 * From a Sermon preached in Canterbury Cathedral, October, 1860, 
 by Samuel Lord Bishop of Oxford, upon the departure of the Oxford 
 and Cambridge Mission for Southern Africa. 
 
240 Adversaria. 
 
 THE TIIUE COURSE OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 There is a kind of religious teaching which is very apt to betray 
 souls. The first direction given to men of all characters is to set 
 out with a firm persuasion of their reconciliation with God, and 
 the enjoyment of everlasting happiness. This is surely an inverted 
 order of things. Por our right to the comfort of the promise 
 made to believing Christians, can only be ascertained by the 
 agreement of the temper of our minds and the course of our lives, 
 with the Scripture characters of those privileged persons, to 
 whom those promises are appropriated; and to expect men to 
 arrogate that comfort to themselves, previously to any degree of 
 holy conformity in disposition and conduct to those descriptive 
 characters, is to take the children's bread, and give it unto dogs; 
 is to act without gospel warrant or authority, to prescribe rashly, 
 and fatally to mislead the souls of men. This kind of teaching 
 too often leads to nothing better than a bold, presumptuous con- 
 fidence. Whereas, even with evidence of the best sort attending 
 this course, the true Christian will always proceed on his course 
 trembling while rejoicing. Dr. Arnold draws the picture: "To- 
 day, penitent, justified, and full of assurance to-morrow, it may 
 be, cast down, and full of humiliation, and godly fear. So it 
 will be, and so it must be ; till having finished our course, and 
 the work of the tempter being ended, and his power stopped for 
 ever, we may find there is a peace to be no more disturbed, a rest 
 to be no more broken, an assurance to be no more troubled with 
 fear." 
 
 TRUE AND FALSE BUDDHISM. 
 
 In Germany, England, and elsewhere, it has lately been the 
 fashion to nickname a certain class of freethinkers Buddhists; 
 but this term is altogether inapplicable in the present case, and is 
 founded upon a general misapprehension, which has been thus 
 ably exposed in a letter addressed to The Times journal, by Colonel 
 Sykes, F.R.S., the celebrated Hindostanee scholar : 
 
 They who adopt this erroneous view, instead of going to primi- 
 tive Buddhism, accept as its genuine religious tenets those em- 
 bodied in works which were written in a language foreign to 
 Buddhist literature; whether sacred or profane, promulgated in 
 a foreign country, and of a date from 11 1)0 to 1200 years after 
 Buddha's first preaching. They adopt BurnouPs exposition of 
 Buddhism, as derived from books met with in Nepaul, and written 
 in Sanscrit. Equally they trust to Hinang Tsang's fables of the 
 seventh century, and to the practices and beliefs at present 
 existing in China and other Buddhist countries. As well might 
 they pronounce primitive Christianity from the lives of the Roman 
 Catholic saints of the Middle Ages ; from the opinions of the 
 
True and False Buddhism. 241 
 
 Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; or those of the Mormons 
 of the present time. One thousand years after Buddha's advent, 
 Fa Hian travelled in India for the purpose of collecting Buddhist 
 books, and observing the state of Buddhism. He found the reli- 
 gion declining and corrupted; but in the seventh century, when 
 Hinang Tsang travelled in India, Buddhism was fast declining into 
 childish legends and superstitions, and modern Brahminism was 
 rising in its place. 
 
 It was in this corrupt state that Buddhism found its way to 
 Nepaul about the eighth century ; and its dogmas were for the 
 first time recorded in Sanscrit, as the multitudinous impressions 
 upon rocks, pillars, and copper-plates, in Pali, attest; and the 
 books taken from India to China by the Chinese travellers, 
 between the fourth and seventh centuries, were equally in Pali, 
 as they exist to this day in Pali, although written in the Chinese 
 character. This fact is attested by Dr. Gutzlaff, in the catalogue 
 of the Chinese books published in the Journal of the Royal 
 Asiatic Society. With these proofs that the use of Sanscrit for 
 Buddhist works was a comparatively modern innovation, Burnouf 
 and others are content to receive their impressions of Buddhist 
 doctrines, instead of going to the sermons preached* or the dis- 
 courses delivered by Buddha himself, to the proceedings of the 
 three councils held after his death, and to the Dipawanse and 
 Mahawanse. 
 
 To the profound scholar who printed the text of the two first 
 " Ushtakas " of the Uig Veda, the world is indebted for the 
 proofs that Brahminism, in its modern acceptation, had no exist- 
 ence before Buddhism. That scholar has shown us that there 
 were no images, no proofs of caste in its modern exclusiveness ; 
 that the elements were personified and invoked, and offerings 
 made, at first of a simple character, but afterwards animals were 
 offered in sacrifice in the manner of the Jews ; and at last in 
 such profusion, in hecatombs even, that the rivers of blood which 
 flowed appear to have shocked Buddha; and his chief object 
 seems to have been to put a stop to these sacrifices and to spare 
 animal life, and in consequence the Buddhists repudiated all sacri- 
 fices. Gentlenesss, kindness, peace, harmony, philanthropy, love 
 of virtue, and abhorrence of vice, are the characteristics of Budd- 
 hism, and its code of ethics equals that of any other religion. 
 But it has been sought to throw upon Buddhists the stigma of 
 Atheism, Materialism, and a belief in the annihilation of the Soul. 
 These accusations have their origin in the mystical transcen- 
 dentalisms of a comparatively modern and corrupted state o 
 Buddhism, and which have not any authority from the preachings 
 or discourses of Buddha himself. Buddha constantly refers to a 
 
 * Tumour's Translations, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 
 rol. vii. page 693. 
 
 R 
 
24:2 Adversaria. 
 
 First Cause, another world, and a state of rewards and punish- 
 ments after death. Buddha's own hymn on his becoming Buddha 
 testifies to his belief in God. He speaks of the Builder and 
 Architect who made him and controlled his transmigrations; and 
 the Rev. Mr. Gogerly, in his translation of the Damina Padari, 
 written in Pali, makes Buddha repeatedly speak of the present 
 and future world viz., " The sinner suffers in this world, and he 
 will suffer in the next world ; in both worlds he suffers," &c. 
 Again, "The virtuous man rejoices in this world, and he will 
 rejoice in the next world. In both worlds he has joy," &c. Here 
 is the founder of the religion talking of the present and a future 
 world, expressing his belief in a state of rewards and punishments, 
 &c., "greatly will he (the sinner) suffer in 'the regions of tor- 
 ments, and greatly will he (the virtuous man) rejoice in Heaven," 
 necessarily, therefore, expressing his belief in a power or being 
 to dispense rewards and punishments. Surely there must be 
 some distortion in reasoning to pronounce such a believer an 
 Atheist ! Supposing that the Buddhist may believe in God, it 
 has been maintained that he disbelieves the immortality of the 
 soul. The Rev. "VY. Hardy, however, says,* "Materialism, 
 Atheism, and the entire cessation of existence stand or fall toge- 
 ther : if the two former could be proved, the third would follow as 
 a matter of course " that is to say, to believe in annihilation is 
 to believe in Materialism and Atheism. The charge of "annihi- 
 lation " is founded upon a comparatively modern interpretation of 
 the Buddhist doctrine of Nibutti (" Nirvana " in Sanscrit), or 
 absorption into the Eirst Cause. And what is this Nibutti, but 
 that the Soul, having quitted its human tenement, and passed 
 through its multiplied transmigrations, all of which are proba- 
 tionary processes, in case it attains to absolute perfection it is 
 again received into that Being from whom it originally emanated ; 
 but short of that perfection, the Soul remains separate and apart, 
 wandering through its prescribed habitations, until it does attain 
 to perfection. Now, though this doctrine may shock the Chris- 
 tian's idea of the immaterial condition of man in another world, 
 it is certainly neither Atheism, Materialism, nor Annihilation.f 
 
 * Eastern Monachism, p. 308. 
 
 j* Remarkable is Baron Bunsen's generous vindication of the first 
 Buddhist Sakya against the misunderstandings which fastened on him 
 a doctrine of atheism and annihilation. The penetrating prescience of 
 Neander seems borne out on this point by genuine texts, against the 
 harsher judgment of recent Sanskrit scholars. He judged as a phi- 
 losopher, they as grammarians. Dr. R. Williams ; Essays and Reviews, 
 D. 90. 
 
Platonic Love. 243 
 
 PLATONIC LOVE. 
 
 It is to be regretted that all young men are not more familiarly 
 acquainted with the teaching of the first man who asserted the 
 Immortality of the Soul on solid arguments, resting on truth and 
 experience. Plato taught that all human felicity would find 
 abundant increase, if men cultivated the godlike intellectual 
 faculties, rather than pursued material and sensual pleasures. He 
 held that there was a divine spark in every man,- which was always 
 cherished by the divine power, and which would not be extinguished 
 in the soul, if man himself would but protect it from the blasts of 
 a sensual and passion-driven world. The subjection of the irascible 
 and concupiscible passions, and the cultivation of the rational and 
 moral powers, were the two supports of a system which is more 
 fully developed in the Republic of Plato. When Byron rhymed 
 about the " confounded fantasies " of Plato, the poet knew nothing 
 of the great son of Ariston, nor of his system. It is these " con- 
 founded fantasies " that Cowper has woven into a briefer, but not 
 a better, system than that of Plato. Indeed, it is Plato's system 
 condensed : 
 
 Pleasure, admitted in undue degree, 
 Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free ; 
 Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice 
 Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use : 
 Ambition, avarice, and lust of fame, 
 And woman, lovely woman, does the same. 
 The heart surrendered to the ruling power 
 Of some ungoverned passion, every hour, 
 Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway, 
 And all their deep impressions wear away ; 
 So coin grows smooth, in traffic current passed, 
 'Till Caesar's image is effaced at last. 
 
 Cowper knew, as we all know, that there came a Teacher with 
 whom the ablest in the schools may not be compared; but the 
 English poet had better appreciation of Greek and Roman philo- 
 sophers "than Byron ever had. Cowper did not accuse any of them 
 of " confounded fantasies," when he said 
 
 How oft, when Paul has served us with a text, 
 
 Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully, preached ! 
 
 Men that, if now alive, would sit content 
 
 And humble learners of a Saviour's worth, 
 
 Preach it who might. Such was their love of truth, 
 
 Their thirst of knowledge, and their candour too. 
 
 Dr. Doran ; Notes and Queries, 2nd S. No. 115. 
 
 "Love," we are told, "is of God, 33 (1 John iv. 7,) and is at 
 once characteristic of the Christian and of Heaven. Christ says : 
 
 B2 
 
244 Adversaria. 
 
 " By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love 
 one another." So far from being a merely animal emotion, which 
 is to be destroyed by death, it is the bond that binds each to the 
 other, and all to Jehovah, and can only find its free exercise in 
 Heaven : 
 
 They sin who tell us Love can die ; 
 
 With life all other passions fly 
 
 All others are but vanity, 
 
 In Heaven ambition cannot dwell, 
 
 Nor avarice in the vaults of hell ; 
 
 Earthly, those passions of the earth, 
 
 They perish where they have their birth. 
 
 But Love is indestructible. 
 Its holy flame for ever burneth, 
 From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth ; 
 Too oft on earth a troubled guest, 
 At times deceived, at times oppress' d, 
 
 It here is tried and purified, 
 Then hath in heaven its perfect rest. 
 It soweth here in toil and care, 
 But the harvest time of love is there. Southey. 
 
 PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Professor Blackie, in his erudite paper on Plato, (Edinburgh 
 Essays, 1856,) after showing that both the English and the 
 Scottish mind labour under a special incapacity of comprehending 
 the works of the great apostle of idealism, continues : 
 
 "Nevertheless there is one door through which the English 
 mind has a more free and open access to Platonic philosophy, viz. 
 Religion ; and it is really astonishing, when we reflect seriously, 
 how little this avenue has been made use of. Learned Germans 
 have written valuable books on ' the Christian element in Plato ;'* 
 and it is a well-known fact that many of the most authoritative 
 of the Greek fathers spoke of the philosophy of the Academy, in 
 the very same language that St. Paul used in reference to 
 Judaism, as being a schoolmaster to bring the Greek world to 
 Christ. Nor does it require a very profound glance to see how 
 Platonic philosophy and Christian faith, in their grand outlines, 
 characteristic tendencies, and indwelling spirit, are identical ; 
 identical, at least, in so far as a thing of Hebrew, and anything of 
 Hellenic origin, can be considered as presenting varieties of a 
 common type. The prominence given to the doctrine of the im- 
 mortality of the soul, in all Plato's works, as contrasted with the 
 position of the same doctrine in the system of Aristotle and other 
 
 * The Christian Element in Plato, and the Platonic Philosophy Un- 
 folded and Set Forth. By Dr. C. Ackerman, Archdeacon at Jena. 
 Translated by S B. Asbury, B.A. Edinburgh, T. and S. Clark. 
 
Religion happily adapted to the Hind of Man. 245 
 
 Greek philosophers the atmosphere of a pure and unworldly ' 
 emotion, that, like airs from Paradise, floats through the blooming 
 bowers of the Academy ; the single-hearted dedication of the soul 
 to truth, beauty, and holiness, as things essentially divine, for their 
 own sake, to the utter contempt of all the interior springs of 
 action that lie in the words expediency, policy, utility, and worldly 
 wisdom : these, with other characteristics that lie on the very sur- 
 face of the Platonic books, are things essentially Christian, and 
 are felt by every person of well-cultivated moral sensibility, to be 
 much more closely allied to the Gospel of John than they are to 
 Aristotle, John Locke, or Doctor Paley." 
 
 Professor Blackie accounts for so little advantage having been, 
 taken of Platonic meditation by reason of the strange peculiarities 
 of the English mind, which has robbed our scholarship of all capa- 
 city to develop its best elements, and our theology of all desire to 
 form any alliance with the highest forms of scholarship. Not- 
 withstanding the close connexion of our churches with our univer- 
 sities, Plato, the element in purely academical learning most 
 essentially Christian, is neglected, owing to " the tyrannical force 
 of the English character," and the narrow pedantic routine of our 
 universities. "Our scholarship and our theology were alike 
 deficient in the philosophical element ; and without this neither 
 Greek nor theology could lead the normal English academical or 
 ecclesiastical man into the essentially speculative domain of Plato. 
 Hence in the most Christian and the most classical country of 
 Europe, the works of the man who wrote the noblest Greek, and 
 taught the most Christianizing of doctrines, were practically 
 ignored. ****** 
 
 "Some of the persons who opposed its introduction, 'had 
 they known anything about him/ would have eschewed Plato 
 with more jealousy, even as Cardinal Bellarmin is reported to 
 have done, 'just because he was so very closely allied to Christ? 
 Such likeness, (it was feared by timid souls,) might have given 
 rise.to a dangerous mistake." 
 
 EELIGION HAPPILY ADAPTED TO THE MIND OE MAN 
 
 We find this cheerful picture of practical Christianity in one of 
 the nervous sermons of l)r. South : 
 
 " If religion were to bear only upon the unmistakeable bottom 
 of divine authority, we might propose to ourselves an idea, what 
 could be fittest to answer and employ those faculties of man's 
 mind that are capable of religious obligation. Reason would 
 continue such a religion as should afford both sad and solemn 
 objects to amuse and affect the pensive part of the soul ; and also 
 such glorious matter of bright representations as might feed its 
 
246 Adversaria. 
 
 admiration and entertain its more sprightly apprehensions; for 
 the temper of all men in the world is either sad or composed, joy- 
 ful or serene : and even the same man will find that he is wholly 
 acted upon in the general tenor of his life by the vicissitudes 
 and interchanges of these dispositions. Accordingly, Christianity 
 in those great matters of fact, upon which it is founded, happily 
 complies with man's mind by this variety of its subject. For we 
 have both the sorrows and glories of Christianity, the depressions 
 and the triumphs, the mourning and the hosannas ; we have the 
 affecting sadness of Christ's fasting, his bloody agony, his cruci- 
 fixion, and the bitter scene of his whole passion in its several 
 parts and appendages. On the other side: we gaze at his 
 miracles, admire his transfiguration, joy at his supernatural resur- 
 rection, and that which is the greatest complement and consum- 
 mation of all his glorious ascension. The first sort of them 
 naturally suit with the composed, fixed, and monastic disposition 
 of some minds, averse from all complacency and freedom ; the 
 second invite the joys of serener minds, happier constitutions, 
 and brisker meditations. Nay, such a divine checkerwork shall 
 we find in the whole contexture of the story of our religion ; that 
 we have the light still with the advantage of the shades, and 
 things exhibited with the recommending vicinity of their con- 
 traries : so that it is observed, that in the whole narrative of our 
 Saviour's life, no passage is related of him, low or weak, but it is 
 immediately seconded and, as it were, corrected by another high 
 and marvellous. No sooner was Christ humbled to a manger, 
 but the contempt of the place was took off by the glory of the 
 attendance and ministration of angels: his submission to that 
 mean and coarse ceremony of circumcision was ennobled with the 
 public attestation of Simeon concerning him: his fasting and 
 temptation attended with another service of angels : his baptism, 
 with a glorious recognition, by a voice from heaven. When he 
 seemed to show weakness in seeking fruit upon that tree which 
 had none, he manifested his power by cursing it with deadness by 
 a word. When he seemed to be overpowered at his attachments, 
 he then exerted his mightiness in causing his armed adversaries 
 to fall backwards, and he healed Malchus with a touch. When 
 he underwent the last and violent infamy of crucifixion and death, 
 then did the universal frame of nature give testimony to his 
 divinity, and the temple rending, the sun darkening, and the earth 
 quaking; the whole creation seemed to sympathise with his 
 passion. And when afterwards he seemed to be in the very king- 
 dom and dominion of death by descending into the grave, he 
 quickly confuted the dishonour of that by an astonishing resur- 
 rection, and by an argument ex abundantia proved the divinity of 
 his person, over and over, in a miraculous ascension." 
 
 Religion, whether natural or revealed, has always the same 
 
Power of Religion over Difficulties. 247 
 
 beneficial influence on the mind. In youth, in health, and pro- 
 perity, it awakens feelings of gratitude and sublime love, and 
 purifies at the same time that it exalts ; but it is in misfortune, 
 in sickness, in age, that its effects are most truly and beneficially 
 felt : when submission in faith and humble trust in the divine 
 will, from duties become pleasures, undecaying sources of conso- 
 lation ; then it creates powers which were believed to be extinct, 
 and gives a freshness to the mind, which was supposed to have 
 passed away for ever, but which is now renovated as an immortal 
 hope : then it is the pharos, guiding the wave-tost mariner to his 
 home, as the calm and beautiful still basins or fiords surrounded 
 by tranquil groves and pastoral meadows to the Norwegian pilot 
 escaping from a heavy storm in the North Sea, or as the green 
 and dewy spot gushing with fountains, to the exhausted and 
 thirsty traveller in the midst of the desert. Its influence outlives 
 all earthly enjoyments, and becomes stronger as the organs decay 
 and the frame dissolves ; it appears as that evening star of light 
 in the horizon of life, which, we are sure, is to become in another 
 season a morning star; and it throws its radiance through the 
 gloom and shadow of death. 
 
 POWER OF RELIGION OVER DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 There can scarcely be a more direct instance of the practical 
 value of the Bible to man, in his secular as well as his sacred 
 concerns. 
 
 When Sir George Grey, some twenty years ago, was on his expe- 
 dition through the unexplored country of Southern Australia, his 
 position and prospects, upon one occasion, had become alarming, 
 and he was undecided as- to which of three plans he should adopt. 
 But he determined not to decide hastily, and in order more fully 
 to compose his mind, he sat down, and read a few chapters in, the 
 Bible. " By the influence thus imparted," "observes he, "I be- 
 came perfectly contented, and again rising up, pursued my way 
 along the beach to the party. It may be here remarked by some, 
 that these statements of my attending to religious duties, are 
 irrelevant to the subject, but in such an opinion I cannot at all 
 coincide. In detailing the sufferings- we- under went, it is unneces- 
 sary to relate the means by which those sufferings were alleviated; 
 and after having, in the midst of perils and, misfortunes, received 
 the greatest consolation from religion, I should be ungrateful to 
 my Maker not to acknowledge this, and should ill perform my 
 duty to my fellow men, did I not bear testimony to the fact, that 
 under all the weightier sorrows and sufferings that our frail nature 
 is liable to, perfect reliance upon the goodness of God, and the 
 
248 Adversaria. 
 
 merits of our Redeemer, will be a sure refuge and a certain source 
 of consolation." 
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY. 
 
 Mr. Bowdler, in his posthumous work, The Religion of the 
 Heart, says : 
 
 " I have often been struck with our presumption in defining the 
 Attributes of the Deity a subject with which, like most of which 
 we are ignorant, we make rather too free. The usual ideas enter- 
 tained of our Maker amount to little more than this : we take 
 all those qualities, contributing, as we think, to our perfection, 
 and adding infinity to them, fancy we have an adequate idea of 
 the 'Ens Entium/ Whereas it is not clear that there is the least 
 similitude between the nature of the creature and his Creator ; 
 and it is morally certain that an infinite variety of perfections 
 must dwell in Him, of which no seeds are yet sown in us. The 
 more direct path appears to be the same which we adopt in com- 
 mon life; to draw our inferences concerning His nature and 
 character, from the manifestations of it in the affairs of this 
 world, and in express revelation, remembering only the humility 
 with which we should enter on a subject so awful and incompre- 
 hensible. Were the mysteries of the Eleusinian Ceres enveloped 
 in darkness, and shall JEHOVAH be the subject of our petulant 
 speculations ? * 
 
 "Methiriks the contradictions into which we so often fall, might 
 teach us more humility : we can only consider the attributes of 
 our Maker singly, and in exalting one, we perpetually degrade 
 another : yet it is curious, that the attribute which we most fre- 
 quently disallow, is that which is most fully evidenced his 
 omnipotence. Pope says : 
 
 Of systems possible, if 'tis confest, 
 
 That Wisdom so infinite must form the best 
 
 laying down this truth as the foundation of his system. Cannot 
 God then be at once All-wise and Almighty ? Yet if this postu- 
 late be granted, his powers are limited indeed; for then it is 
 impossible for him to create above one system, supreme excellence 
 being one. Even Lord Bacon, in his celebrated confession of 
 faith, supposes it to have been impossible for God to have created 
 anything which would have seemed good in his eyes, unless 
 washed by the blood of the Lamb slain before the foundation of 
 the world. Cannot God be at once, then, All-pure and Almighty ? 
 Like flatterers, ignorant of their trade, we debase where we mean 
 to exalt." 
 
 * It seems scarcely reconcileable with our notion of the fitness of 
 things that the created should by the Creator be endowed with power 
 to call into question his attributes. 
 
Preparing for another World. 249 
 
 ON ATHEISM BY SOUTH. 
 
 The true cause of that Atheism (says South,) that scepticism, 
 and cavilling at religion, which we see, and have cause to lament 
 in too many in these days, proceeds not from anything that is 
 weak or wanting in our religion to support it and enable it to 
 look the strongest arguments, and the severest and the most 
 controlling reason, in the face ; but men are atheistical because 
 they are first vicious-; and question the truth of Christianity, be- 
 cause they hate the practice ; and therefore, that they may seem, 
 to have some pretence and colour to sin freely, and to surrender 
 up themselves wholly to their sensuality, without any imputation 
 on their judgment, and to quit their morals without any discredit 
 to their intellectuals, they fly to several stale, trite, pitiful objec- 
 tions and cavils, some against religion in general, and some 
 against Christianity in particular; and some against the very 
 first principles of morality, to give them some poor credit and 
 circumstance, in the pursuit of their brutish courses. 
 
 PREPARING FOR ANOTHER WORLD. 
 
 Who is there that hath not heard some honest, painstaking 
 man say, when old age is coming on, " I will retire from busi- 
 ness, and prepare for another world," or some such words. 
 Yet, well meant as this may be, it is a great error to suppose 
 that the common engagements of this world are a hindrance to 
 our preparation for the next ; for Scripture and reason show that 
 we were sent into this probationary state to the end that our 
 souls might learn experience among the diverse circumstances 
 of active life, so as to know good from evil, and never to 
 hazard the falling from glory when once attained, by any such 
 mistake as was committed by those spirits who kept not their 
 first estate. 
 
 When we entertain any doubt as to the soundness of our 
 opinions, there is nothing which doth so strengthen and clear 
 our apprehension, as the recurring to what Lord Bacon doth well 
 term the great book of God's works. Now we all know that 
 when Adam fell from his first estate, God imposed on him a law, 
 which experience showeth to be still the law of human nature, 
 that "in the sweat of his brow he should eat bread." No man 
 can propound to himself that the loving Father of all his works 
 would either inflict a punishment for vengeance rather than for 
 amendment on the first offender, or replenish the surface of this 
 , globe with beings disqualified, by the very law of their existence, 
 from the pursuit and attainment of their ultimate good : we may, 
 
250 Adversaria. 
 
 therefore, reasonably conclude that the toil imposed on man was 
 intended to be the strengthener and safeguard of his virtue, and 
 to guide his frailty in the true path to life eternal. We see it to 
 be the appointment of God, for what he suffereth is so far his 
 appointment, that he might prevent it, and doth not ; I say we 
 see it to be the appointment of God that millions must go forth 
 to their daily toil, if they mean to eat their daily food : nay, the 
 very necessity for food, which is the cause of this labour, is espe- 
 cially created by God. Then, if such be the order written in the 
 book of His works, we must, unless we are determined to shut 
 our eyes, and not read therein, conclude that retirement and in- 
 action are not the circumstances best fitted for the development 
 of the spiritual life within ; which doth rather thrive and nourish 
 upon the fulfilled duty of each day; even if it were no more 
 than the conscientiously doing an honest day's work, for the 
 allotted day's pay, whether seen or not : and in like manner, vice 
 pineth and dieth in the mind, when quiet sleep, the result of 
 labour, filleth the hours which are not given either to active em- 
 ploy, or to the exercise of those kindly social affections, which so 
 readily twine about the heart, when the space for their enjoy- 
 ment is short, and the zest of their enjoyment is not dulled by 
 satiety. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of seeking a discharge from all duty, as well 
 as the means of improving the soul, whose true life is the fulfil- 
 ment of duty, we should endeavour rather, as age approaches, 
 to cut out for ourselves occupation sufficient for the diminished 
 powers of the body, such as shall give room for the exercise 
 of that concern for others, and carelessness of self, which form 
 the best grace of youth, and which may still hover, like a bright 
 halo, round the head of age, making grey hairs lovely, and 
 giving earnest, even in this life, of what will be the society 
 of "just men made perfect " in the next.* 
 
 Bishop Hall tells us that Edward, Earl of Norwich, had wont 
 to animate himself against the encounter with our last enemy, 
 Death, by the heavenly thought, that in the very instant of his 
 soul's departing out of his body, it should immediately enjoy the 
 vision of God. And certainly so it is. The spirits of just men 
 need not stand upon distances of place, or space of time, for this 
 beatifical sight ; but so soon as ever they are out of their clay 
 lodging, they are in their spiritual heaven, even while they are 
 happily conveying to the local ; for since nothing hindered them 
 from that happy sight, but the interposition of this earth, which 
 we carry about us, the spirit being once set free from that im- 
 pediment, sees as it is seen, being instantly passed into a condi- 
 tion like unto the Angels; well, therefore, are these coupled 
 
 * Abridged from An Exposition of Vulgar and Common Errors, ly 
 Thomas Brown Redivivus. 1854. 
 
Remoteness of Universal Christianity. 251 
 
 together by the blessed Apostle, who, in his divine rapture, hath 
 seen them both : Ye are come (saith he) unto Mount Sion, and 
 unto the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem ; and to 
 an innumerable company of Angels, and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect. 
 
 ***** 
 How full and comfortable is that profession of the great Apostle, 
 who when he had sweetly diverted the thoughts of himself and 
 his Corinthians from their light afflictions to an eternal weight of 
 exceeding glory, from things temporal, which are seen, to those 
 everlasting, which are not seen, adds : " Eor we know that if 
 our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved, we have a 
 building not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ;" more than 
 implying, that ours is no sooner off from the temporal things, 
 than it is taken up with eternal objects ; and that the instant of 
 the dissolution of these clay cottages is the livery and seizin of 
 a glorious and everlasting mansion in heaven. The Invisible 
 World: Of the Souls of Men. 
 
 REMOTENESS OF UNIVERSAL CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The present tendencies of the world are not, (says Bishop 
 Courtenay,) towards a universal reign of Christianity. A variety 
 of Scriptural proofs might be adduced in proof of this point; 
 but one will be fully sufficient. The book of Revelation informs 
 us that in fact we are not to expect a universal reign of Chris- 
 tianity, as the result of causes now in operation. It contains an 
 account of the chief events in the spiiitual history of the world, 
 commencing with the infancy of Christianity, or at some period 
 yet future, and carried up to the general Judgment and the dis- 
 solution of the earth by fire. And it presents a succession of 
 awful pictures of human wickedness and Divine wrath. The 
 seals, the trumpets, the vials, are all charged with the righteous 
 judgments of God, inflicted in punishment of the rebellions then 
 existing. Nowhere can we discover a season wherein the wicked 
 shall cease from troubling, and receiving a meet recompense of 
 trouble, until the ''thousand years" commence, during which 
 Satan shall be bound, and the souls of martyrs shall live, and 
 reign with Christ over the emancipated Kingdoms. It would 
 seem, then, that, notwithstanding the influence of Christianity, 
 the knowledge of Ihe Lord shall not "cover the earth, as the 
 waters that cover the depths of the sea/ 5 before the close of 
 this dispensation ; but that the general tendencies of the world 
 are towards greater and greater sinfulness, until the conquests 
 of the prince of darkness are terminated by a special interpo- 
 sition of the Almighty, and the usurper is cast down from his 
 throne. 
 
252 Adversaria. 
 
 And we know not that sin will wholly cease, even during the 
 millennium ; while we are expressly told, (a fact which is often 
 most wonderfully disregarded by expositors of prophecy,) that 
 multitudes, "the number of whom is as the sand of the sea," 
 shall enlist themselves in the service of the Devil during the' 
 short post-millennial season of liberty which shall precede his 
 everlasting condemnation. Bishop Courtenay on the Future States: 
 Appendix. 
 
 ETERNAL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 The doctrines respecting future punishments have been much 
 controverted in all ages of the Church; and even those who 
 acknowledge " everlasting punishment " maintain that everlasting 
 signifies only to the end of its proper period. (See The word 
 Eternal, and The Punishment of the Wicked, by the Rev. F. D. 
 Maurice.) Jeremy Taylor has this emphatic passage upon the 
 unsatisfactoriness of the primitive doctors upon this head : 
 
 "Concerning this doctrine of theirs, so severe and yet so 
 moderated, there is less to be objected to than against the 
 supposed fancy of Origen, (who was charged with saying, the 
 pains of the damned should cease, and that they shall return 
 into joys, and back again to hell, by an eternal revolution ;) for 
 it is a strange consideration to suppose an eternal torment to 
 those to whom it was never threatened, to those who never 
 heard of Christ, to those that lived probatly well, to heathens of 
 good lives, to ignorant and untaught people, to people surprised 
 in a single crime, to men that die young in their natural follies 
 and foolish lusts, to them that fall in a sudden gaiety and exces- 
 sive joy, to all alike ; to all infinite and eternal, even to unwarned 
 people ; and that this should be inflicted by God, who infinitely 
 loves his creatures, who died for them, who pardons easily, and 
 pities readily, and excuses much, and delights in our being saved, 
 and would not have us to die, and takes little things in exchange 
 for great : it is certain that God's mercies are infinite, and it is 
 also certain that the matter of eternal torments cannot truly be 
 understood ; and when the schoolmen go about to reconcile the 
 Divine justice to that severity, and consider why God punishes 
 eternally a temporal sin, or a state of evil, they speak variously, 
 and uncertainly, and unsatisfyingly." Chrisfs Advent to Judg- 
 ment, Sermon 3. 
 
 Taylor had previously stated that Origen was not the first that 
 said the pain of the damned should cease ; for Justin Martyr 
 maintained that so far from the souls dying, " the souls of the 
 godly in a better place, of the wicked in a worse, do tarry the 
 time of judgment ; then they that are worthy shall never die 
 again, but those that are designed to punishment, shall abide so 
 long as God please to have them to live and to be punished/' 
 
God's Ancient People. 253 
 
 Mr. Maurice argues that these doctrines could not be unknown 
 to the translators of our Bible, or the framers of our Articles. 
 
 BOYISH OR MANLY HAPPINESS WHICH PREFERABLE ? 
 
 A distinguished clergyman writes : " I have no recollection in 
 my boyish days of quiet happiness, but of many fears, perturba- 
 tions, &c. and a continual longing for the dignity and the inde- 
 pendence of the manly state. Now that I am a man, and verging 
 towards an old one, I find my vessel suffers but little from the 
 short gusts and ripplings of the passions; but is borne along 
 under a tattered sail by the steady trade-wind of solicitude. 
 When I was a boy, my pleasures and cares were selfish ; now I 
 care and think more for others than myself. Here I exult in some 
 little advantage from the comparison; and yet, after all, the 
 prospect is the chief subject of comparison. That of a boy is full 
 of change and novelty. That of an elderly man admits of little 
 variety and no novelty, but the great one of all a new existence ! 
 The conclusion of this long sermon is, that a thoughtful boy may 
 be happy without religion, but a thoughtful man cannot." 
 
 GOD'S ANCIENT PEOPLE. 
 
 Eighteen hundred years have passed since two Hebrew disciples, 
 journeying by the way, heard themselves addressed with that 
 awakening rebuke, " fools, and slow of heart to believe all that 
 the prophets have spoken" (Luke xxiv. 25). May we not hear, 
 as it were, the same heavenly voice speaking alike to Jew and 
 Gentile, and reproving our dulness of understanding and our 
 blindness of heart ? What if these things are marvels ; what if 
 we cannot discern with certainty the mode and time for the ac- 
 complishment of the divine purposes affecting the ancient people; 
 what is the whole of their history, from Egypt to the dispersion, 
 but a series of perpetual wonders ? Take but the smallest frac- 
 tion of their personal records, analyze the successive events, and 
 they resolve themselves into as many miracles. Witness the 
 division of the sea ; the angels' food ; the rock that followed 
 them ; the garments which waxed not old, and the feet that 
 swelled not ; the opening of the earth, the fire from heaven; the 
 parting of the waters of Jordan; the walls of Jericho; the sun 
 standing still in the valley of Ajalon. All the events connected 
 with them the earliest and the latest while they show remark- 
 ably God's power, are nevertheless full of mystery. What more 
 mysterious than that there should spring from one " as good as 
 dead, as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand 
 which is by the sea-shore innumerable ? " (Heb. xi. 12.) What 
 
254 Adversaria. 
 
 more mysterious than the way by which they were led out of 
 Egypt on the exact day foretold four hundred and thirty years 
 before? (Exod. xii. 40, 41). What more mysterious than the 
 providential ordering by which they were brought back from the 
 captivity of Babylon at the precise termination of the predicted 
 seventy years ? (Jer. xxv. 11, 12 ; xxix. 10; compared with Ezra 
 i. ii.) What more marvellous than the downfall of their temple, 
 the aptest type of their national history, within forty years of our 
 Lord's prophecy ? once the wonder of the world, now not one 
 stone left upon another ; once the glory of all lands, now without 
 a mark or token to tell the traveller of its site. Or what more 
 marvellous than their own career as a people? once the sole 
 depositaries of God's truth, the subjects of a direct theocracy, the 
 witnesses of a perpetual miracle, now "an astonishment, a pro- 
 verb, and a byword among all nations " (Deut. xxvii. 37), whither 
 the Lord has led them ; once the freest of all nations, so that their 
 boast was, that they were never in bondage to any man (John viii. 
 33), yet brought successively under the yoke of Chaldeans) Medes, 
 Greeks, and Romans. Nay, in its present crisis of penal degrada- 
 tion and dispersion, how mysterious is this people ! There is a 
 dignity in their very disgrace and infamy. Though cast down, 
 yet not dejected utterly ; though stricken sorely, yet not annihi- 
 lated ; aliens and vagabonds, but not swept away from the face of 
 the earth. Christian men can never look at them without asso- 
 ciations of solemn interest and awe. They cannot but remember, 
 that of them, as concerning the flesh, Christ came ; that of them 
 was the goodly fellowship of the prophets ; that of them was the 
 glorious company of the apostles. Would we could add that of 
 them, too, was the noble army of martyrs ! And, though subjected 
 to whip and scourge and scorn and contumely, their enemies and 
 they who have been the instruments of their punishment have 
 been themselves abased ; Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, 
 Syro-Macedonians, and Romans, have all in their turn been razed 
 from the list of principalities and powers. Yet they, the hated 
 ones, they yet survive. 
 
 " # * * * # * 
 
 Though God has made a full end of all the nations whither he 
 has driven them, he has not made a full end of them." (Jer. xiv. 
 28.) Hath he smitten him, as he smote those who smote him ? 
 or is he slain according to the slaughter of them that are slain bj 
 him ? (Is. xxvii. 7.) Truly, we may say, all these things are 
 wonderful, too wonderful for us to know : they are marvellous in 
 our eyes ; but we must add, nevertheless, with all the certainty 
 and assured belief of men who have seen with their eyes, and 
 heard with their ears, and to whom their fathers have told it, 
 "this hath God wrought." Bishop (Sumner) of Winchester. 
 
Latin or Mediaeval Christianity. 255 
 
 LATIN OR MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANITY.* 
 
 The Pontificate of Gregory the Great (590-604,) marks the 
 final Christianization of the world. Heathenism was utterly 
 extinct. The Christian hierarchy has full possession of the minds 
 of men. Ecclesiastical Latin is the only language of letters ; art, 
 so far as it exists at all, is exclusively Christian. But the transi- 
 tion from the primitive Gospel has become no less striking than the 
 triumph over Paganism. The creeds of the church now form but 
 a very small portion of Christian belief. The Almighty Father 
 has receded, as it were, from human vision into a vague sanctity ; 
 the divine Saviour himself occupies but a comparatively small 
 portion of the heart of the worshipper, absorbed with other objects 
 of reverence, more open (as it seemed) to human sympathies. 
 The shrines and the relics of martyrs are now the favourite resort 
 of the great multitude of the believers. Hero worship the 
 heroism being of the monastic type is in the ascendant. Legends 
 of saints rival, if they do not supplant, the narratives of Scripture 
 in the possession of the popular mind. The ordinary providence 
 of God gives place to a perpetual strife between evil spirits and 
 good angels about the person of every individual believer. No 
 protection against the former is so effective as the presence of the 
 departed saints, especially if in the vicinity of their own places of 
 sepulture. Happy the churches which possessed the inestimable 
 treasure of the body, or even a portion cf the body, of an early 
 confessor. The sacred talisman was an effectual security against 
 calamity ; nay, its virtue extended even to the absolving from sin. 
 Relics have attained a self-defensive power; profane hands which 
 endeavoured to remove them withered ; the chains of St. Paul 
 sometimes refused to yield filings an inestimable gift, when they 
 could be procured, for a barbaric king. The taunt which the 
 Christian writers of earlier times threw out against their Pagan 
 adversaries, that their temples were most of them tombs of dead 
 men, could now be retorted with interest. The possession of the 
 bones of Orestes was not more ardently coveted by the Lacedae- 
 monians than the remains of departed worthies by Gregory 
 himself, intellectually as well as spiritually, by the confession of 
 all, the model of his age. He himself obtained an arm of St. 
 Andrew and the head of St. Luke from Constantinople, although 
 to the petition of the Empress Const antia he refused anything 
 beyond a cloth which had touched the sacred body of St. Paul at 
 Home. Thus, moulding together elements derived from all 
 sources Jewish, Pagan, and Christian arose the vast and com- 
 plicated system of mediaeval Christianity, a system as little to be 
 despised as the offspring of fraud as to be justified as a genuine 
 development of the primitive Gospel. 
 
 * From a review of Dr. Milman's Latin Christianity: Times, 1859. 
 
256 Adversaria. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE LITANY. 
 
 The proceedings of Gregory in the early part of his pontificate, 
 to avert from his people the miseries of pestilence and famine, are 
 highly characteristic of the zealous Christian pastor and the 
 paternal ruler. His estates in Sicily supplied the corn which kept 
 the poor population of Rome from perishing. In the meantime 
 he constantly addressed them from the pulpit, and encouraged 
 them by his presence. The origin of that kind of service which 
 goes by the name of Litany, or Processional, dates from this time. 
 The whole population of Rome was marshalled in seven bodies, and 
 traversed the streets with prayers and penitential hymns. The 
 clergy and the sacred virgins, the widows and the children, the 
 laity, rich and poor, all had their assigned share in this solemnity. 
 The cry of the whole city literally ascended to the throne of the 
 Almighty. The pestilence was not stayed ; no less than 80 
 victims fell dead during the procession ; but neither the faith of 
 the people nor of their bishop failed, and after ages moulded this 
 fact into a picturesque tradition, which contemporary accounts do 
 not justify, that as the last troop of suppliants reached the monu- 
 ment of Hadrian the Destroying Angel was seen to sheathe his 
 sword. The statue which crowns the castle of St. Angelo, as it 
 is now called, commemorates the miracle. 
 
 VITAL FORCE WHAT IS MATERIALISM ? 
 
 Dr. W. Brinton, in a lecture on Physiology, delivered by him 
 at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, observes : 
 
 The charge of Materialism is difficult to deal with, mainly 
 because of the sophistical sense in which the word has been used, 
 and the odium it has therefore come to convey. The only decently 
 scientific hypotheses which represent the material and its anta- 
 gonist theory, are both of them, so far as I dare venture to 
 judge, as perfectly compatible with religion as are the Books of 
 Euclid. Indeed, I question whether they are not quite compa- 
 tible with each other whether the difference be not in great 
 degree one of terms or words, rather than of ideas. One side, 
 for example well represented by one of the most able physio- 
 logists of the day, Dr. Carpenter, is inclined to assume the 
 existence of a force or forces, so unlike anything we meet with 
 in the inorganic creation that is, so characteristic of Life as 
 to be fitly named vital. These forces ceasing at death, allow the 
 substances they previously tenanted and governed to fall back, 
 as it were, into the domain of the ordinary laws of matter, in 
 obedience to which they now decay and disperse into the world 
 around them. The other side, which I will instance by the illus- 
 
Mysteries and Miracles. 257 
 
 trious Valentin, regard Life and Organization as sustained in 
 great measure by ttie same laws as those which, in different 
 degrees and modes of working, operate in the inorganic world. 
 Declining to separate the physical and chemical phenomena of 
 dead and living nature by a line of demarcation hitherto not 
 definitely proved to exist, and confidently resting on the innu- 
 merable and undoubted facts which prove that such forces as 
 heat, light, magnetism, chemical affinity, are every moment 
 operating in the living body, it supposes that even the most 
 peculiar and fleeting of these operations which we sum up as 
 Life, are effected, in obedience to natural laws, by the use of 
 forces everywhere present. 
 
 Of the theologian who should call this "Materialism," I would 
 ask, "How does it affect revealed religion, or infringe our com- 
 mon creed ? " Its supporters, in assuming that " the vital 
 functions are the result of an infinitely wise plan of organiza- 
 tion," do but modify, and indeed modify by exalting, our notions 
 of the infinite wisdom they explicitly acknowledge. The mate- 
 rials, so to speak, they regard as fewer, simpler, more general, 
 less heterogeneous, than had hitherto been imagined. Scientifi- 
 cally, they must only gain their position more fully by proving it 
 more fully than they have yet done. But, theologically, if there 
 be any difference, surely it is that the simpler the materials, the 
 more unimaginable must be the skill and wisdom of the work- 
 manship. Lancet, Nov. 10, I860. 
 
 MYSTERIES AND MIRACLES. 
 
 Mysteries are those great and hidden things of our religion, 
 whose truth we are assured of by divine authority; but the 
 manner of their being surpasses our understanding : such as the 
 Plurality of Persons in the Divine Unity ; God manifest in the 
 Flesh ; the operation of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers ; 
 the Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Eucharist ; and the uniting 
 our scattered parts from the dust of death. The Centaur not 
 Fabulous, by Dr. Young. 
 
 Ignorant sceptics are accustomed to attempt to justify their 
 doubt of Miracles by their non-occurrence in the present times. 
 Such persons overlook, in reading the Scriptures, the striking 
 difference between the dispensations of God in the time of our 
 Saviour and his apostles, and in our own. Then miracles were 
 wrought on the bodies and minds of Christians, in order to estab- 
 lish the truth of the Gospel. That object being effected, miracles 
 became rare, or ceased altogether. 
 
 s, 
 
Cfxe f Hgrim's f 
 
 IN 1858 there was published The Ancient Poem of Guillauvne de 
 Guileville, entitled " Le Pelerinage de I'Homme" compared with the 
 " Pilgrim's Progress " of John Bunyan : edited from Notes col- 
 lected by the late Mr. Nathaniel Hill. De Guileville was a French 
 monk, who was born in 1295, and died about 1360. His writings 
 were popular in England, portions of them having been translated 
 by Chaucer and Lydgate. That Bunyan knew directly anything 
 of De Guileville does not appear, but it is clear that he was 
 acquainted with those fragments of the old chivalrous literature 
 which were still handed about in the form of cheap books. 
 Whether any portions of De Guileville himself survived in this 
 shape may well be doubted ; but as De Guileville himself con- 
 fessedly borrowed from the Romance of the Rose, nothing is more 
 likely than that a common element may be found in De Guileville 
 and in Bunyan. 
 
 It is, however, absurd to say this resemblance supports a charge 
 of plagiarism between the Pelerinage and the PilgrinHs Progress* 
 The general idea of representing the Christian's course under the 
 figure of a pilgrimage is so obvious that it could hardly fail to 
 occur to many minds independently, especially in days when 
 pilgrimages were things of daily occurrence. j)e Guileville and 
 Bunyan are by no means the only authors who have worked out 
 the idea. And, besides the general similarity of idea, a certain 
 resemblance could hardly fail to occur in the details of the story. 
 Of any Pilgrim's Progress the groundwork must be found in 
 certain Scriptural phrases and descriptions. The Celestial City in 
 the Apocalypse must of necessity be the pilgrim's goal. Then 
 much of the detail must be drawn from mediaeval history or 
 romance. The fiends and personified vices against which the 
 Christian has to contend, naturally assume the form of the giants 
 and ogres of mediaeval romance of the Turks and Saracens of 
 mediaeval reality. The pilgrim fought his way to Jerusalem so 
 the Christian fights his way to Heaven. St. Paul's parable of the 
 Christian armour, St. John's picture of the combat between 
 Michael and the Dragon, stood ready to be pressed into the 
 service. There was thus a vast mass of floating material, ready 
 to the hands of all writers of pilgrimages, and of which all writers 
 of pilgrimages availed themselves. But we see no ground for 
 
The Pilgrim s Progress. 259 
 
 supposing that Bimyan borrowed from De Guileville, or did more 
 than draw upon a common stock of ideas and images, which, even 
 in De Guileville's time, were not absolutely new. 
 
 But there is nothing in all this which at all derogates from 
 originality. Granting that Bunyan borrowed his idea from De Gui- 
 leville, there is nothing which lays him open to the charge of 
 "plagiarism." Whatever Shakspeare, .ZEschylus, Homer, orBunyan 
 borrowed from anybody else, they fairly made their own. De 
 Guileville's allegory is dead Bunyan's is alive. De Guileville may 
 have dug up some dry bones, and arranged them in the form of 
 a skeleton Bunyan is the real enchanter who gave them flesh and 
 blood, and the breath of life. And this is even more remarkable 
 when we consider that what was natural in the days of De Guileville 
 had become somewhat unreal in the days of Bunyan. In Bun- 
 yan's time people no longer went on pilgrimages, least of all 
 people of Bunyan's own way of thinking. De Guileville may 
 well have sent more than one pilgrim on an actual journey to 
 Jerusalem Bunyan would doubtless have dissuaded any Bedford 
 burgess from such an undertaking, as being little better than one 
 of the works of the flesh. Bunyan's theology is of course Cal- 
 vinistic ; and one cannot but see, with Lord Macaulay, that the 
 real battles and the real persecutions of his own time have 
 helped to give much of their life to his descriptions of imaginary 
 battles and persecutions. But, nevertheless, the costume of 
 Bunyan's book is essentially Crusading and not Covenanting, 
 This may well arise from the fact of Bunyan's drawing from the 
 common stock of all pilgrim-mongers. But it may also have 
 something to do with that great characteristic difference between 
 an early and a late literature. In Palestine, in early Greece, in 
 mediaeval Europe, poetry consisted very much in describing to 
 people what they themselves said and did every day. We, for 
 the most part, in anything professing to be poetical or romantic,, 
 sometimes of set purpose, sometimes because we cannot help it, 
 get as far as possible from the realities of our own life.* 
 
 The Pilgrim's Progress, in its invention and plan, is generally 
 supposed to have been the child of John Bunyan's own fancy; 
 and he has, in his advertisement, strongly vindicated his claim to 
 it. The necessity of this vindication, at least, proves that the 
 matter was called in question in his own time ; and the following 
 extract contains at once his defence, and his own account of the 
 origin and execution of the work : 
 
 Some say the Pilgrim's Progress is not mine, 
 Insinuating as if I would shine, 
 In name and fame by the book of another ; 
 Like some made rich by robbing of his brother ; 
 
 * Abridged from the Saturday Review, Dec. 4, 1858. 
 S2 
 
260 The Pilgrim s Progress. 
 
 Or that so fond I am of being sire, 
 I'll father bastards, or if need require, 
 I'll tell a lie in print to get applause ; 
 I scorn it, John such dirt-heap never was, 
 Since God converted him. Let this suffice 
 To show why I my pilgrim patronise. 
 It came from mine own heart ; so to my head 
 And then into my fingers trickled ; 
 Then to my pen, from whence immediately 
 \ On paper I did dribble it daintily. 
 
 Manner and matter too were all my own ; 
 
 Nor was it unto any mortal known, 
 
 Till I had done it nor did any then 
 
 By books, by wits, by tongues, or hands, or pen, 
 
 Add five words to it, or write half a line : 
 
 Therefore, the whole, and every whit is mine 
 
 And for this, thine eye is now upon 
 
 The matter in this manner came from none 
 
 But the same heart and head, fingers, and pen, 
 
 As did the others. Witness all good men ; 
 
 For none in all the world without a lie, 
 
 Can say that this is mine, excepting I. 
 
 Notwithstanding these declarations, concerning the general 
 truth of which I feel no doubt (says Dr. Adam Clarke,) his whole 
 plan, both in this work and his Holy War,i\\Q latter especially, being 
 so very similar to Barnard's religious allegory, called the Isle of 
 Man., or Proceedings in Manshire, first published in 1627 ; and 
 also to that most beautiful allegorical poem, by Mr. Edmund 
 Spenser, oddly called The Faery Queen ; there is much reason to 
 believe that one or other, if not both, gave birth to the book in 
 question. This must be granted, unless it could be rationally 
 supposed, which is not likely, that Mr. Bunyan ever saw the 
 book of Spenser, or that of Barnard. But, alihough the general 
 idea should be allowed, to be suggested by the authors already 
 mentioned, yet the imagery, the colouring, the language, and the 
 true evangelical direction of the whole, are Bunyan's, and Bun-- 
 yan's only. It would not be difficult, however, to draw a parallel 
 between those works and those of our author, and show many 
 corresponding personages throughout, especially in Mr. Barnard's 
 Isle of Man. We quote the above from a memoir of Bunyan, by 
 Dr. Adam Clarke, who concludes by subscribing to the opinion of 
 Mr. Addison, that had John Bunyan lived in the time of the pri- 
 mitive Fathers, he would have been as great a Father as any of 
 them. 
 
 The translation of The Voyage of the Wandering Knight, (ori- 
 ginally written in French by John Cartheny,) n. d. } but dedicated 
 to Sir Francis Drake, would appear most likely to have given 
 Bunyan the idea of composing, if not the groundwork of, the 
 Pilgrim s Progress. Mr. Offor, the editor of Bunyan's work, 
 however, states there to be no ground for supposing that Bunyan 
 
The Pilgrim s Progress. 261 
 
 ever saw this chevalier errant. Still there are many apparent 
 similarities; and a manuscript note in the edition of the Wander- 
 ing Knight preserved in the Grenville Library of the British 
 Museum, bears the following note upon the inside of the cover : 
 "There can be no doubt that this is the original of Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim 9 s Progress" 
 
 Mr. Offor says : " The foulest and most unfounded slander 
 upon the fair fame of Bunyan has appeared in Freeman's Journal, 
 in which it is asserted that Bunyan copied his Pilgrim's Progress 
 nearly verbatim from an old Popish work on purgatory, called 
 The Pilgrimage of the Soul, which commences after the body is 
 dead, and goes through all the imaginary pains of that fraudulent 
 invention, so profitable to the priests, called purgatory, scarcely 
 one sentence of which has the slightest similarity to Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim 9 s Progress, excepting that it is a dream. 3 ' Notes and 
 Queries, Second Series, No. 199. 
 
 It is a curious fact, and not very generally known, that a com- 
 plete design of a Pilgrim 9 s Progress is to be found in Lucian's 
 Hermolimus : it is not to be imagined that Bunyan could have 
 seen it there, from the limited educational advantages he pos- 
 sessed; yet the obvious allegory occurred to his mind, unschooled 
 as it was, in a similar arrangement with that suggested by Lucian. 
 Notes to the Pilgrim 9 s Progress converted into an Epic Poem, 
 Parsonstown, 1844. 
 
 Bunyan had some providential escapes during his early life. 
 Once he fell into a creek of the sea, once out of a boat into the 
 river Ouse, near Bedford, and each time he was narrowly saved 
 from drowning. One day, an adder crossed his path. He stunned 
 it with a stick, then forced open its mouth with a stick and 
 plucked out the tongue, which he supposed to be the sting, with, 
 his fingers ; " by which act," he says, " had not God been mer- 
 ciful unto me, 1 might, by my desperateness, have brought myself 
 to an end. 33 If this, indeed, were an adder, and not a harmless 
 snake, his escape from the fangs was more remarkable than he 
 himself was aware of. A circumstance, which was likely to im- 
 press him more deeply, occurred in the eighteenth year of his age, 
 when, being a soldier in the Parliament's army, he was drawn out 
 to go to the siege of Leicester in 1645. One of the same com- 
 pany wished to go in his stead ; Bunyan consented to exchange 
 with him, and this volunteer substitute, standing sentinel one day 
 at the siege, was shot through the head with a musket-ball. 
 "This risk, 3 ' Sir Walter Scott observes, "was one somewhat 
 resembling the escape of Sir Roger de Coverley, in an action at 
 "Worcester, who was savetl from the slaughter of that action, by 
 having been absent from the field. 33 Southey. 
 
 Bunyan's Allegory has been translated into Chinese, each page 
 being engraved on wooden blocks. 
 
TRADITIONAL ANECDOTES, CURIOUS CUSTOMS, ETC. 
 
 THERE is a very strange legend connected with the Lambton 
 family : one of the ancestors, a Crusader, to rid the neighbour- 
 hood of a monster serpent, consulted a witch, who counselled him 
 how to slay the creature, upon his vowing to kill, if successful, 
 the first living thing he met. " Should you fail to keep this 
 oath/' said the witch, "the Lords of Lambton, for nine generations, 
 shall never die in their beds. 3 ' The Knight then arranged with 
 his father, that upon the sound of his bugle, a favourite grey- 
 hound should be let loose, who would fly to him, and thus become 
 the sacrifice. The Knight, after a desperate contest, slew the 
 monster, and sounded the bugle; when the old Lord, overjoyed 
 at this victory, instead of releasing the greyhound, rushed forward 
 to embrace his son, who would not shed the blood of his father. 
 He again blew the bugle, and the greyhound, now released, came 
 bounding forward, and the Knight plunged his sword into its 
 heart. But the vow was broken, and destiny was not to be 
 eluded; and strange to say, how much so ever of the story may 
 foe time, for nine generations, no Lord of Lambton died quietly in 
 his bed. There are two stone figures in the garden-house at 
 Lambton Castle, illustrative of this legend. See the narrative 
 in Sir Bernard Burke's Family Romance, vol. ii. 
 
 When Lord Bacon, as he himself records, dreamt in Paris, that 
 lie saw " his father's house in the country plastered all over with 
 black mortar," his feelings were highly wrought upon, and he 
 made no doubt that the next intelligence from England would 
 apprise him of the death of his father. His apprehensions the 
 sequel proved to be well-grounded ; for his fattier actually died 
 the same night in which he had this remarkable dream. 
 
 The royalist Sir Richard Eanshawe and his Lady chanced, 
 during their abode in Ireland, to visit a friend, the head of a sept, 
 who resided in his baronial castle, surrounded with a moat. One 
 midnight Lady Eanshawe was awakened by a supernatural 'scream, 
 and beheld by moonlight, a female face and part of her form, 
 hovering about the window of the bedchamber, at a considerable 
 height from the moat. The face was young and handsome, but 
 pale ; the hair loose and dishevelled, and the costume that of the 
 
Appendix. 263 
 
 ancient Irish. The figure disappeared with two shrieks. In the 
 morning, Lady Fanshawe told her host what she had witnessed, 
 when he thus accounted for the apparition. " A near relative of 
 my family, (said he,) expired last night in the castle. We con- 
 cealed our certain expectation of the event from you, lest it 
 should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which was 
 your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family and 
 castle, the female spectre whom you have seen, is always visible. 
 She is believed to De the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, by 
 marrying whom one of my ancestors degraded himself; and whom 
 afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done to ( his family, he 
 caused to be drowned in the castle moat." 
 
 In the park of Chartley, near Lichfield, is preserved the 
 breed of the indigenous Staffordshire cow, of sand-white colour, 
 with black ears, muzzle, and tips at the hoofs. In the year of the 
 battle of Burton-bridge, a black calf was born ; and the downfall 
 of the house of Ferrers happening about this period, gave rise to 
 the tradition, which, to this day is current that the birth of a 
 parti-coloured calf from the wild breed in Chartley Park, is a 
 sure omen of death within the same year, to a member of the 
 lord's family; and by a noticeable coincidence, (says the Stafford- 
 shire Chronicle, July, 1835,) a calf of this description has been 
 born whenever a death has happened in the family of late years. 
 The decease of the seventh Earl Ferrers and his Countess, of his 
 son, Yiscount Tarn worth, and of his daughter, Mrs. W. Joliffe, 
 as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the eighth Earl, and 
 his daughter Lady Frances Shirley, were each preceded by the 
 ominous birth of a calf. In the spring of 1835, an animal perfectly 
 black, was calved by one of the weird tribe, in the park of 
 Chartley, and was shortly followed by the death of the Countess, 
 the second wife of the eighth Earl Ferrers. This family tradition 
 has been effectively wrought into a romantic story, entitled 
 Chartley ; or the Fatalist. 
 
 In a letter of Philip, the second Earl of Chesterfield, it is 
 related, that on a morning, in 1652, the Earl saw an object in 
 white, like a standing sheet, within a yard of his bedside. He 
 attempted to catch it, but it disappeared. His thoughts turned 
 to his Lady, who was then at Networth, with her father, the Earl 
 of Northumberland. On his arrival at Networth, a footman met 
 him on the stairs, with a packet directed to him from his wife, 
 whom he found with Lady Essex, her sister, and Mr. Bamsey. 
 He was asked why he had returned so suddenly. He told his 
 motive ; and on opening the letter in the packet, he found that 
 his lady had written to him, requesting his return, for she had 
 seen an object in white, with a black face, by her bedside. These 
 apparitions are stated to have been seen by the Earl and Countess 
 at the same moment, when they were forty miles asunder ! 
 
264 Appendix. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, when sailing in the Hebrides, between Rasay and 
 Sky, in a large boat, with Boswell, and other friends, fell into this 
 conversation on Death. Johnson observed that the boastings of 
 some men as to dying easily were idle talk, proceeding from par- 
 tial views. Boswell mentioned Hawthornden's " Cypress Grave," 
 where it is said that the world is a mere show, and that it is 
 unreasonable for a man to wish to continue in the show-room 
 after he has seen it. Let him go cheerfully out, and give place 
 to other spectators. Johnson. "Yes, sir, if he is sure he is to 
 be well after he goes out of it. ' But if he is to grow blind after 
 he goes out of the show-room, and never to see anything again, 
 or if he does not know whither he is to go next, a man will not 
 go cheerfully out of a show-room. No wise man will be con- 
 tented to die, if he thinks he is to go into a state of punishment. 
 Nay, no wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to 
 fall into annihilation ; for, however unhappy any man's existence 
 may be, he would yet rather have .it than not exist at all. No, 
 there is no rational principle by which a man can die contented, 
 but a trust in the mercy of God, through the merits of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 When Dr. Johnson was struck with palsy, in June, 1783, after 
 the first shock was over, and he had time to recollect himself, he 
 attempted to speak in English. Unable as he found himself to 
 pronounce the words, he tried what he could do with Latin, but 
 here he found equal difficulty. He then attempted Greek, and 
 could utter a few words^ but slowly and with pain. In the even- 
 ing he called for paper, and wrote a Latin Hymn, addressed to the 
 Creator, the prayer of which was that so long as the Almighty 
 should suffer him to live, he should be pleased to allow him the 
 enjoyment of his understanding; that his intellectual powers and 
 his body should expire together, a striking instance of fortitude, 
 piety, and resignation! Sir James Prior's Life of E. Malone. 
 
 How satisfactory it is to know that the last sonnet which the 
 pious Mrs. Hemans composed and that on her last bed of 
 suffering was the Sabbath Sonnet : 
 
 How many blessed groups this hour are bending, 
 
 Thro' England's primrose meadow paths, their way 
 Towards spire and tower midst shadowy elms ascending, 
 
 Whence the sweet chimes proclaim the hallowed day. 
 The halls, from old heroic ages gray, 
 
 Pour their fair children forth ; and hamlets low, 
 With whose thick orchard blossoms the soft winds play, 
 
 Send out their inmates in a happy flow, 
 Like a free vernal stream. I may not tread, 
 With them, those pathways to the feverish bed 
 
 Of sickness bound : yet, oh ! my God ! I bless 
 Thy mercy that with Sabbath peace hath filled 
 My chastened heart, and all its throbbings stilled 
 
 To one deep calm of lowliest thankfulness. 
 
Appendix. 265 
 
 Lord Byron was told by the commander of a packet, that being- 
 asleep one night in his berth, he was awakened by the pres- 
 sure of something heavy on his limbs; and there being a faint 
 light, he conld see, as he thought distinctly, the figure of his 
 brother, who was at that time in the same service in the East 
 Indies, dressed in his uniform, and stretched across the bed. 
 Supposing it to be an illusion of the senses, he shut his eyes, and 
 made an effort to sleep. Still the pressure continued ; arid still, 
 as often as he ventured to take another look, he saw the figure 
 lying crosswise, in the same position. To add to the wonder, on 
 putting his hand forth to touch the figure, he found the uniform 
 in which it appeared to be dressed, dripping wet. On the entrance 
 of one of his brother officers, to whom he called out in alarm, the 
 apparition vanished; but in a few months after, Captain Kidd 
 received the startling intelligence, that on the above night,, his 
 brother had been drowned in the Indian seas. Of the super- 
 natural character of this appearance, Captain Kidd himself did 
 not appear to have the slightest doubt. Moore's Life of Byron. 
 
 Grimaldi, the father of the celebrated " Joe," the clown, had a 
 vague and profound dread of the 14th day of the month. At 
 its approach, he was always nervous, disquieted, and anxious : 
 directly it had passed, he was another man again, and invariably 
 exclaimed, in his broken English, " Ah ! now I am safe for 
 another month." But it is remarkable that Grimaldi actually 
 died on the 14th day of March, and that he was born, christened, 
 and married, on the 14th of the month. 
 
 Mrs. Crowe relates that on board one of Her Majesty's ships 
 lying off Portsmouth, the officers being one day at the mess-table, 
 a young Lieutenant R. suddenly laid down his knife and fork, 
 pushed away his plate, and turned extremely pale. He then rose 
 from the table, covered his face with his hands, and retired. The 
 president of the mess, supposing him to be ill, sent to inquire 
 after him. At first, Mr. R. was unwilling to reply : but on being 
 pressed, he confessed that he had been seized by a sudden and 
 irresistible impression, that a brother he had in India was dead. 
 "He died," said he, "on the 12th of August, at six o'clock; I 
 am perfectly certain of it." Tso argument could overthrow this 
 conviction, which, in due course of post, was verified to the 
 letter. The young man had died at Cawnpore, on the day above 
 named. 
 
 Watching for the Dead on St. Mark's and Midsummer Eve was 
 formerly customary in Yorkshire. On St. Mark's Eve, (April 24,) 
 persons would sit and watch in the church- porch, from 11 o'clock 
 at night till 1 in the morning. In the third year, (for it must be 
 done thrice,) the watchers were said to see the spectres of all 
 those who were to die the next year pass by into the church. 
 
266 Appendix. 
 
 The same custom on Midsummer Eve is thus noticed in the 
 Connoisseur, No. 56 : "I am sure my own sister Hetty, who died 
 just before Christmas, stood in the church porch last Midsummer 
 Eve, to see all that were to die in that year in our parish : and 
 she saw her own apparition." In the Athenian Oracle, vol. ii. p. 
 
 515, we find: "On last Eve, nine others, besides myself, 
 
 went into a church porch with an expectation of seeing those who 
 should die that year ; but about eleven o'clock, I was so afraid that 
 I left them ; and all the nine did positively affirm to me, that about 
 an hour after, the church-doors flying open, the minister, (who, it 
 seems, was much troubled that night in his sleep,) with such as 
 should die that year, did appear in order, which persons they 
 named to me ; and they appeared all then very healthful, but six 
 of them died in six weeks after, in the very same order that they 
 appeared." Mrs. Bray relates that at Tavistock, Devon, two 
 brothers sat up one Midsummer Eve, in the church porch, from an 
 idea that if, at twelve o'clock at night, they looked through the 
 keyhole of the door, they would see all those who were to die that 
 year walk into the church from the opposite doorway. They 
 fancied they saw themselves in the funeral procession ! Certain it 
 is that they both died within a very short time from this watching. 
 
 What a dream of beauty and tenderness has Dr. Eaber, with 
 true poetic soul, figured in his wild dirge upon the banks of the 
 Charwell, over his "blighted love, and his chosen's bier:" 
 
 The dew falls fast, and the night is dark ; 
 
 The trees stand silent in the park. 
 
 The fatal lights have all died out ; 
 
 And nought is heard but a lone owl's shout, 
 
 The mists keep gathering more and more, - 
 
 But the stream is silent as before. 
 
 From bridge to bridge with tremulous fall 
 The river droppeth down, 
 
 And it washeth the base of a pleasant hall 
 
 On the skirts of Cambridge Town. 
 Why should I think of my boyhood's bride, 
 As I walked by this low- voiced river side ? 
 And why should its heartless waters seem, 
 Like a horrid thought in a feverish dream ? 
 But it will not speak, and it keeps its bed 
 The words that are sent us from the dead. 
 
 The river is green, and runneth slow, 
 We cannot tell what it saith ; 
 
 It keepeth its secrets down below, 
 And so doth death. 
 
Appendix. 267 
 
 LITERARY HISTORY OF MADMEN. 
 
 In the year I860, M. Octave Delepierre published an ingenious 
 and interesting work, the object of which is to prove that " mad- 
 ness enters in some measure into most of the. great minds with 
 which history makes us acquainted ; and that it often becomes 
 very difficult to establish the difference which predispositions to 
 madness present, from certain conditions known as those of reason." 
 The authority of M. Lelut is invoked to prove that Pythagoras, 
 Numa, Mahomet, and others, whose influence has been of such 
 vast amount in the world, were all in some measure affected in 
 mind: "they were simply men of genius and enthusiasm, with 
 partial hallucinations." The good daemon which so often 
 whispered counsel in the ears of Socrates, and the amulet dis- 
 covered after death in Pascal's pocket, have convinced M. Lelut, 
 who has ingeniously attempted to convince others, of the insanity 
 of these great philosophers. 
 
 Strange is the supposition whicn. regards as madmen so many 
 of the great men who have left their stamp upon the history of the 
 world. Numa was mad, inasmuch as he professed that a certain 
 nymph appeared to him in a cavern, which he called Egeria.* 
 Notwithstanding which, however, some may be of opinion that of 
 the two hypotheses the first, that Numa was mad and yet capa- 
 ble in his madness of thinking out much legislative wisaom, and 
 of establishing many prudent institutions ; the other, that Numa 
 being of sound mind, was politician enough to perceive that super- 
 stition was the most powerful instrument by which to impress 
 new doctrines upon a primitive people the latter has about it 
 a far greater appearance of probability. Even if Numa were mad, 
 was not the nymph still a lie ? And the wisdom which he some- 
 how acquired not a lie ? A madman's delusion, though it be true 
 for him, is not true for the universe, and cannot therefore but die 
 with its author. So Numa's wise laws have had their influence 
 and are still working in the world, while the temporary accessories 
 by which tjiey were rendered acceptable to the barbarian mind 
 have long since vanished. 
 
 Mahomet mad too ! because, amongst other things, the angel 
 Gabriel was said to have paid visits to him. When Pococke in- 
 quired of Grotius where the proof was of that story of the pigeon 
 trained to pick peas from Mahomet's ear, and to pass for an angel 
 dictating to him ? Grotius answered that there was no proof ! 
 Now, the word this man spoke has been the life guidance of one 
 hundred and eighty millions of men these twelve hundred years. 
 These hundred and eighty millions were made by God as well as 
 
 r * See'-Z^m'ff, a poem, of graceful thought and nervous fancy, by 
 Charles Mackay, LL.D. 
 
268 Appendix. 
 
 we. " A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's 
 word at this hour than in any other word whatever." * And we 
 are asked to believe that it was the wisdom of madness ! 
 
 Of Cromwell's grievous madness there will be little doubt in 
 certain minds. Did not a spectre appear to him in the open day, 
 or some strange woman open the curtains of his bed at night, and 
 predict to him that he should be king of England ? And a Hunt- 
 ingdon physician told Sir Philip Warwick that he had often been 
 sent for at midnight; Mr. Cromwell was full of hypochondria, 
 thought himself near dying, and had "fancies about the town 
 cross."- Moreover, he was subject to uncontrollable fits of 
 laughter on serious occasions. " One that was at the battle of 
 D unbar told me that Oliver was carried on by a Divine impulse. 
 He did laugh so excessively as if he had been drunk. The same 
 fit of laughter seized him just before the battle of Naseby." f 
 
 Again, there was once a " report raised by the devil, that Mr. 
 Whitefield was mad," and he himself says, " he might very well 
 be taken to be really mad, and that his relations counted his life 
 madness." Here is an account from his journal, of what seems 
 to have been a compound of indigestion and nightmare, wherein 
 may be discernible by certain mortals something of a mad ring : 
 " One morning rising from my bed, I felt an unusual impression 
 and weight upon my chest. In a short time the load gradually 
 increased, and almost weighed me down, and fully convinced me 
 that Satan had as real possession of my body as once of Job's. . . . 
 I fancied myself like a man locked up in iron armour; I felt 
 great heavings in my body, prayed under the weight till the 
 sweat came. How many nights did I lie groaning under the 
 weight, bidding Satan depart from me in the name of Jesus." 
 
 But why continue a list, which by a "speciality" criticism 
 might be made to include almost every great actor in this mad 
 world George Pox stitching for himself a leathern suit ; Ignatius 
 Loyola, " that errant, shatter-brained visionary fanatic," as Bishop 
 Lavington calls him ; St. Prancis, founder of the Franciscans, who 
 was wont to strip himself naked in proof of his innocence, and to 
 appear in fantastical dresses ; and many others in whom appears 
 a mixture, more or less, of fanaticism and imposture. 
 
 Perhaps if there is one man to whom a reader of English history 
 would point as having entertained wide and philosophical views 
 instead of having faith in the expediency-doctrine of the moment 
 that .man is Edmund Burke. " He possessed (says Coleridge) 
 and had sedulously sharpened that eye which sees all things, 
 actions, and events in relation to the laws which determine their 
 existence, and circumscribe their possibility. He referred habitu- 
 ally to principles, he was a scientific statesman." 
 
 * Carlyle. f Aubrey's Miscellanies. 
 
Appendix. 269 
 
 When the far-seeing sagacity of Burke, in foretelling the un- 
 happy results of the Erench Revolution, first struck into the 
 minds of his party, from which he Lad been separated, it was re- 
 ported that he was in a state of mind bordering on insanity, espe- 
 cially after he had in the House of Commons, addressed to the 
 chair, with much vehemence of manner, the words of St. Paul: 
 "I am not mad, most noble Eestus; but speak the words of 
 truth and soberness." Burke' s niece ventured to name to him 
 the above absurd rumour, when he very sensibly replied : " Some 
 part of the world, my dear 1 mean the Jacobins, or unwise part 
 of it think, or affect to think, that I am mad ; but believe me, 
 the world twenty years hence will, and with reason too, think 
 from their conduct, that they must have been mad." 
 
 These rumours, however, gained strength, particularly after the 
 death of Burke' s son : he was said to wander about his grounds 
 kissing his cows and horses ; but his affection for domestic animals 
 had been remarkable from his early manhood, and Reinagle painted 
 him patting a favourite cow. This picture brought from London 
 to Beaconsfield an old friend, to ascertain the truth or falsehood 
 of the story when Burke, without knowing the object of his 
 visit, unsuspiciously showed him portions of the Letters on a Regi- 
 cide Peace, which he was then writing. The circumstance of his 
 being seen to throw his arms round the neck of his son's favourite 
 horse, to weep and sob convulsively, as he kissed the animal, had, 
 however, a greater share in substantiating the rumour, than had 
 Reinagle's picture. 
 
 Lord Chatham, contemporary with Burke, was also alleged to 
 have been insane. Horace Walpole fosters this scandal, and the 
 fact of the Earl placing himself under Dr. Addington, originally a 
 "mad doctor," strengthened the rumour; but Addington had 
 been the village doctor at Hayes, where Lord Chatham resided. 
 His ill-managed expenditure, and his freaks of extravagance, 
 backed the report, which, after all, was little better than an inven- 
 tion of Chatham's political enemies^ 
 
 The hallucinations and madness of Tasso, of Benvenuto Cellini, 
 of the painter Euseli, of Cowper, of Swift, and of many others 
 whose names press under the pen, exhibit a picture of the human 
 mind which would almost make us agree with Aristotle, that it is 
 the fame of a good poet to be mad. 
 
 That Swift not only expired " a driv'ler and a show," but lived 
 .a madman, is what the world generally believes ; but Mr. W. R. 
 Wilde, E.R.C.S.* having stated all that is really known of 
 Swift's sufferings and disease, asserts that up to the year 1742, 
 Swift showed no symptom whatever of mental disease, beyond the 
 ordinary decay of nature. Towards the end of that year the cere- 
 
 * The closing years of Dean Swift's Life. By W. K. Wilde, F.R.C.S. 
 Second Edition ; 1849. 
 
270 Appendix. 
 
 bral disease under which he had long laboured, by producing effu- 
 sion, &c. destroyed his memory, rendered at times ungovernable 
 in his anger, and produced paralysis ; but all this was the result of 
 physical disease. It cannot be doubted that his not speaking was 
 not the result of either insanity or imbecility, but arose either 
 from the paralysis of the muscles by which the mechanism of 
 speech is produced, or from loss of memory, such as frequently 
 appears in cerebral disease ; for he would often attempt to speak, 
 but could not recollect words to express his meaning, when he 
 would shrug up his shoulders, and sigh heavily. "We have also 
 the evidence of one of the few eye-witnesses of the Dean's con- 
 dition at this period that he never yet talked nonsense, or said 
 a foolish thing. The disease under which he laboured so long 
 might be termed " epileptic vertigo," such as that described by 
 Esquirol, an affection to which it is well known many men of 
 strong intellect have been subject. Eor the last few years of his 
 embittered existence from his 75th to his 78th year his disease 
 partook so much of the nature of senile decay, or the dementia of 
 old age, that it is difficult to define by any precise medical term 
 his actual state. Mr. Wilde has very carefully examined the 
 question ; and although to this day, it is difficult to persuade the 
 great mass of the people in Dublin that the Dean was not one of 
 the first inmates of his own madhouse (although the building was 
 not erected till many years after his death) yet there is nothing 
 to confirm the assertion, promulgated by Johnson, that Swift's 
 " madness was compounded of rage and fatuity ; " or that Swift 
 expired " a driv'ler and a show." * 
 
 To return to M. Delepierre's work. 'Religious Madmen differ in 
 many essential points from others in their aberrations : their 
 objects are the emotions, the passions, and the instinctive impulses 
 of the soul. A Jesuit named Paoletti, who, in the middle ages, 
 wrote against Thomas Aquinas' doctrine concerning Predestination 
 and Freewill, and who had been in confinement five years when he 
 wrote, composed a treatise in which he " demonstrated that the 
 aborigines of America were the direct descendants of the devil and 
 one of the daughters of Noah ; consequently it was absolutely im- 
 possible that they should ever obtain salvation or grace." 
 
 Simon Morin, who had published an absurd book, was arrested 
 by order of the French Parliament, and was ordered to be sent to 
 a madhouse for the rest of his days. But having abjured his 
 
 * It is remarkable that the last sufferings of Sir Walter Scott cme of 
 Swift's biographers, and certainly not the most lenient one present a 
 striking parallel to the case of Swift in nearly every particular except 
 in point of duration. When Scott was in his 58th year, he first began 
 to feel those premonitory symytoms of incipient disease of the brain 
 under which Swift laboured from the time he was 23. Many of Sir 
 Walter's symptoms in the two closing years of his life, resemble those 
 of Swift ; and the post-mortem symptoms are very much alike. Wilde. 
 
Appendix. 271 
 
 follies he was released, and soon after published another book in 
 which he maintained that he was no other than the Son of Man. 
 He was condemned, in 1662, to be burnt alive with his books, and 
 his ashes to be cast to the wind. So Simon Morin and his hetero- 
 doxy were extinguished. On the other hand, St. Erancis, the 
 founder of the Franciscans, who saw visions "as of an angel with 
 six burning wings, bearing a figure nailed upon the cross/ 5 and 
 who, at any rate, was at one time chained down in a dark room by 
 his parents, and was " deemed to be mad both by the learned and 
 vulgar," he was canonized. 
 
 Proceeding to the second Division Literary Madmen, we find 
 that they do not occupy themselves with deep speculations on 
 abstruse subjects : they rarely go below the surface of things, and 
 are concerned rather with the mode of expression of common 
 ideas than with the nature of the ideas themselves. Their intel- 
 lectual powers being less concentrated than in those who are 
 occupied with philosophy or theology, the exhaustion is much 
 less. Many belonging to this class are persons, who, in madness, 
 are still afflicted with the itching humour of writing. Yet, some 
 there are who, out of decay, emit bright phosporescence of genius, 
 and compose in good style what a professed philosopher may read 
 with advantage : the writings of Nathaniel Lee, born about the 
 end of the seventeenth century, have been praised by Addison. 
 One night, when Lee was composing one of his dreams in his cell 
 in Bedlam, a cloud passed before the moon, by the light of which 
 he was writing, when he suddenly cried out : Jove, smtff the moon. 
 Dryden relates how this same Lee once replied to a bad poet 
 who had made the foolish remark, that it was very easy to write 
 like a madman : " It is very difficult to write like a madman, but 
 it is very easy to write like a fool." 
 
 Alexander Cruden became insane while at college, through his 
 love being rejected by a young lady : he was sent to an asylum, 
 but shortly after recovered ; and after he was set at liberty, he 
 wrote his Concordance, a work of surprising research. He was 
 three times placed in confinement ; and after his release on the 
 last occasion, despairing of obtaining what he deemed justice for 
 his wrongs, he wrote to his sister, and several of his friends, pro- 
 | posing, with the utmost simplicity, that they should in an easy 
 way afford him a slight compensation by subjecting themselves 
 to imprisonment for a time in Newgate. Heavenly voices towards 
 the end of his life, informed him that he had a divine mission ; 
 and he demanded that he should be recognized of the King in 
 Council, and that he should be created by A ct of Parliament, 
 " Corrector of the People." 
 
 Living at the same time as Cruden was a certain Christopher 
 Smart, who, after a brilliant career at Cambridge, unhappily be- 
 came insane. During his confinement he wrote, by means of a 
 
272 Appendix. 
 
 key, on the panels of his chamber, a poem of nearly a hundred 
 stanzas to the " Glory of David, King and Prophet." 
 
 Philosophical Madmen are in a somewhat similar position to 
 that of theological madmen : they are mostly vain persons who 
 have lost their way in matters too deep for them ; and by reason 
 of their vanity, and of the nature of the subject of their pursuits, 
 are as difficult to deal with as those who speculate on religious 
 mysteries. A deplorable instance of this class is afforded by 
 Thomas Wirgman, who, after making a large fortune as a gold- 
 smith and silversmith, in St. James 's-street, London, squandered 
 it all as a regenerating philosopher. .He had paper made specially 
 for his books, the same sheet consisting of several different 
 colours ; and as he changed the work many times while it was 
 printing, the cost was enormous; one book of 400 pages cost 
 2,276/. He published a grammar of the five senses, which was 
 a sort of system of metaphysics for the use of children, and main- 
 tained that when it was universally adopted in schools, peace and 
 harmony would be restored to the earth, and virtue would every- 
 where replace crime. He complained much that people would 
 not listen to him, and that, although he had devoted nearly half a 
 century to the propagation of his ideas, he had asked in vain to 
 be appointed Professor in some University or College, so little 
 does the world appreciate those who labour unto death in its 
 service. Nevertheless, exclaimed Wirgman/after another useless 
 application, " while life remains I will not cease to communicate 
 this blessing to the rising world." 
 
 Political Madmen. Davesney or Davenne, temp. Louis XIV. 
 was of opinion that of right he ought to supplant that monarch, 
 and mount the throne : and he proposed two plans of deciding 
 the question. "Call the Cardinal, the Regent, the Duke of 
 Orleans, the Princes Beaufort, and those who are deemed most 
 holy in the world ; have a furnace kindled ; let us all be thrown 
 into it, and he who comes out uninjured, like a renovated phosnix 
 from the flames, let him be regarded as the protege of God, and 
 be ordained prince of tlie people." Fearing however, naturally 
 enough, that so severe a test might not be acceptable, he proposes 
 another. "Let the Parliament sentence me to death for having 
 dared to speak the truth to princes. Let them execute me, and if 
 God does not protect me from their hands in a supernatural way, 
 let the memory of me be extinct. If God preserves me not from 
 the hands of the executioners, nothing shall be done to them ; but 
 if a supernatural arm tears me from their clutches, let them be 
 sacrificed in my place."* 
 
 * Selected and Abridged from an able Paper, by Henry Maudsley, on 
 Delepierre's Histoire LittSraire des Fous, in the Journal of Mental 
 Science, No, 34. With several interpolations. 
 
GENEKAL INDEX. 
 
 Abernethy on Life, 38. 
 
 Abodes of the Blest, 230. 
 
 Abstraction, Mental, 77. 
 
 Adaptation of Colour to the Wants 
 of Animals, 23. 
 
 Addison's Cato quoted, 210. 
 
 ADVERSARIA, 231257. 
 
 Age, Old, and Death, 133. 
 
 Angels, Notions of, 51. 
 
 Angels, popular ideas of, 55. 
 
 Apple-tree, Eve's, 26. 
 
 Aristotle on the Soul, 37. 
 
 Arnold, Dr. his death, 148. ' 
 
 Arundel, Philip Earl of, his death, 
 121. 
 
 Atheism, Dr. South on, 249. 
 
 Attributes of the Deity, 248. 
 
 Author of our Being, the, 2. 
 
 Average of Human Life, 28. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, dream of, 262. 
 
 Baillie and Brodie on Death, 145. 
 
 Beauty of Death, 162. 
 
 ' e Beginning," the, of Creation, 8. 
 
 Being, Chain of, 20, 21. 
 
 BELIEF AND SCEPTICISM, 94 106. 
 
 Belief, Weak, 96. 
 
 Bell, the Passing, 160. 
 
 Bible, Study and Interpretation 
 of the, 231. 
 
 Bichat, M. his definition of Life, 2. 
 
 Blumenbach on Ethnology, 13, 14. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Lord, his infidelity. 
 102, 103. 
 
 Bowdler, Mr. on the Attributes of 
 the Deity, 248. 
 
 Brain in Childhood, 84. 
 
 Brain, Working of the, 68. 
 
 Brewster, Sir David. " Worlds to 
 come," 230. 
 
 Brodie, Sir B. on Duality of Mind, 
 48 ; Memory, 69 ; Mental Pro- 
 cesses, 65 ; Mind preceding 
 Death, 140 ; Nervous System, 67. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, on Mind, 64. 
 
 Buddhism, True and False, 240. 
 Bulwer Lytton on the Pre-exist- 
 
 ence of Souls, 45. 
 Bunsen, Baron, his Biblical Re- 
 searches, 188 ; Creation, 10. 
 Bunsen, Baron, death and funeral 
 
 of, 189. 
 
 Burial Clubs, Antiquity of, 165. 
 Burial Soils, Antiseptic, 167. 
 Burns and Byron, melancholy, 80. 
 
 "Business of the Saints in Hea- 
 ven," 226. 
 
 Byron, his superstition, 127. 
 
 Cain, how he killed Abel, 27. 
 
 Cawnpore, death at, 205. 
 
 Ceylon, Paradise in, 26. 
 
 Chain of Being, the, 20, 21. 
 
 Chance, What is it ? 113. 
 
 Change-bearing Laws of Nature, 5, 
 
 Change in Opinion, 235. 
 
 Chartley, Tradition, 263. 
 
 Chemistry cannot create an Or- 
 ganic germ, 16. 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, appearance to, 
 263. 
 
 Child father to the Man, 92. 
 
 Childish Desires, 95. 
 
 Childless, to die, 106. 
 
 Chiisom Child and Cloth, 137, 138. 
 
 Christ, Death of, 185. 
 
 " Christ's Passion," by Cowley, 18.. 
 
 Christian Life, true course of, 240. 
 
 Christian Mission, the, 238. 
 
 CHRISTIAN RESURRECTION, THE, 
 213217. 
 
 Christian Revelation, 236. 
 
 Christianity, Evidences of, 235. 
 
 Christianity, Mediaeval, 255. 
 
 Christianity, Universal, Remote- 
 ness of, 251. 
 
 Clairvoyance, on, 63. 
 
 Climacterics, on, 29. 
 
 Coleridge, his definition of Life, 2, 
 
 Coleridge, his unbelief, 101. 
 
 Colour and Wants of Animals, 23. 
 
 Consumption and Longevity, 35. 
 
 Contrition of the Ancients at 
 Death, 136. 
 
 Courtenay, Bishop, on the Inter- 
 mediate State, 203. 
 
 Courtenay, Bishop, on Man's im- 
 mortality, 210. 
 
 Creation of Matter, 5. 
 
 Creation, the Mosaic and Geo- 
 logic, 7. 
 
 Creation, views of the, 10, 11. 
 
 Cromwell on the Soul and the 
 Future Life, 36, 37. 
 
 Cross, the, 183. 
 
 " Crosse of Christ," 187. 
 
 CRUCIFIXION OF OUR LORD, 185 
 187. 
 
 Crucifixion, punishment of, 183.] 
 
 Darkness, Utter, 179. 
 
274 
 
 General Index, 
 
 Darwin's Theory of Species, 10. 
 
 Daubeny, Prof, on Man, 35. 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, on Spiritual 
 Natures, 55. 
 
 Day of Judgment, The, 219. 
 
 Dead, Prayers for the, 195. 
 
 Dead, State of the, 205. 
 
 Dead, Know not anything, 194. 
 
 Death, Beauty of, 162. 
 
 Death Customs, 165. 
 
 Death, Premonitions of, 121129. 
 
 Death and Sleep, 134. 
 
 Death, state of Mind preceding, 
 140. 
 
 Death at Will, 134. 
 
 Death-bed, the, by Feltham, 150. 
 
 Death-bed Repentance, 151. 
 
 Decay of the Human Body, 168. 
 
 Decay of Memory, 74. 
 
 Deity, Existence of the, 3. 
 
 Destruction of the World, 175. 
 
 Development Theory, the, 16. 
 
 " Devil," representations, 178. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, on Pre-existence 
 of Souls, 46. 
 
 Discipline of the Intellect, 91 . 
 
 Divine Eternity, the, 3. 
 
 Divine Perfections, the, 4. 
 
 Domesticity of Character, 110. 
 
 D'Orbigny on the Creation, 11. 
 
 Drowning, sensations in, 90. 
 
 Duality of Mind, 46, 47, 48. 
 
 Dying Christian to his Soul, 147. 
 
 Emblems on Tombs, 167. 
 
 Embryo under the Microscope, 15. 
 
 Emerson on the Soul, 116. 
 
 Emotion and the Intellect, 78. 
 
 END OF THE WORLD FORETOLD, 
 190194. 
 
 Enoch, Translation of, 225. 
 
 Eve's Apple-tree, 26. 
 
 "Excelsior," 50. 
 
 Experience, Fallible, 99. 
 
 Paber, Dr. dirge by, 266. 
 
 Falstaff, Sir John, his death de- 
 scribed, 137, 138, 139. 
 
 Family Likenesses, 27. 
 
 Fanshawe, Lady, and Spectre, 268. 
 
 Flowers in Coffins, 173. 
 
 Flowers on Graves, 170--174. 
 
 Foote, Samuel, death of, 123. 
 
 Fragments of Time, 31. 
 
 Funeral, Village Maiden's, 173. 
 
 FUTURE STATES, THE, 217, 219. 
 
 Futurity, Mr. Merry on, 209, 210. 
 221. ' 
 
 Galvanised Human Body, 66. 
 
 Garden, hallowed ground, 174. 
 
 Gay Melancholy, on, 80. 
 
 Genesis of the Karth and Man, 10. 
 
 Genius, What is it ? 76. 
 
 Glastonbury, Holy Thorn at, 236. 
 
 " God's Acre," 166. 
 
 God's Ancient People, 253. 
 
 " Great Book, the," 90. 
 
 Grey, Sir George, on the Consola- 
 tion of Religion, 248. 
 
 Grief for the Dead, 163. 
 
 Grimaldi, his dread of Friday, 265. 
 
 Growth, Real, 98. 
 
 Hamilton, on Faith, 94. 
 
 Hamilton, on Phrenology, 33. 
 
 Happiness of the Blessed, by Bishop 
 Mant, 220221. 
 
 Happiness Boyish or Manly ? 
 253. 
 
 Happiness of Heaven, 219. 
 
 Harrison, Mr. Bower, on the 
 Phenomena of Death, 142147. 
 
 Haydon, the painter, presenti- 
 ment of, 129. 
 
 Hearts, Broken, 149. 
 
 Heart Disease, Death from, 148. 
 
 Heavens and Earth, New, 227. 
 
 Hell, Picture of, 179. 
 
 Hemans, Mrs. her last Sonnet, 264. 
 
 Herschel, Sir John, on Species, 5. 
 
 High Spirits, a presage of Evil, 111. 
 
 Hogarth, his " Tail-piece," 123. 
 
 Holy Spirit, to the, 200. 
 
 Hours fatal to Life, 120. ' 
 
 How Man dies, 141148. 
 
 Hunter, John, death of, 128. 
 
 Hypochondriac authors, 87. 
 
 Identity, Personal, 59. 
 
 Immortality of the Soul, see Soul. 
 
 Impressions, Permanent, by Spi- 
 ritual Powers, 57. 
 
 Impressions, Persistence of, 71. 
 
 Impulses, Insane, 83. 
 
 Infidelity, Renunciation of, 104. 
 
 Insane, how treated by the Egyp- 
 tians, 89. 
 
 Insane Impulses, 83. 
 
 Intellect, Discipline of the, 91. 
 
 Intellectuality and Insanity, 87. 
 
 Interferences of the Dead with the 
 Living, 164. 
 
 INTERMEDIATE STATES, 203217. 
 
 Intolerance and Unbelief, 99. 
 
 Intuitions, What are they ? 75. 
 
 Ixion and his Wheel, 182. 
 
 Jehovah and the Eternal, 3. 
 
 Jerusalem, the New, 229. 
 
General Index. 
 
 275 
 
 Jews, history of the, 253. 
 Job, and the Resurrection, 202. 
 Johnson, Dr. on Death, 264. 
 Johnson, Dr. Latin Hymn by, 264. 
 Judgment Day, the, 217. 
 Kidd, Capt. and supernatural ap- 
 pearance, 265. 
 
 Kingdoms of Nature, the, '21. 
 Knowledge of God before the time 
 , of Christ, 187. 
 Lambton family tradition, 262. 
 Lardner, Dr. on Personal Identity, 
 
 oy. 
 
 Last Moments and Words of dis- 
 tinguished Persons, 153 158. 
 Latin Christianity, 255. 
 Leighton, Archbishop, Death of, 
 
 Io2. 
 Leslie, the painter, on the Beauty 
 
 of Death, 168. 
 Liebig on the Development 
 
 Theory, 16. 
 Life after Death, 201. 
 Life Assurance, on, 33. 
 Life not greater than its Reflex, 
 
 92. 
 
 Life, Origin of, 11. 
 LIFE AND TIME, 135. 
 Life, the Tree of, 24. 
 Life, What is it? 1. 
 Likenesses, Family, 27. 
 Litany, Origin of the, 256. 
 Litany to the Holy Spirit, by 
 
 Herrick, 200. 
 Loquitur Crucifixus, 186. 
 Lyttelton, Lord, Death of, 130. 
 Madge Wildfire, Gay Melancholy 
 
 of, 8083. 
 MADMEN, LITERARY HISTORY OF. 
 
 267272. 
 
 Madness, What is it? 85. 
 MAN AFTER DEATH, 195 202. 
 Man after Death, Condition of, 
 
 196. 
 
 Man and his Dwelling-place, 17. 
 Man, his future Existence, 230. 
 Man, that he must be immortal, 
 
 210. 
 
 Man's proper place in Creation, 35. 
 Man's Reluctance to think of God, 
 
 137. 
 
 Marriages made in Heaven, 226. 
 Materialism of the Development 
 
 Theory, 104. 
 
 Materialism and Spiritualism, 59. 
 Materialism, What is it ? 256. 
 Matter, Creation of, 5. 
 
 Melancholy, or Poetic Feeling, 79. 
 
 Memory, Decay of, 73. 
 
 Memory, how it takes place, 71. 
 
 Memory, Value of, 73. 
 
 Memory, What is it ? 69. 
 
 Mental Abstraction, 77. 
 
 Mental Processes of which we are 
 unconscious, 65. 
 
 Mesmerism and Somnambulism, 
 61. 
 
 Metempsychosis, the, 105. 
 
 Microscope, revelations of, 15. 
 
 Miller, Hugh, on the Creation, 7. 
 
 Milton, on the Pre-existence of 
 Souls, 45. 
 
 Mind and Body, 64. 
 
 Moments, Last, of distinguished 
 Persons, 153158. 
 
 Mortality, Gompertz's Law of, 28. 
 Mosaic and Geologic Creation, 7. 
 Mysteries and Miracles, 257. 
 Nature, the Kingdoms of, 21. 
 Nature, Numbers in, 22. 
 NATURE OF THE SOUL, 3649. 
 Nemesis of Power, 178. 
 Nemesis, or Retribution, 176. 
 Nervous System, Changes in, 67. 
 New Heaven and Earth, 227. 
 Nineveh, Symbolical Figures from, 
 
 234. 
 
 Norwich, Earl of, and Death, 250. 
 Numbers in Nature, 22. 
 Operation of Mind, 90. 
 OUT Friends in Heaven, by the 
 
 Rev. J. Killeen, 222, 223. 
 Oxford, Bishop of, anecdote by, 91. 
 Oxford, Bishop of, on the Chris- 
 tian Mission, 238. 
 Paradise and Heaven, 207. 
 Parents of the Human Race, 15. 
 Passing Bell, the, 160. 
 Personality of God, 42. 
 Petty, Mr. premonition of his 
 
 death, 125. 
 
 PHENOMENA OF DEATH, 120174. 
 Phoenix, the, emblem, 169. 
 Phrenology, Hamilton on, 33. 
 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, 258261. 
 Plato, the Christian Element of, 
 
 244. 
 
 Plato on the Soul, 37. 
 Platonic Love, on, 243. 
 Platonism and Christianity, 244. 
 Plurality of Worlds, 18. 
 Power of Religion over Difficulties, 
 
 247. 
 Pre-existence of Souls, 4249. 
 
276 
 
 General Index. 
 
 PREMATURElNTERMENT,114 119. 
 
 Premonitions of Death, 121129. 
 
 Preparing for another World, 249. 
 
 Prophecies of World's End, 194. 
 
 Punishments, Eternal, 252. 
 
 Reason, Perverted, 85. 
 
 RECOGNITION OF EACH OTHER BY 
 THE BLESSED, 220230. 
 
 Registration and Memory, 73. 
 
 Religion happily adapted to the 
 Mind of Man, 245. 
 
 Religion. Power of. over Difficulties. 
 247. 
 
 Remoteness of universal Chris- 
 tianity, 251. 
 
 RESURRECTION, THE CHRISTIAJS T , 
 213217. 
 
 Resurrection, emblem of the, 169. 
 
 Resurrection of same Body, 215. 
 
 Revelation, What is it ? 95. 
 
 Rogers, S. and Clairvoyance, 63. 
 
 Roses on Graves, 1/1. 
 
 Rowe, Elizabeth, Hymn by, 49. 
 
 St. Hilaire, his definition of Life, 1. 
 
 Sceptics, Confessions of, 101. 
 
 Sceptics, how men become, 100. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, on the Pre- 
 existence of Souls, 45. 
 
 Serpent Worship, on, 253. 
 
 Sin, the Earliest, 175. 
 
 Sin, the Great, 175. 
 
 SIN AND PUNISHMENT, 175182. 
 
 Sleep and Death, 134. 
 
 Smith, Sir J. E. on the Vital prin- 
 ciple, 19. 
 
 Soldiers and Sailors, superstitions 
 of, 125, 126. 
 
 Somnambulism on, 61, 62, 
 
 Soul after death, 199. 
 
 Soul and Body, Reunion of, 201. 
 
 Soul, does it sleep, 136. 
 
 Soul going forth from Body, 158. 
 
 Soul, Immortality of, 209, 
 
 Soul, the Imprisoned, 38. 
 
 Soul and the Magnetic Needle, 39. 
 
 SOUL, NATURE OP THE, 36 49. 
 
 Soul, Symbols of the, 41. 
 
 Souls, Portage of, 55. 
 
 Souls, Pre-existence of, 4249. 
 
 Souls, Transmigration of, 49. 
 
 Southey on the Pre-existence of 
 Souls, 44. 
 
 Space and Time, 29. 
 
 Special Providences, 176. 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE, 5063. 
 
 Spiritual Natures, 55. 
 
 Spiritual Reclamation, Me Cor- 
 mack on, 50. 
 
 Statistical Results, curious, 32. 
 
 Stiffness of Death, 146. 
 
 Study of the Bible, 231. 
 
 SUPERSTITION, WHAT is IT? 107 
 113. 
 
 Swift, Dean, mental infirmity of. 
 87269. 
 
 Sykes, Colonel, on Buddhism, 240. 
 
 Symbols of the Soul, 41. 
 
 " Thirteen to Dinner," 112. 
 
 Time, Fragments of, 31. 
 
 Trance, legends and anecdotes of, 
 114. 
 
 Transfiguration proof of Recogni- 
 tion, 221. 
 
 Translation of Enoch, 225. 
 
 Tree of Life, the, 24. 
 
 Unity of the Human Race, 13. 
 
 Universe, Geological Future of, 
 193. 
 
 Utter Darkness, 179, 180. 
 
 Vital Force, on, 256. 
 
 Vital principle, Animal and Vege- 
 table, 19. 
 
 Voltaic Battery, Electric Eel, and 
 Brain of Man, 66. 
 
 Wandering Jew, the, 118. 
 
 Watching for the Dead, 265. 
 
 Weak Belief, 96, 97, 98. 
 
 Wellington, Death of, 60. 
 
 Wellington at Waterloo, 176. 
 
 West, Christian Revelation, why 
 first given to th'e, 236. 
 
 WHAT is SUPERSTITION? 107 
 113. 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, on Darwin's 
 Theory of Species, 12, 13. 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, on the In- 
 termediate State, 204. 
 
 Wheel of Eternal Punishment, 181. 
 
 Wigan, Dr. on Duality of Mind, 
 46, 47, 48. 
 
 Winchester, Bishop of, on the 
 Jews, 253. 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, Death of, 121. 
 
 Wordsworth on the Pre-existence 
 of Souls, 44. 
 
 World, another, preparing for, 
 249. 
 
 World, Destruction of the, 75. 
 
 WORLD, THE END OF, FORETOLD, 
 190193. 
 
 Worlds, Plurality of, 19. 
 
 Youth Melancholy, 80. 
 
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 Familiarly Explained. 
 
 A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG. 
 
 BY JOHN TIMES, F.S.A. 
 
 The following are a. few of the more characteristic Articles in this Second Series : 
 
 The Distaff and Spindle, their historic*. 
 
 Shoes and Shoe-blacks. 
 
 Silk Stockings, first worn in England. 
 
 Use of Starch. 
 
 Wearing the Watch. 
 
 The Board of Green Cloth. 
 
 Cock-crow Customs. 
 
 History of Sedaa-chairs. 
 
 The Barber's Chair, and Forfeits in a' 
 
 Barber's Shop. 
 " The Scratch-cradle." 
 Origin of Christmas Boxes. 
 Antiquity of Tooth-picks. 
 Above or below the Salt. 
 Rushes strewed in Rooms. 
 Ale and its Associations. 
 Hippocras, Honey, Mead, and Wax. 
 Black Jacks and Hooped Mugs. 
 Spits, Turnspits, and Jacks. 
 Antiquity of the Warming-pan and the 
 
 Lat<;h-key. 
 
 History of Punch and Judy. 
 W T hitsun Plays at Chester. 
 
 What was Bankes's Horse ? 
 
 Grant of Arms. 
 
 Peers' Audience of the Sovereign by 
 Right. 
 
 Parliament sitting an Sundays. 
 
 Baking on Sundays. 
 
 Origin of our Law Courts. 
 
 The Exchequer Tally. 
 
 Oaths Swearing with the Glove on. 
 
 The Great Seal of Queen Victoria. 
 
 Charters signed with the Cross. 
 
 Origin of Trial by Jury. 
 
 Cutting off the Heir with a Shilling. 
 
 Origin of the Coventry Act. 
 
 Pressing to Death, and the Rack. 
 
 The Standard of Measures. 
 
 Mile and Yard in various Countries. 
 
 " A Cunning File." 
 
 What is a Plum of Money 1 
 
 Hall-marks on Plate. 
 
 Expectation of Life. 
 
 Marriage : Responsible Ages. 
 
 The Old Herb-garden. 
 
 Fruits, when introduced into England. 
 
 To lay in Lavender. 
 
 Cherries and Apples in England. 
 
 The Beginning of Creation. 
 
 How Harvey discovered the Circula- 
 tion of the Blood. 
 
 Insensibility of the Heart. 
 Rapidity ofThought measured. 
 Pre-existence of Souls. 
 Phrenology demolished. 
 Distances at which Bells may be heard. 
 Colour and Moon Blindness. 
 Air breathed by a Man during the Day. 
 Degrees of Sleep and Sensitiveness. 
 How to avoid Sleepless Nights. 
 Death from Want of Sleep. 
 A Domestic Medicine Chest. 
 Cold-Water Cure not new. 
 Effect of Tea upon Nervous Persons. 
 Are Qualities hereditary ? 
 How tall was Adam? 
 Was Adam created in Spring or Au- 
 tumn? 
 Time of Year when our Saviour was 
 
 born. 
 
 The Cross of Christ. 
 Broken Heart: Death of our Saviour. 
 Premature Burial and Trance. 
 Object of Doles. 
 Burial without Coffins. 
 The Passing and Souls' Bell. 
 Wax-work Show in Westminster Abbey. 
 Lying for the Whetstone. 
 The Forlorn Hope. 
 The Ameroid Barometer. 
 Worth of Weather Predictions. 
 What to do in a Thunderstorm. 
 Framing, Hanging, and Varnishing 
 
 Pictures. 
 Care of Pictures. 
 Picture Cleaning and Restoring. 
 How to look at a Picture. 
 The term " Ceramic." 
 How to choose a Carpet. 
 A few of the Wonders of India-Rubber. 
 Divisibility and Consumption of Gold. 
 Relative Value of Manufactured Iron. 
 How to examine a Watch. 
 Egyptian and Chinese Locks. 
 Prince Rupert's Drop. 
 Corked Bottles filled by the Sea. 
 I low- the Oyster makes its Shell. 
 How the concentric Chinese Ivory Balls 
 
 are carved. 
 
 The Best Writing-ink. 
 How to split a Sh'eet o'f Paper. 
 How to detect Forged Bank-notes. 
 Invention of the Railway. 
 
 ' The Second Series of Mr. Timbs is quite as good as the first.:"- Critic. 
 KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. 
 
 With Frontispiece and Vignette, price 3s. d. 
 
 POPULAR ERRORS 
 
 an* SlluStratett. 
 A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG. 
 BY JOHN TIMES, F.S.A. 
 
 IN this Work the Author takes for his text-book the Vulgar and, Common Errors 
 written by the learned SIR THOMAS BROWNE; and by bringing the information 
 down to the present state of knowledge is enabled to correct several hundred 
 Errors of every-day occurrence, and thus produce a book of agreeable novelty, 
 rational curiosity, and amusing research, especially upon subjects of Domestic 
 interest. 
 
 The following are a few of the more characteristic Articles in this Work. 
 
 Man not made from Clay. 
 
 "That a Man hath one Rib less than 
 a Woman." 
 
 Action of the Pulse. 
 
 Blackness of the Negro. 
 
 Seeing with the Fingers. 
 
 " That a Man "Weighs more before 
 than after Dinner." 
 
 Suicides in November. 
 
 " That every Poison hath its Anti- 
 dote." 
 
 Danger from Copper Saucepans. 
 
 "The Lightness before Death." 
 
 Uncertain Signs of Death. 
 
 History of Giants. 
 
 Death of the Beetle and the Giant. 
 
 What is <l the Thunderbolt?" 
 
 Earthquakes in England. 
 
 Absurd Notions Universal. 
 
 What is the worth of Experience ? 
 
 Doctrines of Chance. 
 
 Excuses for not relieving the Poor. 
 
 Historical Account of the Curfew. 
 
 When did the Century begin ? 
 
 Queen Anne's Farthing and Light 
 Guineas. 
 
 Books to be thrown into the Fire. 
 
 Perpetual Motion Seekers. 
 
 Benefits of Astrology. 
 
 Noah's Ark and Great Steamships. 
 
 The First English Newspaper. 
 
 The Sun extinguishing the Fire. 
 
 Distinction of Green and Black Ten. 
 
 " Soy made from Black-Beetles." 
 
 Who are the Gipsies ? 
 
 Beefeaters and Cockneys. 
 
 El Dorado of Sir Walfer.Raleigh. 
 
 The Whale not a Fish. 
 
 Cuckoo-spit, Pigeons' Milk, and Cro- 
 codile Tears. 
 
 What becomes of Swallows in Winter! 
 
 The Pelican feeding her Young. 
 
 " That the Ostrich digesteth Iron." 
 
 Providence of the Ant. 
 
 The Phoenix,, the Unicorn, Griffins, 
 Dragons, the Mermaid, and the Great 
 Sea-Serpent. 
 
 That the Vjne is nourished by Blood. 
 
 Cutting Timber by the Moon. 
 
 Omens and Death-Tokens. 
 
 Sailors' Omens-and Spectre Ships. 
 
 Arguments against Ghost Stories. 
 
 Lot's Wife, and the Ill-luck of Looking 
 Back. 
 
 Amulets and Crystal. 
 
 Looking-glass Omens. 
 
 What was"" the Philosophers' Stone?" 
 
 The Failing of Salt. 
 
 Spots in the Nails. 
 
 The Death-Watch and the Death's Head 
 Moth. 
 
 Owl and Raven Omens. 
 
 Story of the Mandrake. 
 
 Fairy Rin^s and Will-o'-the-Wisp. 
 
 Absurdities in Medicine. . 
 
 The End of the World Foretold. 
 
 Destruction of the World by a Comet. 
 
 The Divining Rod. Talismanic Keys. 
 
 Table-Turning mid Monnonisrn. 
 
 Hare, Fox, and Cuckoo Omens. 
 
 Belief in Witchcraft. 
 
 Erroneous and Obsolete Laws. 
 
 Superstitious Customs. 
 
 Nursery Mistakes and Superstitions 
 of Childhood, &6. &c. 
 
 KENT AND CO., PATEllNOSTfcR HOW: 
 
CURIOSITIES OF HISTORY. 
 
 With Frontispiece and ViynelU, price 2s. 6d. 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF HISTORY, 
 
 A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG. 
 BY JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A. 
 
 THIS Book is an extension of the design of its predecessor to "THINGS NOT 
 GENERALLY KNOWN IN HISTORY;" or, where known, but imperfectly under- 
 stood : as, in the salient points of history; such historic incidents and classical 
 quotations as are often employed by public writers ; and the Popular Errors of 
 History, in the section of " Historic Doubts." By these means the work pre- 
 sents in picturesque forms many hundred Events and Incidents, Sayings and 
 Origins, and noteworthy instances of Human Action. 
 
 The following are a few of the more characteristic Articles in this Work. 
 
 The Buskin and Sock. 
 Cynics, Stoics, and Epicureans. 
 " Begin at the Beginning." 
 The Vicar of Bray. 
 Mrs. Partington and her Mop. 
 The Seven Ages of Man. 
 Columbus and the Egg. 
 "The Golden Ass." 
 " Every Man has his Price." 
 The Roll of Battel Abbey. 
 Collar of SS. 
 Household Badges. 
 Cap of Liberty and Britannia. 
 The Pope's Bull. 
 Turkish Crescent. 
 Laws of Solon and Draco. 
 Ostracism of the Greeks. 
 Pandects and Institutes of Justinian. 
 The Code Napoleon. 
 Archery Tenures and Witchcraft Laws. 
 Earliest Money. 
 Dauphin of France. 
 Claim of the Kings of England to the 
 
 Crown of France. 
 
 The Coronation Stone and Champion. 
 Birthplace of Homer. 
 Was Belisarius Blind ? 
 Who was Robin Hood ? 
 Popular Errors as to Richard III. 
 Jane Shore, her true History. 
 The Red and White Roses. 
 Was Wolsey a Butcher's Son! 
 The Ring sent by Queen Elizabeth to 
 
 the Earl of Essex. 
 
 Who was the Man in the Iron Mask ? 
 Utopian Schemes, &c. &c. 
 
 History of the Holy Cross. 
 
 The Seven Wise Men of Greece. 
 
 Wooden Horse at the Siege of Troy. 
 
 The Olympic Games. 
 
 The "Wooden Wall" of Athens. 
 
 Xenophon and the 10,000. 
 
 " As rich as Crossus." 
 
 Alexander and Diogenes. 
 
 The Story of Nineveh. 
 
 How Babylon fell. 
 
 Caesar passing the Rubicon. 
 
 Caligula and his Horse. 
 
 Nero's Golden House. 
 
 " The Tearless Battle." 
 
 Camillus and Wellington. 
 
 How Dido founded Carthage. 
 
 How Hannibal eat through the Alps 
 
 with Vinegar. 
 
 The Brazen Bull of Phalaris. 
 The Sword of Damocles. 
 The Ear of Dionysius. 
 The Augean Stable. 
 Argus and his 100 Eyes. 
 The Sibylline Books. 
 Sisyphus and Tantalus. 
 Argonauts and Golden Fleece. 
 " The Pillars of Hercules." 
 Tamerlane's Iron Cage. 
 The Bayeux Tapestry. 
 Origin of Magna Charta. 
 Queen Eleanor's Crosses. 
 How Wolsey won his Way. 
 " Jelly-Pardons" of Boston. 
 The Gunpowder Plot. 
 Riddle of the Sphinx. 
 Greek Kalends. 
 
 "We can conceive no more amusing book for the drawing-room, or cne 
 more useful for the schoolroom." Art Journal. 
 
 KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. 
 
 With Engravings of the great Rosse Telescope and Davy's own Model of his 
 Safety-Lamp, price 3s. 6d. 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF SCIENCE, 
 
 an* 
 
 A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG. 
 BY JOHN TIMES, F.S.A. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 SOUND AND LIGHT. 
 
 ASTRONOMY. 
 
 GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
 
 METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 Contents : 
 
 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OK THE SEA. 
 PHENOMENA OF HEAT. 
 MAGNETISM AND ELECTRICITY. 
 THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 
 MISCELLANEA. 
 
 The following are a few of the more 
 Science of the Ancient World. 
 Science at Oxford and Cambridge. 
 Relics of Genius. 
 Sir Isaac Newton at Cambridge. 
 Newton's " Apple-tree." 
 Fall of Bodies and Varieties of Speed. 
 Calculation of Heights and Distances. 
 Sand in the Hour-glass. 
 The Earth and Man compared. 
 Wonders of Crystallisation. 
 The Roar of Niagara. 
 Solar and Artificial Light compared. 
 Velocity of Light. 
 Phenomena of Phosphorescence. 
 The Telescope and Microscope. 
 Brewster's Kaleidoscope. 
 Photography and the Stereoscope. 
 Science of the Soap-bubble. 
 The Great Truths of Astronomy. 
 " The Crystal Vault of Heaven." 
 "More Worlds than One." 
 Worlds to come Abodes of the Blest. 
 Velocity of the Solar System. 
 Nature of the Sun. 
 Heat of the Sun decreasing. 
 Spots on the Sun. 
 Has the Moon an Atmosphere? 
 Mountains in the Moon. 
 The Pleiades. Jupiter's Satellites. 
 Is the Planet Mars inhabited? 
 Discovery of Neptune. 
 The Comet of Donati. 
 Distances of Nebulae. 
 Meteorites from the Moon. 
 The End of our System. 
 Herschel's Telescopes. 
 The Earl of Rosse's great Reflecting 
 
 Telescope. 
 
 Gigantic Telescopes proposed. 
 Identity of Astronomy and Geology. 
 
 characteristic Articles in this Work. 
 
 How Boulders are transported to great 
 Heights. 
 
 Phenomena of Glaciers illustrated. 
 
 The Gulf-Stream and the Temperature 
 of London. 
 
 Phenomena of Earthquakes and Vol- 
 canoes. 
 
 Discoveries of Smith, Buckland, and 
 Agassiz. 
 
 Food of the Iguanodon. 
 
 Fossil Human Bones. 
 
 The Pterodactyl Flying Dragon. 
 
 Mammoths of the British Isles. 
 
 Extinct Gigantic Birds of New Zealand. 
 
 How Pascal weighed the Atmosphere. 
 
 Superior Salubrity of the West. 
 
 All the Rain in the World. 
 
 Snow Curiosities. 
 
 Storms Lightning Phenomena. 
 
 Greatest ascertained Depth of the Sea. 
 
 The Horse Latitudes. 
 
 All the Salt in the Sea. 
 
 Scenery of the Arctic Regions. 
 
 Open Sea at the Pole? 
 
 Rate of Travelling Waves. 
 
 The Bottom of the Sea a Burial-place. 
 
 Heat by Friction from Ice. 
 
 The Earth a vast Magnet. 
 
 Weight of the Earth ascertained by the 
 Pendulum. 
 
 Minute and Vast Batteries. 
 
 Franklin's Electrical Kite. 
 
 Faraday's Electrical Researches. 
 
 Crosse's Artificial Crystals and Mine- 
 rals. The Crosse Mite. 
 
 Anticipations of the Electric Telegraph. 
 
 The Atlantic Telegraph. 
 
 How Marine Chronometers are rated at 
 Greenwich Observatory. 
 
 Musket-balls found in Ivory, &c. &c. 
 
 KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. 
 
 With Frontispiece and Vignette, 3s. Gd. cloth, 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF SCIENCE, 
 
 Past and Present. 
 
 A BOOK FOR OLD AND YOUNG. 
 
 BY JOHN TIMES, P.S.A. 
 
 Contents : 
 
 ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY. 
 
 WHAT THE CHEMISTS OWE TO THE 
 ALCHEMISTS. 
 
 MODERN .CHEMISTRY. 
 
 CHEMISTRY OF METALS. 
 
 WHAT HIPPOCRATES KNEW OF ME- 
 DICINE. 
 
 POISONS. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 
 
 CHEMISTRY OF. FOOD. 
 
 THE LABORATORY. 
 
 CHEMICAL MANUFACTURES. 
 
 A CHAPTER ON CHLOROFORM. 
 
 GENERAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Critical Opinions. 
 
 " Mr. Timbs has here compressed an amazing amount of fresh 
 and stirring matter within the compass of a small book." En- 
 gineer. 
 
 " In all respects this new volume is equal to its predecessors, 
 in some superior." Leader. 
 
 " Marked by the tact, care, and usefulness which characterise 
 all Mr. Timbs's books." Notes and Queries. 
 
 " Mr. Timbs possesses the rare faculty of clear and accurate 
 condensation. He is never obscure, nor does he apparently omit 
 any thing essential. We cordially recommend his volume to our 
 readers." Lancet. 
 
 "This book is eminently discursive, and exceedingly chatty 
 and interesting." Critic. 
 
 " This new volume surpasses any of its predecessors: the in- 
 formation is so varied and instructive, that the book should be 
 read by all." Mining Journal. 
 
 " This is certainly one of the most curious and interesting of 
 Mr. Timbs's books; there is less of mere extract and more of 
 j udicious and skilful compilation than in some of its predecessors. 
 We recommend the work to the leisure moments of our profes- 
 sional and other readers, as one sure to repay tenfold both the 
 cost and trouble." Builder. 
 
 KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER; ROW. 
 
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