possessions were so frequent in the days of our Saviour, and so little heard of afterwards? the following is offered as a solution. When the devil deceived our first parents, and thereby ruined their posterity, he was contented to rule in their minds, and by various arts addressed to their corrupt passions and inclinations effected their destruction; but four thousand year's experience in the arts of seduction made him more bold. Having extended his dominion over the greater part of the Jewish and Gentile world, he thought he might advance a step farther than he had hitherto done, and, accordingly, instead of contenting himself with influencing the minds, he began to take possession of the bodies of men. Such was the state of things when Christ appeared. He came to destroy the works of the devil. The strong man had long kept the house, but a stronger than he came to cast him out. He appeared, therefore, infinitely superior to the devil and his angels: they were in the utmost dread of his power; they instantly obeyed his mandate, and would have given their testimony to his exalted character, if he would have permitted them. Here, then, do we see the reason why Christ delayed so long his coming. It was to give full time for the devil to establish his power, and when that power was at its height he destroyed it. Philosophers had in vain attempted the task; they wielded the sword and the shield of philosophy against his temptations, and fondly hoped, by means of these, to rescue men from his power, but they were disappointed. Age after age they lamented their inefficacy, and longed for a person divinely commissioned to dispel the clouds of ignorance, break the bands of sinful desire, and introduce a new era of knowledge and happiness among men. Their wish has been granted; Jesus has appeared, and life and immortality are brought to light by his gospel. We cannot close this short account of the state of medicine in Judea, without adverting to the vast advantage which that science has acquired by the introduction of christianity, which dispelled the ignorance and prejudice that had so long shackled the human mind; taught men the value of health and life to beings acting for eternity; and led to operations on the living subject, and dissections of the dead. To the same benevolent source may we refer all those charitable institutions which constitute the glory of modern times, and the numerous hospitals which are every where opened for the reception of the distressed and unfortunate. They were unknown to the polished nations of antiquity, and are still strangers to those lands where the light of the gospel hath never shone. Their incalculable utility is confined to christendom, being the fruit of that humanity which the gospel recommends. SECT. XIV. Treatment of the Dying and dead. The hours for visiting the sick; conduct of visitors. Dying persons addressed their children and relations; made their latter will. A strange custom of changing the name of the dying person. After death the nearest relation kissed the deceased, and closed his eyes; the other relations tore their upper garment; spectators tore theirs only a hand-breadth; women hired to cry; minstrels; Sir John Chardin's account of their lamentations. The dead body washed; wrapt in spices; bound in grave-cloths; laid in an upper chamber. The Egyptian method of embalming. The persons employed about a dead body accounted unclean. Funerals, either public or private; insignia suited to the person's character laid on the coffin; hired mourners; Dr. Shaw's account of them; minstrels at the funeral; ceremonies at the grave; the sittings and standings in their return to the house; seven of these; mourning for the dead either extraordinary by lamentations, tearing the hair, cutting their bodies, &c. or ordinary, by tears, tearing the upper garment, covering their lip. Entertainment after the funeral. The ordinary mourning before the funeral; for the first three days after; for the next four; for the remaining twenty-three. Funerals of children; cemeteries always without cities; potter's field; public burying places; regulations concerning them. Private burying-places; Rachel's sepulchre; Joseph's soros, or mound; Isaiah's and David's tombs; Absalom's pillar; Esther's and Daniel's tombs; tombs of Jonah, Zecharias, and Lazarus. Sepulchres of families commonly in caves; these described; tomb of Lazarus; tombs of the Judges; sepulchral monument over the Maccabean family; sepulchres of the kings of Syria and Israel; money said to have been in David's sepulchre examined; all the sepulchres white-washed on the 15th of the 12th month; garnishing sepulchres accounted meritorious. The written mountains in the wilderness of Sinai. Two Hebrew epitaphs; the bodies of criminals left without burial. 1. Treatment while Dying.-Visiting the sick was enjoined to be neither in the three morning, nor in the three evening hours, from motives of delicacy and convenience for the distressed, and when they went, they commonly said, "God pity you, and all the sick among the Israelites." If the person was dangerously ill, either the friends or some Rabbi discoursed with him on subjects suited to his situation; and if near death, they had a formula for the confession of sin, which is given by Buxtorff: for they considered a natural death as the expiation of all his sins; a doctrine which, although it might soothe the patient with a false hope, was yet of dangerous tendency to his eternal interests. At the approach of death, the person dying assembled his children around his bed and blessed them, well knowing that the heart was then susceptible, and that the instructions of a dying parent might be remembered when his body was mouldering in the grave. The patient then, also, if not formerly, made his will, bequeathing his property equitably among his children, and if he was rich, he gave legacies to the poor, for the endowment of schools, and for the erecting of synagogues. They had a strange custom of changing the name of the person before he died, the reason which will be seen in the following prayer: "O God, take pity on N, and restore him to his former health; let him be called henceforth a Synag. Jud. cap. 49. O; let him be glad in his new name, and let it be confirmed to him. Be pleased, we intreat thee, O God, that this change of name may abolish all the hard and evil decrees against him, and destroy the broad sentence. If death be decreed upon No (his former name,) it is not decreed upon 0 (his present one.) If an evil decree was made against N, lo, this hour, he is another man, a new creature, and, like a child, born to a good life and length of days." In the prospect of death, the patient was never left alone, that he might receive advice and every attendance;" and when about to expire, the nearest relation, or dearest friend, closed his eyes and kissed him. Hence Philo, when relating Jacob's complaints on the unexpected death of Joseph, makes him say, that "He will not have the comfort of closing his eyes, and giving him the last embrace." Indeed this was a custom among the heathens, as is evident from the quotations given below: 2. Treatment between the death and funeral.-When the person had breathed his last, the nearest relations tore their upper garment from head to foot, but the spectators tore only about a hand-breadth in length on the left side, which was also a heathen practice. Immediately upon the decease, dismal cries were raised by the people in the house and their neighbours, who a с Buxtorff, Synag. Jud. cap. 49. d Virgil. Æn. iv. 684. d thronged in on hearing of the event; and at the death of persons in better condition, women were hired to howl, and sing doleful ditties, in which honourable mention was made of the age, beauty, strength, courage, virtues, and actions of the deceased," with the intention of increasing the sorrow of the afflicted relations; and minstrels were employed to accompany them with instruments of music. But what kind of lamentations these were, will be best understood by the following extract from Sir John Chardin's manuscript observations, as quoted by Harmer: "I was lodged, in the year 1676, at Ispahan, in Persia, near the royal square. The mistress of the house next mine, died at that time in the night. The moment she expired, all the family, to the number of 25 or 30 people, set up such a furious cry, that I was quite startled. These cries continued a long time, and then ceased all at once. They began again at daybreak, as suddenly, and in concert. It is this suddenness which is so terrifying, together with a greater shrillness and loudnes than one can easily imagine." In Barbary they term this screaming woulliah woo, because it consists in the repetition of that word.—But let us attend to their care of the corpe. The first thing done was to extend the body on a cloth, on the floor or table, with the face covered, and to wash it with a warm infusion of camomile flowers and dried roses. This was done for two reasons; to restore life if suspended, and to make the perfumes enter the pores more easily. Women were the persons formerly employed in this office, and hence the two Marys went to the sepul |