ELIJAH AT HOREB. IN the very same mount in which Moses first saw GOD, shall Elijah see Him: one and the same cave (it is very probable) was the receptacle to both. It could not but be a great confirmation to Elijah to renew the sight of those sensible monuments of God's favour and protection to his faithful prede cessor. Moses came to see God in the bush of Horeb : God came to find Elijah in the cave of Horeb : What doest thou here, Elijah? The place was directed by a providence, not by a command; he is hid sure enough from Jezebel, he cannot be hid from the allseeing eye of God. Twice hath God propounded the same question to Elijah, once in the heart, once in the mouth of the cave; twice doth the Prophet answer in the same words. Had the first answer satisfied, the question had not been re-demanded. Now, that sullen answer which Elijah gave in the darkness of the cave, is challenged into the light, not without an awful preface. The Lord first passeth by him with the terrible demonstrations of His power. A great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake the rocks in pieces. That tearing blast was from God; God was not in it. So was He in it as in his other extraordinary works; not so in it, as by it to impart himself to Elijah: it was the usher, not the carriage of God. After the wind came an earthquake, more fearful than it: that did but move the air, this the earth; that beat upon some prominences of earth, this shook it from the centre. After the earthquake came a fire more fearful than either: the other affected the ear, the feeling; but this lets in horror into the soul by the eye. Elijah shall see God's mighty power in the earth, air, fire, before he hear him in the soft voice all these are but boisterous harbingers of a meek and still word. In that God was: behold in that gentle and mild breath, there was omnipotency. There is not always the greatest efficacy, where is the greatest noise. God loves to make way for himself by terror; but He conveys himself to us in sweetness. It is happy for us, if after the gusts and flashes of the law, we have heard the soft voice of evangelical mercy. THE HOUSE OF GOD. BISHOP HALL. Ir is the Sabbath bell, which calls to pray'r, And some o'er fields and the wide hills to roam, Nor slack to greet my Maker on the height, By wood, or living stream; yet not the less There still he dwells, and there is his delight. D. C. THE ear and the eye are the mind's receivers: but the tongue is only busied in expending the treasure received. If therefore the revenues of the mind be uttered as fast or faster than they are received; it cannot be, but that the mind must needs be bare, and can never lay up for purchase. But, if the receivers take in still with no utterance, the mind may soon grow a burden to itself, and unprofitable to others. I will not lay up too much, and utter nothing, lest I be covetous: nor spend much, and store-up little, lest I be prodigal and poor.-BISHOP HALL. NOTHING is more easy than to represent as impertinences any part of learning that has no immediate reference to the happiness or convenience of mankind.—ADDISON. 15-2 I IN Germany, during the war, a captain of cavalry was ordered out upon a foraging expedition. He put himself at the It was a solitary valley, in which hardly anything but woods head of his troop, and marched to the quarter assigned him. was to be perceived. Finding in the midst of it a small cottage, he approached, and knocked at the door, which was opened by an old and venerable man, with a beard silvered by age. "Father," said the officer, "show me a field where may set my troop to foraging." The old man complied, and conducting them out of the valley, after a quarter of an hour's march, came to a fine field of barley. "Here is what we are in search of:" exclaimed the captain, "Father, you are a true and faithful guide."-"Wait yet a few minutes," replied the old man, "follow me patiently a little further." The march was accordingly resumed, and at the distance of a mile they arrived at another field of barley. The troop immediately alighted, cut down the grain, trussed it, and remounted. The officer thereupon said to his conductor, "Father, you have given yourself and us unnecessary troubie; the first field was far better than this."-" Very true, sir," replied the good old man, "but it was not mine."-ST. PIERRE. PARADOXICAL ANIMALS. Two very curious animals exist, which though neither properly quadruped, bird, nor reptile, respectively combine, to a certain degree, some portion of the nature of all. Dr. Shaw was the first naturalist who introduced these singular creatures to notice, and Sir Everard Home was the first comparative anatomist who described the internal structure. The zoologists were much puzzled in allotting them a place in their respective systems, and they have been variously classed and named by the English and French naturalists. One of them, with reference to its combination of the porcupine and the bird, was named by Sir Everard Home the Porcupine Ornithorynchus, but the French naturalists did not agree on this point with Sir Everard, and the Baron Cuvier established a distinct genus, which he named ECHIDNA, with reference to its spiny covering, and in which he placed it. "This animal," says Dr. Shaw, so far as may be judged from the specimens hitherto imported, is about a foot in length; the whole upper parts of the body and tail are thickly coated with strong and very sharp spines, of a considerable length, and perfectly resembling those of a Porcupine, except that they are thicker in proportion to their length; and that instead of being encircled with rings of black and white, they are mostly of a yellowish white, with black tips. The head, legs, and whole under part of the body, are of a deep brown or sable, and are thickly coated with strong close-set bristly hair. The tail is extremely short, slightly flattened at the tip, and coated at the upper part of the base with spines equal in length to those of the back, and pointing upwards. The snout is long, and perfectly resembling that of the Great Ant-eater, having only a very small opening at the tip, from whence is protruded a long tongue. The nostrils are small, and seated at the extremity of the snout. The eyes are very small and black, with a pale blue iris. The legs are short and thick, and are each furnished with five-rounded broad toes; on the fore-feet are five very long and blunt claws. "The Echidna has been found principally in Van Dieman's Land, and some of the neighbouring islands; it lives on insects, which, like the Ant-eater, it secures by means of its long and sticky tongue. It burrows in the earth, and appears, like the Hedgehog, to have the faculty of assuming a spherical shape, and thus opposing its spines to any hostile attack. however, as yet, but little informed on the subject of its habits, number of young, &c." We are, The name of the second, of which we give an engraving, has also been matter of difference. "In the place of teeth, the edges of the beak are furnished with fibres, simply attached to the gum; the tongue is short, and furnished with two horny points. "The Ornithorynci have hitherto been found only in the rivers in the vicinity of Port Jackson, especially the river Nepean, on the eastern coast of New Holland. Those found in 1815, in Campbell River, and the river Macquarie, beyond the Blue Mountains, are larger than those before known, though they do not appear to differ specifically. "These animals are expert swimmers, and seldom quit the water; on shore they crawl rather than walk, occasioned by the shortness of the limbs and comparative length of the body. Nothing certain is known as to their food; but the singular resemblance of their beak to that of ducks, induces a strong probability that, like these birds, they live on worms and aquatic | insects." "Dr. Shaw was also the first describer of this animal; he named it the Duck-billed Platypus; but Sir Joseph Banks having shortly after sent a specimen to Blumenbach, that eminent physiologist preferred the name Ornithoryncus for the newly-discovered creature; the merited celebrity of the German writer prevailed, and the genus has retained the name of his choosing almost universally. "Of all the mammalia yet known," says Dr. Shaw "this seems the most extraordinary in its conformation, exhibiting the perfect resemblance of the beak of a duck engrafted on the head of a quadruped. So accurate is the similitude, that, at first view, it naturally excites the idea of some deceptive preparation by artificial means, the very manner of opening, and other particulars of the beak of a duck, presenting themselves to the view; nor is it without the most minute and rigid examination that we can persuade ourselves of its being the real beak or snout of a quadruped. "The body is depressed, and has some resemblance to that of an Otter in miniature. It is covered with a very thick, soft, and beaver-like fur, and is of a dark brown above, and of a white beneath; the head is flattish, and rather small than large; the mouth, or snout, as before observed, so exactly resembles that of some broad-billed species of duck, that it might be mistaken for such; round the base is a flat, circular membrane, somewhat deeper or wider below than above. The tail is flat, furry like the body, gradually lessens to the tip, and is about three inches in length. "The length of the animal, from the tip of the beak to that of the tail, is thirteen inches; of the beak, an inch and an half. The legs are very short, terminating in a broad web, which on the fore feet extends to a considerable distance beyond the claws. On the fore feet are five claws, straight, strong, and sharp-pointed. On the hind-feet are six claws, longer and more inclining to a curve than those on the fore feet. The nostrils are small and round, and situated about a quarter of an inch from the tip of the bill. The ears are placed about an inch beyond the eyes, they appear like a pair of oval holes of the eighth of an inch in diameter. On the upper part of the head, on each side, a little beyond the beak, are situated two smallish oval white spots; in the lower part of each are imbedded the eyes, or at least the parts allotted to the animal for some kind of vision; for from the thickness of the fur, and the smallness of the organs, they seem to have been but obscurely calculated for distinct vision, and are probably like those of moles, and some other animals of that tribe. POLYANTHUS NARCISSUS. THE odour of the Narcissus, remarked in its name, is to some persons very agreeable, whilst to others it is rather offensive; and possibly, in improper confinement, is prejudicial to all. Polyanthus Narcissus It is not sufficiently observed by all the admirers of flowers, that the agreeable perfume of plants, in full bloom, when diffused through close apartments, becomes decidedly deleterious, by producing headache, giddiness, and other affections of the brain. But it is in confinement alone that such effects become evident. In the garden, when mingled with a wholesome and exhilarating atmosphere, amidst objects that awaken the most delightful sensations of our nature, these sweets are a part of our gratifications, and health is promoted as a consequence of enjoyment so pure. Who has not felt the excitement of spring? of nature, in that delightful season, rising from lethargy into beauty and vivacity; and spreading the sweets of the thorn and the violet, auxiliarly to our gratifications? Amidst the beauties of the flower garden, these pleasurcs are condensed and refined; and the fragrance there, hovering on the wings of the breeze, cannot be imagined less wholesome than pleasant. Whatever increases our gratifications, so peculiarly unmixed with the bad passions of human nature, must surely tend to the improvement of mankind; and to the excitement of grateful feelings towards that Beneficent Creator, who has so bountifully supplied these luxuries, which none are denied. The Polyanthus Narcissus may be planted in the open borders, at any time from September to Febru ary, in a light soil, either separately or in groups; where they will flower in great beauty. When the leaves are decayed, the bulbs should be taken up, and replanted in September, in preference to letting them remain to flower again in the same situation. In water glasses, made for the purpose, the Polyanthus Narcissus will flower in equal perfection with the hyacinth. The principal points requiring attention in this mode of cultivation, are these. Prefer soft water. Let it touch the bottom only of the bulb; and by daily additions, keep it to this height. Change it entirely once a fortnight, or oftener. At each change add nitre, about the size of a small pea. When the flowers fade, the bulbs will be strengthened by being planted in the borders, carefully extending the roots in the soil. Obtain fresh bulbs for glasses in the next season.-MAUND'S Botanic Garden. croak, as he flies between us and the crags, sole tenant of the murky air. He seems doubtful of getting above, yet unwilling to keep his nest. How the cloud labours, rising and falling like the lungs of one panting for breath; and dusky as is the whole, the under part, which maintains its course, emulates the wing of the raven, One descent moreanother.-Gleam! crash! The peak rattles in fragments into the ravine; the raven drops dead on our platform; "the windows of heaven are opened," their tattered curtains are on fire, and nature is in confusion and chaos! Who that were here could question the terrible majesty of Him, "who rideth in the whirlwind and directeth the storm?" Who could doubt for a moment that there are in His quiver bolts which, ere the keenest eye had measured one hairbreadth, could rend the globe which we inhabit-all the globes in the universe-quench all their suns, and sow them invisible throughout space; or that He could call them as quickly back, in all their beauty and their grandeur? LINES BY BISHOP HORNE. SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, Sweet rose, in air whose odours wave, Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou, alas! must die! Sweet spring, of days and roses made, Thy days depart, thy roses fade- Be wise, then, Christian, while you may The thoughtless man may laugh to-day, To-morrow may be dying! THE DAISY, BY DR. GOOD. NOT worlds on worlds, in phalanx deep, Tells of his hand in lines as clear. And pours the day-spring's living flood, Wondrous alike in all he tries, Could raise the daisy's purple bud That, set in silver, gleams within! O'er hill and dale, and desert sod, That man, where'er he walks, may see In every step the stamp of God. A MOUNTAIN SHOWER. How looks it over head? Pitchy dark, and there are no eagles now; and see how the cloud "bellies" down to that peak opposite, and the peak not half the distance that we first thought. The clear air must have deceived us. But surely there can be no danger, there is no sound" of it at any rate. Was not that a wing? Yes, there is a raven out from the opposite ledge. Whatever else, there will be drowning on the hill, if that cloud shall fall; and the raven is leaving his fetid nest betimes, to gather in the spoil for his voracious young. He is a night prowler, and the gloom brings him out; he finds the creatures asleep, and treacherously punches out their eyes, and then leaves them till he can find the carcases by the scent. But the raven has his use: he is the scavenger of the wild, and does duty for which no other creature that goes there is adapted. At present he seems in doubt; but still he adds his own blackness to the gloom, and mutters his THE PESTILENCE OF ATHENS. THE account of the Pestilence, which raged at Athens 430 years before Christ, though most essentially different from the disease which has lately prevailed in many parts of Europe, and has recently appeared in this country, cannot but be interesting to us in the present day. The generality of the symptoms are quite unlike those of the modern pestilence; but there are a few which appear to agree with them, The account is given by Thucydides, an Athenian historian, who was born about the year 470, B.C. He himself was attacked with the disease, and had witnessed several others labouring under it. He traces its progress from Ethiopia to Egypt, thence to Africa, and to a great part of the Persian king's dominions. It then suddenly came to Athens; and attacked first those that dwelt near the sea; which gave occasion to an idle supposition, that the people with whom the Athenians were at war, had poisoned the wells there. But it afterwards came to the high city, where it raged with dreadful violence, owing to the great numbers that were crowded together within the walls. No art availed; and the physicians, instead of being able to cure others, were themselves taken off in the greatest numbers, as they had more frequent intercourse with the sick. All supplication to the gods, and appeals to the oracles, failed, and were at last relinquished. One thing is very remarkable,that the year of the pestilence was unusually free from all other diseases; but if any one was labouring under sickness before, it generally ended in this disease. The first symptoms were violent heat in the head, redness and inflammation of the eyes. The throat and tongue became bloody, and the breath foul and noisome, with sneezing and hoarseness, and a heavy cough settling on the chest. Then it attacked the stomach, and utterly disordered it; and painful bilious vomitings succeeded. Hiccup, with convulsion, and a strong spasmodic affection of the nerves, followed. and continued in some cases for a considerable time. The body was not outwardly to the touch very hot, but was flushed and livid-covered with pimples and blotches. But there was so much internal heat, that it made the sufferers unable to endure any clothing. They were glad to expose themselves to cold air and cold bathing; and their thirst was unquenchable. Restlessness and want of sleep continually harassed them ---yet they did not fall away; but the body appeared for a time to maintain its strength, till in seven or nine days they were overcome by the internal inflammation. Or, if they got over this stage of the disease, it then seized their bowels, and by ulcerations and violent looseness exhausted them, and so carried them | off. The disease appeared to begin with the head, and to descend gradually to the lower parts of the body-and the last struggle was in the extremities. Some of those, who did survive, were so altered in mind, that they did not know their relations, nor even appeared to retain a sense of their own identity. Thucydides also mentions that the mode of treatment, which seemed to suit one patient, was utterly destructive to others; and strength or weakness of former constitution, formed no judgment as to the probability of getting over the disease. The historian also notices the dreadful lowness of spirits which the disease produces, and its ill effects. Those, that withdrew from society, died themselves, desolate and deserted; and those of more generous principles, who neglected their own safety in attendance on their friends, fell a still more frequent sacrifice. Under the violence of the calamity, men also lost all recollection of the difference between things sacred and profane. The temples were filled with corpses, and the rites of decent burial disregarded. The dreadful state to which the Athenians were reduced seemed to break down all sense of right and wrong. They were led by observing the indiscriminate sufferings of the good and the bad, to abandon themselves to their licentious and unbridled passions; for, in addition to the disregard which their duties seemed to manifest to the good, they did not fear that they should live to be brought for their actions before any human tribunal,-and thus they thought only of immediate gratification. The whole forms a dreadful picture of the desperate depravity to which men may be reduced, when suffering under a calamity that frees them from all human restraint, while at the same time they are not under the influence of religious principles. It cannot, indeed, be denied, that fearful excesses have been committed in places visited by pestilence, even where a better faith has been established. Yet, on those occasions, the gloom of the picture has been relieved by some of the finest instances of Christian charity and self-devotion, that history can produce. We may, perhaps, have an opportunity in a future article of recording some of these deeds of heroic benevolence. TRUTH is the most powerful thing in the world, since fiction can only please by its resemblance to it.--SHAFTESBURY. JEREMY TAYLOR'S NIGHTLY PRAYER FOR himself and his friends, was for God's merciful deliverance and preservation "From the violence and rule of passion, from a servile will, and a commanding lust; from pride and vanity; from false opinion and ignorant confidence ; "From improvidence and prodigality; from envy and the spirit of slander; from sensuality; from presumption and from despair; "From a state of temptation and hardened spirit ; from delaying of repentance and persevering in sin; from unthankfulness and irreligion, and from seducing others; "From all infatuation of soul, folly and madness; from wilfulness, self-love, and vain ambition; from a vicious life and an unprovided death." THE BILLS OF MORTALITY. HAVING observed in the Saturday Magazine an enquiry into the origin and nature of the Registers of Mortality, I conclude that any further information on the origin of a practice so exceedingly valuable and necessary, will not be without its use, nor wholly devoid of interest, to the majority of your readers. The establishment of Bills of Mortality in Great Britain, owes its origin to the frequent and alarming devastations caused by the plague, and to the serious loss of life which attended its appearance in this country. However great the cause for this alarm might really have been, it is well known, that the horror of taking so disgusting a disease, the awful rapidity of the approach of death after receiving the infection, and the great doubt and shade which was thrown around all its transactions, especially with regard to the real state of the patients, and to the actual number of sufferers by the disorder, conspired to increase the alarm to a frightful extent, and to raise and multiply unfounded and injudicious reports as to its fatality. To prevent the constant recurrence of these annoyances, the government devised the establishment of such weekly bills of the deaths in the metropolis, or in the cities, towns, and boroughs, in which a tendency to this awful disease was apprehended, as would enable the inhabitants to judge of the real progress made by the calamity, and of the actual grounds which they had for apprehension of danger or for fear. This was, it is believed, and is currently reported by most historians to be the primary cause, of the establishment of bills of mortality in this kingdom. These weekly bills so became swoln into yearly, and from the period of this their first and early origin, they have been continued, and are now the greatest and most valuable sources to which the statistician can apply for information of the important points, of the increase and decrease of the population, either in the kingdom at large, in peculiar cities, or in provincial towns; of the waste of human life at its different stages, and of the comparative degrees of salubrity and sickliness in the different towns and parishes of Great Britain. In The first period at which we find the government issuing orders for keeping Parish Registers, is in the year 1538, in the reign of our eighth Henry, about the time when Thomas Cromwell was appointed the king's vicegerent for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. this capacity, Cromwell issued several injunctions to the clergy, one of which ordains that "every officiating minister shall, for every church, keep a book wherein he shall register every marriage, christening, and burial." This injunction then goes on to direct the time and manner in which such entries shall be made omission in which, is made, by the same law, penal. Sundry proclamations and orders were subsequently issued in order to enforce the proper degree of attention to be paid to this injunction, but from the fewness of registers which now stand on record as having been compiled at this period, little can be said in favour either of the strictness with which the laws themselves were enforced, or of the regularity and closeness of the attention which was paid by the authorities to this injunction. Indeed, so gross was the neglect of the parish officers in observing this law, and so small was the advantage derived from its formation, that Elizabeth, in order to put a stop to such shameful oversights, and to prevent the recurrence of so great and crying an evil, was obliged to render imperative a law, which forbad any other substance than parchment being used in the preservation of the Parish Registers: this order was the more necessary, as the principal ground upon which the negligence of the culpable officers was over-looked, was that the registers being formerly kept on loose and detached sheets of paper, were not only mislaid and lost, but also decayed and destroyed by age, damp, and perhaps by means less fair than these. This injunction being supposed more formal, was more readily and even better obeyed than the former ones, indeed few of the few ancient registers which are now extant, date their commencement before this queen's reign. However well this last order might have been obeyed in comparison to the preceding ones, still, to use a trite and somewhat vulgar expression-" bad is the best" for very few records are now standing to prove that much attention was even then bestowed on these truly-interesting and valuable documents. That registers of some kind of the number of yearly births, marriages, and deaths, were kept, we have, however, undoubted and incontestible proof still; although of the gross number of deaths which occurred in the metropolis of London, we possess a pretty accurate account; yet until a much later period no important step was taken to distinguish, in this account, anything more than the sex of the deceased, and the disease of which they died. It was not, I believe, until as far down as the year 1728, that we have the slightest mention or the remotest allusion made to the ages of those, whose yearly burials we find accurately noted. In the beginning of that year, however, the Bills returned the numbers dying between the ages of three and five, five and ten, ten and twenty, &c. &c. This method of keeping the Bills being a great and striking improvement on the old plan, and being continued for the space of ten years, afforded means, although but scanty, for ascertaining the waste of human life in its different stages. This task appears to have been undertaken by Mr. George Smart, a city accountant, who soon after produced a table of the probabilities of human life in London from these materials. Little is known concerning this table, as belonging to Mr. Smart; it may however be recognised, when I mention that it is the same table as that commonly called Simpson's Table of the Probabilities of Life in London. The London Bills of Mortality are founded upon the reports of sworn searchers, whose duty it is to view every corpse after death, and to deliver their reports to the parish clerks. These persons are compelled, under pain of a heavy penalty, to keep a regular account of all the burials which take place in the districts to which they belong; and, once in each year, a regular account is made up which forms the basis of the Bills of Mortality, and from this future ages seek the means of regulating the probabilities of human life, and of calculating and forming rules to solve all questions in which life and death are the principal objects of consideration. The Bills of Mortality in many parts of the kingdom of Great Britain are exceedingly defective, from several remote causes; principally, however, from the peculiarities attending the different religious sects, which form no inconsiderable proportion of the population of the three kingdoms. Many Dissenters, the Jews, the Roman Catholics, and others, have each different places and modes for the burial of their dead-these, therefore, can form no portion of the annual accounts published by the parish clerks. Some few persons, from choice or convenience, bury their dead without the burial rites. Children, too, who die before the rites of baptism have been performed, are denied those of burial, and, in all probability, are not registered in many of the Bills. These must form a very important division in the total number of deaths during the year; for in Dr. Price's Northampton Table, out of 11,650 children born, during the first year of their lives 3000 died. Now, out of these, a vast number were, no doubt, unbaptized; for in many families, where the children appear to be robust and healthy, the parents prefer deferring the baptismal ceremony until they are about a twelvemonth old. Joined to this, negligence may be supposed to cause many omissions; but even putting this by no means improbable and unimportant supposition aside, the number of persons going abroad, killed upon foreign service, dying at sea, and by a thousand other casualties, must make a considerable difference in the correctness of these registers. All these various and co-operating causes being put together and considered, we may safely pronounce that there is as yet no register of mortality in which strict dependence can be placed, or which can justly repre. sent the chances of life amongst mankind at large. P. H. A SUNDAY HYMN, BY GEORGE WITHER, 1588. THE SLEEPER. Although my days were few. I went to sleep, like all the rest, Μ. To think well is the way to act rightly.—PALEY. THESE are the signs of a wise man to reprove nobody, to praise nobody, to blame nobody; nor ever to speak of himself as an uncommon man.-EPICTETUS. |