wound, which will often prevent death. A handkerchief put round, with a small rule twisted in both ends of it (or any other thing of the kind long enough for a handle) and screwed round till quite tight, and thus held, is all that is required to stop the bleeding, till further assistance is procured. To counteract the ill effects of drinking cold water. If the disorder incident to drinking cold water while warm has been produced, the first, and in most cases the only remedy to be administered, is sixty drops of liquid laudanum in spirit and water, or any warm drink. If this should fail of giving relief, the same quantity may be given twenty minutes afterwards. When laudanum cannot be obtained, rum and water, or warm water should be given. Vomits and bleeding should not be resorted to, without the advice of a medical man. Sting of the wasp. When a wasp has been attracted into a glass of beer, or any sweet beverage intended to be drank, and incautiously swallowed, the throat is often stung by it; the alarming symptoms, however, which ensue, are almost instantly relieved by taking a tea spoonful of common salt, or draughts of water well saturated with it. Salt also applied to a sting from a wasp or a bee externally, and moistened with a little water, answers the same purpose, and is a simple remedy. To destroy moth. The smell of oil of turpentine is instantaneous death to the clothes moth; if therefore, the goods affected by them be put into a close place, along with a saucer or other open vessel containing oil of turpentine, the warm air raising the vapour, will immediately destroy them. Sometimes if the caterpillars be old and strong, it may be necessary to brush the clothes with a brush, the points of which have been dipped in the turpentine. The smoke of tobacco also kills them; and cloth that has been steeped in a decoction of tobacco leaves, will never be affected by them. To clear the house of flies. Various poisons and waters have been invented for the purpose of getting rid of flies at this season of the year; but the most simple and efficacious way is once a day to darken the room, leaving only a small portion of the window-shutter open, with the sash up. Then with a silk hand kerchief whisk those parts on which the flies usually settle, they will all make for the light, and shortly disappear. Another great point is to leave no fruit, sugar, &c. about that will attract them; by these means a house will be almost clear of flies, while the adjoining one, for want of these precautions, will probably swarm with them. THE MISCELLANY. Card Playing.-Our veteran author, and highly-gifted writer, Sir Walter Scott, appears to hold card-playing in great contempt, for he says:-"To dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted paper round a green table, for the paltry concern of a few shillings, can only be excused in folly or superannuation; it is like riding on a rocking-horse, where your utmost exertion never carries you an inch forward—it is a kind of mental tread-mill, where you are perpetually climbing, but never rise an inch." Gambling-Dice, and that little pugnacious animal, the cock, are the chief instruments employed by the numerous nations of the East to agitate their minds and ruin their fortunes; to which the Chinese, who are desperate gamesters, add the use of cards. When all other property is played away, the Asiatic gambler scruples not to stake his wife or his child, on the cast of a die, or courage and strength of a martial bird. If still unsuccessful, the last venture he stakes is himself. Gamester and cheater were synonymous terms in the time of Shakspeare and Jonson; they have hardly lost much of their double signification in the present day.-Curiosities of Literature. Out of nine persons who were making a public acknowledgment for damage done to some young trees a few weeks back, in the township of Bentley, in the county of not one could write his own name. Ignorance is the parent of crime. Babylon, Thebes, and Nineveh.─Of the exact situation of these greatest cities in the universe, of which history presents us with so many wonderful accounts, we are ignorant: there does not remain the slightest vestige. The hundred gates of Thebes; the hanging gardens and innumerable streets of Babylon; Nineveh, (to use the words of Scripture,) "that great city, in which were more than six score thousand persons;" are melted away like the baseless fabric of a vision! They are, however, marked in the maps.-Curiosities of Literature. The division of the Holy Scriptures into chapters and verses, as we now have them, is not of very ancient date. About the year 1240, Hugo de Sancto Caro, commonly called Cardinal Hugo, making an index or concordance to the Latin Bible, found it necessary to divide it into the parts which we call chapters; and further, divided each chapter into sections, by placing the letters of the alphabet at certain distances in the margin. The subdivision into verses came afterwards from the Jews; for, about the year 1430, Rabbi Nathan, an eminent Jew, publishing a concordance to the Hebrew Bible, adopted the division into chapters made by Cardinal Hugo, and divided the chapters by affixing numeral letters in the margin. About one hundred years after this, Vatablus, a Frenchman, and eminent Hebrew scholar, taking his pattern from him, published a Latin Bible with chapters and verses, numbered with figures; and this example has been followed in all subsequent editions, in all languages, published in the western parts of Christendom. The present division of the New Testament into verses was made by Robert Stephens, an eminent printer at Paris, who introduced it into his edition of 1551.-Dean Prideaux. Positiveness of opinion. It was the observation of a virtuous and elegant writer of the last century," that no one ought to be provoked at opinions different from his own. Some persons are so confident that they are in the right, that they will not even listen to any notions but their own; considering themselves a little province in the intellectual world, where they fancy the light shines, while all the rest is in darkness." Cruelty in human nature is both cowardly and contemptible: an honourable mind will never trample on the object that fears, nor insult that which is beneath it. To every one of his creatures, from the smallest to the greatest, has the Creator given feeling and a sense of pain, that truly in the words of the bard it may be said, "The poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great THE FAMILY MONITOR. No. IX. SEPTEMBER, 1831. VOL. I. FEASTS AND FASTS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND EXPLAINED. St. Matthew's Day. Sept. 21.-St. Matthew, otherwise called Levi, was by profession a Publican, or tax-gatherer to the Romans, an office accounted very infamous among the Jews; so much so, that those who were employed in it, were not only excommunicated from public worship, but were universally shunned in respectable society. Publicans and sinners were terms of a similar signification; for as the revenues of the different countries subject to the Roman power, were farmed, or let to private individuals, they too often oppressed the poor, that they might be able to minister to their own avarice; besides, the payment of tribute in any way, to a foreign state, was at all times odious to the Jews. Of this employment was St. Matthew; but as he was one day sitting at the receipt of custom in his toll-booth, on the coast of the sea of Tiberias, where in all probability his office was to take up the duties laid upon the fishing trade, our Saviour passed by, called to him, and bade him follow him. Matthew, being sensibly touched by the divine grace, without the least hesitation immediately left all, and followed his great master; and to give a clear demonstration that he did not repent of so doing, he made a great feast, and invited to it the worst of sinners, in the hope that the divine conversation of the blessed Jesus might touch their hearts also. After his call to the apostleship, he was a constant attendant on our Saviour till his death; after which he preached the gospel in Judea, and VOL. I. 3 E 394 Feasts and Fasts of the Church of England Explained. Ethiopia, converting great numbers from error and idolatry to the Christian faith. As to the martyrdom of this great apostle and evangelist, we have no authentic account. He has left behind him one gospel which bears his name, written about eight years after our Saviour's ascension, at the entreaty of the Jewish converts. St. Michael and all Angels. Sept. 29. This festival is celebrated by the church, in memorial of that glorious victory obtained by Michael the archangel over the powers of darkness; and to praise and adore Almighty God for those great benefits and advantages that we receive by the aid and ministration of his holy angels. It was a current opinion in the primitive church, that every good man had his guardian angel; but though we can have no proof of this individual protection, yet, from the several cases of the angels being said to assist and defend holy men in Scripture, we have reason to believe that their protection extends not only to spiritual, but also to temporal dangers and adversities; that they shield us from many misfortunes, prevent many sad casualties, and put by many a sore thrust which our enemies endeavour to make us fall by. Let us, then, says Dean Stanhope, thank God for these bright guardians; let us imitate their diligence and condescension in doing good; let us hearten ourselves with their assistance against temptations; let us behave ourselves as becomes men, under their observation; and not only pray, but endeavour daily that the "will of our Father may be done by us upon earth," with the same cheerfulness and vigilance, as it is by them in heaven. And let us beg of God, that "as they always do him service in heaven, so they may succour and defend us on earth;" and at last, when we shall leave this earth, that they may conduct us to the regions of immortal happiness, to "the innumerable company of angels," (Heb. xi. 22,) where we shall be ever with them, and like them. All which we may hope to obtain, through the sole merits and mediation of their and our Lord and King, even Jesus Christ the righteous; who submitted, for our sakes, to be "made lower than the angels;" (Heb. ii. 7, 9;) but is now set down at the right hand of God, "angels, and authorities, and powers, being |