Having left the neighbourhood of Geneva in 1819, Neff spent the whole of the following two years in alternate labours in the Cantons of Vaud and Neufchatel, and in the French portion of the Canton of Berne. Throughout this extensive district, he 6 established numerous associations for prayer and religious conversation, many of which are still in existence'. The beneficial effect of such associations has been called in question by Mr. Gilly, who, in support of his objections, cites the language of Bishop Heber and the Rev. Thomas Scott. Mr. Ellerby's remarks on this subject claim transcription. It may be doubted whether the late amiable ecclesiastical overseer in India was ever placed in such a situation as would enable him to form a just and adequate estimate of social meetings for prayer and mutual improvement in religious knowledge and experience." In general," says Mr. Scott, "I am apt to think it very difficult for a minister in the Establishment to form and conduct prayer-meetings in such a manner, as that the aggregate good shall not be counterbalanced or overbalanced by positive evil. But men of greater experience and capacity of judging have thought otherwise;" and then he ingenuously confesses, "But I am also, I fear, prejudiced, as the evils which arose from those at Olney induced such an association of ideas in my mind, as probably can never be dissolved."-Life of the Rev. T. Scott, pp. 518 and 519. There cannot be a better illustration of the importance of prayermeetings, than the consequences of repressing associations of this kind by the clergyman to whom this most unfortunate letter was addressed, when compared with the state of religion amongst the members of the Establishment in the very next considerable town, where meetings for social prayer have been continued, and where several private houses have for many years been licensed for that purpose. There can be no doubt that Olney, at the time here alluded to, presented an extreme case, and such a one as could not, with any sort of justice or propriety, be taken as a fair specimen. Mr. Scott himself, speaking of social, in distinction from public worship, remarks, that it tends greatly to maintain brotherly love."-Essay on Prayer. pp. ix-xi. Such meetings are doubtless subject to abuse, like every other good thing; but the result of our observation would be in entire harmony with the firm conviction expressed by Mr. Ellerby, that a numerous and frequent attendance at prayer-meetings is one of the most decisive evidences of religious prosperity' that a Christian society can exhibit; to which we will add, a very principal means of maintaining it. We do not deem it necessary to go again over the ground travelled in company with Mr. Gilly, interesting as is the scene of Neff's self-denying labours. We shall therefore refer our readers to the volume itself, which, even to those who possess Mr. Gilly's work, will convey much additional information, and to those who do not, will be a most valuable acquisition. The extracts from Neff's own letters and sermons are particularly interesting. While the Pastor was stretched on his bed of languishing, from which he was never to rise, his friends, who watched by turns, aware with what transports of holy delight he 'listened to the melody of the human voice when attuned to the "praises of God,' would frequently retire into an adjoining chamber, where, in a subdued tone, they sang several of his favourite hymns. One of these, Neff's own composition, together with a translation kindly furnished by Mr. Montgomery, we must transcribe. PARAPHRASE OF PART OF JER. XXXI. Ne te désoles point, Sion! sèche tes larmes; Il te rétablira: même au sein des ruines, Un jour-un jour viendra que tes gardes fidéles, Vous rapelle-venez, et montons au safht lieu! Lève-toi, le Puissant ne t'a point oubliée: D'un amour éternel le Seigneur t'a aimée. Qu'au son de la trompette, assemblés en ce jour, Weep no more, Zion! dry thy streaming tears; 'He will restore thee, even as from the dead; A day will come, a day when from on high VOL. X.-N.S. cry, H Rise, unforgotten of thy Lord above! In case of a reprint, we would suggest a greater attention to correct orthography in printing the foreign names, and a few other corrections. Re-union should have been rendered, asso ciation or congregation. Art. VI. Caspar Hauser. An account of an Individual kept in a Dungeon, separated from all Communication with the World, from Early Childhood, to about the Age of Seventeen. Drawn up from Legal Documents. By Anselm Von Feuerbach, President of one of the Bavarian Courts of Appeal, &c. Translated from the Ger12mo, pp. xi. 191. Price 3s. in cloth. London, 1833. man. MOS OST of our readers will have been made acquainted by the public journals with the name of this youth without childhood, and with the outlines of his melancholy story. The present publication, dedicated to Earl Stanhope, who has taken poor Caspar under his paternal protection, contains an authenticated relation of the circumstances, so far as known, attending his mysterious secretion, his coming into the world, and the gradual development of his rational faculties. The story of his imprisonment is soon told; and horrible as is the picture which it presents to the imagination, occurrences of similar character and parallel atrocity, which might seem to belong to the darkest ages, are by no means unheard of in Catholic Germany. The account which, after he had slowly acquired the art of intelligible speech, Caspar gave of himself is as follows. "He neither knows who he is nor where his home is. It was only at Nuremberg that he came into the world. Here he first learned that, besides himself and the man with whom he had always been,' there existed other men and other creatures. As long as he can recollect, he had always lived in a hole (a small low apartment which he sometimes calls a cage), where he had always sat upon the ground, with bare feet, and clothed only with a shirt and a pair of breeches. + In his An expression which he often uses to designate his exposure in Nuremberg, and his first awakening to the consciousness of mental life.' + According to a more particular account given by Caspar, which is fully confirmed by marks upon his body which cannot be mistaken, by the singular formation of his knee and knee-hollow, and by his peculiar mode of sitting upon the ground with his legs extended, which is possible to himself alone, -he never, even in his sleep, lay with his whole body stretched out, but sat, waking and sleeping, with his back apartment he never heard a sound, whether produced by a man, by an animal, or by anything else. He never saw the heavens, nor did there ever appear a brightening (day-light) such as at Nuremberg. He never perceived any difference between day and night, and much less did he ever get a sight of the beautiful lights in the heavens. Whenever he awoke from sleep, he found a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water by him. Sometimes this water had a bad taste; whenever this was the case, he could no longer keep his eyes open, but was compelled to fall asleep *; and when he afterwards awoke, he found that he had a clean shirt on, and that his nails had been cut. † He never saw the face of the man who brought him his meat and drink. In his hole he had two wooden horses and several ribbons. With these horses he had always amused himself as long as he was awake; and his only occupation was, to make them run by his side, and to fix or tie the ribbons about them in different positions. Thus, one day had passed as the other; but he had never felt the want of any thing, had never been sick, and once only excepted-had never felt the sensation of pain. Upon the whole, he had been much happier there than in the world, where he was obliged to suffer so much. How long he had continued to live in this situation he knew not; for he had had no knowledge of time. He knew not when, or how he came there. Nor had he any recollection of ever having been in a different situation, or in any other than in that place. "The man with whom he had always been," never did him any harm. Yet one day, shortly before he was taken away,-when he had been running his horse too hard, and had made too much noise, the man came and struck him upon his arm with a stick, or with a piece of wood; this caused the wound which he brought with him to Nuremberg. "Pretty nearly about the same time, the man once came into his prison, placed a small table over his feet, and spread something white supported in an erect posture. Some peculiar property of his place of rest, and some particular contrivance must probably have made it necessary for him to remain constantly in such a position. He is himself unable to give any further information upon this subject.' *That this water was mixed with opium, may well be supposed; and the certainty that this was really the fact, was fully proved on the following occasion. After he had for some time lived with Professor Daumer, his physician attempted to administer to him a drop of opium in a glass of water. Caspar had scarcely swallowed the first mouthful of this water, when he said: "That water is nasty; it tastes exactly like the water I was sometimes obliged to drink in my cage.' + Hence, as well as from other circumstances, it is evident, that Caspar was, during his incarceration, always treated with a certain degree of careful attention. And this accounts for the attachment which he long retained to the man with whom he had always been." This attachment ceased only at a very late period; yet never to such a degree as to make him wish that this man should be punished. He wished that those should be punished by whose orders he had been confined; but he said that that man had done him no harm.' upon it, which he now knows to have been paper; he then came be hind him, so as not to be seen by him, took hold of his hand, and moved it backwards and forwards on the paper, with a thing (a lead pencil) which he had stuck between his fingers. He (Hauser) was then ignorant of what it was; but he was mightily pleased, when he saw the black figures which began to appear upon the white paper. When he felt that his hand was free, and the man had gone from him, he was so much pleased with this new discovery, that he could never grow tired of drawing these figures repeatedly upon the paper. This occupation almost made him neglect his horses, although he did not know what those characters signified. The man repeated his visits in the same manner several times. "Another time the man came again, lifted him from the place where he lay, placed him on his feet, and endeavoured to teach him to stand. This he repeated at several different times. The manner in which he effected this was the following: he seized him firmly around the breast from behind; placed his feet behind Caspar's feet, and lifted these, as in stepping forward. "Finally, the man appeared once again, placed Caspar's hands over his shoulders, tied them fast, and thus carried him on his back out of the prison. He was carried up (or down) a hill. † He knows Of the fact that Caspar really had had instruction, and, indeed, regular elementary instruction in writing, he gave evident proofs immediately on the first morning after his arrival in Nuremberg. When the prison-keeper Hiltel came to him that morning in the prison, he gave him, in order to employ or to amuse him, a sheet of paper with a lead pencil. Caspar seized eagerly on both, placed the paper upon the bench, and began and continued to write, without intermission, and without ever looking up, or suffering himself to be disturbed by any thing that passed, until he had filled the whole folio sheet, on all four sides, with his writing. The appearance of this sheet, which has been preserved and affixed to the documents furnished by the police, is much the same as if Caspar, who nevertheless wrote from memory, had had a copy lying before him, such as are commonly set before children when they are first taught to write. For the writing upon this sheet consisted of rows of letters, or rows of syllables; so that, almost everywhere, the same letter or the same syllable is constantly repeated. At the bottom of each page, all the letters of the alphabet are also placed together, in the same order in which they actually succeed each other, as is commonly the case in copies given to children: and, in another line, the numerical ciphers are placed, from 1 to 0, in their proper order. On one page of this sheet, the name " Kaspar Hauser is constantly repeated; and, on the same sheet, the word reider (Renter, rider) frequently occurs: yet this sheet also proves that Caspar had not progressed beyond the first elements of writing.' + It is evident, and other circumstances prove it to be a fact, that Caspar could not yet, at that time, distinguish the motion of ascending from that of descending, or height from depth, even as to the impressions made upon his own feelings; and that he was consequently |