Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

MISCELLANIES.

FRAGMENTS.

AMONG many other charitable institutions in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, is " a neat, quiet, comfortable retreat for old people, which has this inscription over the gate.

"When this fabric was built, is uncertain; but in the year 1567, it was made an Hospital for old people. The fabric became ruinous in a great measure, and some parts uninhabitable. In the year 1726 the reparations were begun, and fifteen new rooms added by charitable donations, which will be supplied by old persons as the revenue is increased by donations. Three hundred pounds sterling entitles the donor to a presentation of a burgess, widow of a burgess, or child of a burgess, male or female; and 3501. sterling gives the donor a right to present any person whatsoever, not married nor under fifty years of age."

a.

In this hospital each person has his own room, eleven feet by eight and a half, in which is a cupboard and window. These rooms open into passage twelve feet and a half wide, at the end of which is a sitting room, for such as choose to as sociate together. A chaplain reads prayers morning and eve ning. There is a garden and other conveniences. They have roast meat three times a week, and boiled three times, and eleven bottles of good beer; coals, clothes and linen are also provided; but the allowance for washing is only sixpence a month. The circumstance of each person's having a window

at command was very agreeable to me, as I have often observed, and lately a Norwich Hospital for old people where many lodge in the same room, that the infirmity, or peevishness of one person has been the cause of half stifling the rest for the want of the admission of (that cordial of life) air. Howard.

SEMINARIES of learning are the springs of society, which, as they flow, foul or pure, diffuse through successive generations depravity and misery, or on the contrary, virtue and happiness. On the bent given to our minds, as they open and expand, depends their subsequent fate; and on the general management of education, depend the honour and dignity of our species.

Dr. Price.

"IT is the opinion of Dr. Arbuthnot, that renewing and cooling the air in a patient's room by opening the bed-curtains, door, and windows, in some cases letting it in by pipes, and in general the right management of air in the bed-chamber, is among the chief branches of regimen in inflammatory diseases, provided still that the in tention of keeping up a due quantity of perspiration be not disappointed." dyce adds, " By the officious and mistaken care of silly nurses in this respect, the disease is often increased and lengthened, or even proves fatal. Numberless indeed are the mischiefs, which arise from depriving the patient of cool air, the changing of which, so as to remove the putrid streams, is most of all necessary in putrid diseases." I

And Dr. For

Hope I shall be excused in adding, "In the beginning of putrid fevers (and many putrid fevers come upon full habit) the patient abhors, without knowing the reason, foods, which easily putrify, but pants after acid drinks and fruits, and such are allowed by some physicians, who follow nature. Oranges, lemons, citrons, grapes, peaches, currants, nectarines, are devoured with eagerness and gratitude. Can the distillery or the apothecary's shop boast of such cordials? It appears, then, on the whole, that the food, in a putrid fever, should consist of barley, rice, oatmeal, wheat bread, sago, salop mixed with wine, lemon, orange, citron, or chaddock juice, jellies made of currants, and other acescent fruits; and when broths are thought absolutely necessary, which probably seldom happens, they should be mixed with currant jellies, citron, lemons, and orange juices."

Dr. Fordyce on inflammatory fevers.

SOLON'S OPINION OF THE MORAL

EFFECTS OF THE STAGE.

THIS great Athenian lawgiv. er, being present at the perform ance of a tragedy by Thespis, who may be called the father of the stage, asked him, when he had done, if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before so great an assembly. Thespis answered, it was no great matter, if he spoke or acted in jest. To this Solon replied, striking the ground violently with his staff, "If we encourage such jesting as this, we shall quickly find it in our contracts."

ANECDOTES.

WE are informed of Dr. Marryat, that after he was somewhat advanced in youth, having a strong memory, he thought it his duty to make it a secret repository of the works of divine revelation.

[ocr errors]

Accordingly, "he treasured up," says one, a larger portion of the Scriptures than, perhaps, any one besides, whom we have known, ever did. For there are some, who can assure us, they had the account immediately from himself, that he has committed to memory not a few whole books, both of the Old Testament and the New. When

he mentioned this, he named distinctly, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, with all the minor prophets: and every one of the epistles likewise in the New Testament, with the book of the Revelation. And that he might carefully retain the whole of what he had thus learnt, he declared, it was his practice to repeat them memoriter once a year. The special reason or motive, which he assigned for his entering upon this method, deserves a particular notice. He began it in the younger part of life, when, being under a deep sense of the evil of sin, and his mind sadly ignorant of God's ways of salvation by the righteousness of the glorious Messiah, or being in the dark as to his own personal interest in it, he was sorely dis. tressed with fears, that hell must be his portion. At that time it was put into his heart, that, if he must go to hell, he would endeavour to carry with him as much of the word of God as pos

sibly he could. And it seems to me to have been a secret, latent principle of the fear and love of God, that established him in this purpose. For it looks as if he desired to have a supply of scripture materials for his mind to work upon, choosing it should ever be employed in recollecting and reflecting upon those records, that thereby, if possible, it might be kept from blaspheming God, like the rest of the spirits in the infernal prison.

Buck's Anecdotes.

FREDERIC II.

"Frederic," says M. T. " divided his books into two classes, for study or for amusement. The second class, which was infinitely the most numerous, he read only once the first was considerably less extensive, and was composed of books, which he wished to study and have recourse to from time to time during his life; these he took down, one after the other, in the order in which they stood, except when he wanted to verify, cite, or imitate, some passage. He had five libraries, all exactly alike, and containing the same books, ranged in the same or der; one at Potsdam, a second at Sans Souci, a third at Berlin, a fourth at Charlottenburg, and a fifth at Breslaw. On removing to either of these places, he had only to make a note of the part of his subject at which he

[blocks in formation]

left off, to pursue it without interruption on his arrival.

The following was an humorous cure for unclerical practices.

THE CURATE RELIEVED.

A violent Welch 'squire having taken offence at a poor curate, who employed his leisure hours in mending clocks and watches, applied to the bishop of St. Asaph, with a formal complaint against him for impiously carrying on a trade contrary to the statute. His lordship having heard the complaint, told the 'squire he might depend upon it that the strictest justice should be done in the case; accordingly the mechanic divine was sent for a few days after, when the bishop asked him, "How he dared to disgrace his diocese by becoming a mender of clocks and watches." The other, with all humility, answered, "To satisfy the wants of a wife and ten children." "That won't do with me," rejoined the prelate, “I'll inflict such a punishment upon you as shall make you leave off your pitiful trade, I promise you;" and immediately calling in his secretary, ordered him to make out a presentation for the astonished curate to a living of at least one hundred and fifty pounds per annum.

Buck's Anecdotes.

Review of New Publications.

A

The Triumph of the Gospel. sermon delivered before the New York Missionary Society, at their annual meeting, April 3, 1804. By JOHN H. LIVINGSTON, D. D. S. T. P. To which are added, an appendix, the annual report of the directors, and other papers relating to American Missions. New York, T. & J. Swords. pp. 97.

REV. xiv. 6, 7. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying, with a loud voice, fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of

waters.

THE design of the sermon is, first, to ascertain the object of this prophecy; secondly, to investigate the period of its accomplish

ment.

With a view to the object of the prophecy, or the event predicted, the author gives this explanation of the text.

"That John foresaw a period, when a zealous ministry would arise in the midst of the churches, with a new and extraordinary spirit; a ministry singular in its views and exertions, and remarkable for its plans and suc. cess; a ministry which would arrest the public attention, and be a prelude to momentous changes in the church and in the world."

He gives the meaning of the prophecy still more particularly in the following paragraph;

"John saw in vision, that after a

lapse of time, a singular movement would commence, not in a solitary corner, but in the very midst of the churches; that the gospel, in its pu rity, would be sent to the most distant lands, and success crown the benevolent work. The ordinary exercise of the ministry......was not the object of this vision. It was something beyond the common standard.... It was such preaching and such prop. agation of the gospel, as John never before contemplated. There was a magnitude the plan, a concurrence of sentiment, a speed in the execution, a zeal in the efforts, and a pros. perity in the enterprise, which dis tinguished this from all former periods. The event here described comprehends a series of causes and effects, a succession of means and ends, not to be completed in a day, or finished by a single exertion. It is represented as a permanent and growing work. It commences from small beginnings in the midst of the churches, but it proceeds, and will increase in going. There are no limits to the progress of the angel. From the time he begins to fly and preach, he will continue to fly and preach, until he has brought the ev erlasting gospel to all nations, and tongues, and kindred, and people in the earth. Hail, happy period! hail, cheering prospect! When will that blessed hour arrive? When will the angel commence his flight

This introduces the second head, under which the author discovers great ingenuity, and advances sentiments highly interesting to the Christian world.

Prophecy," he observes, "is furnished, like history, with a chronological calendar; and the predictions, with respect to the time of their accomplishment, may be referred to three distinct classes. Some expressly specify the period when the thing foretold shall take place..... Other predictions do not specify any series of years from which a compu tation can proceed, but connect the event with something preceding or

subsequent. In such the key of explanation must be found in the order of events. To the third class belong those prophecies, in which no time is mentioned, and no order established, but other events are predicted, and declared to be co-existent."

Agreeably to this arrangement, the author concludes, that the prediction now under consideration belongs to the second class.

"To the order of the event," he observes, "we must be principally indebted for information. The vision before us is the second recorded in this chapter. Consistently with an established rule.....the time when the

angel will commence his preaching must be after what is intended by the first vision, and before the third. At some period between these two extremes this prophecy will be accomplished."

The object of the first vision is determined to be the great event, which is commonly called the REFORMATION, which happened in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

By great Babylon in the third vision

"Is indisputably intended the seat and dominion of that powerful adversary, who for many ages has encroached upon the prerogatives of Jesus Christ, and persecuted his faithful followers. The duration of this enemy is limited to twelve hundred and sixty prophetic years..... The latest date, which has been, or, indeed, can be fixed for his rise, extends his continuance to the year 1999; consequently his fall must, at farthest, be immediately before the year 2000, when the millennium will be fully introduced.

"Here then we have found two extremes, between which the prediction in question will be fulfilled. It must be after the Reformation, and before the fall of antichrist. The angel must begin his flight after the year 1500, and before the year 2000. This brings our inquiry within the space of five hundred years. These boundaries will be abridged, when we reflect that three hundred years

have elapsed since the Reformation, and nothing corresponding to the vision has yet been seen..... Great things

were achieved at the Reformation. But this is another angel,...this foretels another preaching, vastly more enlarged and interesting in its consequences, than any thing, which happened then, or at any period since. It delineates an event, which, when estimated in all its concurring cir cumstances, cannot fail of establish ing the conviction, that it is not yet fulfilled..... We are compelled, therefore, to look forward for the accom plishment; and are now reduced to the short remaining space of two hundred years.....At some period of time from, and including the present day, and before the close of two hundred years, the angel must begin to fly in the midst of the churches, and preach the everlasting gospel to all nations, and tongues, and kindred, and people in the earth.

"Thus far the prophecy, taken in its connexion and order, has assisted us in our calculation. We shall, perhaps, approach nearer, if we attend to some momentous events, which we know are to happen previously to the millennium, and, conse quently, within two hundred years. If these be such, as will necessarily require considerable time, and if the event in question be inseparably con nected with them, and stand foremost in the series, we may be ena. bled to form a rational conclusion of the probable season when this will

commence.

"The events to which we allude are, the punishment of the nations, who aided antichrist in murdering the servants of God, the conversion of the Jews, the bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles, and the fall of mystical Babylon."

The author mentions, these events distinctly, and makes observations in order to assist us in forming a just estimate of the time required for their accomplishment.

"I. The punishment of the nations, who aided antichrist in murdering the servants of God....But, what conflicts, what revolutions, what risings of na trons, who are to be the mutual exe

« AnteriorContinuar »