being is not less accountable nor less helpless, for not thinking himself so. How much happier is the devout dependant of God, who hath infinite wisdom to direct him; infinite power to protect and support him; infinite goodness to infuse itself into his selfdiffident heart, until it become a heart after God's own heart! At the age of twenty, and in the dog-days, I was taken out of my bed one morning, by three or four young creatures like myself to a kind of exercise common in the country where I then lived, and received a blow with a cannon-ball, which fractured my scull. This, and the evacuations necessary to prevent a fever at that season, left me in a low state of health and spirits. This again left me, instead of a most hale and animated, a shattered and debilitated constitution for the remainder of my life. On recollecting that this affliction fell on me that sole day, since I was eight years old, whereon I had not recommended myself in prayer to the protection of Providence, I drew a lesson for which, dearly as it was purchased, I bless God to this day. Let those (I fear there are many) who expose themselves to such dangers, without prayer, and escape them, not dare to draw from thence an argument for indevotion or infidelity, till the winding up of their trial, and the settlement of their mode of existence for ever, At that period I verily believe, my correction will be found to have the advantage of their escapes, howsoever more capable they may think themselves, and really have been, of leading good lives, without such chastisements, than I was. Somewhat similar to my case, as above related, but of an infinitely more dreadful nature, was that of Origen, than whom a greater genius never adorned the Christian world, on going out one day without having, by prayer in the morning, put himself under the protection of Divine Providence. The lamentation, after his fall, recorded in his own words by an ancient ecclesiastical historian, is a picture of woe, if possible, more affecting and more shocking than even those of Jeremiah; but his case, in regard to a particular circumstance, is not so proper as mine, to be exposed to the eye of a common reader, or I should here give it at full length. Bishop Hall, a writer abounding with admirable sentiments, maintains, that prayer is a universal remedy for evils of all sorts. If I forget not, he insists more on its curative than preventive powers, the latter being less apparent, and therefore less capable of being dwelt on. But who would not rather be saved, than relieved, from evils, particularly the evil of sin? Yet it is here that prayer performs its noblest work,—

here the great Benefactor conceals his protecting hand, and prevents our acknowledgments. Could we see how many and how great miseries the power of prayer, prevailing with Providence, averts from us, our gratitude would be more awakened, than by all the reliefs we enjoy from evils actually suffered. An attentive Christian sometimes catches at these, and gets a glimpse of the protecting hand, as it is drawn back from his unwary head. Faith ought, in this case, to interpose, and teach us how much oftener our prayers have been heard, than creatures, so blind, are apt to conceive. That the unseen blessings of God are more than the visible, not only our faith, but the knowledge of our miserable weakness, and of the hourly dangers we are ever surrounded with, should convince us, and guide us to a degree of gratitude, which we are little aware of. We are fed, we are clothed, we are healed, we are delivered out of prison; these blessings are visible, though they too often pass by our observation as things of course; but how do we know, whether these temporal blessings are not all turned by our own folly and wickedness into so many curses? And, at the best, what are they to the maintenance of piety, virtue, and eternal life in the soul? Who feeds these in the soul? God. What prevails with him to do it? Prayer, almighty prayer; for the power of prayer is as the power of God. If by frequent, which approaches to continual, meditation and prayer, the soul opens and applies itself to God, like fruit ripening under the solar influence, that soul improves in piety and virtue under the celestial irradiation, till it acquires a purity and sublimity, similar to those of the Divine Being. The source of good, continually called in, illapses into the soul and heart, and drives out before it all folly and wickedness, which it soon replaces with the wisdom and love, wherein consists the true life of a Christian. The piety of prayer, and the foulness of sin; the great God, and the foul fiend, can never dwell together in the same mind. This is that exorcism, which is wrought in every wicked man, when he becomes a true Christian. Thus dies the old man, and thus revives the new, in one and the same person; and this happy change is owing, so far as the person himself is employed in the operation, to a perseverance in warm and earnest prayer. If we fail not on our part, the infinitely gracious Being will never fail on his. He must cease to be God and good, before he will relinquish a soul thus devoted to him. And thus it is habituated to a self-renunciation, and finds a better self in Jesus, the way, the truth, and

the life; the way to the Father of mercies; the truth of solid wisdom; and the life which knows no end. In this great affair of devotion, we must never forget, that thankfulness for our former success in prayer is all that is in us, which can ensure the grant of what we now or hereafter may petition for; and, therefore, that thanksgiving is the very soul of devotion. Nor are we ever to forget, that the wise God is not to be put off with words only. The praises of God must come from the heart, or they are but words; and God judges of our hearts by our actions. One good deed goes farther with him than ten thousand words, or why are our hands lifted up in prayer? On the other side, an evil deed negatives our solicitations. The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.' Herein is no prohibition to the prayers of a sinner, which would be no other than a prohibition to all the prayers of mankind, for all are sinners, but only to the prayers of such as are hardened in sin, and perhaps rather glory in their wickedness, than feel that compunction which may introduce them into a better course of life. Prayer, however, as it petitions for the greatest of all blessings at a time when we deserve nothing at God's hands but the severity of his judgments, to be successful, ought to be very warm and earnest. How can we hope, that God should attend to our words, if we do not attend to them ourselves? Who God is, and who we are, should be well considered, before we kneel down, that our solicitations may ascend with all the warmth and emotion of lightning. And, after all, a firm faith in the mercy of God, through the merits and intercessions of our Saviour, is necessary to our praying at all, for it is only in and through this our High Priest,' that we can justify our 'boldness in approaching the throne of grace. No man cometh to the Father, but by him.' It is only by the atonement made by him for us, that we cease to be abominable in the sight of God. It is only through the imputation of his righteousness to us, that we can become righteous in the sight of infinite holiness, or be at all accepted.

131. About 1760, in summer time, riding to a gentleman's house in the county of Fermanagh, and a moderate breeze blowing through a well grown fir-grove, the strongest stench I ever perceived of putrefying carrion came from thence, and diffused itself all around the dwelling, and through the house. A hundred rotten carcases to the windward could not have annoyed us more. Inquiry having been made by the gentleman concerning the carrion,

from whence he supposed this most offensive smell to proceed, a sensible servant said, the stench does not proceed from any carrion, but from a very great number of mushrooms, growing in the firgrove. With this servant I went to examine this odd production, and saw a number of fungi, the stalks of which stood above the ground about five or six inches high, and the upper end of each stalk looked exactly as if the stalk had been inverted, and dipped about two inches into a vessel of tar. From this dark coloured part alone the bad smell issued; and, on that account, I called it the carrion mushroom. I take it for granted, this dark and fetid stuff had formed the head of the plant, which now in its putrescent state hung down, and covered the upper part of the stalk. As I never before, nor since, saw, heard, or read of any such species of fungus, I mention it here as a curiosity, which ought to find a place in natural history. If it hath been ever observed by others, it must be that which hath been called by the name of Potirone by the Burgundians, or Phallus. It is not to be wondered at, that I did not admit a phenomenon to a very close inspection, which was so extremely disagreeable, and might be dangerous. The gentleman, at whose house I had been a visiting, ordered his servants to go out with spades, and throw earth upon the offensive plants; which they immediately did, and we were relieved. Neither before this, nor after, was auy the like stench perceived about that place.

132. Some years before this, I was shewn in a garden near Monaghan, several very luxuriant plants of what they there call Scotch cale, on a single leaf of which, and from the middle length of the great rib, a new plant, exactly like that which bore it, had sprung up and put forth several leaves, like, but not altogether so large, as those of the mother plant.

133. I have had, in a little collection of natural curiosities, at least two-thirds of a human Tibia, turned into leather by lying (how long I cannot guess) at the bottom of a turf-bog on a stratum, I believe, of limestone. Its colour is that of tanned leather, and its pliancy, though so long kept dry, nearly equal to the pliancy of ben-leather, or that which is used in making the soles of men's shoes. This transformation makes it, I think, probable, that muscles, tendons, cartilages, and bones, consist of vessels nearly the same, but bound together, in the progress and order here intimated, by transverse ligaments, still more and more numerous and firm, till the muscle grows into a bone. Perhaps wood is no other

than the bone of a tree. Be this as it will, the calcareous stone, on which the Tibia happened to lie having consumed, or broken the finer transverse ligaments of the bone (as putrid water does those of flax), and ejected the putrescent matter of the bone, laid its pores open to the particles of bark, leaves, buds, &c. whereof our bogs were at first chiefly composed; and, by those means, gave it a kind of natural tannage, similar to the artificial, or rather, the very same. This little piece of theory may lead to that ossification in the gullets, and the mouths of the great arteries in very old meu. If any one should lime, wash, and tan a piece of purely muscular flesh, fresh killed, as tanners do their hides, an easy experiment, and that piece of flesh should be converted into a sort of tanned leather, this conjecture might be verified, but if confuted, the result might be worth the trying. This moment it occurs to me, that the experiment is often, though undesignedly made by the little scraps of flesh left by the butchers, here and there, on the insides of their hides, which the curriers find tanned into leather, as well as the hides, to which they adhere. N. B. The cutis of an animal is really muscular.

134. In my collection there is also a lump of butter, found in a turf-bog, and turned into a substance like starch, so as that it may be easily crumbled between the fingers into a white and dry powder, and yet melts at the warmth of candle almost as readily as common butter. The old Irish held strong butter as delicious, for which reason, they frequently wrapped up a great quantity of butter in the bark of a tree, and buried it in a bog; where after it had lain for some time, it was raised to their palates. That which I have, must have lain in the situation mentioned for some ages, and was either forgotten by the epicure who intended to have regaled himself with it, or left to others who had killed him, to be taken up and eaten, if they should happen to find it.

135. I have the thigh-bone of a hen, that had been broken some considerable time before she was brought to the table. This bone having been broken quite through, and, I believe, without splinters, the contraction of the muscles had pulled the fractured ends half an inch by each other, and so as that they stood about three lines asunder. From the hard and osseous sides adjacent, two or three lateral bones have shot out, and pretty strongly joined the two parts of the fractured thigh-bone, without any thing I can call an osculation, because they were by no means in contact.