Coincidents. This year, ye French Prophetts made a great noise in our nation, and drew in Mr. Lacy, Sr R. Bulkley,* &c.; 200 or more had ye agitations; 40 had ye inspiration. Proved a delusion of Satan, at Birmingham, Feb. 3, or 4, 1707-8. Sister Sarah marryed, Feb. 1707-8. Pretender's invasion disappointed,March, 1708.

May 25, 1708.

The Prophetts disappointed by Mr. Eams not rising fro. the dead.+

Terrible long snowy winter, 1708-9. Bro. R. came to settle in Londo. Oct. 7, 1709.

March 1, 1709-10. The mob rose and pulled down the pews and galleries of 6 meeting-houses, viz. Mr. Burgess, Mr. Bradbury, Mr. Earle, Mr. Wright, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Ch. Taylor, but were dispersed by the guards under Capt. Horsey, at 1 or 2 in ye morning. Mr. Arthur Shallot, sen. dyed, 4th Feb. 1710-11; and Mr. Tho. Hunt, merchant, and his wife, dyed about the same ! time.

Mrs. Ann Pickard dyed, Apll 7, 1711. My Lady Hartopp dyed, Nov. 9; and Mrs. Gould, Nov. 15, 1711.

*Of Mr. Lacey our readers were supplied with a full account, extracted from Calamy, in our last volume, p. 737. The same writer informs us, " that Sir Richard Bulkeley was a gentleman of learning, who was very short and crooked, but fully expected, under this dispensation, to be made straight in a miraculous way, though he happened to die before the miracle was ever wrought upon him." He also intimates that the crowded bags of the baronet were relieved of their plethora, by the aid of his new friends.

+ Mons. N. Fatio Duilier, a native of Switzerland, remarkable alike for his mathematical learning, and his simple fanaticism, was the chief secretary of the Prophets. He stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, Dec. 2, 1707. Elias Marion, and John D'Andé, were also subjected to the same punishment,and the Government would have proceeded further against them, but for the advice of Dr. Calamy, who predicted the speedy extinction of their party, which soon afterwards occurred.

It appears from Oldmixon's History of England, that this riot was occasioned by the impeachment of Dr.Sacheverel, and occurred on the evening of the second day of his trial. When the Queen was going to the House in her chair, some of the multitude gathered around it, crying

Overturned in a coach without hurt, Oct. 5, 1707.

Preached a Reformation Sermo. and printed it, Oct. 6, 1707.

Went to Southto. and afterwards to Tunb. Aug. 2, 1708.

Removed our meeting-place to Bury Street, Sept. 29, 1708.

Printed 2d edition of Hymns, and 2d ed. of Poems, Apll and May, 1709. Went to Southton, June-Tunbridg, Aug. 1709.

Edward Hitchin, my servant, went away Dec. 31.

I bought a horse for my health, Apll,

1710.

I rode down to Southton and back again, June; and, according to ye account

kept, I rode above 800 miles from April 10 to Sept. 28.

I removed from Mr. Hollis's and went to live with Mr. Bowes', Dec. 30; and

John Merchant, my servt. came to me. Went to Southto.in June-returned July: Went to Tunbridge, Aug. returned being under a disorder of my stomach and Found freqt. pains of the head. some relief at Tunbr. waters.

out, "God bless your Majesty. God bless the Church; we hope your Majesty is for Dr. Sacheverel.

The evening was illuminated with bonfires, made of the pews and pulpits of demolished meeting-houses. The mob, as furious as if under possession, fell upon Mr. Burgess' meeting-house, near Lincoln's-Inn Fields, broke the windows, and a part of the walls, and gutted the inside of it, as they threatened to do his dwelling-house. They demolished also Mr. Earle's meeting-house in Long Acre; Mr. Bradbury's in New Street; Mr. Taylor's in Leather Lane; Mr Wright's in Blackfriars; and Mr. Hamilton's in Clerk. enwell, and all the while they were about this, the Devil's drudgery, their cry was, "High Church for Ever! High Church and Dr. Sacheverel for Ever!" They were meditating further excesses, when Captain Horsey came upon them as they were rejoicing over the bonfire, made out of Mr. Earle's meeting-house. They fled immediately; a few of their leaders were taken, tried, and condemned to death, but were with becoming lenity spared the extreme penalty of the laws.

Fol. pp. 434, 435.

THE unwelcome messenger whom God has commissioned to scatter death among the nations, and at whose name the hearts of millions have trembled, has at length visited our shores. We have been able to contemplate its features, and examine its work. Our intercourse with it has done much towards removing our alarm, invigorating our principles, and confirming our attachment to the truth as it is in Jesus. We shall be happy if we can become to others the humble interpreter of its voice, and the friendly monitor suggesting such cautions as may be most likely to secure them, should they ever be within the sphere of its operation, and in danger of its attack.

1. It teaches that the destroying angel, whose pestilential breath inflicts death more certainly and extensively than the sword whetted for slaughter, is named legion, for there are are many,

and each one diverse in its character and mode of operation from the others.

The leader of the host was employed in the land of Egypt. Its victims were the first-born, in the bloom of health, and the pride of domestic and social distinctions. Its time was restricted to one midnight hour. The symptoms following its stroke were, "" sudden pain, as of a woman with child," and groans which roused every member of the household from their repose. The master calls for the steward of his house, but he, a father himself, is weeping in terror-stricken anguish over the mysterious sufferings of his own child. He hastens for a physician; but instead of the stillness of the night, broken only by the sound of

his own hurried footsteps, he hears confused and mournful sounds from every dwelling that he passes, and finds a crowd of anxious parents already surrounding the door towards which he advances, who urge their distress, and call for help in vain. The physician is exhausting all the resources of his baffled skill upon his own son, and can perceive no sounds but those which enter not so much into his ears as into his heart. The monarch commands the soothsayers and magicians to be called to succour the heir of his throne, but the horse of the messenger falls and expires in the street. Another, and another is dispatched, but enchantments have been of no avail in the dwellings of the sorcerers themselves, and the most obsequious of Pharaoh's flatterers have no voice besides that of lamentation to reply to his invitations-his promises-his commands.

The second visited the camp in the wilderness, when the multitude was feeding on quails. Its victims were the men whose god was their belly, who, discontented with the wholesome manna, lusted after grosser earthly things. They died, not in their beds, but at their banquet. At the end of their feast, instead of revelry and song, "all tables were full of vomit and filthiness." Isa. xxviii. 8.

Another followed to smite the licentious, and a warning was given, which the apostle very appropriately held up to the eyes of the Corinthians, which the young of the present day should seriously ponder, and at which any who have fallen into the snare should tremble. "Neither let us commit fornication as some of

them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand."

The next received its commission at the close of David's reign. Its victims were the men who delighted in war: who, having obtained all which God had promised, instead of beating their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, saw, in their " numbering," the exciting prospect of renewed victories, more extensive conquests, and more abundant spoils; and of these there fell seventy thousand.

Another was sent into the host of the Assyrians, to stop the breath which had uttered great swelling words against Hezekiah, and the God whom he served. Effectually was the work accomplished. There was here no confused noise, nor dying strife. The stroke left no breath to call for help, or to send forth the groan, or to heave the convulsive sob. Each of the remnant which escaped, arose in the morning, and found himself the sole survivor in the chamber of death; and the tents contained a hundred and fourscore and five thousand dead corpses.

Others have followed at different intervals, but that which we behold is diverse from them all. The searchers," employed in thegreat plague," would find in this none of the "tokens" for which they were instructed to look. There is no plague-spot, no tumour, no boil. Its victims do not turn black, as did those who suffered in the third Edward's reign, nor yellow, as do those in western climes, on whom the Negro's wrongs are sometimes avenged. The distinctive mark which this fell destroyer imprints on the body of its victims is blue; it has, therefore, obtained the designation of "the blue cholera." "The essential manifestation of

Reviewing the work of each successive destroyer, and beholding the ravages of that which numbers its slain by millions instead of thousands, with what deepened emotions should we utter the language employed by the man of God," who witnessed the death of the first-born in Egypt, and saw the people fall in the wilderness, "Who knoweth the power of thine anger! even according to thy fear so is thy wrath!"

2. It teaches the folly of the pride of science.

The

We do not undervalue either the labours or the discoveries of men of science. We have no fears that in their progress they will circumvent, and hold captive, the ark of revealed truth. farther their work advances towards perfection, the more subsidiary will it eventually become to the cause of pure scriptural Christianity. The individual will at length be raised up whose comprehensive mind shall be familiar with every region of science, and every part of the sublime mysteries of revelation; who shall be able to develop the essential harmonies of the works and word of God, and demonstrate, from their corresponding features, their common relation to the same paternal hand.

At present, however, it must be confessed, that science is estranged from religion, because its teachers are, for the most part, alienated from God. The investigation of physical laws is an employment more congenial to a creature brought under the dominion of Bell on the Cholera.

sense, than is the investigation of the principles of God's moral government, or converse with the realities which are cognizable only by the eye of faith. In the former pursuit, also, the honour which cometh from man can be obtained; in the latter, that only can be found which cometh from God. As earthly things are felt to be more attractive than heavenly, so, by a strange inversion of thought, they are deemed more sublime; and the men who, perhaps justly, pretend to the largest share of intellectual power and activity, approach the nearest, in their habits of thought and reasoning, to a cold, and dreary, and unintelligent materialism. They have discarded all vulgar superstitions. Their refined taste and accurate perceptions are offended by the unscientific, loose, and popular language of the Bible. They are content with exploring the laws of matter, and find their reward in expounding the discoveries they have made, but they have no sympathy with the ultimate purposes, and no love to the holy character of the presiding, controuling, and directing Mind. For Him their hearts have no emotion, their lips no praise. They are the votaries of science; this is their idol, and they would spurn from them, as a disparagement of their dignity, and a reflection on their intelligence, the title which an archangel is proud to wear, "Servant of God."

Now, strip the subject of this malady from the language of metaphor, and exclude the immediate operation of the Most High; view it simply as a matter of science, and then it becomes a question closely connected with the chemistry of the human frame. Here is a morbific principle, a

germ" of disease, either recently originated, or springing into ac

N. S. NO. 86.

tion after having been for a time unknowable, dormant, or entering into some new combination which gives it unwonted virulence-a germ so prolific as to be capable of spreading itself over the whole habitable world, yet so destructive to the highest order of animal life, as to be capable of depopulating every place which it visits, but for a law, as inexplicable as any other which it develops, and which makes it rather a brief sojourner than a constant resident; so intensive, that no agent which has yet been exhibited can neutralize its power, or ensure the return of animation to the body which it has invaded; and yet what this germ is, or how it was originated, or propagates itself, or travels,* or plants itself in the sources of human vitality, or stops the secretions, or dries up the fluids, no one can explain. We do not say that the key to unlock this mystery, this combination of mysteries, never will be found. We honour, rather than depreciate the efforts which are made for its discovery. we call attention to the fact, that in these days of special" enlightenment," when men of education are becoming too rational to put any faith in a book so full of mys teries as the Bible, a disease has been at work for fourteen years, and in its ravages has carried off fifty millions of the human race, and yet its rationale is as impenetrable to the men of profoundest

But

* We do not deny that the cholera is contagious, but we think that both parties of the disputants, who range on the opposite sides of this controverted question, take but a partial and limited view of the subject. We would, with many deductions for human infirmity in reporting them, take the facts which are adduced on either side, and our argument founded on them would be, that contact with the

incipient and travelling, or the prostrate and suffering subject of the disease, is one, but by no means the only mode of its

transmission.

L

science, and most enlarged experience, as it is to the peasant, or the babe. "What mode of treatment do you recommend, doctor?" was the question put, by a young surgeon who had come from a distant town to make his observations and carry back a report to his professional brethren, to the medical commissioner who had studied the malady in India, before he met it on the banks of the Wear. "You have seen the disease your self, sir, and know as much about it as I do," was the candid reply. Where are the wise? Where are the teachers of the science which is to explode all mysteries, and reduce all knowledge to something like mathematical exactness? are they not foiled, bewildered, and overcome in the field of their triumph and glory? An impervious cloud encompasses the temple of their worship, the wiser oracles are dumb, and those which speak utter discordant and contradictory responses. The stroke of this messenger of God is upon intellectual deities, the gods of philosophical idolatry, as well as upon the grosser vices of the vulgar.

3. It teaches us to feel more deeply a truth we have long pro. fessed to believe, that " in the midst of life we are in death."

We have heard of the rapidity with which disease carries off its victims, and the grave opens for their reception in tropical climates. We have heard of instances in which an invitation to a feast has proved an introduction to a funeral; in which the provision which a man had made for the enjoyment of a banquet with his friends, has been employed as a refreshment for the train of mourners who have followed his corpse to the sepulchre. We have been thankful, while listening to the recital of such cases, that we dwelt in a more temperate region; that

death usually gives, to those around us, a longer period between his warning and his stroke; and that the grave permits the body which we loved to tarry in the chamber, till deliberate arrangements can be made for its obsequies. This disease, however, pays no deference to our customs, and permits no indulgence to the yearnings of our grief over the shroudclad object of our affections. It brings upon us the withering blast without being preceded by the rapid and prolific luxuriance of the tropics-the curse without the attending blessings. It tramples upon us with the fierceness, and remorselessness, unrelieved by the pomp of oriental despotism.

A man is led home from the midst of the jovial companions, and with whom he has been accustomed to spend his evenings, and before the day breaks is sealed a tenant for the tomb. Another, full of muscular vigour and mental firmness, sees the paupers, which are entrusted to his care, falling in rapid succession around him, and resolves that a generous diet shall increase his own security. He eats heartily of the savoury meat which smokes upon his table in the morning, but before the light of a brief November day has departed, the darkness of death surrounds him. Three men, living together in the same house, and working at the same trade, leave their home in the morning to spend a day of their Christmas festivities with the publican; two of them soon feel uneasy, and return; the third remains till night, and when he reaches his dwelling, finds that his companions are dead, and he himself sinks and becomes a corpse before the morrow dawns. A man leaves his family on the opening of one day to transact some business, which calls him to a distance; he returns at the close of the