of salvation? It is a joyful reflection that while | we journey homewards angels are our convoy, and when we leave our mortal tenement angels will be our companions. Much mention is made, in the holy records, of those celestial beings, who, when this world was created, shouted for joy, and who, when the people of the Lord needed succour, flew down with their commissions of mercy, and afforded them aid." reux, "do the obedience of these celestial inhabitants of heaven exhibit to the obedience of sinful man. Alas! man often makes resolves, and in the hour of trial breaks those resolutions: even the obedience of the regenerate is but partial. Sometimes their love is ardent, at others it is lukewarm sometimes they are watchful and diligent, at others they are drowsy at their post. Yet, O joyful consideration! when they join the heavenly "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea," ," hierarchy, they will be privileged to sing a more continued Mary, "mortal ears were privileged to melodious song than even angels; who cannot sing listen to harmonious lays; the shepherds abiding the song that they who are chosen from among in the field, keeping watch over their flock by the sons of men will be privileged triumphantly to night, heard the seraphic strains. O how wel- sing, and that rapturously, around the throne of come must those heavenly sounds have been unto the eternal. Unto him that loved us, and washed the shepherds' ears! No words of terror did they us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made proclaim nothing to strike fear in the human us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to heart was heard from seraphic tongues. Glory him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men,' was the purport of the angelic hymn: 'Sweet it was when angels sang And dawned beneath the cloud; Our footsteps on the road, And lead our souls to God.'" "It is also declared in the records of eternal truth," said Mr. Devereux, "that the angels rejoice over the conversion of a sinner. Those angelic beings, witnessing the conquest of their great Messiah, join their voices in a louder strain, and tune their harps to a more harmonious effect over the conversion of the poorest of created beings, hailing them as their future companions in the world of bliss. On these occasions increasing joy pervades the whole host of heaven, celebrating every victory of the great Redeemer." "We also read," exclaimed Mary, "that, when a believer sleeps in Jesus, angels conduct his spirit to the mansions of glory; and we are likewise told that when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead arise, angels will be commissioned to separate the good from the bad, to divide the wheat from the chaff. They also desire to look into the mysteries of the gospel; yes, those high intelligences endeavour to probe into the wonders of redeeming love, and to penetrate the grand scheme, though they do not require the blood of the Lamb to wash them from sin. Redemption is a theme which the angels delight to contemplate, because it enhances the Saviour's glory, swelling their own souls to exalt his name." Miscellaneous. THE CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, AT PARIS.Through such avenues we threaded our way, half blinded and quite stunned, to the front of the venerable cathedral; an open space, indeed, but more resembling a filthy inn yard than the approach to one of the most famous churches in Christendom, where every kind of filth was allowed to accumulate, and rubbish might be cast, not in secret, but under the great eye of heaven. Not a trace of reverential care gave token of Christian piety or antiquarian sentiment; but the poor old majestic pile, neighboured by dirty cafés and bankrupt-looking shops, seemed left meekly to vindicate its claim of respect before heaven, like Christianity in its earliest days, rising above the scorns and the abuses of the world. I was disappointed in the size of the edifice, having received a shadowy great romance, of which it is the scene; but abundantly notion of an enormous building, from Victor Hugo's recompensed by the sense of dim antiquity which it conveys with more hoary power than any pile which I recollect, not in ruins. Its square grey turrets are the haunts of innumerable birds, former generations of whom have shivered away the crumbling stones, for their posterity to "make their bed and procreant cradle in ;" and the low archways, over the humble portals beneath them, seemed carved out of wood which has been charred by the action of fire. The interior is naked and gloomy, and struck us with a Paris, the Madeleine, which we visited the next day, vault-like chillness. How different from the pride of elevated on broad platforms of steps, a huge Grecian building of white stone, like an Athenian temple without, like a gaudy music-room within! The interior is still unfinished; but all glowing with purple and gold, without shadow, without repose, shows that in its perfection it will be a miracle of French art raised to French glory. For such a gew-gaw as this do the Parisians neglect their own holy cathedral; but no wonder self is ever rebuked before the embodied presence of ages: Notre Dame is the grave of vanity, the Madeleine will be its throne-Sergeant Talfourd's Vacation Rambles. "Moreover, the angels," ejaculated the pastor, "rejoice to do the will of God: their obedience is not mixed up with disobedience, or their holiness with sin: their zeal never waxes feeble, their love never diminishes: these spirits are good and untainted; their joys, likewise, are unsullied; their peace is undisturbed. Kingdoms may be overthrown, and the world come to an end; but the angels will still drink the fountain of God's London: Published for the Proprietors, by EDWARDS love, and be happy in the presence of the Deity. and HUGHES, 12, Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be Ages may roll away; but still, in unbroken feli-procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country. city, they will strike their golden harps, and tune them to Immanuel's praise.' "O! what a contrast," continued Mr. Deve PRINTED BY JOSEPH ROGERSON, 24, NORFOLK-STREET, STRAND, LONDON. LEBANON. (Lebanon.) LEBANON is an extensive range of limestone mountains, extending in a kind of crescent from the neighbourhood of Sidon on the west to the vicinity of Damascus eastward. It is distinguished into two principal ridges parallel to each other: the most westerly is known by the name of Libenus; while the opposite or eastern range is called AntiLibenus. Between them is the long valley of Cælesyria, or Hollow Syria, termed in Josh. xi. 17" the valley of Lebanon.' The highest elevation of these mountains is to the south-east of Tripoli. The Orontes, which flows from the mountains of Damascus, and loses itself in the sea below Antioch; the Kasmia, which VOL. XXV. from the north of Balbec takes its course towards Tyre; the Jordan, which sends its waters to the south-all prove the altitude of the region from which they rise. The loftiest point is termed the Sannin, and from it the horizon seems well-nigh boundless; the sight being lost over the desert, which stretches towards the Persian gulf, and over the sea which washes the coasts of Palestine and Syria. A different temperature, of course, prevails in different parts of this mountain; whence the expression of the Arabian poets that "the Sannin bears winter on his head, spring upon his shoulders, and autumn in his bosom, while summer lies sleeping at his feet." Its height is stated to be 9,520 feet. We find Lebanon frequently referred to in scrip2 F ture-very generally for the cedars which abounded there, but which are now reduced to a very small proportion. Of this tree an account has been given in No. 458 of the Magazine. : mon says, The mountains of Lebanon are by no means barren, but are both well cultivated and well peopled their summits are in many parts level, and form extensive plains, on which grow corn and various kinds of pulse. They are watered by rivulets and streams, which diffuse a freshness and fertility in the most elevated regions. Hence Solo"A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon" (Cant. iv. 15). Vineyards and plantations of mulberry, olive, and fig trees are found on terraces formed by human labour; while the soil of the declivities and hollows is most excellent, and produces abundance of corn and oil and wine, as celebrated now as in the days of the ancient prophet (see Hosea xiv. 5-7). THE GREAT EPIDEMIC. AT a period when it can no longer be doubtful that the scourge of all nations, Asiatic cholera, has actually touched our shores, and when, naturally, the probability of its extension and fatality occupies much of the attention both of the learned and unlearned, I have thought a sketch of its history in the years 1831-32 likely to prove both of value and of interest to many of my readers. I believe that many false and erroneous ideas connected with this terrible visitation of divine Providence are abroad. Some of these are comparatively harmless; but others demand exposure, lest, if the disease develop its awful proportions in the midst of us, we should be found on the one hand lulled into a dangerous apathy, or, on the other, terrified into an almost more dangerous panic. The disease does undoubtedly lose many of its terrors, when its aspect, character, and symptoms of approach are calmly considered; but when we remember its fearful fatality, amounting in some instances to one in two attacked by it, and look back upon its wide and long career, overstrewn with the bodies of many millions of our fellow-men, the mere rumcur of its proximity, how much more the actuality of its presence, call for the exercise of the most energetic precautions, and, as voices from the dead, speak in solemn accents to every individual in the community, "Set thine house in order; for thou mayest die." The chain of natural causes which were set in motion by Him whose sore scourge this pestilence is, to give birth to a disease so strong and fearful as Asiatic cholera, cannot be discovered; and, until more is known of the nature of the poison, cannot even be conjectured. It has been sought in the prevalence of an unusual degree of moisture in the district of Hindostan, which brought the monster forth, giving an unusual activity to the process of vegetable decomposition in those burning regions. The supposition, however, is valueless, save as a plausible cloak to our actual ignorance on the subject. The science of a future age may unfold the mystery; but, until this is so, the best wisdom is to confess the completest ignoWhat the air-poison arose from, or what rance. its nature is, we cannot tell; but we know the hand that infused it into the great atmosphere, and has directed its course; and truly to know this is the best, and beginning of other, wisdom. It appears, then, that in the month of August, 1817, a new and terrible malady broke out at Jessore, the capital of the Sunderbunds, in India, a large city, distant about fifty or sixty miles from Calcutta. Its character is painted in the deepest colours. Hundreds fell victims to its deadly arm in a brief space of time: men were stricken suddenly by the invisible enemy, fell to the ground, and in a few hours claimed the communion, dust to dust. The brahmin and the pariah fell alike before its march. An universal panic seized the whole city: the shops were closed, the courts of justice were void of applicants, and all public and private business was wholly paralyzed. The districts round about the city were full of terrified people, endeavouring, with a vain haste, to fly from the power of the pest. In a few weeks the pestilence numbered ten thousand victims. From this time and place cholera extended itself. It clung to the muddy margins of the Ganges, and crept up its tributary streams, carrying terror and death in its route. As the tide of pestilence thus rolled over India, it fell in with the grand army under the marquis of Hastings. Cholera here showed its full powers; and the fighting men who had escaped death in battles, and braved dangers and difficulties of the most arduous kinds, sank like little children in the giant's arms. In five days five thousand men fell, not by the sword, nor at the cannon's mouth, but smitten with this unconquerable disease. Such was cholera in its birth and infancy-a disease of inexplicable origin, and of an unparalleled swiftness and mortality. It was not long in enveloping the whole of the immense region of Hindostan. From hence it invaded the Mauritius, Ceylon, China, Persia, Arabia, Russia, Poland, Prussia, and Austria, and, on the thirtyfirst day of August, 1831, cholera reached Berlin, descended the Elbe, and on the seventh of October, in the same year, it made its appearance at Hamburgh. Returning from this rapid, and necessarily imperfect survey of its dread itinerary, several singular circumstances marked its career. Of these the most extraordinary was one that took place in India. A female, daubed and painted in a frightful manner, with a frantic wildness in her face and gestures, and her black hair streaming over her shoulders, suddenly made her appearance in the streets of the city, and declared herself the Avatar-fiend of the pestilence. Mounting an empty car, with a sword in one hand and incense vessel in the other, she proceeded through the streets, accompanied by a crowd of half madmen, with musical instruments, who filled the panicstruck streets with their horrid and discordant notes. Crowds of terrified people accompanied the procession, at the end of which was a long train of empty carts, compelled to join in by the ferocious bearing and threats of the woman. The inhabitants of the city came to their doors, and were filled with fear and trembling; and the wildest panic was overspreading the devoted spot, when the authorities suddenly pounced upon the wretched pseudo-goddess, locked her up in prison, and in a very short time routed the entire proces- | sion. Nevertheless, a settled gloom filled every heart, and the dreaded pestilence soon rose to an unusual degree of violence, attacking, among its earliest victims, the unhappy woman herself. In Persia it also proved very deadly twenty peasants, in prime of life, and in the fullest physical vigour, were seized by it, and ere the morrow's sun not one was left alive. At Shiraz it was met with great alarm: salvos of artillery shook the sky all day long assembled multitudes shouted into the clear but fatal air: gongs were incessantly beaten, and trumpets sounded aloud; but the pestilence was not to be frightened away, and soon hushed the tumultuous city into the stillness of death. The Turkish army was shut up and besieged in a fortified town; but the cholera fell upon the enemies, and in a little while the besieged were set free by its means. Such anecdotes might be multiplied beyond measure; but these suffice to show some of its most terrible dealings with the human race. It is calculated that in Hindostan it slew one-sixth of the whole population; in Persia a similar number; and in several of the chief cities of Arabia one-third of the people fell before it. Up to the period of which I am about to speak more particularly, the middle of the year 1831, it has been calculated that cholera had destroyed fifty millions of our fellowcreatures, or a sixteenth part of the entire population of the globe. Can this be so? and will men yet declare that this overflowing scourge is simply a product of some singular and accidental combination of natural events, and pronounce the opinion, which refers its origin to the solemn chastening of an outraged and offended God, a pious error, unworthy of an enlightened age? The progress of cholera, as may well be imagined, was watched with intense anxiety by the countries which appeared to lie in its probable route; and the state of public feeling in England was raised to a point of great excitement, when the announcement of its having reached Hamburgh was made. All vessels from the latter seaport were placed under strict quarantine. Some idea of the feelings of many, in the prospect of this visitation, may be gathered from the following extravagant recommendations, put forth in one of the most powerful and best informed of the trimonthly reviews. The wealthy were advised to fly with the utmost precipitation from the town or city immediately that it became infected, and to commit the keys of their dwellings to the magistrates. Lazarettoes out of town were recommended as the resort of families: the dwellings of those who were compelled to remain were to be thoroughly disfurnished, with the exception of a few apartments: a domestic infirmary was to be made of the drawing-room, and an apothecary's store of the pantry: no one was to leave the house, nor any to enter: the necessary supplies of food and drink were to be obtained by hoisting them up in an iron basket from the upper windows of the dwelling; and all were to undergo a thoroughly disinfecting process before being used by members of the family. Clergy men, medical men, nurses, commissaries, and sextons were to live apart from the rest of the community; and the attendants on the sick were to be clad in raiment of oil-skin from head to foot, and to wear a double handkerchief over the lower part of the face. The proclamation of the General Board in some degree sanctioned these extreme views of the danger. They advised the house where a cholera patient was taken ill to be branded with the word "sick," in large letters on the door; and, when even the poor invalid had been removed, the word "caution" was to take its place. This proclamation, written apparently in haste, and betraying a manifest indecision of character as to the malady itself, was posted up in every markethall in the kingdom, and contributed not a little to swell the full tide of alarm which was rising in Britain. London was placarded in every direction with bills relating to the disease; and a complete cholera-panic was created. Much the same degree of fear pervaded France; and, long before cholera had reached this island, in the Chamber of Deputies, at Paris, an attendant was appointed to water the floors at intervals with solutions of chloride of lime; and, as he passed, more than one member would hold out his hand for the drops to fall upon, in the belief that they were adopting a valuable precaution against the risk of infection. At various places on the continent, rigid sanitary cordons were appointed, consisting of a line of soldiers drawn round any infected city, so as to hem the inhabitants and the disease into one spot. The roads were constantly patrolled, and the most vigilant efforts made to cut off the possibility of communicating the disease by any one leaving an unhealthy spot for another. Letters and newspapers and packets transmitted from one country to another were perforated and washed in vinegar. One newspaper at St. Petersburgh assured its readers that they need not fear infection from their paper, as it was well fumigated before it was sent, the manifest absurdity of the proceeding never seeming to have entered into the editor's mind. Although it may be reasonably questioned whether this alarm, in spite of the precautions it caused to be taken, was not productive of more harm than good, yet it is also certain that it was the parent of a vast number of most valuable sanitary measures. Local boards of health were formed in various towns, and a rigid inspection of the sources of disease in the habitations of the poor and squalid was set on foot. Active cleansing measures were likewise adopted; and in some of the most wretched districts in east London so great an improvement was effected that it was publicly declared that the places were so clean as scarcely to be recognized. One of the most useful of these organizations was that of the ladies' committee, who by their strenuous efforts raised large sums for the relief of the poor, and purchased many thousands of blankets for distribution among them. Dispensaries for the supply of medicine to the poor, stricken with the disease, were likewise opened; and cholera hospitals were formed. Visiting parties also went from house to house among the poor, and urged upon them the duty and safety of personal and domestic cleanliness. Much good was thus effected, and a state of preparation existed which we can scarcely parallel at the present time. Cholera now raged at Hamburgh. It found its first victims in a horrid hole, called the Deep Cellar; a place of resort for poverty and filth of all pressing conditions which predispose to it existed in greatest abundance. The excitement at this period in London can scarcely be conceived, and was not less among the community at large than among the members of the medical profession, now called to deal with a foe against whom their powers had as yet been untried. Beginning at Limehouse, and then attacking successively Rotherhithe, the Mint, Lambeth, and Chelsea, cholera overspread the metropolis next in the direction of its breadth. The aspect of the Thames at this time was melancholy in the extreme: business was at a complete stand-still; and the commerce of the greatest city in the world was altogether suspended. All this was owing to the quarantine regulations. On the 18th of May, London was declared whole again; and the heavy and useless fetters which had bound commercial enterprise were struck off; but, as the year 1832 advanced, cholera again appeared, and raged violently for some weeks during the summer months; but in September it took wing, and disappeared almost entirely, leaving, however, apparently seeds of the disease behind, which, every year since that time, have matured and brought forth their scattered fruit. The close of this eventful year witnessed its entire departure from England. On the whole, its visitation upon us proved far less severe than had been expected, and was not to be compared with the awful manner in which it visited many cities of the continent, and Paris in particular, where, in 283 days, 20,300 persons died from it. At its first entry into Paris, on the 30th of March, it fell upon 178 individuals in one night. Ultimately it proved so fatal in this city that terrible riots broke out among the people, who feared their poor companions in the hos pitals were actually being poisoned. Although the cholera dispersed the chamber of deputies, and thus dissolved the French parliament, it was powerless to break up balls and routs, or to empty the walls of the numerous theatres. At length this terrible disease quitted Europe; and from that time until the present, while its name has been a cause of terror every where, its actual presence has only lately manifested itself, and, the truth must be told, its fatality has not been diminished by age. kinds, moral and material. Hence it spread | left bank of the Thames, where indeed the desteadily among the lower orders, and the mortality soon rose to an alarming extent. Public meetings were convened, shops were closed, and business was partially suspended. Hitherto England had escaped; yet what might be called the skirts of the advancing shower were felt amongst us. At Sunderland severe attacks of a prostrating diarrhoea had occurred all the summer: in other places dysentery and English cholera prevailed; and typhus fever desolated many places. A similar experience was found also on the continent. The crest of the heavy plague-tide seemed to fly before it, and announce its approach. Just three weeks after it had entered Hamburgh cholera entered England; and the first fatal case occurred at Sunderland, on the 26th of October, 1831. A government commissioner was immediately despatched to the spot, with the view of ascertaining the reality of the report. The greatest unwillingness to acknowledge that the disease bad in truth come upon us was manifested; and the mind of the people was kept for some period in a state of the most harassing and painful uncertainty. Another and another victim fell, and yet all were willing to believe what they so much wished to be true that we were still unharmed by the pestilence. It was said that some vessels from Hamburgh had broken through quarantine, and thus brought the disease into the country; but it turned out that the crews of the suspected ships were every one perfectly healthy. An abominable system of feeding the poor existed in Sunderland: they were contracted for at public auction, and the lowest bidder was the winner of the unhappy lot. Cholera aid hands upon these poor starvelings, and slew them with ease and awful frequency. Reluctantly, one by one, every doubt was banished; and on the 5th of November the leading journal of the day announced to the whole kingdom that cholera was upon us at last. Great agitation pre vailed; and it was even proposed in parliament to surround the infected spot with a line of troops, or, in other words, to adopt the continental system of cordons. In answer to the proposition, it was stated that an army of not less than from 20,000 to 30,000 men would be necessary to effect this end. Upon this and other grounds the plan was rejected. Sunderland daily lost more and more of her inhabitants under this fell disease; but, as yet, no instance of its occurrence elsewhere was reported. This immunity was short. Newcastle next felt the power of the pestilence; and there, beginning in isolated instances, it shortly reached its full proportions. Afterwards came the attack upon North and South Shields, Seaham, and Gateshead; and by successive irruptions it spread northward into Scotland, and southward into England. In one district in the north, within the space of twelve hours the swift-winged malady overspread an area of two miles' diameter. At length the great metropolis felt the destroyer's touch; and in February a few scattered instances occurred in the Pool. Steadily the numbers rose as the victims fell; and, as is the universal observation, those who were already debilitated by drunkenness and dirt were the earliest and most desperate class of sufferers. Its ravages were most serious ou the It is a singular fact, and one that has much occupied the thoughts of those who have investigated the cause of the disease, that extraordinary atmospheric phenomena have accompanied its progress. At St. Vincent's, in 1831, there occurred the most terrible tornado known for many years. At Constantinople, on the 10th October, in the same year, there was a most fearful hailstorm, accompanied with the precipitation of great lumps of ice, as weighty as, it is reported, to have broken even the tiles on the roofs of the houses. Similar phenomena are reported in various other districts. But the most remarkable is one which was discovered by Dr. Prout; and the notice of which will be found in the "Bridgewater Treatise" of that philosopher. Having been for some * We were ourselves in Paris a year or two afterwards, and were assured by an eminent physician, to whom the superintendence of a district was assigned, that but a small proportion of the deaths that actually occurred was acknowledged by the authorities.—ED. |