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The music and the mirth of kings
Are out of tune, unless she sings.
Then close thine eyes in peace, and sleep secure-
No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest so sure.

Miscellaneous.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE CUTCHEES.-They are simple in their habits of life; their common food is rice, parched grain, or a few vegetables cooked with a little ghee, and eaten with cakes of coarse flour; the better sort of people sometimes indulge in curry and sweetmeats. They profess themselves waterdrinkers, but are really addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors, which they distil in all the villages from various vegetable productions. They drink also freely of toddy, which is procured in large quantities from the date and the cocoa-nut palm. Opium is prepared by them, and used, both as kusumba and in its simple state, in large quantities. It seems less injurious, however, than the Turkish drug, and its effects are less perceptible. The men carry the opium in little boxes about their persons, and take it at all times. With this means of refreshment they are capable of great fatigue, and can journey long and rapidly without food, smoking as they go, and stopping only for a draught of water from the numerous wells. The Cutchees appear to feel respect for the European character, and are obliging in their intercourse with us. Amongst other notions of our superiority, they believe us all to be astrologers and doctors. In both astrology and medicine, however, they have their adepts; and great men never hazard a journey without choosing a favourable conjunction of the planets for their departure. There are no fewer than thirty-five hakeems or medicos in the city of Bhooj; but, unluckily for their fever-patients, not one Sangrado amongst them all. In this strait the sufferers apply to a carpenter, who has somewhere learned the art of phlebotomy, and operates on them with a phleme. They are equally at a loss for dentists; and the absence of a polished key is remedied by the use of a bent and rusty nail, urged against the offending tooth by an unskilled practitioner. Not one of the sciences, either curious or useful, is known, even in its simplest elements, to these poor people; yet they shew a desire for information, when one wiser than themselves excites their curiosity, which might, ably directed, prove a channel for their general improvement. As it is, they evince that simple result of ignorance so common in uncivilised minds, the confounding of great and small things with reference to the superior dignity of the former. The remains of many specimens of great beauty prove the Cutchees to have early possessed considerable proficiency in some of the arts, especially those of carving, sculpture, and design. I have already remarked on the delicate skill of the goldsmiths, armorers, and embroiderers; and it is calculated to excite surprise, that, uninformed as the Cutchees are, and unacquainted, by reason of their local position, as they must be, with the arts practised in other more civilised provinces, they should yet prove such excellent workmen. A view, however, of the general policy of Indian rulers, which has its influence in Cutch as elsewhere, explains this apparent difficulty. It was originally decreed, that only particular castes of men should practise particular arts, and that the exercise of these vocations should descend from generation to generation. In obedience to this law, the members of each family are trained to one art, in which they gain unusual expertness, and are enabled to produce articles of unequalled beauty.-Mrs. Postans's Sketches.

AUSTRALIA.-Persons acquainted with the colony of New South Wales twelve or fourteen years ago could not but remark, at the present time, a great change in its aspect. This was, in a great measure,

attributable to the number of respectable persons who had arrived on its shores, bringing with them the moral restrictions and principles of their native land, thus infusing life through the body of the population. The number of ministers who had come had also tended, in a remarkable degree, to a change, which was converting the land to a land of the living. Another cause was the establishment of schools for youth. The great proportion of the inhabitants who, until within a few years, were given up to matters connected with their physical existence, now seemed more devoted to the cultivation of their moral faculties, to which good effect the press had, no doubt, by its influence, in some degree contributed.-Sydney Gazette, Oct. 6, 1838.

ST. ETHELDREDA'S CHAPEL, ELY PLACE, HOLBORN. This beautiful chapel, which was formerly attached to the palace of the bishops of Ely, in Holborn, has been an important place of worship for upwards of five hundred years, the date assigned to the building being the year 1320. It is still in excellent preservation, and has remarkably rich eastern and western windows. Several distinguished prelates have preached in the chapel, and some have been consecrated within its walls. The last consecration which took place here was that of Dr. Edmund Keene, bishop of Chester, on March 22, 1752. He afterwards became bishop of Ely; and during his time, in the year 1772, the estate, including the chapel, was alienated from the see for a certain consideration, taken into the hands of the crown, and sold, Until the reign of King George III. the bishop's palace, which stood on the site of Ely Place, had been the constant town-residence of the bishops of Ely. Several of these prelates died here. Hollinshed states, that John of Gaunt, after the destruction of his palace in the Savoy by the mob, resorted to Ely Palace, Holborn, where he died in 1399. The garden, where Hatton Garden now stands, produced the fine strawberries praised by the tyrant Richard, who asked Bishop Morton for a "mess" of them on the morning of Lord Hastings's murder. It also abounded in roses in the reign of Elizabeth, who bestowed it on Christopher Hatton, her chancellor, much to the concern and annoyance of the bishops; they losing thereby a comfortable residence in the metropolis, at a time when their state duties, as well as those of an ecclesiastical nature, required a near attendance on the court. The exemplary and gifted John Evelyn records his satisfaction at witnessing in this chapel, on the 27th of April 1693, the marriage of his beloved daughter Susannah to Mr. Draper. The service was performed by Dr. Tenison, bishop of Lincoln, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. Evelyn, after decribing her as beautiful, learned, accomplished, and good, says, "This character is due to her, though coming from her father." Good Queen Anne, when Princess of Denmark, wrote to Dr. Turner, bishop of Ely (one of the seven bishops), requesting him to secure her a place in his chapel on the following Sunday afternoon, that she might hear Bishop Ken (of Bath and Wells) "expound." In the year 1820 the chapel was presented to the National Society by the treasurer of that institution.-Ecclesiastical Gazette.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

All Parnassus is in motion. We must entreat our poetical friends to give us a little respite.

London: Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Laue, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country.

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THE CHRISTIAN LAW OF HONOURING ALL MEN.

BY THE REV. THOMAS ENGLAND, M.A. Chaplain of Parkhurst Institution, Isle of Wight. AMONG the many and inestimable blessings which Christianity affords, I regard as not the least the new sentiments with which it teaches man to look upon his fellow-beings; the new light in which it places each individual in the eyes of his fellows; the new interest which it awakens in us towards every thing human; the new information which it gives to the soul and the body: and this beneficial change is to be accomplished in no small measure by revealing to men their own nature and prospects, and teaching them to honour all who partake them. But, it may be asked, Is it the fact that it is the character of the disciples of Jesus Christ, and of those only, that they hold in true honour their fellow-men? Is the sentiment of respect and love for man confined to the recipients of the Gospel? Is not the belonging to a common nature; is not the being creatures of the same God; is not the being exposed to the same wantsthe being oppressed with the same infirmities-the being inhabitants of the same uncertain and trying world,-an effective bond of union, a sufficient source of honour and respect among mankind? Is not the fact, that they are all intelligent, and sometimes highly gifted, beings, endowed with reason, and intellect, and imagination, itself a source of constant friendship and honour? Surely men need not be commanded to put on that character, which we should expect would be their habitual distinction; surely it did not

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require the teaching of the Son of God to raise the sentiments of true honour between

man and man? Let men appeal to facts and experience for an answer; and if we appeal to facts, and look to experience, we shall find it too true, that it did require such teaching when St. Peter pronounced," Honour all men;" and that even in the advanced period in which we live, it does yet require such teaching to enable men to live in true honour and respect one towards another.

It is true that we are partakers of a common nature; but it is a ruined and debased nature. We are creatures of the same God; but it is only to turn away from him, to forget him, and virtually to deny him. We are intelligent and highly gifted beings; but it is too often only to turn those things which should have been for our good into an occasion of falling. Hence the things which we possess in common, so far from breeding a common bond of esteem and honour, only serve to bring our race under one broad and universal charge of sin and ungodliness. Those countries, which have always been nearest to what we are accustomed to call a state of nature, are not in the state in which man was first created, but that to which he has been reduced by sin. If we look at these heathen nations, what shall we find? We shall see that their life, instead of being a life of mutual honour, is a life of constant enmity and bloodshed. Their fellow-men, instead of being the objects of their affectionate interest, are objects of their hostility, their cunning, their deceit, and their cruelty. The Scripture faithfully describes them, when it says, "They are without natural affection, implacable, un

[London: Robson, Levey, and Franklyn, 46 St. Martin's Lane.]

X

merciful." Among them the helpless children and the aged parents are often exposed in the wilderness to perish with hunger, or become the prey of wild beasts.

Or, if we leave such degraded beings, and take our specimens of human nature from countries more happily circumstanced, which have made some progress in the arts that adorn humanity, and in the knowledge which ennobles it, here we see, that verily there is a power and a wisdom in man; and we notice the extent of the understanding which the Almighty hath given him; we admire the exercise of his reason, and the vivacity of his imagination, and the extent of his intellectual powers; we acknowledge that there are, indeed, remnants left of the image of God wherein he was originally made; but still, alas, we cannot fail to perceive, that amidst all this mental richness the pure affections of the soul are still wanting, the fountains of real charity remain still dried up; and that all the glorious qualities of the human mind fail to bring their possessors to the esteem of their fellows, to the exercise of pure and practical benevolence.

Let those who would disparage the influence of Christianity over the human mind, consider the public histories of the civilised nations of antiquity; let them study the character of the old Greeks and Romans, before they say, that man, with his own powers and faculties, is sufficiently endowed with all he wants to enable him to fulfil his duty both to his God and to his neighbour. The civilised nations of antiquity,-high as they were in mental cultivation; splendid as are the fruits of their genius, in oratory, in poetry, and in the arts,-form a striking contrast, even in outward appearance, to the state of a Christianised land. They had laws, truly, to protect society against some crimes and offences; they devised means for the punishment of some criminals-for otherwise the bonds of all society would have been loosed; but they possessed no effective institutions for the prevention of wickedness and vice. How, indeed, should they, when they had no adequate conception of what wickedness was, when they knew not the true nature of sin? The whole of their land's population, from the philosopher to the slave, dealt in practices the most revolting, in inconsistencies the most gross. So true is it, that, after all that philosophy had disclosed, after all that learning had achieved, it still remained for the Son of God himself to gather around him a peculiar people, whose very distinction it should be, that they should have love one to another, as he had loved them; and if we appeal to facts and experience in this our own day, even in this Christian land, we

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shall find that practical and effectual benevolence still remains the peculiar property of those who are personally influenced by Christian motives and Christian love.

There is, indeed, some degree of honour and esteem among worldly men—some degree of benevolence exerted by mere nominal Christians; nor could it be well otherwise than that beings, fitted by moral feelings and correct worldly motives, endowed with reason, and a strong principle of imitating what they see in others, should do many acts of Christian duty, when they are surrounded by those who live under the influence of the Holy Ghost, although they themselves are not influenced by Christian motives. And even should it be instanced, that there are many beautiful and lovely specimens of our imperfect nature, who are of high and honourable character, of manly elevation, and also of lovely and amiable dispositions, who do good to their fellows, and mingle their compassions and their charities with the unfortunate, and yet do not come under the appellation of saints, it will be acknowledged, that the amiability and humanity of these people, their honour, and respect, and kindly feelings for their fellows, extend no farther than to their bodies and minds, look not beyond the present life, have no regard to the souls of their fellows. Alas! these fine specimens of our race scarcely look to their own souls: they esteem and pamper their bodies; they make gods of their minds; but for their souls they have little concern.

I have now instanced the most beautiful specimens of the unrenewed man to be found in society. If we look at the great mass, we shall see multitudes who are constantly on the watch to ensnare and to ruin; who entrap the unwary for their fortunes, and yet maintain their stations of honour in worldly society; who in all cases of mutual intercourse consider only how their neighbours may be made useful to their private interests; who pursue all those tolerated artifices, and that legalised system of fraud, which pervade almost the whole mass of mercantile society. If we regard, in a word, the every-day transactions of life, as they are commonly carried on in the world, we shall see whether he who sees the world, sees it actuated with good motives, and glowing with true social affections; or whether he beholds it wrapt up in selfishness, and dead to the real welfare of others.

Men of the world generally value others in proportion as they may be benefited by them, or may have their own interests and convenience promoted. Beyond that point, they are careless and indifferent to them, thinking little of their present good, and still

less of their never-dying souls, and their eternal salvation.

On these grounds it may be said, that however reasonable it might seem, however it might be expected, that they who are endowed with a common understanding, and gifted with intellectual faculties, and dwell in one common habitation, should universally be influenced by mental respect and honour, -such is not really the fact: and we see thereby the indescribable benefits of the blessed Gospel. The disposition which man so utterly wanted in himself; and the immortality which would make him precious in the eyes of his fellows, Christ has given him; and the Holy Ghost waits to engraft it in the hearts of all those who accept the gift, and come unto the Father by Christ. By the divine plan, founded by the triune Jehovah for the redemption of mankind, we observe, that not only new feelings, new tempers, and new dispositions, are implanted in the hearts of our race; but also that men are placed before the eyes of their fellows in a new light. In his natural state, there is little in man to lead his neighbour to honour and respect him; but Christianity comes in and alters his whole appearance, both by renewing his heart, and bringing forth to the view of his fellows his never-dying soul.

Those whom God so loved, "that he gave his only-begotten Son, that all who believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" those whom Christ so loved, "that he left the bosom of the Father, and the glory which he had enjoyed from the beginning, that he might know and save them who were lost, and give his life a ransom for many;"-these appear to the eye of a renewed creature in a most important and interesting light.

Christianity gives us the true reason why men should be loved; for He hath loved them who is the source and fountain of all love : we are to love one another because He hath first loved us.

Biography.

THE LIFE OF THE REV. HENRY SCOUGAL, M.A.* THE father of the excellent man who is the subject of the present memoir was Mr. Patrick Scougal, for some time minister at Salton, and subsequently Bishop of Aberdeen, which station he held for more than twenty years from the Restoration. His wife was Margaret Wemyss, the daughter of a gentleman in Fife: their progeny was three sons and two daughters. John, the elder son, was commissary of Aberdeen; and was succeeded in that office by his youngest brother James, who did not retain the commissariate, but sold it to Mr. Robert Paterson; and then was appointed one of

• See Bishop Burnet's Preface to Scougal's Works; and a Sermon at his funeral, by George Gairden, D.D.

the senators of the College of Justice, by the title of Lord Whitehill. The elder of the two daughters, Catharine, married Alexander Scrogie, bishop of Argyle; and the younger was united to Patrick Sibbald, one of the ministers of Aberdeen. Henry Scougal was the second son.

From his childhood

he made great progress in learning of every kind; and at the age of fifteen went to the university for the usual course of four years' study. So high was his reputation as a scholar, that he had scarcely finished his duties as an academical pupil, when he was summoned to the honourable station of a professor, the functions of which he discharged for four years, until he entered holy orders, to serve God in a more immediate relation than he had hitherto done. The preparation so necessary for him, who is to "seek for Christ's sheep that are scattered abroad in the midst of this naughty world," had been fully gone through by Mr. Scougal. From his very infancy he manifested a character suited to the sacred office he was to hold. His father, having from the first intended him for the ministry, had watched the progress of his disposition, and had the happiness of discovering a growing meetness for the sacred station his son was to occupy. As a lad, he was singularly grave and thoughtful, and little addicted to those pursuits, which, however harmless, most children are taken up with., Boyish diversions had little charm for him; and when other lads were taken up with them, he would withdraw himself from them, and engage in reading, prayer, and serious reflection. This abstraction of himself from puerile pursuits did not proceed from ill humour or dulness, but from a peculiar solidity of disposition, which made trifling pursuits uncongenial to the bent of his disposition. A Christian poet has said, that

"A flower when offer'd in the bud

Is no mean sacrifice."

Such was the tribute which this excellent man presented to the "God of his life" in his youth, the early beginnings and first blossoms of which, no less than its more mature periods, were tinctured with piety.

He evinced at an early period an inquisitiveness about sacred things; sometimes expressing his wonder (as children are wont to say, "I wonder") why altars, and sacrifices, and other ceremonies, were not still in use as in the days of the Mosaic law; at other times, he would employ himself in imitations of various parts of divine service― preaching, and such like, which shewed how strong was his bent towards the employments of the sanctuary. This childish fondness for the "cutside" of religion was not all; he read the Bible with interest; and when he was once seriously reflecting on his future course of life, what it should be, and anxious that it might be of a sort that would advance his own salvation, while he was musing, he took up the Bible; and though he did not allow himself in the practice (which is with some persons a favourite one) of opening the Bible, and fixing their minds on the first text that presents itself, and then persuading themselves that that passage is God's message sent expressly to them at that moment, a habit which savours of fanaticism and presumption; yet he could not but take notice of the words on which his eyes first lighted, nor fail to be impressed

by them; they were the words found at Psalm cxix. 9: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto, according to thy word." His memory was very remarkable; and its powers were shewn in his being able to repeat several verses that had occurred in the daily reading of the Scriptures, and in calling them to his remembrance some time afterwards, when the passage was referred to; and he could give a general outline of any sermon he had heard, and describe its main drift; whereas most children can only carry away with them particular sentences, without having any idea of the address of the minister as a whole.

I alluded above to his habit of retiring from the company of the lads about him of his own age, for more serious pursuits: and, as a proof that it did not arise from sullenness of character, he would not leave their society for mere solitude, but for that of more mature minds. His father would often receive at his house ministers of serious piety; and he was seen to prefer their society, and to listen with attention while they were talking on religious and other weighty topics. He also gave early symptoms of a greatness of mind, and of a perception of what was grand in human character and accomplishment; for instance, in learning Latin and reading the Roman history, he would retire with those of his schoolmates who had the best abilities; and having composed little orations, after the idea of those in the history, he would act the part of the Roman senator, and "speak the speech." In learning generally he made unusual progress. Of Latin he became master so as to read and write it with elegance; and in Greek, Hebrew, and some other eastern languages, he became a considerable proficient; as well as in history, geometry, and the other parts of mathematical study. Logic, too, he studied with effect, for he had a good head and clear judgment; and so early did his taste for that subtle but improving study shew itself, that, when in his boyhood, he overheard some young men, who had lately gone to the university, discussing some points connected with that art, he caught up quickly from their conversation the nature of a syllogism, and could with ease construct one upon any subject that was given him.

Such was his disposition, and such the development of his mind and heart at that early period of his life; and, whilst we must refer this moral and mental proficiency to the blessing of God, sent in answer to the prayers of his anxious parent; yet, as far as second causes were concerned, it was due to his father's judicious care; and is calculated to animate any parent in the discharge of his duty towards his child. Never let him "force" the character of a child; never let him destine that child for a line of life requiring qualities of mind and heart that do not seem to be possessed by the child; and least of all, let him resolve to "make a parson" of a boy that has but a dull capacity, and furnishes no tokens of being a subject of God's grace. By such predestinings as these, our Church has suffered much, it is to be feared, in times past. Many a clergyman has thus been inflicted on a parish for a series of years, without one of the qualifications that belong to a "good minister of Jesus Christ;" and the life of the individual thus thrust into the sacred office has been made unhappy, either by the expe

rience of his own unprofitableness, or by the felt uncongeniality of the duties of the sanctuary to his habits and faculties. Let every father shun the responsibility that will rest on his own head, if he thus "doom" the son to the Church, or the Church to receive the son, if they be mutually unsuited: but when he has carefully watched the gradual unfoldings of character; if, from what he sees of his heart and head, he has good ground to perceive, with Eli of old, that the "Lord hath called the child," then, but not otherwise, let him, like the aged prophet, direct the child to remain tranquil amid the studies appropriate to a future minister, until that more mature period of life, when, if circumstances shall shew that God persists in the summons, he may say with confidence, as Samuel was instructed to say, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." When a fitness of this kind, spiritual, moral, and intellectual, has grown with the growth of the possessor, no candidate need shrink from replying to the question which meets him at the threshold of his approach to the ministry-" Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office and ministration-to serve God for the promoting of his glory, and the edifying of his people?"

"But the path of the just' (writes his biographer, Dr. Gairden,) is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' These were the early dawnings of piety and goodness, which appeared in him in those first years of his age, before he came to this corner of our land, and there became still more manifest and apparent. When his improvements had now fitted him for the university, he here gave further proofs of a pious disposition and a capacious understanding. He was far removed from those levities and foolish customs, those little animosities and strifes, which the inconsiderate youth are sometimes guilty of; but was even then grave and staid in his deportment, as was observed by all, yet free and unaffected. The learning that was then in fashion, though he saw quite through it, yet it did not satisfy his understanding; nor could he perceive its use, save to wrangle pro and con about any thing. He was desirous to dive into the nature of things, and not be involved into a strife of hard words, and a maze of nice distinctions: and therefore, by his own proper industry and private study, he became, even then, master of that philosophy which has now got such footing in the world; besides a singular proficiency he made in the several parts of mathematics, in history, and other human learning. But he was always careful to beware of any philosophy, or falɛe knowledge, that was apt to have a bad influence on the mind, and debauch the spirit, as to a right sense of God and religion; and never suffered himself to be tainted in the least with such. And there was nothing that more endeared any philosophical truths to him than when they gave right apprehensions of God, and just thoughts of morality and virtue. His mind being always composed to a religious temper, he even then made it his business, by the frequent reading of the most pious and useful books, and a happy conversation, sanctified by a constant devotion and unprejudiced mind, to frame to himself, amidst the various opinions and distractions of Christendom, right apprehensions of religion, and accordingly to suit his practice; so that

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