claims our condolence and hearty commiseration. We think them morose, hypochondriac, or misanthropic; assail them with raillery and banter, and anon with reproof for feelings of sadness, which they can no more resist nor control, than they can prevent a flushed cheek in fever, or a yellow skin in jaundice. We might as well jeer at Dr. Watts for his pigmy size, at Pope for his deformity, or at Milton for his blindness. Dr. John Cheyne says, that of all the miseries which afflict human life, or relate principally to the body in this valley of tears, I think "nervous disorders, in their extreme and last degree," are the most deplorable, and beyond all comparison the worst. And yet there are many in society, even among the intelligent, who are accustomed to treat all such cases of nervous disorder, as only imaginary complaints, which are better managed by ridicule than by sober counsel, whether medical or religious. In order to cure them, they think it necessary only to divert the attention of the sufferer, and convince him that he will be well enough and recover his lost cheerful

ness, if he will but cease to brood over his own wretchedness, mix in society, and think of other things beside himself. "Many will say to such an one, 'Why do you so pore over your case, and thus gratify the devil?' Whereas it is the very nature of the disease to cause such fixed musing. You might as well say to a man in a fever, 'Why are you not well? why will you be sick?' Some, indeed, suppose that the melancholy hug their disease and are unwilling to give it up. You might as well suppose that a man would be pleased with lying on a bed of thorns." The reason of their utter misapprehension of such cases, is their own happy exemption from all that sort of morbid wretchedness which they treat with so much levity in others, without knowing what they do. To persons of this description, moreover, all our disquisitions on the moral effect of physical causes, are much like a treatise in Tamul or Hindostanee: they have no just conception of our meaning, nor of the utility of what we say. Nor is it among the lighter afflictions of the subjects

of nervous affections, that they receive so little charity or sympathy from others whose general intelligence, and especially religious pretensions, would warrant them to expect more courtesy at least, if not greater tenderness. "It is a foolish course which some take with their melancholy friends, to answer all their complaints and moans with this-that it is nothing but fancy; nothing but imagination and whimsey. It is a real disease, a real misery, that they are tormented with; and if it be a fancy, yet a diseased fancy is as great a disease as any other; it fills them with anguish and tribulation. But this so disordered fancy is the consequent of a greater evil, and one of the sad effects that are produced by that black humour that has vitiated all the natural spirits. These afflicted persons can never possibly believe that you pity them, or that you are heartily concerned for them, if you do not credit what they say; and truly it often falls out, that because melancholy persons do not always look very ill, or have pretty good stomachs, and do not at first very much

decline in their bodies, other persons, that know nothing of the distemper, are apt to think that they make themselves worse than they are." But if our subject is unintelligible to some, it is not so to others; we describe an experience with which they are wofully familiar; and while they are not slow to condemn themselves for their fretfulness, irritability of temper, and many obliquities of feeling and conduct which they so frequently betray, yet their faults, however numerous, will be judged with least severity by those who best understand the cause. With nerves so disordered and unstrung, there is need of far more vigilance and prayer, to even appear cheerful and amiable, than most good men, without very special grace, are able to maintain. "A man may be a good performer, but what can he do with a disordered instrument? The occupant of a house may have good eyes, but how can he see accurately through a soiled window? Let the organ be put in tune, and the glass be made clean, before you call in question the musical skill of the one, or the eyesight of

the other." Harsh speeches may fret, perplex, and enrage, but will never do the sufferers any good. In his excellent counsels on the subject of spiritual depression, Mr. Rogers says: "Some indeed will advise you to chide and rebuke them upon all occasions; but I dare confidently say, such advisers never felt this disease; for if they had, they would know that by such a method they do but pour oil into the flame, and chafe and exasperate their wounds instead of healing them. Mr. Dod, by reason of his mild, meek, and merciful spirit, was reckoned one of the fittest persons to deal with people thus afflicted. Never was any minister more tender and compassionate. If you would be serviceable to such persons, you must not vex them with tart and rigorous discourse. It causes many poor souls to cherish and conceal their troubles, to their greater torment, because they meet with so very harsh entertainment from those to whom they have begun to explain their case. Our blessed Lord and principal Physician, was meek and lowly, and would not break the bruised reed, nor