Part 3

Charles I., in 1633, gave command for the reading of the _Book of Sports_ in the churches, which had not been done even by his father, and which gave great offence and stirred up much display of bad feeling. In London, after the reading, one clergyman went on immediately to read the Ten Commandments, and said, "Dearly beloved brethren, you have now heard the commandments of God and man; obey which you please." Another minister followed up the reading of the obnoxious ordinance by the delivery of a sermon on the Fourth Commandment.

THE SAINT'S BELL.

In their description of Westmoreland, Nicholson and Burn relate, that "in the old church at Ravenstonedale there was a small bell, called the Saint's Bell, which was wont to be rung after the Nicene creed, to call in the Dissenters to sermon. And to this day the Dissenters, besides frequenting the meeting-house, oftentimes attend the sermon in church."

SIR RICHARD JEBB.

Sir Richard Jebb, the famous physician, who was very rough and harsh in his manner, once observed to a patient to whom he had been extremely rude, "Sir, it is my way." "Then," returned his indignant patient, pointing to the door, "I beg you will make _that_ your way!" Sir Richard being called to see a patient who fancied himself very ill, told him ingenuously what he thought, and declined prescribing for him. "Now you are here," said the patient, "I shall be obliged to you, Sir Richard, if you will tell me how I must live--what I may eat, and what I may not." "My directions as to that point," replied Sir Richard, "will be few and simple! You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs, for they are hard of digestion; nor the bellows, because they are windy; but eat anything else you please!"

A SANITARY VIEW OF BAPTISM.

Crosby's _History of the English Baptists_ preserves the opinion of Sir John Floyer, the physician, that immersion at baptism was of great value in a sanitary point of view, and that its discontinuance, about the year 1600, had been attended with ill effects on the physical condition of the population. Dealing with the question purely in a professional sense, he declared his belief that the English would return to the practice of immersion, when the medical faculty or the science of physic had plainly proved to them by experiment the safety and utility of cold bathing. "They did great injury to their own children and all posterity, who first introduced the alteration of this truly ancient ceremony of immersion, and were the occasion of a degenerate, sickly, tender race ever since. Instead of prejudicing the health of their children, immersion would prevent many hereditary diseases if it were still practised." He tells, in support of his belief, that he had been assured by a man, eighty years old, whose father lived while immersion was still the practice, that parents at the baptism would ask the priest to dip well in the water that part of the child in which any disease used to afflict themselves, to prevent its descending to their posterity. And it had long been a proverbial saying among old people, if any one complained of pain in their limbs, that "surely that limb had not been dipt in the font." Immersion, however, was far otherwise regarded in quarters where professional animus of another kind militated against its revival by the powerful dissenting body of the Baptists. Baxter vehemently and exaggeratedly denounced it as a breach of the Sixth Commandment, which says, "Thou shalt not kill;" and called on the civil magistrate to interfere for its prevention, to save the lives of the lieges. "Covetous physicians," he thought, should not be much against the Anabaptists; for "catarrhs and obstructions, which are the two great fountains of most mortal diseases in man's body, could scarce have a more notable means to produce them where they are not, or to increase them where they are. Apoplexies, lethargies, palsies, and all comatous diseases, would be promoted by it"--and then comes a long string of terrible maladies that would follow on the dipping. "In a word, it is good for nothing but to despatch men out of the world that are troublesome, and to ranken churchyards." Again: "If murder be a sin, then dipping ordinarily in cold water over head in England is a sin. And if those that would make it men's religion to murder themselves, and urge it on their consciences as their duty, are not to be suffered in a commonwealth, any more than highway murderers; then judge how these Anabaptists, that teach the necessity of such dippings, are to be suffered." Had Baxter lived in these cold water days, tubbing would probably have taught him a little more toleration.

BISHOP KENNET ON LATE REPENTANCE.

Doctor, afterwards Bishop, Kennet preached the funeral sermon of the first Duke of Devonshire in 1707. The sentiments of the sermon gave much umbrage; people complained that the preacher "had built a bridge to heaven for men of wit and parts, but excluded the duller part of mankind from any chance of passing it." The complaint was founded on this passage, in speaking of a late repentance: "This rarely happens but in men of distinguished sense and judgment. Ordinary abilities may be altogether sunk by a long vicious course of life; the duller flame is easily extinguished. The meaner sinful wretches are commonly given up to a reprobate mind, and die as stupidly as they lived; while the nobler and brighter parts have an advantage of understanding the worth of their souls before they resign them. If they are allowed the benefit of sickness, they commonly awake out of their dream of sin, and reflect, and look upwards. They acknowledge an infinite being; they feel their own immortal part; they recollect and relish the Holy Scriptures; they call for the elders of the church; they think what to answer at a judgment-seat. Not that God is a respecter of persons; but the difference is in men; and the more intelligent the nature is, the more susceptible of divine grace." The successor to the deceased Duke did not think ill of the sermon; and recommended Kennet to the Deanery of Peterborough, which he obtained in 1707.

A MAL APROPOS QUOTATION.

In one of the debates in the House of Lords, on the war with France in 1794, a speaker quoted the following lines from Bishop Porteous' _Poem on War_:--

"One murder makes a villain, Millions a hero! Princes are privileged To kill, and numbers sanctify the crime. Ah! why will kings forget that they are men, And men that they are brethren? Why delight In human sacrifice? Why burst the ties Of nature, that should knit their souls together In one soft bond of amity and love? They yet still breathe destruction, still go on, Inhumanly ingenious to find out New pains for life; new terrors for the grave; Artifices of Death! Still monarchs dream Of universal empire growing up From universal ruin. Blast the design, Great God of Hosts! nor let Thy creatures fall Unpitied victims at Ambition's shrine."

The Bishop, who was present, and who generally voted with the Ministry, was asked by an independent nobleman, if he were really the author of the lines that had been quoted. The Bishop replied, "Yes, my Lord; but--they were not composed for the present war."

CHARLES II. ON SERMON-READING.

The practice of reading sermons, now so prevalent, was reproved by Charles II., in the following ordinance on the subject, issued by the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge:--

"_Vice-Chancellor and Gentlemen_,--Whereas his Majesty is informed, that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the preachers before the University, and therefore continues even before himself; his Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure, that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorders of the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the said preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory without book; as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judgeth most agreeable to the use of foreign Churches, to the custom of the University heretofore, and to the nature of that holy exercise. And that his Majesty's command in these premises may be duly regarded and observed, his further pleasure is, that the names of all such ecclesiastical persons as shall continue the present supine and slothful way of preaching, be from time to time signified to me by the Vice-Chancellor for the time being, on pain of his Majesty's displeasure. October 8, 1674.

"MONMOUTH."

SOUTH ON THE COMMONWEALTH PREACHERS.

Dr. South, in one of his sermons, thus reflected on the untrained and fanatical preachers of the time of the Commonwealth--many of whom but too well deserved the strictures:--"It may not be amiss to take occasion to utter a great truth, as both worthy to be now considered, and never to be forgot,--namely, that if we reflect upon the late times of confusion which passed upon the ministry, we shall find that the grand design of the fanatic crew was to persuade the world that a standing settled ministry was wholly useless. This, I say, was the main point which they then drove at. And the great engine to effect this was by engaging men of several callings (and those the meaner still the better) to hold forth and harangue the multitude, sometimes in the streets, sometimes in churches, sometimes in barns, and sometimes from pulpits, and sometimes from tubs, and, in a word, wheresoever and howsoever they could clock the senseless and unthinking babble about them. And with this practice well followed, they (and their friends the Jesuits) concluded, that in some time it would be no hard matter to persuade the people, that if men of other professions were able to teach and preach the word, then to what purpose should there be a company of men brought up to it and maintained in it at the charge of a public allowance? especially when at the same time the truly godly so greedily gaped and grasped at it for their self-denying selves. So that preaching, we see, was their prime engine. But now what was it, which encouraged those men to set up for a work, which (if duly managed) was so difficult in itself, and which they were never bred to? Why, no doubt it was, that low, cheap, illiterate way, then commonly used, and cried up for the only gospel soul-searching way (as the word then went), and which the craftier set of them saw well enough, that with a little exercise and much confidence, they might in a short time come to equal, if not exceed; as it cannot be denied, but that some few of them (with the help of a few friends in masquerade) accordingly did. But, on the contrary, had preaching been made and reckoned a matter of solid and true learning, of theological knowledge and long and severe study (as the nature of it required it to be), assuredly no preaching cobbler amongst them all would ever have ventured so far beyond his last, as to undertake it. And consequently this their most powerful engine for supplanting the church and clergy had never been attempted, nor perhaps so much as thought on; and therefore of most singular benefit, no question, would it be to the public, if those who have authority to second their advice, would counsel the ignorant and the forward to consider what divinity is, and what they themselves are, and so to put up their preaching tools, their Medulla's note-books, their melleficiums, concordances, and all, and betake themselves to some useful trade, which nature had most particularly fitted them for."

PETER THE GREAT AS DENTIST.

The Czar Peter, impelled by natural curiosity and love of science, was very fond of witnessing dissections and operations. He first made these known in Russia, and gave orders to be informed when anything of the kind was going on at the hospitals, that he might, if possible, be present to gratify his love for such spectacles. He frequently aided the operator, and was able to dissect properly, to bleed, draw teeth, and perform other operations as well as one of the faculty. Along with a case of mathematical instruments, he always carried about with him a pouch furnished with surgical instruments. The wife of one of his valets had once a disagreeable experience of his skill. She was suspected of gallantry, and her husband vowed revenge. He sat in the ante-chamber with a sad and pensive face, provoking the Czar to inquire the occasion of his gloom. The valet said that nothing was wrong, except that his wife refused to have a tooth drawn that caused her great pain. The Czar desired that he should be allowed to cure her, and was at once taken to her apartment, where he made her sit down that he might examine her mouth, in spite of her earnest protestations that she had no toothache. The husband, however, alleging that she always said so when the physician was present, and renewed her lamentations when he departed, the Czar ordered him to hold her head and arms; and, pulling forth his instruments, promptly extracted the tooth which he supposed to be the cause of the pain, disregarding the piteous cries of the persecuted lady. But in a few days the Czar learned that the whole affair was a trick of the valet to torment his wife; and his Majesty thereupon, as his manner was, administered to him a very severe chastisement with his own hands.

A MILD CRITICISM.

While Sir Busick Harwood was Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, he was called in, in a case of some difficulty, by the friends of a patient, who were anxious for his opinion of the malady. Being told the name of the medical man who had previously prescribed, Sir Busick exclaimed, "He! if he were to descend into the patient's stomach with a candle and lantern, when he ascended he would not be able to name the complaint!"

HOUR-GLASSES IN CHURCH.

To restrain over-eloquent or over-zealous preachers in the length of their discourses, hour-glasses were introduced in churches about the period of the Reformation. In the frontispiece prefixed to the Bible of the Bishops' Translation, printed in 1569, Archbishop Parker is represented with an hour-glass standing on his right hand. Clocks and watches being then but rarely in use, the hour-glass was had recourse to as the only convenient public remembrancer which the state of the arts could then supply. The practice of using them became generally prevalent, and continued till the period of the Revolution. The hour-glass was placed either on the side of the pulpit, or on a stand in front. "One whole houre-glasse," "one halfe houre-glasse," occur in an inventory taken about 1632 of the properties of the church of All Saints at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Daniel Burgess, a Nonconformist preacher at the commencement of last century, alike famous for the length of his pulpit harangues and the quaintness of his illustrations, was once vehemently declaiming against the sin of drunkenness. Having exhausted the customary time, he turned the hour-glass, and said, "Brethren, I have somewhat more to say on the nature and consequences of drunkenness; so let's have _the other glass and then_--" The jest, however, seems to have been borrowed from the frontispiece of a small book, entitled _England's Shame, or a Relation of the Life and Death of Hugh Peters_, published in 1663; where Peters is represented preaching, and holding an hour-glass in his left hand, in the act of saying, "I know you are good fellows; so let's have another glass."

THE METHODIST DOG.

In the early days of Methodism, meetings for preaching and prayer were held regularly about Bristol, and usually well attended. The people who had frequented these meetings had repeatedly observed a dog that came from a distance; and as at the house to which he belonged the Methodists were not respected, he always came alone. At that time, the preaching on Sunday began immediately after the church service ended; and this singular animal, invariably attending on those occasions, received the name of the "Methodist Dog." He was generally met by the congregation returning from the church, and abused and pelted by the boys belonging to that party. His regular attendance had often been the subject of public debate; and, merely to prove the sagacity of the animal, the meeting, for one evening, was removed to another house. Surprising as it may seem, at the proper and exact time he made his appearance. A few weeks after, his owner returning intoxicated from Leeds market, was drowned in a narrow shallow stream; and from that day the "Methodist Dog" ceased to attend the preaching. Concerning this odd fact, a good Methodist (John Nelson) used to say, "The frequent attendance of this dog at the meeting was designed to attract his master's curiosity, and engage him thereby to visit the place; where, hearing the gospel, he might have been enlightened, converted, and eternally saved. But the end to be answered being frustrated by the master's death, the means to secure it were no longer needful on the dog's part."

THE TWO GATES OF HEAVEN.

"God," says St. Pierre, in his _Harmonies of Nature_, "God has placed upon earth two gates that lead to heaven; He has set them at the two extremities of life--one at the entrance, the other at the issue. The first is that of innocence; the second, that of repentance."

GIBBON'S RETORT ON THE PHYSICIAN.

A good story of Gibbon the historian is told in Moore's Memoirs. Gibbon and an eminent French physician were rivals in courting the favour of Lady Elizabeth Foster. Impatient at Gibbon's occupying so much of her attention by his conversation, the doctor said crossly to him, "_Quand milady Elizabeth Foster sera malade de vos fadaises, je la guérirai_." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is made ill by your twaddle, I will cure her.] On which Gibbon, drawing himself up grandly, and looking disdainfully at the physician, replied, "_Quand milady Elizabeth Foster sera morte de vos recettes, je l'immortaliserai_." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is dead from your prescriptions, I will immortalize her.]

TRUMP CARDS.

Mrs. Bray relates the following instance of the power of a ruling passion or habit, concerning a Devonshire physician, boasting the not untradesmanlike name of Vial, who was a desperate lover of whist. One evening, in the midst of a deal, the doctor fell off his chair in a fit. Consternation seized on the company, who knew not whether he was alive or dead. At length he showed signs of returning life; and, retaining the last fond idea that had possessed him at the moment he fell into the fit, he exclaimed, "_What is trumps?_" A _bon-vivant_, brought to his deathbed by an immoderate use of wine, after having been told that he could not in all human probability survive many hours, and would die before eight o'clock next morning, summoned the small remnants of his strength to call the doctor back, and said, with the true recklessness of a gambler, "Doctor, I'll bet you a bottle that I live till nine!"

PERSUASIVENESS OF WHITFIELD.

Benjamin Franklin, in his memoirs, bears witness to the extraordinary effect that was produced by Whitfield's preaching in America, and tells an anecdote equally characteristic of the preacher and of himself. "I happened," says Franklin, "to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived that he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments regarding the building in Georgia (the subject of Whitfield's appeal), and suspecting a collection might be intended, had by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbour who stood near him to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was: 'At any other time, friend Hodgkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy right senses.'"

"PREACHING FOR A CROWN."

Howell Davies, who was Whitfield's Welsh coadjutor, walking one Sunday morning to preach, was accosted by a clergyman on horseback, who was bound on the same errand, and who complained of the unprofitable drudgery of his profession, saying that he could never get more than half-a-guinea for preaching. The Welshman replied that he for his part was content to preach _for a crown_. This so offended the mounted priest, that he upbraided the pedestrian for disgracing his cloth. "Perhaps," said Davies, "you will hold me still cheaper when I inform you that I am going nine miles to preach, and have only seven-pence in my pocket to bear my expenses out and in. But the crown for which I preach is a crown of glory."

SHEDDING HIS BLOOD FOR HIS COUNTRY.

Lord Radnor, who lived in the middle of last century, had a singular liking for the amateur employment of the lancet on the veins of his friends, or of persons whom he induced by gifts of money to allow him to display his skill upon them. It is told of Lord Chesterfield, that, desiring the vote of Lord Radnor in some division impending in the House of Lords, he went to him, and by and by, in the course of indifferent conversation, complained that he was suffering from a bad headache. Lord Radnor leaped at the opportunity of indulging his predilection for phlebotomy on such a _corpus nobile_; he told Lord Chesterfield that he ought to lose blood at once. "Do you indeed think so, my dear Lord? Then do me the favour to add to the service of your advice that of your skill. I know that you are a clever surgeon." In a moment Lord Radnor had pulled out his lancet case, and opened a vein in his visitor's arm; who subsequently, when the bandage was being put on, as if casually, asked the operator, "By the by, does your Lordship go down to the House to-day?" Lord Radnor answered that he had not intended going, not having information enough as to the question that was to be debated; "But on what side will you, that have considered the matter, vote?" Lord Chesterfield stated his views to his amateur surgeon, whose vanity he had so cleverly flattered; and left the house with the promise of Lord Radnor's vote--having literally, as he told an intensely amused party of his friends the same evening, "shed his blood for the good of his country."

DR. KIRWAN, DEAN OF KILLALA.