were delivered up to destruction because they had consummated their guilt, all their calamities were directed to their improvement in religion and morals. Whether drought consumed their vallies and their hills, or locusts devoured their gardens and their vineyards, or war exposed them to privations and cruelties, or the pestilence after the manner of Egypt was sent among them, till the stink of their camps came up into their nostrils, Amos iv. 10., this was the object designed by the Almighty. Similar, we are inclined to believe, is the object for which he is now chastising these lands with pestilence among other calamities. Though our guilt has risen to an awful height from the greatness of our Scriptural privileges, and though our fall might now be recorded in the catalogue of mighty empires which have perished under the operation of vices less aggravated, yet are we still the object of the divine forbearance.

'It is quite true, the nation may disregard the loud call to repentance that is addressed to her, from heaven, by the calamaties under which she now suffers; but if she puts away her evils with an humbling sense of the dishonour they have cast on the name of God as well as of the injury they have inflicted on the souls of men,—and if she will learn righteousness,' as the homage with which she should honour the reigning Mediator, and as the sound policy by which she should advance her temporal prosperity, then would she furnish a gratifying evidence, that she has been visited with her present troubles for her moral well-being, enjoys still the regard of her divine protector, and is destined, after she has come out of the furnace which now separates the alloy from the gold, to achieve an amount of real good, and enjoy a height of pure happiness to which she has never yet attained.

"3. Pestilence is calculated to rouse individuals to increased earnestness, diligence, and prayer in preparing for death. Such a fatal malady entering a town-'a disease which begins where others end, (i. e. with death,) is fitted to make the inhabitants consider their latter end, and to rouse up the most careless to prepare to meet their God."

PESTILENCE CONSIDERED AS A MEDICAL SUBJECT.

By viewing the subject in this light, we do not propose to usurp the office of the physician, but chiefly to take a religious view of a medical subject, with a hope to remove some prejudices, and to afford some assistance to the be

nevolent labours of those medical gentlemen who are engaged in the service of the poor.

1. We state our deliberate opinion-(an opinion not taken up upon slight evidence, nor without some means of judging, nor without observation,) that in the great majority of cases, an early recourse to proper advice and proper medicine, would save the sufferers. This opinion we have formed partly from observation and experience; but this opinion we should have formed, had we never known a case of the disease. We believe this pestilence is sent to reprove the practical atheism of the nation, and to display to the senses of men the close analogy between the diseases of the body and the sins of the soul. Now the sin of this land is not rejected, but postponed repentance. To a nation in this condition, God sends a disease that admits of no waiting. It ordinarily warns a little *—that warning neglected, it smites but once again, and its victim falls. There cannot be a more awful and a more appropriate lesson! God is calling sinners to repentance, saying, "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die ?" but he is reminding "a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity," that if they neglect any longer the things that belong to their peace, the sentence is gone forth, and they will soon be "hid from their eyes." Deal with this disease, then, as you would deal with sin; resist its beginnings. The first suspicion even of the disease should never be neglected; and success in general depends on the speed of the application.

There may be a few, even among religious men, who object to medicine as unnecessary; and they may argue, that as there is certainly an appointed time for man upon the earth," it can neither be prolonged nor shortened by human means. This statement is true; but as an argument against the use of medicine, it is worth nothing; for it forms just as good an argument against the use of food as against the use of medicine; and until we employ it

* The promontory symptoms of Cholera usually consist in a loose state of the bowels, with or without griping slight pains. In all such cases, where there is the least cause for suspicion, recourse should be had immediately to medical advice; where that cannot be readily had, the use of the following medicine may do much good, and cannot do injury. Castor oil, a large table-spoonful-tincture of rhubarb, a tea-spoonfullaudanum, thirty drops: the whole may be conveniently taken in a cup of hot sugar and water.

to warrant the rejection of the one, we cannot employ it' for the neglect of the other.

2. We farther state our opinion, that wherever there is an hospital, patients should allow themselves to be removed to it. The poor can seldom receive proper attention in their own houses; besides, as we believe most potently in the contagious nature of the disease, the danger of the spreading of the infection amongst their families is much increased by remaining at home. Much senseless and wicked prejudice has been conjured up against Cholera Hospitals and Physicians. We may be laughed at for the declaration, yet will we state our conviction, that these prejudices are, in a great degree, of the wiles of the devil, and that the object of the wile is, to fill the minds of the poor with bitterness against the rich, by which they will be prevented of seeing the hand of God, or of turning to him by repentance. The suspicions and prejudices of the poor we know to be utterly unfounded. All that skill, and care, and tendernes can furnish, we know to be most diligently employed; and that where deaths are many and recoveries few, this arises not from the fault of the physicians, or of the remedies, but of the patients and their friends, who seldom give notice of the disease, till it has taken such hold of the constitution as to bid defiance to medicine. To conclude

"Picture to your minds the indescribable wretchedness of an ungodly man smitten with this disease. You can imagine him engaged in his usual business with unabated ardour, or indulging in his usual pleasures with undiminished relish, or living in listless indolence, unmoved by the desolations that are taking place around him. In a moment, he is affected with alarming sensations. The sudden extinction of muscular energy, excruciating pains in the bowels, frequent spasms in the limbs, extreme coldness over the surface of the whole body, and interruption of the various vital organs, indicate, too clearly, that the dreaded disorder has come upon him. And now the anxieties of friends, and the efforts of physicians, and all the appliances that experience has yet recommended, are put forth with the view of rescuing him from its fearful ravages. But all in vain. The cold perspiration, the blue skin, the sunken eye, the ghastly countenance, and the imperceptible pulse, mark the irresistible progress of the attack; and a few hours of extreme suffering to the patient, and heartrending grief to the relatives, have scarcely passed when death

closes the melancholy scene. Let us turn from the lifeless frame hastily arrayed in its humble shroud, and rapidly carried along without attendants to its last and lowly abode; and bring before our imaginations the course awaiting the soul on its dismissal from the present state. Retaining its consciousness unaffected, it ascends before the tribunal of God. Burdened with guilt from which it has never sought deliverance, polluted with passions the purification of which it never attempted, and wrung with anguish against which it would not use the appointed security, it meets the Judge clad in terrible majesty. Fain would it elude the glance of his penetrating eye, resist the award of his avenging justice, and fly from those everlasting sufferings which burst on its view as its deserved doom. But the attempt would be vain. A voice more piercing than peals of loudest thunder, descends from. the Judge, scattering its vain thoughts, dissolving its presumptuous expectations, and announcing its irreversible doom in words that it often treated with levity and derision before: Depart from me; I never knew you. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God."

"The London Medical Gazette has the following statement in a recent number:- "There are differences between most writers on certain circumstances connected with the disease; but on this point they all agree-intemperance opens a door to the pestilence which it never overlooks: in every town and every district, from the Ganges to the Wear, the drunkard has been the object of its earliest attack and its most ruthless visitation. Nor was this principle ever more conspicuously illustrated, than by the occurrence at Gateshead, where intoxication, which was indulged in to a frightful extent on Christmas-day, accompanied by a strong breeze blowing from the north and over Newcastle where the disease existed, was followed by the lamentable irruption of Cholera which has been so often alluded to."

RULES FOR THE PREVENTION OF CHOLERA, Addressed to the Public by the Belfast Board of Health. 1. Do every thing in your power to maintain cleanliness of person and clothes.

2. To guard against sudden changes of temperature, wear a flannel shirt next the skin, or at least a belteighteen inches broad round the bowels.

3. As much as possible avoid getting the feet wel, or sitting in wet clothes.

4. Avoid unnecessary and fatiguing journeys.

5. Avoid late hours, and all parties in small close rooms. The ordinary practice of sitting up all night at Wakes, is most particularly dangerous.

6. After rising in the morning, let all bed-clothes be hung up on a rail or line.

7. Sweep frequently under beds.

8. Keep windows open during the day whenever the weather is dry. Wherever it can be done, raise one sash, and draw down the other a few inches. Particularly keep open the upper windows of stair-cases, lobbies, &c.

9. Remove from yards, or near the doors, all gatherings of sweepings, dung, &c. causing offensive smells, and drain off all stagnant water.

10. Damp earthen floors being exceedingly prejudicial to health, do all that can be done by drains, or otherwise, to keep them dry.

11. Wash boarded floors frequently, and dry them well, by ventilation and fires.

12. Let SERVANTS and all others keep as much as possible at home, and avoid visiting sick persons, unless when absolute duty requires.

13. As it is not improbable that Dogs, by frequenting infected houses, are often the means of conveying infec. tion to other places, let them be tied up.

14. Be Temperate. If Ardent Spirit be used, let it only be in moderate quantity after dinner, and largely diluted with water. Of the tendency of intemperance to produce Cholera, we have a striking example, by which it appears, that in consequence of drinking on Christmas-day, (25th December last,) thirty-nine persons were seized with Cholera at Gateshead, upon the 26th; and fifty-nine upon the 27th; of whom ten died on the 26th, thirty-two on the 27th, and thirteen on the 28th December; whereas the greatest number of deaths upon any other day was only nine, and the ordinary average five. Persons whose business calls them to fairs and markets, are often accustomed to drink spirits after their journey, and in the evening, when fatigued with business, and weakened by long fasting, a practice at all times injurious to health, and peculiarly calculated to prepare the way for the attack of CHOLERA.