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.
Towards the end of last century, there arose in Ireland an eminent
preacher, who, to use the emphatic language of Grattan, "broke through
the slumbers of the pulpit." This was Walter Blake Kirwan, originally a
Catholic priest and Professor of Philosophy at Louvain, and afterwards
chaplain to the Neapolitan embassy at London. In 1787 he resolved to
conform to the Establishment, and preached for the first time to a
Protestant congregation in St. Peter's Church at Dublin. He
subsequently became Prebend of Howth, Rector of St. Nicholas, Dublin,
and ultimately Dean of Killala. Wonders have been recorded of his
attractiveness as a preacher. That he was a great orator, the manner in
which he was attended abundantly proved. People crowded to hear him,
who on no other occasion appeared within the walls of a church: men of
the world, who had other pursuits, men of professions, physicians,
lawyers, actors--in short, all to whom clergymen of the highest order
had any charms. The pressure of the crowds was immense; guards were
obliged to be stationed, and even palisades erected, to keep off from
the largest churches the overflowing curiosity, which could not
contribute adequately to the great charities for which he generally
preached. The sums collected on these occasions exceeded anything ever
before known. In one instance, such was the magical impression he
produced, that many persons, ladies particularly, after contributing
all the money they had about them, threw their watches, rings, and
other valuable ornaments into the plate, and next day redeemed them
with money. The produce of this triumph of pulpit oratory was indeed
magnificent; it was no less than £1200--a much larger sum at that day
than the figures represent in ours. Worn out by his labours, Dr. Kirwan
died in 1805; and a book of sermons printed in 1814 is his sole
literary memorial.
JEREMY TAYLOR.