ve[h.]anun erekh apayim verav [h.]esed veemeth. Notzer
[h.]esed laalafim nose 'avon vafesha ve [h.]atah venakeh lo
yinakeh poked 'avon avoth 'al banim ve'al bnei vanim 'al
shileshim ve'al ribe'im.~
"And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear _the guilty_; visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's
children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
Or, as these striking appellatives of the Divine Being might be
translated, without offering any violation to the Hebrew,--the JEHOVAH,
the STRONG and MIGHTY GOD, the _merciful_ ONE, the GRACIOUS ONE, the
long-suffering ONE, the GREAT and MIGHTY ONE, the BOUNTIFUL BEING, the
TRUE ONE, or TRUTH, the Preserver of BOUNTIFULNESS, the REDEEMER, or
Pardoner, the Righteous JUDGE, and He who VISITS INIQUITY.
This is a remarkable description indeed to come from one educated in
the midst of Egyptian mythology; and the awful names by which the
Supreme Being is designated, can only be accounted for, under such
circumstances, on the supposition that Moses received them directly from
the Almighty himself.
But to close our article. The Divine Being is nowhere so perfectly, so
interestingly described as in the CHARACTER OF CHRIST. Here LOVE is
unbosomed as it could not be by language. Here heaven drops down to
earth; and the otherwise invisible beauties of the invisible God, are
made tangible even to the eye. The _arm_ of mercy, outstretched to the
sinner--the eye of justice softened by the tear of mercy--the heart of
love beating intensely with benignity, as well as every perfection of
the divine nature; are all laid open to the view of sinful, helpless
man, and we become "eye witness of his glorious majesty." Here the tears
of mercy may be seen dropping upon its wretched objects of
commiseration; and the most secret emotions of the divine mind, we may
behold, heaving in the bosom of the immaculate Jesus. Here indeed "God
tabernacles and walks with man." And as a confirmation of the glorious
truth, at beholding Him, "the sun stood still in his habitation." "The
sea saw him, and was afraid." The earth trembled at his presence, and
gave back the dead at his voice. Well indeed might one exclaim, to
behold such a personage, "MY LORD AND MY GOD."
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
By Charles S. Daveis.
Never--since the period that Cæsar conquered Gaul, when the inhabitants
enjoyed a barbarian license under their native chiefs and druids, had
the voice of liberty been heard in France, till the 14th of July, 1789.
Never before did such a note of exultation spread over the vine-covered
hills,--and echo among the beautiful valleys, of that fair country.
Never perhaps before was there such a burden lifted from the minds of
men. In the unwonted consciousness of power, they seemed to tread a new
earth. In the intoxication of triumph they burst from the bonds of
morality and humanity. So very singular, and strange, indeed, was the
position in which the people of France were placed by the revolution,
that their vernacular language was found deficient in the appropriate
phraseology of freedom; and they were obliged to resort to a foreign
idiom, and to the customs of other climes, and the usages of other
nations, and to ransack the regions of fancy and invention, for the
vocabulary, as well as the drapery, of their new republic.
It is remarkable, that the revolution in France, beginning in fact, with
the destruction of the Bastile, should end in the re-establishment of
despotism. It was a revolution indeed not more remarkable for the
original character of its cause, than its catastrophe; for the
astonishing contrast it exhibits between the splendor of its talents and
the atrocity of its crimes: for the reverence which it professed for
antiquity, and the mischief it produced to posterity; for adopting the
most enormous maxims, and enforcing them by the most audacious means;
for the use which it made of its own freedom to enslave other nations to
its law, for erecting the empire of Rome upon the democracy of Athens,
for the adoption of a model of colossal grandeur, and establishing the
most tremendous system of policy, that ever convulsed human kind:--a
revolution, conspicuous also for the sudden appearance of a race of men
springing up from the earth, as though it had been sown with dragons'
teeth, and its monstrous fruits produced with hydras' heads and tigers'
hearts;--resounding, together, with the tribune, and the
guillotine;--not merely remarkable for tearing the priest from the
altar, but for rasing the altar likewise to the ground; and
distinguished for the successive destruction of some of the most ancient
thrones and crowns in Europe;--for the ignominious death of the last in
a royal line of seventy sovereigns, who, at any former period of the
monarchy, would have been blessed as the father of his people, and
canonized as the true descendant of St. Louis,--and the most affecting
example on record of an anointed queen, not more famed for her charms
than for her sorrows,--her errors more than atoned by her sufferings,
perishing without a tear, in a land of ancient renown for chivalry, upon
the scaffold! The revolution in France was a scene at which sensibility
sinks. It seemed to extinguish the hopes of its friends in the blood of
its martyrs; and it was hardly relieved by the virtues of its purest
patriot, educated in the schools of America, banished from the air of
France, and doomed to breathe the dungeons of despotism.
To what are we indebted again for our escape from that wild turmoil,
which involved the elements of society and government in Europe with an
overwhelming violence? Why was it, that while the storm, that shook the
continent abroad, beat against our iron-bound shore, its fury was
expended at our feet; and we heard it howl along our agitated coast and
die away at a distance? Why did we enjoy a light, like the children of
Israel, in our dwellings, while Egyptian darkness brooded around? Why,
in this universal chaos, had we such reason to congratulate ourselves on
the good providence of God, in ordaining us to be a world by
ourselves?--It was certainly not, that we did not enter into the cause
of liberty in France with enthusiasm; for our hearts were in it as
warmly as they were in our own. Our sympathy was with it as long as it
could be sustained; our regret pursued it in dishonor,--and our
affection followed it into misfortune. We lamented to see, that all the
results of that amazing movement of the human mind, contemplating the
happiness of millions, and looking to the improvement of ages, should
follow the fortune of foreign war; and that they should centre in a
single individual, carried away into captivity, and doomed to end his
days upon a solitary rock. We grieved to behold the beautiful and
brilliant star of the French Revolution sink at last into mid-ocean, the
mere meteor of military glory.--Feeling all the disappointment of its
friends, we cannot but contrast it with the deep repose, which our own
illustrious and honored patriots enjoy, in the land which gave them
birth, beneath the mighty shadows of our happy political revolution.
Although, as Americans, we cease to cling to the cause of revolutionary
liberty in France with the lingering fondness of early affection, we
continue to follow its dying light, as though we could not believe it
had entirely sunk in darkness and despair. If it be not possible to
regard it uninfluenced by its unfortunate termination, if we can borrow
nothing from its origin to relieve its mournful catastrophe, it behoves
us still to embalm the wounds of liberty with its healing spirit, and it
concerns us also, that all its sacrifices and services for the sake of
man should not have perished with its victims. The vices of the ancient
government rendered it unfit for the happiness of France, without
essential alterations; and while we reflect with pain upon the results
of the revolution, we must bear in mind that they were the excesses of
men like ourselves, transported by hopes excited by our example, and
exalted by a more ardent temper, untrained by the same favorable habits
and beneficial institutions;--and although its transient violence may
shock and repel our sympathy, it ought not to disgust us with its
principles, or to alienate our attachment from its rational objects. Let
us not fail to perceive, as we shall, if we are attentive to the facts,
that what was good was in the cause; and what was evil was the effect of
that long oppression by which it was corrupted. In this wonderful
dispensation to mankind we may not perhaps pretend to scan the ways of
providence; yet in common with the christian world we cannot fail to
behold the dealing of a divine and overruling hand. Where the seed of
liberty has been sown, and watered with the blood, as well as tears, of
patriots, that seed is yet _in_ the earth; and whether it spring up
before our eyes or not, it may be the will of Him, to whom no eye is
raised in vain, that nothing shall be lost!
MRS. SYKES.
By Nathaniel Deering.
One dark, stormy night in the summer of ---- finding my system had lost
much of its _humidum radicale_, or radical moisture, in truth a very
alarming premonitory, I directed Mrs. Tonic in preparing my warm _aqua
fontana_ to infuse a _quantum sufficit_ of Hollands; of which having
taken a somewhat copious draught, I sought my cubiculum. Let no one
imagine however, that I give the least countenance to the free use of
alcoholic mixtures. They are undoubtedly poisonous, and like other
poisons, which hold a high rank in our pharmacopeia, it is only when
taken under the direction of those deemed cunning in our art, that they
exert a healing power, and as one Shakspeare happily expresses it,
"ascend me to the brain." Now as the radical moisture is essential to
vitality and as this moisture is promoted in a wonderful degree by
potations of Hollands, we of the Faculty hold with Horatius Flaccus
"_omnes eodem cogimur_"--we may all _cogue_ it. But to return to my
_narratio_ or story as it may be called. I had hardly "steep'd my senses
in forgetfulness" as some one quaintly says, when I was effectually
aroused by a loud knocking at the window. The blows were so heavy and
frequent that Mrs. Tonic though somewhat unadorned, it being her hour
for retiring, yet fearful of fractured glass, hurried to the door. I
might here mention, in order to show the reason of Mrs. Tonic's fears,
that my parlor front-window had been lately beautified with an enlarged
sash containing not seven by nine, the size generally used, but eight by
ten--panes certainly of a rare and costly size and which Mrs. Tonic had
the honor of introducing. The cause of this unseasonable disturbance
proved to be a messenger from Deacon Sykes stating that good Mrs. Sykes
was alarmingly ill and desiring my immediate attendance. Now in the
whole range of my practice there was no one whose call was sooner heeded
than Mrs. Sykes's; for besides being an ailing woman and of course a
profitable patient, she had much influence in our village as the wife of
Deacon Sykes. But I must confess that on this occasion I did feel an
unwillingness to resume my habiliments, that night as I before remarked,
being uncommonly stormy and myself feeling sensibly the effects of the
sudorific I had just taken. Still I should willingly have exposed myself
had not Mrs. Tonic gathered from the messenger that it was only a return
of Mrs. Sykes's old complaint, that excruciating pain, the colic; for
Mrs. Sykes was flatulent. As the medicine I had hitherto prescribed for
her in such aliments had been wonderfully blessed, I directed Mrs. Tonic
to bring my saddle-bags, from which having prepared a somewhat smart
dose of _tinct. rhei._ with _carb. soda_, I gave it to the messenger
bidding him return with all speed. In the belief that this would prove
efficacious, I again turned to woo the not reluctant Somnus, but
scarcely had an hour elapsed when I was again alarmed by repeated blows
first at the door and then at the window. In a moment I sat bolt
upright, in which attitude I was soon imitated by Mrs. Tonic, on hearing
the crash of one of her eight by tens. Through the aperture I now
distinctly recognized the voice of Sam Saunders, who had hired with the
Deacon, stating that good Mrs. Sykes was absolutely _in extremis_, or as
Sam himself expressed it, "at her last gasp." On hearing this, you may
be assured I was not long _in naturalibus_; but drawing on my nether
integuments, I departed despite the remonstrances of Mrs. Tonic, without
my wrapper and without any thing in fact except a renewed draught of my
_philo humidum radicale_. My journey to the Deacon's was made with such
an accelerated movement that it was accomplished as it were _per
saltum_. This was owing to my great anxiety about Mrs. Sykes, though
possibly in a small degree I might have dreaded an obstruction of the
pores in my own person. Howbeit, on arriving at the Deacon's, I saw at
once that she was beyond the healing art. There lay all that remained of
Mrs. Sykes--the _disjecta membra_, the _fragmenta_--the casket! But the
gem, the _mens divinior_ was gone and forever. There she lay, regardless
of the elongated visage of Deacon Sykes on the one side, and of the no
less elongated visage of the widow Dobble on the other side, who had
been some time visiting there, and who now hung over her departed friend
in an agony of woe. "Doctor," cried the Deacon, "is there no hope?" "Is
there no hope?" echoed the widow Dobble. I grasped the wrist of Mrs.
Sykes, but pulsation had ceased; the eye was glazed and the countenance
livid. "_A caput mortuum_, Deacon! _defuncta!_ the wick of vitality is
snuffed out." The bereaved husband groaned deeply; the widow Dobble
groaned an octave higher.
On my way home my mind was much exercised with this sudden and
mysterious dispensation. Had Sam Saunders blundered in his statement of
her complaint? Had I myself--good Heavens! it could'nt be possible! I
opened my bags--_horresco referens!_ it was but too palpable! Owing
either to the agitation of the moment when so suddenly awakened, or to
the deep solicitude of Mrs. Tonic, who, in preparing my _philo humidum
radicale_, had infused an undue portion of the Hollands--to one of these
the lamented Mrs. Sykes might charge her untimely exit; for there was
the vial of _tinct. rhei._ full to the stopple, while the vial marked
"laudanum," was as dry as a throat in fever. I hesitate not to record
that at this discovery, I lost some of that self-possession which has
ever been characteristic of the Tonics. I was not only standing on the
brow of a precipice, but my centre of gravity seemed a little beyond it.
There were rivals in the vicinity jealous of my rising reputation. The
sudden death might cause a _post mortem_ examination, and the result
would be as fatal to me as was the laudanum to Mrs. Sykes. A thought,
occurring, doubtless through a special Providence, suddenly relieved my
mind. At break of day I retraced my footsteps to the chamber of the
deceased. Accompanied by the Deacon I approached to gaze upon the
corpse; when, suddenly starting back, I placed one hand upon my
olfactories and grasping with the other the alarmed mourner, I hurried
towards the door. "In the name of heaven!" cried the Deacon, "what is
the matter?" "The matter!" I replied, "the matter! Deacon, listen. In
all cases of mortality where the radical moisture has not been lessened
by long disease, putrefaction commences on the cessation of the organic
functions and a _miasma_ fatal to the living is in a moment generated.
This is the case even in cold weather, and it being now July, I cannot
answer for your own life if the burial be deferred; the last sad offices
must be at once attended to." Deacon Sykes consented. Not, he remarked,
on his own account, for, as to himself, life had lost its charms, but
there were others near on whom many were dependent, and he could not
think of gratifying his own feelings at their expense--sufficient, says
he, for the day is the evil thereof. I hardly need add, that, when my
advice to the Deacon got wind, the neighbors with one accord rallied to
assist in preparing Mrs. Sykes for her last home; and their labors were
not a little quickened by the fumes of tar and vinegar which I directed
to be burnt on this melancholy occasion. Much as I cherished Mrs. Sykes,
still I confess that my feelings were much akin to those called
pleasurable, when I heard the rattle of those terrene particles which
covered at the same time my lamented friend and my professional lapsus.
But after all, as I sat meditating on the ups and downs of life during
the evening of the funeral, the question arose in my mind, is all safe?
May not some unfledged Galens remove the body for the purpose of
dissection?--Worse than all, may not some malignant rival have already
meditated a similar expedition? The more I reflected on this matter and
its probable consequences, the more my fears increased, till at last
they became too great for my frail tenement. There was at this period a
boarder in my family, one Job Sparrow, who having spent about thirty
years of his pilgrimage in the "singing of anthems," concluded at length
to devote the residue thereof to the study of the human frame, to which
he was the more inclined, probably, as he could have the benefit of my
deep investigations. His outward man, though somewhat ungainly, was
exceedingly muscular, and he had a firmness of nerve which would make
him willingly engage in any enterprise that would aid him in his
calling. Conducting him to my sanctum or study, a retired chamber in my
domicil, "Job," I remarked, "I have long noticed your engagedness in the
healing art, and I have lamented my inability of late to further your
progress in the study of anatomy from the difficulty of procuring
subjects. An opportunity, however, is at length afforded, and I shall
not fail to embrace it though at the sacrifice of my best feelings. The
subject I mean, is the lamented Mrs. Sykes. Bring her remains at night
to this chamber, and I with my venerable friend Dr. Grizzle will exhibit
what, though often described, are seldom visible, those wonderful
absorbents, the _lacteals_.--It is only in very recent subjects, my dear
Job, that it is possible to point them out." My pupil grinned
complacently at this manifestation of kindly feelings towards him in one
so much his superior, and hastened to prepare himself for the
expedition. It was about nine of the clock when the venerable Dr.
Grizzle, whom I had notified of my intended operations through Job, came
stealthily in. Dr. Grizzle, though from his appearance one would
conclude that he was about to "shuffle off this mortal coil," was a
_rara avis_ as to his knowledge of the corporeal functions. There were
certain gainsayers, indeed, who asserted that his intellectual candle
was just glimmering in its socket; but it will show to a demonstration
how little such statements are to be regarded when I assert that the
like slanders had been thrown out touching my own person. The profound
Grizzle, above such malignant feelings, always coincided with my own
opinion, both as to the nature of the disease we were called to
counteract, and as to the mode of treatment; and so highly did I value
him, that he was the only one whom I called to a consultation when that
course was deemed expedient. We had prepared our instruments and were
refreshing our minds with the pages of Chesselden, a luminous writer,
when to my great satisfaction the signal of my pupil was heard below.
Hitherto our labors seemed to have been blest; but a difficulty occurred
in this stage of our progress which threatened not only to render these
labors useless, but to retard, if I may so say, the advance of
anatomical science. It was this; the stairway was uncommonly narrow, and
the lamented Mrs. Sykes was uncommonly large. As it was impossible,
then, for Job to pass up at the same time with the defunct, it was
settled after mature deliberation, that he and myself, should occupy a
post at each extreme, while Grizzle assisted near the _lumbar_ region.
"Now," cried Job, "heave together;" but the words were hardly uttered,
when a shreak from Grizzle, paralized our exertions. Our muscular
efforts had wedged my venerable friend so completely between Mrs. Sykes
and the wall, that his lungs wheezed like a pair of decayed bellows; and
had it not been for the Herculean strength of Job, who rushed as it were
_in medias res_, the number of the dead would have equalled that of the
living. At length, after repeated trials, we effected, as I facetiously
remarked, our "passage of the Alps;" an historical allusion which tended
much to the divertisement of Grizzle and obliterated in no small
measure, the memory of his recent peril. And now, having directed Job to
go down and secure the door, Grizzle and myself advanced to remove the
bandages that confined her arms, previous to dissection. But scarcely
was the work accomplished when a sepulchral groan burst from the
defunct, the eyes glared, and the loosened arm was slowly lifted from
the body. That I am not of that class who can be charged with any thing
like timidity, is, I think well proved by my consenting to act for
several years as regimental surgeon in our militia, a post undoubtedly
of danger. But I must concede that at this unexpected movement, both
Grizzle and myself were somewhat agitated. From the table to the
stair-way, we leaped, as it were by instinct, and with a velocity at
which even now I greatly marvel. This sudden evidence of vitality in my
lamented friend, or I might say rather an unwillingness to be found
alone with her in such a peculiar situation, also induced me to prevent
if possible the retreat of Grizzle, and I fastened with some degree of
violence upon his projecting queue. It was fortunate, in so far as
regarded Grizzle, that art in this instance had supplanted nature. His
wig, of which the queue formed no inconsiderable portion, was all that
my hand retained. Had it been otherwise, such was the tenacity of my
grasp on the one hand, and such his momentum on the other, that Grizzle
must have left the natural ornament of his cerebrum, while I, though
unjustly, must have been charged with imitating our heathenish
Aborigines. As it was, his bald pate shot out from beneath it with the
velocity of a discharged ball; nor was the similitude to that engine of
carnage at all lessened when I heard its rebounds upon the stairs. How
long I remained overwhelmed by the wonderful scenes which I had just
witnessed, I cannot tell; but on recovering, I found that Mrs. Sykes
had been removed to my best chamber, and Job and Mrs. Tonic both busily
engaged about her person. They had, as I afterwards ascertained, by
bathing her feet and rubbing her with hot flannels, wrought a change
almost miraculous; and the effects of the laudanum having happily
subsided she appeared, when I entered, as in her pristine state. At that
moment they were about administering a composing draught, which
undoubtedly she needed, having received several severe contusions on the
stairway in our endeavors to extricate Grizzle. But rushing forward, I
exclaimed, "thanks to Heaven that I again see that cherished face!
thanks that I have been the instrument under Providence of restoring to
society its brightest ornament! Be composed, my dear Mrs. Sykes, ask no
questions to night, unless you would frustrate all my labors." Then
presenting to her lips an opiate, in a short time I had the satisfaction
of seeing her sink into a tranquil slumber.