[ORIGINAL.]
[Footnote 23: "Personal Reminiscences of the Life and Times of Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York." 2 vols. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.]
Few persons who have lived much in New York during the last quarter of a century are not familiar with the dignified, resolute, yet kindly countenance of the pastor of the Brick Presbyterian church. Fewer still are ignorant of his reputation as a leading and representative man in his denomination; a keen polemic; a great promoter of missionary, tract, and Bible societies; and, we may add, a very determined enemy of the Pope of Rome and all his aiders and abettors. For more than fifty-five years he has preached to the same congregation which gave him a call when he was first licensed as a minister. During his career thirteen Presidents of the United States, from Washington to Lincoln, have died; three Kings of England have been laid in their graves; the horrors of the Reign of Terror, the execution of Louis XVI., the rise and fall of the first Napoleon, the shifting scenes of the Restoration, the Orleans rule, the second Republic and the second Empire, have hurried each other across the stage of French history. He has long passed the scriptural term of the life of man; and now, at the almost patriarchal age of eighty-one, he gives us a collection of reminiscences of what he has seen and done during this protracted and eventful career.
It would be natural to suppose that such a book by such a man must be full of interest. As one of the recognized leaders of a rich and influential religious denomination, and one of the oldest and most respectable citizens of the first city of America, how many historical characters must he have met! to how many important events must he have been a witness! But any one who takes up these volumes in the hope of obtaining through them a clearer view of persons and times gone by, will be disappointed. They are interesting, it is true, but not, we will venture to say, in the way their author meant them to be. They cause us to wonder that the doctor should have seen so much and remembered so little. Yet as a picture of the life of a representative Presbyterian preacher and a complete exposure of the utter emptiness of the Presbyterian religion, these garrulous and random "Reminiscences" are the most entertaining pages we have read for many a month. We propose to cull for our readers a few of the most interesting passages.
Dr. Spring was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Feb. 24, 1785. His father was a minister, of whom the son says that "he would not shave his face on the Lord's day, nor allow his wife to sew a button on her son's vest; and on one occasion, when his nephew, the late Adolphus Spring, Esq., arrived in haste on a Saturday evening with the message that his father was on his bed of death, he would not mount his horse for the journey of seventy miles until the Sabbath sun had gone down." Though young Gardiner used to wonder, when a boy, why he was not allowed to participate in the customary sports of children, he seems to have preserved a warm affection for both his parents, of whom he speaks in a loving and reverential tone which we cannot too carefully respect. The thought that most affected him on their death was {130} "hat he had lost their prayers." Gardiner was sent to Yale College at the age of fifteen, and during "a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit" upon that rather unregenerate institution, in the year 1803, he became, for a season, "hopefully pious." He had been uneasy for some time about the state of his soul, and one afternoon he resolved to pray, several hours, if necessary, until his sins were forgiven. "There," he says, "in the south entry of the old college, back side, middle room, third story, I wrestled with God as I had never wrestled before." The result of this spiritual struggle we do not profess to understand. He says that he rose from his knees without any hope that he had found mercy, yet feeling considerably relieved. For several weeks he went about, peaceful and happy, when, unluckily, the Fourth of July came, with its speeches and fireworks, and his "religious hopes and impressions all vanished as a morning cloud, and as the early dew." It was five or six years before they came back again.
When he graduated his father came to hear him speak, and at the close of the exercises gave him his blessing and told him to shift for himself. So, there he was, twenty years old, with four dollars in his pocket and a profession yet to be acquired. He borrowed two hundred and fifty dollars from a generous friend, obtained a situation as precentor in a church, opened a singing school, and applied himself zealously to the study of law. Before long he married a young lady as poor as himself, and went with her in 1806 to Bermuda, where he taught school for some time very successfully; but rumors of war between this country and Great Britain drove him back to the United States, and in his twenty-fourth year he entered upon the practice of the law at New Haven.
In the meanwhile those uneasy feelings of the soul, which he seems unable to analyze (though we warrant a good confessor would quickly have solved his perplexities) had not left him at peace. He writes to his father from Bermuda upon the state of his interior man:
"I should wish to go to heaven, because I should be pleased, with its employment. Were all my sins mortified and I rendered perfectly holy, I think I should the happy. . . . . Sometimes I can say, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. .... I am avaricious; and in the present state of my family, make money my god. I strain honesty as far as I can to gain a little."
This was certainly not a satisfactory condition of things. The lust for mammon seems strong enough, but the aspirations for heaven might well have been rather more ardent. He goes to church and sings and weeps, and the minister and elders crowd around him to see what is the matter. He goes to prayer-meeting at last in New Haven, and there the conversion--such as it is--is effected: "As the exercises closed and the crowded worshippers rose to sing the doxology, I felt that I could 'praise God from whom all blessings flow.' Praise! praise! It was delightful to praise him! On the 24th of April following, I united with the visible church under Mr. Stuart's pastorate, and began to be an active Christian."
We must say that this seems to be a very simple and easy process of getting out of the power of the devil. Conversion, according to Dr. Spring's idea, is simply an emotion of the mind, a spasm of sentiment. It includes neither satisfaction for the past, nor the performance of any definite religious duty in the present or the future. Any one who can excite himself into the belief that he is regenerate, or tickle his mind into the pleasant state indicated by the man who, when asked, "How it felt to get religion?" replied that "it was just like having warm water poured down your back"--any such one, we say, may rest assured of his eternal safety. Dr. Spring is no more exacting with other candidates for conversion than he was with himself. To a sick man who inquires "what he shall do?" he answers: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
"But will you not tell me how I shall go to him?"
"Yes, I can tell you; you must not go in your own strength; for your strength is weakness. You must not go in your own righteousness, for you have none. You must feel your need of Christ, and see that he is just the Saviour adapted to your wants. You must adore, and love, and trust him. . . . . Commit to him your entire salvation, and in all holy 'obedience live devoted to his service.'" Now in all this there is just one practical suggestion, namely, to "live devoted to God's service"--and that the man could not follow because he was dying. Let our readers contrast Dr. Spring's death-bed ministrations with what a Catholic priest would have said and done in similar circumstances. The priest would have given definite instruction and divine sacraments; the preacher has nothing better to offer than a few commonplace generalities from his last Sunday's sermon.
But we must return to the reverend doctor's biography. Close upon the heels of his conversion came the resolution to be a minister. The pecuniary difficulties in the way of this change of profession were soon obviated by the generosity of a rich widow of Salem. There was another obstacle, however, of a more serious nature. This was Mrs. Spring. She was "not a professed Christian." She was "a worldly woman." She sought the honors of the world. She did not want to be a minister's wife. The doctor had a great respect for her. He was afraid to tell her of his resolution. We must let him describe in his own words how he got out of the difficulty:
"I then began a course of conduct which I have ever since pursued,
and that was, in all cases where my own duty was plain, and my
resolution formed, quietly to carry my resolution into effect, and
meet the storm afterward. I did so in the present instance, though
there was no other storm than a plentiful shower of tears. I said
nothing to my wife; nothing to any one except Mr. Evarts. I sent my
wife on a visit to my only sister, the wife of the Hon. Bezaleel
Taft, at Uxbridge, the native place of my father, where I engaged in
a few weeks to meet her, and make a further visit to Newburyport.
She had no suspicion of my views, and left me with the confident
expectation that she would return to New Haven.
"In the meantime, after she left me, I was busily employed in
arranging my affairs for my removal to Andover. I announced my
purpose to the church at the next prayer-meeting, and received a
fresh impulse from their prayers and benedictions. Mr. Evarts took
my office and my business, and closed up my unsettled accounts with
his accustomed accuracy, and my ledger now records them. Mr. Smith,
my old teacher, laughed at me; Judge Daggett was silent. Judge
Rossiter said to me, 'Mr. Spring, the pulpit is your place; you were
formed for the pulpit rather than the bar.' My business in New Haven
was closed; my debts paid; my household furniture, small as it was,
was carefully stowed away; my law library, worth about four hundred
dollars, was disposed of, and I was on my way to Uxbridge,
Newburyport, Salem, and Andover.
"When I reached Uxbridge, and was once more in the bosom of my
little family, I felt that the trial had come. I could not at once
disclose my plans to my wife, and was saved that painful interview
by the suspicions of Mr. Taft, who told her that he believed I was
going to be a clergyman! She laughed at him; but she saw a change in
my deportment, and began to suspect it herself. I told her all. She
went to her chamber and wept for a long time. But she came down,
subdued indeed, but placid as a lamb, and simply said, 'It is all
over now; I am ready.' Oh, how kindly has God watched over me! It
seems as though the promise was fulfilled, 'Return unto thy country
and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee.' Some day or two
before we left Uxbridge, Mr. Taft said to me, 'Brother Spring, I
have a case before Justice Adams this morning; you are still a
lawyer, and I want you to go and argue it with me.' The thought
struck me pleasantly, and I resolved to go; but instead of assisting
him, without his knowledge I engaged myself to what I thought the
weaker party; and my last effort at the bar was in battling with my
sister's husband, and in the place of my father's nativity."
After eight months devoted to the study of theology at the Andover seminary, Mr. Spring was licensed to preach and received a call from the Brick church in New York. As a preliminary to his ordination, it was necessary for him to preach a trial sermon before the presbytery, and to submit to an examination as to his orthodoxy. In this latter test he did not give unqualified satisfaction, nevertheless they passed him, and he was duly ordained to the pastorship. As a salve, we suppose, for their consciences, the presbytery deputed the Rev. Dr. Milledollar, one of their number, to talk with the young minister, and try to reason him out of certain heterodox opinions which he entertained upon the subject of human ability. The result of the interview was that, in Dr. Milledollar's judgment, "the best way of curing a man of such views was to dip his head in cold water."
It was but a dismal religion of which he now became the minister. Tears, gloom, discomfort, and brokenness of heart were the characteristics of the spiritual life, and peace of mind was an alarming symptom of the dominion of the devil. "Newark is again highly favored," writes the minister to his parents: "there are not less than five hundred persons very solemn. " "My people appear solemn; they were so at the lecture on Thursday evening." "I preached on Monday to a very solemn audience at my own house." "The state of things in the congregation, notwithstanding the war, is looking up. Our public meetings and our social gatherings are more full and more solemn." He visits Paris, and there passes an evening with a small party of his countrymen: "We could not refrain from weeping during the whole time we were together." The quantity of tears shed in the course of the book is positively appalling. Of course there is nothing that remotely resembles the gift of tears with which Almighty God sometimes rewards and consoles his saints. It is merely a perpetual gush of mawkish sentimentality, and we defy anybody to read these "Reminiscences" without having before him an image of the whole Brick church with chronic redness of the eyes. A member of the congregation went to the doctor once with a request that he would baptize a child. He was not one of the weepers, or, as Dr. Spring expresses it, "not a religious man." The opportunity was too good to be lost. The doctor labored with him, preached at him, probably wept at him, tried to impress him with the solemnity and privilege of the transaction, did not baptize his child, but finally prayed with him and urged him to come again. The result of the exhortation is a good commentary upon the whole system of sentimental spasmodic religion: "He went away," says Dr. Spring, "and being requested by his wife to have another interview with me, replied, 'No; you will not catch me there again. '" We suppose that the child was not baptized; but that, according to Dr. Spring, and in spite of the Bible, makes very little difference. It was his rule "to baptize only those children, one of whose parents was a professed Christian"--that is to say, a member of the church; and except in one instance he has never varied from this strict practice. "That," he says, "was in the case of a sick and dying grandchild, whose father was a man of prayer, but not a communicant, and I myself professed to stand in loco parentis, I now look upon the whole transaction as wrong."
Dr. Spring has done a great deal of theological fighting in his day; but his foes have been chiefly those of his own household. Now and then he has carried the war into foreign countries, as at the time of the famous School Question in New York, when he had a tilt with Bishop Hughes before the Common Council, and got decidedly the worst of it; but for the most part he has devoted himself to intestine feuds. The controversy between Hopkinsians {133} and Calvinists in the Presbyterian denomination; the disputes in the American Bible Society; the schism in the Young Men's Missionary Society of New York; the effort to create a division in the American Home Missionary Society; the controversies about the New Haven school of theology and the exscinding acts of the General Assembly;--these and many other religious quarrels took up a great deal of the doctor's time, and he still writes about them with no little acrimony and personal feeling. We subjoin a few extracts:
"The wrath of the Philadelphia Synod is praising the Lord. We shall
have a battle in the spring, and lay a heavy hand upon that report.
I shall not hesitate to take my life in my hand if Providence allows
me to go to the Assembly."--vol. i., p.70.
"The Rev. Ezra Stiles Ely had published his celebrated work,
entitled 'The Contrast,' the object of which is to show the points
of difference between the views of Hopkinsian and Calvinistic
theology. It was addressed to prejudice and ignorance, and was aimed
at the youthful pastor of the Brick church."--Vol. i., p. 129.
"I find my heart strangely suspicious. Sometimes I am resolved to
withdraw from the Missionary and Education cause, because I foresee
they will be scenes of contention. But then, again, I know they are
exposed to evils, and the church is exposed to evils, through the
mismanagement of these excellent institutions, which perhaps I may
prevent."-Vol ii., p. 78.
We doubt whether Dr. Spring's clerical brethren like the following passage; but anyhow, there is a great deal of truth in it:
"There have been spurious revivals in my day, and the means of promoting them are the index of their character. In such seasons of excitement, great dependence is placed on the way and means of getting them up, and little of the impression [sic] that not a soul will be converted unless it be accomplished by the power of God. Whatever the words of the leaders may profess, their conduct proclaims, 'Mine own arm hath done this!' There is a familiarity, a boldness, an irreverence in their prayers, which ill becomes worms of the dust in approaching him before whom angels veil their faces. A pious and poor woman, in coming out from a religious service thus conducted, once said, 'I cannot think what it is that makes our ministers swear so in their prayers.' They count their converts, and when they survey their work, there is a triumph, a self-reliant exultation over it, which looks like the triumph of the pagan monarch, when he exclaimed, 'Is not this great Babylon which I have built!' And hence it is that so many of the subjects of such a work, after the excitement is over, find that their own hearts have deceived them, that they are no longer affected by solemn preaching and solemn prayers, that their past emotions were nothing more than the operations of nature, and that when these natural causes have exhausted their power there is no religion left."--Vol. i., p. 219.
Dr. Spring gives a curious illustration of the length to which excitement sometimes carries the poor victims of the revivalists, in the case of a Mrs. Pierson, "around whose lifeless body her husband assembled a company of believers, with the assurance that if they prayed in faith, she would be restored to life. Their feelings were greatly excited, their impressions of their success peculiar and strong. They prayed and prayed again, and prayed in faith, but they were disappointed," vol. i., p. 229.
He is rather free sometimes in his criticisms upon his brother ministers. He listens to a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Finney, a noted revivalist, and says that there was nothing exceptionable in it "except a vulgarity that indicated a want of culture, and a coarseness unbecoming the Christian pulpit." He hears a Mr. Broadway preach at sea, and thus records his impressions: "I must say he is a John Bull of a preacher. What a pity that men who need to be taught what are the first principles of the oracles of God, should undertake to teach others!" We dare say Dr. Spring's judgment of both these gentlemen was sound; but we see no propriety in printing it.
He made several voyages to Europe, and travelled through France, Germany, and Great Britain. Respecting the state of Protestantism in France, he makes some significant admissions:
"Protestantism in France is not what I have been in the habit of considering it. {134} I knew it was in a measure corrupt, but not to the extent in which I actually find it. I do not think that the Romanists, as a body, have much confidence in the Roman religion. But the mischief is that when thinking men throw off the bonds of Romanism, they relapse into infidelity. . . . . True religion in France finds its most bitter and unwearied enemies in Protestants themselves. The Protestants of this country are high Arians, if not absolute Socinians. There are now [1835] three hundred and fifty-eight Protestant pastors in France, beside their few vacant churches. But there are comparatively few among them all who love and obey the truth."--Vol, ii., pp. 260, 361.
The pages devoted to his European tours are remarkable exemplifications of the truth of the old adage, that coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt. Wherever he goes, his breadth of vision seems bounded by his own pulpit. The venerable cathedrals of Europe, rich with the noblest memories, and the great historic places haunted by the grandest associations of the past, fill him with no thoughts more elevated than those awakened by the Brick church. He sees everything distorted through the medium of his own inveterate prejudices. If he visits a religious shrine, he can think of nothing but the abominations of the scarlet woman of Babylon. If he sees a convent, he tells us a cock-and-bull story about subterranean passages paved with the bones of infants. If he witnesses some grand and imposing ceremonial, he throws up his eyes, rushes out of the church, and, while he shakes the dust off his feet, groans over the wickedness of the Romish priests and their blasphemous mummeries, farcical shows, and hypocritical disguises. One Sunday, while at Paris, he went with the well-known missionary. Dr. Jonas King, and some other American friends, to visit a hill called Mont Calvaire, near the city, to which numbers of pilgrims were then resorting. They filled their pockets with tracts, which they distributed, right and left, among the thousands that were going up and down the mountain. They even interrupted kneeling worshippers at their prayers to give them tracts. These valuable gifts were received with avidity, for, as the narrator elsewhere explains, our respectable parsons were mistaken for Catholic missionaries. A few days afterward they made another excursion of the same sort to Mont Calvaire. We give the conclusion of the adventure in the words of Dr. King, from whose journal Dr. Spring copies it:
"Mr. and Mrs. Wilder, and Miss Bertau, and Mr. Storrow's children, had gone to Mount Calvary to distribute tracts and Testaments. Dr. Spring and myself, having filled our pockets, and hats, and hands, with tracts and Testaments, set off with the hope to find them. Just as we began to ascend the mountain, we met them coming at a distance. On meeting them, they informed us that they had been stopped by the Commissary of the Police, and that a gendarme, by order of the missionaries (Rom. C. M.), had taken away their tracts and Testaments, and prohibited them in the name of the law to distribute any more on Mount Calvary. Mr. W. advised us not to proceed with the intention of distributing those which we had. We however, went, giving to every one we met, till we came in sight of the gendarmes, when we ceased giving, but occasionally let some fall from our pockets, which the wind, which was very high, scattered in all directions, and were gathered up by the crowd. At length we arrived at the top of the mountain, took our stand on the highest elevation near the cross, and there, in our own language, offered up, each of us, a prayer to the God of heaven for direction, and to have mercy on those tens of thousands that we saw around us, bowing before graven images. I then felt in some degree strengthened to go on, and, taking a tract from my pocket, presented it to a lady who stood near me, and who appeared to be a lady of some distinction. She received it with thanks, and I was not noticed by the gendarmes. Dr. S. let some fall from his pocket, and we made our way down to one of the stations. There he laid some on the charity-box, while I stood before him, to hide what he did. We then went to another station, and I gave ten or twelve to a lady, whom I charged to distribute them."
The heroism of these Presbyterian missionaries, who go up and down hill, dropping divine truth from their coat-tails, reminds us of a crazy old lady {135}so in New York, whose will was lately contested before our courts. She had peculiar ideas of her own on the subject of politics and the war, and used to inscribe her thoughts on great paper kites, and give them to little boys to fly in the Central Park, in the belief that the words would somehow or another be disseminated through the city. Imagine St. Francis Xavier setting sail for the Indies with his hat, and pockets, and hands full of tracts, scattering them broad-cast along the inhospitable shores, or trusting them to the breezes, like those charitable Buddhists Father Huc tells of, who go up a high mountain on windy days, and throw into the air little paper horses, which being blown away are, as they believe, miraculously changed into real horses for the benefit of belated travellers. Suppose Father Matthew, instead of preaching a crusade against drunkenness, had contented himself with sneaking into shibeens and taverns, and, behind the friendly shelter of a companion's back, had deposited little bundles of temperance tracts on the top of every barrel of whiskey, as if he expected them to explode like a torpedo, and fill the air with virtue. Or what would Dr. Spring think if some Sunday, in the midst of his prayer, two or three Catholic priests should march into the Brick church and distribute Challoner's Catechisms up and down the aisles, making the "solemn" Presbyterians get up from their knees to receive them? It would not be a bit more outrageous than the doctor's behavior during the mission on Mont Calvaire.
American travellers in Europe, especially of the fanatical sort, are but too apt to disgrace themselves and their country by their conduct in sacred places. Here is another extract from Dr. Spring's book which no respectable American can read without blushing. The incident occurred in the famous cathedral of Rouen, built by William the Conqueror, and reckoned the finest specimen of Gothic architecture in France:
"A little circumstance occurred here that was somewhat amusing. [!] Mr. Van Rensallear, in order to procure some little relic of the place, instead of gathering some flowers, broke off the nose of one of the marble saints! He hoped to escape the detection of the guide, but unfortunately, on leaving the cathedral, we had to pass the mutilated statue, and were charged with the sacrilege. It was a lady saint whose sanctity our gallantry had thus violated, and we had to meet the most terrific volleys of abuse. A few glittering coins, however, obtained absolution for us, but neither entreaty nor cash could obtain the nose. "
That must have been a funny scene one Sunday in crossing the ocean, when the doctor and his wife, and the rest of the passengers, held service under difficulties:
"We assembled for praise and prayer. Susan was quite sea-sick, yet she came on deck. The day was cold, and she sat with a hot potato in each hand to keep her warm. "
This is certainly the oddest preparation for approaching the throne of grace that we ever heard of.
Mrs. Spring is a prominent figure all through the book, giving her reverend husband advice and comfort, and helping him in the work of the ministry, especially with regard to the women of the flock. He laments in his introductory chapter that the death of his "beloved Mrs. Spring must leave a vacuum in these pages which nothing can fill." In the second volume he gives a long and detailed account of her sufferings in child-bed when she "became the mother of a lovely daughter." When she died in 1860, he wrote in his diary as follows:
"I have been her husband and she my wife for four-and-fifty years; our attachment has been mutual, and strong and sweet to the end. I had no friend on earth in whom I had such reliance; no counsellor so wise; no comforter so precious. For the last thirty years we have rarely differed in opinion; when we did, I generally found she was right and I was was wrong; and when I persevered in my {136} judgment she knew how to yield her wishes to mine, and would sometimes say with a smile, 'God has set the man above the woman. You are king, my husband; but I am the queen!' In all my ministry, in sickness and in health, at home and abroad, by night and by day, I never knew her own convenience, comfort, or pleasure take the place of my duty to the people of my charge. . . . . I bless God that I had such a wife--that I had her at all, and that I had her so long. . . . My darling wife, I give you joy: but what shall I do without you?"
This last question is soon answered in an unexpected manner. Only eight pages further on, Dr. Spring, aged eighty, records the following passage:
"April 13th, 1865.--My sweet wife was too valuable a woman ever to be forgotten. The preceding sketch furnishes but the outline of her excellences, which I have presented more at large at the close of the sermon commemorative of one who was my first love. I never thought I could love another. But I was advanced beyond my threescore years and ten, partially blind, and needed a helper fitted to my age and condition; no one needs such a helper more than a man in my advanced years. I sought, and God gave me another wife. A few days only more than a year after the death of Mrs. Spring, on the 14th of August, 1861, I was married to Abba Grosvenor Williams, the only surviving child of the late Elisha Williams, Esq., a distinguished member of the bar. She is the heiress of a large Property, and retains it in her own hands. She is intent on her duty as a wife, watchful of my wants, takes good care of me, is an excellent housekeeper, and instead of adding to the expenses of my household, shares them with her husband."--Vol. ii., pp. 91, 92.
With this extract, Dr. Spring may be left to the charity of our readers. We have said nothing of the vanity which allows him freely to quote the commendations of his friends on his efforts in the pulpit and his publications through the press; because, inconsistent as it may be with a very elevated piety, it is a weakness that might be pardoned in such an old man. But we cannot help remarking how on every page he gives evidence of the utter baselessness of the thing he calls religion; the unsubstantial, unsatisfying character of those human emotions which he perpetually mistakes for the operations of the Holy Ghost; and the strangely unreal, unsanctified nature of the fit of mental perturbation which he denotes conversion and labors so hard to produce. The conclusion to which every unprejudiced person must come, on closing the volumes, is that Dr. Spring has lived in vain.
Arabian Laughing Plant. --In Palgrave's "Central and Eastern Arabia" some particulars are given in regard to a carious narcotic plant. Its seeds, in which the active principal seems chiefly to reside, when pounded and administered in a small dose, produce effects much like those ascribed to Sir Humphrey Davy's laughing gas; the patient dances, sings, and performs a thousand extravagances, till after an hour of great excitement to himself and amusement to the bystanders, he falls asleep, and on awaking has lost all memory of what he did or said while under the influence of the drug. To put a pinch of this powder into the coffee of some unexpecting individual is not an uncommon joke, nor is it said that it was ever followed by serious consequences, though an over quantity might perhaps be dangerous. The author tried it on two individuals, but in proportions if not absolutely homoeopathic, still sufficiently minute to keep on the safe side, and witnessed its operation, laughable enough but very harmless. The plant that hears these berries hardly attains in Kaseem the height of six inches above the ground, but in Oman were seen bushes of it three or four feet in growth, and wide-spreading. The stems are woody, and of a yellow tinge when barked; the leaf of a dark green color, and pinnated with about twenty leaflets on either side; the stalks smooth and shining; the flowers are yellow, and grow in tufts, the anthers numerous, the fruit is a capsule, stuffed with greenish padding, in which lie imbedded two or three black seeds, in size and shape much like French beans; their taste sweetish, but with a peculiar opiate flavor; the smell heavy and almost sickly.
The Congelation of Animals. --It is generally supposed that certain animals cannot be frozen without the production of fatal results, and that others can tolerate any degree of congelation. Both these views have been shown to be incorrect in a paper read before the French Academy, by M. Pouchet. The writer arrives at the following conclusions: (1.) The first effect produced by the application of cold is contraction of the capillary blood-vessels. This may be observed with the microscope. The vessels become so reduced in calibre that the blood-globules are unable to enter them. (2.) The second effect is the alteration in form and structure of the blood-globules themselves. These alterations are of three kinds: (a) the nucleus bursts from the surrounding envelope; (b) the nucleus undergoes alteration of form; (c) the borders of the globule become crenated, and assume a deeper color than usual. (3.) When an animal is completely frozen, and when, consequently, its blood-globules have become disorganized, it is dead--nothing can then re-animate it. (4.) When the congelation is partial, those organs which have been completely frozen become gangrenous and are destroyed. (5.) If the partial congelation takes place to a very slight extent, there are not many altered globules sent into the general circulation; and hence life is not compromised. (6.) If, on the contrary, it is extensive, the quantity of altered globules is so great that the animal perishes. (7.) On this account an animal which is partially frozen may live a long time if the congelation is maintained, the altered globules not entering into the general circulation; but, on the contrary, it dies if heat be suddenly applied, owing to the blood becoming charged with altered globules. (8.) In all cases of fatal congelation the animal dies from decomposition or alteration of the blood-globules, and not from stupefaction of the nervous system.
Ordnance and Targets. --The Admiralty having erected a new target, representing a portion of the side of the Hercules, experiments were made at Shoeburyness which proved that a thickness of armor casing had been attained which afforded perfect security against even the largest guns recently constructed. The target has a facing of {138} 9-inch armor-plates, and contains altogether eleven inches thickness of iron. Against this three 12-ton shunt guns were fired, at a distance of only 200 yards, with charges varying from 45 lbs. to 60 lbs. of powder. One steel shot, of 300 lbs. weight, 10-1/2 inches in diameter, fired with 60 lbs. of powder, at a velocity of 1,450 feet per second, barely broke through the armor, without injuring the backing. Sir William Armstrong has expressed his conviction, in the Times, that the 600-pounder gun will be unable to penetrate this target, and that it will, in fact, require a gun carrying 120 lbs. of powder and steel shot to pierce this massive shield. Mr. W. C. Unwin has pointed out, in a letter to the Engineer, that for similar guns with shot of similar form, and charges in a constant ratio to the weight of the shot, the velocity is nearly constant. Then, assuming the resistance of the plates to be as the squares of their thicknesses, it follows that when the diameter of the shot increases, as well as the thickness of the armor, the maximum thickness perforated will (by theory) vary as the cube root of the weight of the shot, or, in other words, as the calibre of the gun; and the weight of the shot necessary to penetrate different thicknesses of armor will be as the cubes of those thicknesses. The ratio deduced from the Shoeburyness experiments is somewhat less than this, being as the 2.5 power and the 5.2 power respectively. Practical formula deduced from experiments are given, which agree with Sir William Armstrong's conclusion, and prove that a gun which can effectively burn a charge of at least 100 lbs. of powder will be required to effectually penetrate the side of the Hercules.
The Moa's Egg. --Since our last issue a splendid specimen of the egg of the Dinornis has been exhibited in this country, put up to auction, and "bought in" by the proprietors for £125. Some interesting details concerning the history of gigantic birds' eggs have been supplied by a contemporary, and we quote them for our readers: In 1854, M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy some eggs of the Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The larger of these was 12.1 inches long, and 11.8 inches wide; the smaller one was slightly less than this. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris also contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put up for sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the shorter 7 inches. In the discussion which followed the reading of M. de St. Hilaire's paper, M. Valenciennes stated it was quite impossible to judge of the size of a bird by the size of its egg, and gave several instances in point. Mr. Strickland, in some "Notices of the Dodo and its Kindred," published in the "Annals of Natural History" for November, 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous egg, which held "thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid. " The natives stated that the egg was found in the jungle, and "observed that such eggs were very, very rarely met with." Mr. Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so. Allowing a pint and a half to each of the so-called "quarts," the egg would hold 19-1/2 pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire held 17-1/2 pints, as he himself proved. The difference is not so very great. A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, a nest "of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and two feet eight inches high." (Kerr's "Collection of Voyages and Travels," xiii. 318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the south coasts of New Holland, in King George's Bay. In his "Voyage, etc.," London, 1818, he says: "They were built upon the ground, from which they rose above two feet, and were of vast circumference and great interior capacity; the branches of trees and other matter of which each nest was composed being enough to fill a cart."--The Reader.
The Birds of Siberia. --In an important treatise, published under the patronage of the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg, and which is the second of a series intended to be issued on Siberian zoology, the author, Herr Radde, not only records the species, but gives an account of the period of the migration of Siberian birds. He {139} gives a list of 368 species, which he refers to the following orders: Rapaces, 36; Scansores, 19; Oscines, 140; Gallinaceae, 18; Grallatores, 74; and Natatores, 81. Concerning the migration of birds, Herr Radde confirms the result arrived at by Von Middendorf in his learned memoir, "Die Isepiptesen Russlands;" the most important of them being, (1) that the high table-land of Asia and the bordering ranges of the Altai, Sajan, and Dauria retard the arrival of the migratory birds; (2) eastward of the upper Lena, toward the east coast of Siberia, a considerable retardation of migrants is again noticeable; and (8) the times of arrival at the northern edge of the Mongolian high steppes are altogether earlier than those of the same species on the Amoor.
Plants within Plants. --In one of the recent numbers of the "Comptes Rendus," N. Trécul gives an account of some curious observations, showing that plants sometimes are formed within the cells of existing ones. He considers that the organic matter of certain vegetable cells can, when undergoing putrefaction, transform itself into new species, which differ entirely from the species in which they are produced. In the bark of the elder, and in plants of the potato and stone-crop order, he found vesicles full of small tetrahedral bodies containing starchy matter, and he has seen them gradually transformed into minute plants by the elongation of one of their angles.
The Extract of Meat. --Baron Liebig, who has favored us with some admirable samples of this excellent preparation, has also forwarded to us a letter in which he very clearly explains what is the exact nutritive value of the extractum carnis: "The meat," says the baron, "as it comes from the butcher, contains two different series of compounds. The first consists of the so-called albuminous principles (albumen, fibrin) and of glue-forming membrane. Of these, fibrin and albumen have a high nutritive power, although not if taken by themselves. The second series consists of crystallizable substances, viz., creatin, creatinin, sarcin, which are exclusively to be found in meat; further, of non-crystallizable organic principles and salts (phosphate and chloride of potassium), which are not to be found elsewhere. All of these together are called the extractives of meat. To the second series of substances beef-tea owes its flavor and efficacy, the same being the case with the extractum carnis, which is, in fact, nothing but solid beef-tea--that is, beef-tea from which the water has been evaporated. Beside the substances already mentioned, meat contains, as a non-essential constituent, a varying amount of fat. Now neither fibrin nor albumen is to be found in the extractum carnis which bears my name, and gelatine (glue) and fat are purposely excluded from it. In the preparation of the extract the albuminous principles are left in the residue. This residue, by the separation of all soluble principles, which are taken up in the extract, loses its nutritive power, and cannot be made an article of trade in any palatable form. Were it possible to furnish the market at a reasonable price with a preparation of meat containing both the albuminous and extractive principles, such a preparation would have to be preferred to the extractum carnis, for it would contain all the nutritive constituents of the meat. But there is, I think, no prospect of this being realized." These remarks show very clearly the actual value of the extract. It is, in fact, concentrated beef-tea; but it is neither the equivalent of flesh on the one hand, nor an imperfectly nutritive substance on the other. It is, nevertheless, a most valuable preparation, and now commands an extensive sale in these countries and abroad; and it is, furthermore, the only valuable form in which the carcases of South American cattle (heretofore thrown away as valueless) can be utilized.--Popular Science Review.
LIFE OF THE MOST REVEREND JOHN HUGHES, D.D., First Archbishop of New York. With Extracts from his Private Correspondence. By John R. G. Hassard. Pp. 519. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.
Mr. Hassard is one of our most promising writers. He contributed several excellent articles to "Appleton's Cyclopaedia," edited "The Catholic World" with judgment and good taste for several months at its first establishment, and since that time has occupied the position of editor of the Chicago "Republican." This is his first literary essay of serious magnitude, and a more delicate or difficult task could not well have been confided to his hands. He has fulfilled it with care, thoroughness, and impartiality. The style in which it is written is remarkably correct and scholarly, and exhibits a thorough acquaintance with the English language as well as a pure and discriminating taste in the choice of words. It is a kind of style which attracts no attention to itself or to the author, but is simply a medium through which the subject-matter of the work is presented to the reader's mind; and this, in our view, is no small merit. The subject-matter itself is prepared and arranged in a methodical, accurate, and complete manner, which leaves nothing in that regard to be desired. The work belongs to that class of historical compositions which chronicle particular events and incidents, relate facts and occurrences as they happened, and leave them, for the most part, to make their own impression. The author has endeavored to take photographs of his illustrious subject, and of the scenes of his private and public life, but not to paint a picture or his character and his times. Those who are already familiar with the scenes, the persons, and the circumstances brought into view in connection with the personal history of the archbishop, and who were personally acquainted with himself, could ask for no more than is furnished in this biography. We have thought, however, in reading it, that other readers would miss that filling up and those illuminating touches from the author's pen which would make the history as vivid and real to their minds as it is made to our own by memory. A graphic and complete view of the history of the Catholic Church, so far as Archbishop Hughes was a principal actor in it, and of the results of his labors in the priesthood and episcopate, is necessary to a just estimate of his ecclesiastical career, is still a desideratum. In saying this, we do not intend to find fault with Mr. Hassard for not supplying it. He has accomplished the task which he undertook in a competent manner, and produced a work of sterling merit and lasting value. We could wish that the biographies of several other distinguished prelates, of the same period, might be written with the same minuteness and fidelity, and, above all others, those of Bishop England and Archbishop Kenrick. Very few men could endure the ordeal of passing through the hands of a biographer so coldly impartial as Mr. Hassard. But those who are able to pass through it, and who still appear to be great men, and to have lived a life of great public service, may be certain that their genuine, intrinsic worth will be recognized after their death, and not be thought to be the coinage of an interested advocate, or the furbished counterfeit whose glitter disappears in the crucible. Moreover, the reader of history will be satisfied that he gets at the reality of things, and the writer of history that he has authentic data and materials on which to base his judgments of men and events. No doubt this species of history would disclose many defects and weaknesses, many human infirmities and errors, in the individuals who figure in it, and lay bare much that is unsightly and repulsive in the state of things as described. This is true of all ecclesiastical history. Truth dissipates many romantic and poetic illusions of the imagination, which loves to picture to itself an ideal state of perfection and ideal heroes far different from the real world and real men. Nevertheless, it manifests more clearly the heroic and divine element really existing and working in the world and in men, and manifesting itself especially in the Catholic Church. {141} We believe, therefore, that the divinity of the Catholic religion would only be more clearly exhibited, the more thoroughly its history in the United States was brought to light. We believe, also, that the character and works of its valiant and loyal champions will be the more fully vindicated the more dispassionately and impartially they are tried and judged.
A calm consideration of the condition of Catholicity, thirty-five or forty years ago in this country, in contrast with its present state, will enable us to judge of the work accomplished by the men who have been the principal agents in bringing about the change. Let us reflect for a moment what a difference it would have made in the history of the Catholic religion here, if some eight or ten of the principal Catholic champions had not lived; and we may then estimate the power and influence they have exerted. Leaving aside the numerical and material extension of the Catholic Church under the administration of its prelates and the clergy of the second order, we look at the change in public sentiment alone, and the vindication of the Catholic cause by argument at the bar of common reason, where it has gained a signal argumentative triumph over Protestantism and prejudice, through the ability and courage of its advocates and the soundness of their cause. The principal men among the first champions of the Catholic faith who began this warfare were, in the Atlantic states, Dr. Cheverus, Dr. England, Dr. Hughes, and Dr. Power. We speak from an intimate and perfect knowledge of the common Protestant sentiment on this matter, and with a distinct remembrance of the dread which these last three names, and the veneration which the first of them, inspired. Every one who knows what the almost universal sentiment of the Protestant community respecting the Catholic religion and its hierarchy was, is well aware that it was a sentiment of intense abhorrence mingled with fear. It was looked upon as a system of preternatural wickedness and might, and yet, by a strange inconsistency, as a system of utter folly and absurdity, which no reasonable and conscientious man could intelligently and honestly embrace. The priesthood were regarded as a species of human demons, and those among them who possessed extraordinary ability, were believe to have a diabolical power to make the worse appear the better reason and the devil an angel of light. Those whose sanctity was so evident that it broke down all prejudice, as Bishop Cheverus, were supposed not to be initiated into the mysteries of the Catholic religion, but to be at heart really Protestants, blinded to the errors of their system by education, and duped by their more cunning associates, like "Father Clement" in the well-known tale of that name. The Catholic clergy were shunned and ostracised, looked on as outlaws and public enemies, worthy of no courtesy and no mercy. Their religion was regarded as unworthy of a hearing, a thing to be scouted and denounced, trampled upon like a noxious serpent and crushed, if possible. Contempt would be the proper word to express the common estimation of it, if there had not been too much fear and hatred to make contempt possible. Its antagonists wished and tried to despise it and its advocates, but could not. Every sort of calumny and vituperation was showered upon them by the preachers, the lecturers, and the writers for the press who made Catholicity their theme. Some, perhaps many, honorable exceptions, which were always multiplying with time, must be understood, particularly in Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. John Hughes, the poor Irish lad, who had knelt behind the hay-rick on his father's farm to pray to God and the Blessed Virgin to make him a priest, who had come to this country with no implement to clear his way to greatness but the pick and shovel which he manfully grasped, was one of those who were chosen to lead the van in the assault against this rampart of prejudice. That he vanquished his proud and scornful antagonists is an undoubted fact. Beginning his studies, as a favor reluctantly conceded to him on account of his importunity, at a later period than usual, with a grammar in one hand and a spade in the other, he was first a priest, faithful to his duty among many faithless, courageous and enterprising among many who were timid, strong among many weak, staunch and unflinching in a time of schism, scandal, and disaster, and bold enough not only to lay new foundations for the church of Philadelphia, which others have since built upon, while the old ones were half crumbled, and to repress mutiny and disorder in the ranks of his own people, but to {142} attack, single-handed, the enemies who were exulting over the discord and feebleness which they thought foreboded the disruption of the Catholic body. This, too, almost without encouragement, and with no hearty support from those who were older and more thoroughly trained and equipped in the service than himself. He became the coadjutor and successor of the very man who had refused his first application to be allowed to purchase the privilege of studying under him, by his daily labor. He died the metropolitan of a province embracing all New York, New Jersey, and New England, and including eight suffragan bishoprics with more than a million of Catholics; confessedly the most conspicuous man among his fellow-bishops in the view of Catholics and Protestants alike, one of the most trusted and honored of his compeers at the See of Rome, well known throughout Catholic Christendom, a confidential adviser and a powerful supporter of the United States government, a recognized illustrious citizen of the American republic as well as one of the ornaments of his native country, with all the signs and tributes of universal honor and respect at his funeral obsequies which are accorded to distinguished personal character or official station. Let the most severe and impartial critic apply his mind to separate, in this distinguished and useful career, the personal and individual force impelling the man through it, from the concurrence of Divine Providence, the aid of favorable circumstances and high position, the supernatural power of the character with which he was marked, and of the system which he administered, and the strength and volume of the current of events on which he was borne, and, if we mistake not, he will find something strong enough to stand all his tests. An ordinary man might have worked his way into the priesthood, fulfilled its duties with zeal and success, attained the episcopal and metropolitan dignity, won respect by his administration, and left a flourishing diocese to his successor. But an ordinary man could never have gained the power and influence possessed by Archbishop Hughes. Our early and original impressions of his remarkable power of intellect and will have been strengthened and fixed by reading his biography, and the greatness of the influence which he exerted in behalf of the Catholic religion is, to our mind, established beyond a doubt. His chivalrous and valiant combat with John Breckinridge, at Philadelphia, was a victory not only decisive but full of results. We know, from a distinct remembrance of the opinions expressed at the time, that Mr. Breckinridge was generally thought, by Protestants, to have been discomfited. We have heard him speak himself of the affair with the tone of one who had exposed himself to a dangerous encounter with an enemy superior to himself, for the public good, and barely escaped with his life. We remember taking up the book containing the controversy, from a sentiment of curiosity to know what plausible argument could possibly be offered for the Catholic religion, and undergoing, in the perusal, a revolution of opinion, which rendered a return to the old state of mind inherited from a Puritan education impossible. This we believe is but an instance exemplifying the general effect of the controversy upon candid and thinking minds, not hopelessly enslaved to prejudice. We remember hearing him preach in the full vigor of his intellectual and physical manhood, in the cathedral of New York, soon after his consecration, and the impression of his whole attitude, countenance, manner of delivery, and cast of thought is still vivid and unique. Those who have seen the archbishop only during the last fifteen years, have seen a breaking-down, enfeebled, almost worn-out man, incapable of steady, vigorous exertion, and oppressed by a weight of care and responsibility which was too great for him. To judge of his ability fairly it is necessary to have seen and heard him in his prime, before ill-health had sapped his vigor. And to appreciate the best and most genial qualities and dispositions of the man, it is necessary to have met him in familiar, unrestrained intercourse, apart from any official relation and away from his diocese--or, at least, in those times when all official anxieties and cares of government were put aside and his mind relaxed in purely friendly conversation. That he was a great man, a true Christian prelate, and accomplished a great work in the service of the church, of his native countrymen, and of the country of his adoption, is, we believe, the just verdict of the most competent judges and of the public at large upon the facts of his life. He will not be forgotten, for his life and acts are too closely {143} interwoven with public history and his influence has been too marked to make that possible. We trust that those who enjoy the blessings of a securely and peacefully established Catholic Church will not be disposed to forget the men who, in more troubled times, have won by their valor the heritage upon which we have entered. The record of their lives and labors is of great value, and this one, in particular, is worthy of the perusal of every Catholic and every American, and has in it a kind of romantic charm and dramatic grouping which does not belong to the life of one who has been more confined to the seclusion of study or the ordinary pastoral routine.
We regret the mention made of Dr. Forbes's defection, and the publicity which is again given to painful matters which had become buried in oblivion. It appears to us that, as Dr. Forbes has not publicly assailed either the church or the late archbishop, it was unnecessary to allude to him in any way, and it would have been more generous to have suppressed the remarks made in the archbishop's private correspondence. The mechanical execution of the work is in good style, and we recommend it to our readers as necessary to every Catholic library.