resorted to most scrupulously, and as implicitly obeyed, will as infallibly produce the desired effect. That our severe censor of the gods, should have been at a loss to devine the means resorted to by the priests, to effect the prodigious cures, which on all hands are acknowledged to have been effected, may be an argument of insufficiency in himself, but cannot amount to a denial of the fact! he admits that prodigious cures were effected?—Yes!-Which cannot be assigned to the incompetency of man?-Yes!-But to some cause assignable, since they were effected?-Yes !-Then, to what cause; to what power assign them? To more than man?-Yes!-To an higher cause? Yes! Then to the supernal cause! Will any one be weak enough, or bold enough to deny it? If our severe censor of the ancient (so ironically called) gods, had been pleased to assign to these, no more than simple ministers of the immortal God, their proper place; and had looked for the explanation of prodigies to the only worker of prodigies; his difficulties might then have ceased; and instead thereof, he might have seen disclosed to his common sense, without the help of divination, the whole arcanum of magnetism to consist of nothing more than the simple submission of the patient; the faithful ministry of the priest; and the so to be obtained acceptance of God!" who hath promised that when two or three are gathered together in his name, he will grant their request, and the fulfilment thereof! Need any thing be added? Now, that the richest, and most considerable personages of the Roman empire, should have been seen thronging to the temple to be cured of their "incurable" ills, (i. e. deemed incurable by the ordinary powers of medicine) is perfectly in the order of things that the patient being cured of an "incurable" ill, should attribute his cure to an interposition from heaven, is still in the order of things: that the patient, impressed with a due sense of the benefit he had received, should sacrifice largely to the sanctuary, and to the ministers of his cure, is all in the order of things: and, finally, that a temple so dedicated, and so renowned for its effectual intermediation in favour of the afflicted, should have accumulated treasures worthy of a gorgeous display from the pen of Lucien, is also all in the order of things. That Esculapius should not have feared to make a proud display of the riches which had been consecrated to his ministry, was to be expected from his piety: that he should have gloried in the edification of a temple to the deity he served, was still in the order of things; for, what more laudable attribution could he make of the treasures which had been so dutifully attributed to his fame? The temples he raised, and the sacrifices he ordained, were equally subjects of wonder with the great and exemplary prerogatives of his mind; well worthy of the fame he had acquired; and well ascribed to the God he adored. The reputation of his temple, and the reverence paid to its altars, survived its founder thirteen hundred years. Constantine, called the Great, in 331 of the Christian æra, ordered the final pillage and demolition of this magnificent temple, and with the wreck was pleased to adorn his own (yet standing) edifice to Sancta Sophia at Constantinople. Mahomet soon usurped upon Constantine, but did not destroy his temple. Such are the strange vicissitude in the governments of men! But the principles of truth are eternal. So is the principle of magnetism eternal. It was from the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, to the honour and glory of God; and for the comfort and consolation of the worthy and meek-hearted among this his singularly favoured, but as strangely misguided family of mankind. "As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God. If any man "minister, let him do it, as of the ability which God giveth him; that God who giveth may in all things be glorified."-St. Peter 1st Epistle, chap. iv. v. 7, 11. FURTHER MATTER ON THE SUBJECT OF MAGNETISM, FROM SIR FRANCIS BACON, LORD VERULAM. Enquiry, Whether Lord Verulam had not his eye upon magnetism; that is to say; his idea upon the existence of a medium, such as magnetism in reality is, when he is praying the Almighty "That he would be pleased to open to us new refreshments "out of the fountain of his goodness for the alleviating of our "miseries; humbly and earnestly begging that human things might not prejudice such as are divine; neither that from the "unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater "natural light, any thing of incredulity or intellectual night, (6 may arise in the minds of men towards divine mysteries; but "rather, by the mind thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and given up to the divine. "oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are "faith's. Amen." Examination: Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, born 1560, became Chancellor of England; died April 9, 1626; of whom the poet Pope, to repress the vanity of fools, hath said, "If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, "The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:" was notwithstanding all this mixture of heterogeneous greatness, a man of great consummate literary fame. His principles, in the beginning, not being posed sufficiently on religious respects to enable him to withstand temptations, he swerved; was convicted of receiving bribes in his office as a judge; and sent to the Tower, for a certain time, to expiate the offence. He afterwards attained, as it appeareth by his writings, to a strong sense and conviction of the futility of all knowledge, without the help, and blessing of Almighty God; for having at length proposed to give, upon the singular strength and confidence of his own self-sufficiency; a scheme or plan of study (i.e. a Novum Organum Scientiarium) by means whereof to attain to higher perfection in the sciences; but having clogged himself in the immensity and always increasing density of his labour, not being able to soar, he is induced, at length, to relinquish all further pursuit in his work, as fixing the mind to earth; whilst the end is easier, and not otherwise to be obtained, than by resorting to the more certain efficacy of prayer. Lord Verulam had himself observed, Bacon, of the Advancement of Learning, book i. p. 6. "But it is an assured "truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge "of philosophy may incline the minde of man to Atheisme, but a further pro"ceeding therein doth bringe the minde backe againe to religion.” That a little religion may incline the mind to Atheism, but a little more will reclaim it to the right way: And we have furthermore extracted from his "Novum Organum," other of his axioms, to prove this conversion of his mind, and to argue therefrom, the futility of every undertaking that may be entered upon with nothing more than the presumption of great learning, let it be never so great, unassisted by the previously besought, and most humbly, and most earnestly besought benediction of heaven. For after bestowing such long and assiduous labour upon this f |