the breath while first the dire scourge passes over. For consciousness of visitation implies a conviction of sin, and the conviction of sin falls on the stoutest heart like lead when punishment is at the door. Conscience passes sentence on itself. And thus it is that while in their hearts men are dragged by conscience before its seat, they make vigorous efforts to force back to world-wise considerations the fear struck inner self; to view the danger that surrounds them as an external matter, to reduce it to figures and statistics, to argue philosophically upon it as a phenomenon, to reduce it to physical elements, observe it under the microscope, and give their discoveries a place in the physiology of the day. This were all wise and good in its place. Every creature sent into this world, besides its end in glorifying directly its Creator, has also its place in the philosophy of nature. Let no idle thoughtless disregard hinder the wise and the good from adding 'painfully' to the fruit of human toil from the beginning. God is glorified by the search, if it be done for his sake. And as far as it tends to lessen the sufferings of His creatures, the mere knowledge and experience of evil is a blessing. But practically this mode of viewing things is turned to a very different account. And hence the heaviest reflection of all which weighs upon the thoughts that dwell upon sights such as are described above- What after all will all this fearful visitation effect?' 'What change for the better will it work upon society when all is over?' Paris is thinned first by internecine battles; then by cholera, till 800 die in one day in that capital (with a population of 1,100,000.) Is Paris as a society changed hereby? The question is too painful to dwell upon. Doubtless under every severe dispensation of the Almighty, the Church of the Elect, dragging like a vast net through the waves, gathers good into its meshes, even under dark and stormy waters. And so we must not doubt, rather we may rejoice in the conviction, that many are saved by these awful examples of wrath; many even amongst its victims, whom other means could not have saved. Still be the place what and where it will, suffering punishment is not itself repentance or amendment. How grave and cheerless a colour convictions of this nature could add to the distressing accompaniments of cholera, may be conceived. To those upon whom descended the burden of awakening those around them to the sight of things as they really were, the damp disheartening sense was present, that except amongst a few, society would rise again after a time. and resume its sensual earthly pursuits and loves; and its scars be unfelt, except as from time to time some passing pang shoots over the memory, and then felt only to be drowned in a more reckless self-abandonment.

As cheerfully as he could the Curate would continue his daily round, of which a sketch shall be here given. The first thing to be done, after answering sudden calls, was to see to all the patients of Asiatic cholera to whom he had not been already summoned. Usually the sounds of moving steps above stairs, or a stillness broken by a certain deep heavy stertorous breathing, told its own tale. If such cases of suffering as still continued, it might be a sign of vigour of constitution still holding out against its dire adversary. Perhaps they had been too constantly busied at the bedside to carry accounts of the crisis of the disease to the vicarage. Here then was a hopeful case; messengers were despatched for nourishing condiments, beef tea, sago, brandy gruel, or plain brandy; and these were administered with careful minuteness. One widow lady devoted her services to the wants of the poor; found and brought in the Curate, and cheered the relatives to continue giving medicine in hope, even to the last, so long as the stomach could continue to take it in. The poor are apt to despond. They crowd round the stricken relative, doing every kind office, but accompanying these acts of love with loud lamentations, or exhortations to rest his trust on God, but in tones so doleful as to assure him that as far as their judgments go they are resolved he is to die. The poor patient gives himself over for lost, and not exerting the will to take vigorous hold on life, sinks down at once. In cholera much is done by animating the patient; and one was heard to declare that the mere receiving of his medicine from Mrs. S., and seeing the cheerful looks of his nurse during the lonely desponding hours of the night, had restored him when the medicine could not. By twelve o'clock, if possible, each had seen his share of the patients. Some were, perhaps, dying;-conscious, but past motion or speech, and unable to swallow, or make any act of volition. These were to be watched, and commended, as they sunk into death, to the hands of the Creator. The hopeful case, if there were one, was a gleam of comfort. But the greater number, far gone when first seen, were already dead. In one case, the wife, a young woman in full health in attendance on the husband till past midnight at the last visit, was now 'down' herself, and was dead before twelve. The husband followed her, a day or two after. Sometimes the patient and attendant had changed places, and not a moment must be lost in giving the consolations of religion to one who had been assistant a few hours since. The numbers to be attended to varied, of course; but usually, after twenty-four hours, they were a fresh set; the set of yesterday had, at one hour and another, ceased to need bodily care, and their term of penitence was at an end. They would be buried in the course of that day. Twelve was the hour of dinner; but

usually, by that time, two or three fresh cases had detained one in one direction; all that was known of another was, that he had entered suddenly, and gone off with some hot condiment from the kitchen, ordered perhaps for some one else, for whom it must be made afresh. Another took his turn at the cholera hospital-mostly an arduous work-for there were patients from other quarters also, who could not be neglected. Time, however, must not be lost; whoever was present presided for the four or five young men living with them, as assistants in various ways in the parish. At twenty minutes to one the Litany was said men in working jackets, mill girls with the large canvass apron and the graceful headdress-a handkerchief tied loosely under the chin-took advantage of the short service, and could just be in their places at the mill by one. After this, Mrs. S., the only person who fulfilled the part of 'sister of mercy,' brought in her report. By degrees the absent Clergy would come in, notes were compared, and any plan of operations wanted was concerted for the day.

;

The state of things was sad enough, on all sides. It became therefore a kind of duty to keep silence at meals, or before those who could not assist in visiting the sick, on the subject, however engrossing. Occasional visitors, too, on various errands Clergy to see the working of the place laymen on their way to all sorts of places, had some friend amongst the number, with whom they contrived to stay a day, or part of one; and it was hardly fair to inflict gloomy looks and doleful relations on those with whom it would neither gain nor impart improvement. Cheerfulness must, therefore, be maintainedsadness, at least concealed, by an effort of the will.

There was no long interval of rest. By half-past one or two, all were out again upon their various stations or districts, till half-past seven, the time of even-song service. The hours intervening were generally insufficient for the work of attending all the patients. At five the plot thickened; the Clergy were stopped in the street-So-and-so dying-So-and-so very illA young woman next door-A young man the house opposite, &c. God have mercy! It seemed as if misery was surrounding and shutting him in, without a ray of hope. The whole parish might have deaths and agonies scattered over it as thickly as here. Thus passed the afternoon. Tea-time was half-past six. Those who were only in time for church must get it as they could; but it was eight or past, sometimes, before even the most pressing engagements of the afternoon could be discharged. After a day of such anxiety, the choral service was cool and refreshing; the seemly white of the choir-boys, the rough Gregorian chant, the spirited hymn, brought home the thoughts-invigorated the

spirits for the night work. More than once a quiet step stole up to the bench of Clergy, to communicate some message in a whisper; one of the number set down his book and slipped out. Late at night the history of the interruption would be made known. The service over, such necessary work as the preparing those under instruction for Confirmation, first Communion, and the like, was performed, amidst interruptions, by one or two of the number; and about nine there was a general start for the night. The workpeople go to rest early; so that, after seeing his first two or three patients, each man had the silent streets to himself. At that hour the mills are motionless; one engine alone kept up a slow, heavy sigh, at intervals of a minute; and the glare of distant founderies, on the low ground at the outskirts of the town, were all that indicated their presence. Now and then a solitary policeman touched his hat, and asked if there were many bad cases; or the cries of a sufferer arrested the ear up a neighbouring street; at times they were audible a great distance off-the sound of violent convulsive sickness sometimes half down the street-dreary sounds enough, and more than depressing to the feelings; for the natural sympathy of the system often produces incipient sickness in the bystander, and it must be resisted stoutly; if not, cholera would follow to a certainty. For the same reason a person is forced, in all these cases, to assume as much as possible a certain physical stoicism-to resist physical sympathy-to fight almost against tenderness of feeling-to keep down any rising emotion: no easy task at times, considering the complicated troubles passed under review. The most unimpassioned spiritual physician could hardly find his heart unmoved, at times, for very sympathy. In one instance, a summons came between three and four to a house not in the parish. As, however, the case might be imminent, a priest was despatched to the house. The room was crowded with people; in the middle, in the bed, lay a girl of fourteen, suffering much, and sinking, but perfectly conscious. The father, a tall, large man, in his dyer's dress, and stained with indigo, had just been summoned from his work.

'She was a beautiful creature. The father had left her perfectly well at two. She was his eldest daughter, he said, and kept house for him-the mother was dead. He put a strong restraint upon himself, and spoke at times cheerfully; but every now and then gave way to passionate bursts of tears, and kissed his poor child again and again. The bystanders tried to prevent him, fearing lest he should take the infection, from the heavy cold sweat upon her face; but they could not. She was very devoutasked her father to be good to her brothers and sisters. She died in the evening.'-Private Journal.

Yet, in such scenes as these it was no time to indulge feelings -mere self-preservation would have given warning that feelings

must be resisted. Possibly it was from the influence of fear that so many attacks came on at dead of night. Waking in the night, and thinking what might be so near one, disposed persons to accept the surrounding infection.

Of course, sitting up through the night could only be done occasionally. The great demand for nurses made it in general impossible. A sad process it was. The hot, infectious atmosphere of a small room, with one, or perhaps two cholera patients in it, is very oppressive; so that even the chloride of lime burnt with vitriol after death to kill infection, was a relief. During collapse or insensibility of the patient the heavy eyes of the watcher closed from time to time; he would wake with a shock that made the heart beat quick. It was the large Dutch clock striking; gradually the eyes would doze again. During the last stage of the sufferer's life, when he was quite, or almost insensible, few accompanying circumstances were more painful than the flies it may seem strange that so small a matter should be observed, but an awful solemnity and stillness reigns round such a death-bed as this; the conscious self of the sufferer is not there, where then, one ponders, is it gone? or what is it now going through? These few silent hours what unnumbered sins may not be disappearing from the score, under the intensity of his chastisement! And the extreme solemnity of such ideas seems mocked or insulted in a way by these crowding insects, that creep in and out of the eyes, nose, and mouth, which are unconscious of the intrusion, or have no power left to resist it. They are anticipating death, when these things will be theirs.

By midnight, or one o'clock, the ordinary day might be called over. Sometimes it was an hour earlier. Altogether it was exhausting work. Yet a summons was not unfrequent at that hour, and at times out of the parish, to a distance; and this usually led to two or three others, the relatives waiting outside in the street. Not often can the knock at a door tell such a tale as did that vicarage door handle at the various hours of the night. The tired ear listened almost nervously for its summons as the limbs were flung, or rather fell, like lead upon the welcome mattress. Perhaps at that moment would come a startling knock. Selfishness was ready for a moment's pause. It was only fancy. No; there it was again. It was not fair to let another be roused from sleep when so much needed, if indeed one or two others were not on their night-work still. So the clothes were slipped on,—the window opened for a brief parley,—in a few minutes he was again below,-the unextinguished gas jet was turned up: medicine was forwarded, and shortly followed by the priest himself. There were not many nights in which all were undisturbed by a summons. It was happy if only one had been