1839.] 197 ADVICE OF AN OLD BISHOP. CESARIUS, bishop of Arles about the year 500, was greatly distinguished by his deeds of charity, his constant preaching, and his care of the Churches. When hindered from preaching, he caused a sermon of Augustin or Ambrose to be read by a minister. He exhorted his people not to be content with hearing the Scriptures read in the church, but to read them also at home. Finding the people accustomed to talk in the church, while the choir was singing, he induced them to join in psalmody; and in a sermon, which has been preserved to the present day, he exhorts them to sing with their hearts as well as with their voices. Observing some persons going out of church to avoid hearing the sermon, he cried with a loud voice, "Where are you going, my children? Stay, stay, for the good of your souls! At the day of judgment it will be too late to exhort you."-Fry's Church History. EXTRACTS FROM SOUTH'S SERMONS. THE providence of God has so ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the usefulness of which has made it matter of duty, and of a profession, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it, without loathing or satiety. The same shop and trade that employs a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every morning he rises fresh to his hammer and his anvil; he passes the day singing custom has naturalized his labour to him: this shop is his element, and he cannot, with any enjoyment of himself, live out of it. Whereas no custom can make the painfulness of a debauch easy or pleasing to a man; since nothing can be pleasant that is unnatural. But now, if God has interwoven such a pleasure with the works of our ordinary calling; how much superior and more refined must that be, that arises from the survey of a pious and well-governed life? Surely as much. as Christianity is nobler than a trade.-South's Sermons, on Prov. iii. 17. He that governs well, leads the blind; but He that teaches, gives him eyes.-Ib. Sermon 5. No man knows, at his first entrance upon any sin, how far it may carry him, and where it will stop; the com mission of sin being generally like the "pouring out of water," which, when once poured out, knows no other bounds, but to run as far as it can.—Ib. Vol. ii. p. 223. Honour is the birth-right of virtue, and shame of vice. -Ib. Vol. iv. p. 130. Godliness is a perfection comprehending in it all the graces of a Christian; and no less than the image of God Himself, new stamped upon the soul; he, and he only, can lay claim to so glorious a qualification, who is actually in covenant with God, and that not only by external profession, but by real relation; a relation intitling him to all the benefits of a federal estate,-or, to be yet more particular, he who with a full and fixed resolution of heart, has taken the whole law of Christ in the several precepts of it, with the utmost hardships attending them, for his portion in this world, and the promises of it for his inheritance in the next; he who rules his appetites by his reason, and both by his religion; he who makes his duty his business, till at length he comes to make it his delight too: he who lives and acts by a mighty principle within, which the world about him neither sees nor understands; a principle, respecting all God's commands without reserve; a principle carrying a man out to a course of obedience; for the duration of it constant, and for the extent of it universal: and lastly, in a word, he, and he only, ought to pass for godly, according to the stated, unalterable rules and measures of Christianity, who allows not himself in the omission of any known duty, or the commission of the least known sin. And this certainly will, and nothing less that know of, can, either secure a man from falling into temptation, or (which is yet a greater happiness) from falling by it. All other measures not coming up to this standard, are vain, trifling, and fallacious, and, to all the real purposes of religion, wholly ineffectual.-Ib. Vol. vi. p. 122. Numerous are the deliverances that God works for us, which we see; but infinitely more those which we do not see; but He does. For how often is the scene of our destruction contrived and laid by the tempter! How often are his nets spread for us, and those of too curious and fine a thread to be discernible by our eye; and we go securely treading on to our own ruin; when suddenly the 1839.] THE SAVING OF THE SOUL. 199 mercy of a preventing Providence stops us in our walk, and pulls back our foot from the fatal snare!—Ib. 134. Sent by E. Y. THE SAVING OF THE SOUL. In one of the very useful Tracts put forth by a Clergyman of the Church, the great advantage of savings' banks is stated in a plain and interesting manner. The tract concludes with the following important instruction on a subject of infinite concern to every one of us. "You can easily answer the question as to whether you have made any provision for the future in this world. And just as easily can you set about the inquiry, as to whether you have made any provision for the future in another world. If you were thrown out of employment to-day, if by your own or the ill-conduct of others you should lose your place, your case is not yet hopeless; you may again obtain work, you may perhaps procure another place. 'Tis true, you must, in the mean time, if you have laid by nothing, suffer some privations; but you have hopes of a better state of things when fresh employment shall cause your sufferings to cease. But if you die, before you are prepared for another world, your case is hopeless; it is for this reason that we are thus warned in our Bibles, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. When you quit this world, you quit the only field in which you can work out your salvation. How immeasurably more important, then, is the task of providing for the future welfare of the soul, than that of providing for the old age and afflictions that may befal the body. I have pointed out to you, and I am sure you must acknowledge the necessity for the provision of the one ;-if you, for a moment, reflect, you will not, cannot deny the far greater importance of providing for the other. To afford such evidence of goodness in your lives and conversation as shall cause you in the eyes of your Maker to deserve an eternity of happiness in heaven, is impossible. Did the attainment of salvation depend upon our own power of acting worthily of it, salvation never could be ours; but, thanks be to God! it does not. The Gospel,— the New Testament,-tells us, that there is but one name under heaven by which map can be saved, the name of Jesus Christ; it also points out to us, by what means we can best avail ourselves of that name. Now, knowing, as we most assuredly do, the Gospel to be the word of God; reading in that Gospel that there is but this name in and by which we can obtain God's love and favour here, and the salvation of our souls hereafter, surely it is worse than folly to hesitate for one moment, whether we shall, or shall not, accept of the great offer held out to us. You will find in that Holy Book simple and plain rules for the regulation of your lives, the governing, by God's grace, the sinful nature of your hearts, and the strengthening of your faith, in such a degree as shall make you hour by hour rejoice that your days here have not been passed regardless of a provision for hereafter. Let then "Saving" be your motto through life; the "saving of your soul" your chief object. Thus by God's blessing you will have no fear of adversity here, you will possess treasure in heaven, secure in your Saviour's name, that shall amply fulfil all your desires throughout eternity. From a Tract called the Savings' Bank. By the Hon. and Rev. S. G. Osborne. VACCINE INSTITUTION. Copy of the last report from the national Vaccine Establishment, to the Secretary of State for the Home Depart ment. My Lord,-The small-pox has prevailed epidemically, and with great severity, not only in England, but also in a considerable part of the Continent of Europe, since our last report. It seems from the history of this disease, that it has recurred epidemically, once in twelve or fourteen years, ever since its first introduction into these islands, and always with extraordinary violence and destruction of life; so that 45,000 persons are said to have died in one of these epidemic years, before inoculation was introduced, at the beginning of the last century. Since that practice was brought here, the loss of life by small-pox, within the bills of mortality, was 5,000 annually; but since vaccination has superseded inoculation, the number of deaths has reased gradually, until it amounted to only 200 in the 1839.] VACCINE INSTITUTION. 201 year 1837. In the course of the year which has lately terminated (during which the small-pox prevailed epidemically), there have died 800 of this disease; not one more, after all, than one-sixth of the number of those who died annually during the prevalence of inoculation, notwithstanding the increased population of the metropolis and its neighbourhood. Surely this implies some general protective influence, and our confidence in the efficacy of good vaccination remains unimpaired, unabated. We are, indeed, convinced that the indiscriminate vaccination which has been practised in this country, by ignorant and unqualified persons, with but little or no regard to the condition of body of the person to be vaccinated, to the selection of the vaccine lymph, or to the progress and character of the vesicle to be formed, are to be regarded as amongst the main causes of the occasional failure of vaccination; and we are sorry to hear an anxiety expressed, that a recurrence should often be made to the disease of the cow, which first supplied the genuine protective matter; for, in the first place, it is not in the nature of any communicable virus to degenerate and lose its influence; and in the next, we have the opportunity of bearing our most ample testimony to the continuance of the efficiency of the original vaccine lymph introduced by Dr. Jenner, through nearly a million of subjects successively, of whom many thousands have been exposed, with entire impunity, to small-pox in its most malignant form. We have vaccinated, by our several appointed vaccinators, 18,659 persons this last year, and have sent out to various parts of the world 203,818 charges of lymph; the former amounting to 6,241 more than have been vaccinated in the metropolis and neighbourhood in any former year, and the latter exceeding distributions of lymph from the National Institution by 79,097 charges. (Signed) HENRY HALFORD, President of the Royal College of Physicians, President of the Board. HONO RATUS LEIGH THOMAS, President of the Royal College of Surgeons. THOMAS WATSON, Senior Censor of the Royal College of Physicians. CLEMENT HUE, M.D. Registrar.-Feb. 11, 1839. (See Morning Post, Thursday, March 7, 1839.) |