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illumination. If the peculiarity of his temper gave pain to others, it occasioned far greater pain to himself; in private, he mourned over it as his daily burden,and consider. ed it as the enemy with whom he was daily to contend. This, notwithstanding his usual reserve, he has, at times, acknowledged to his intimate acquaintance. His opinion of the completeness of the atonement made by the blood of Christ, and his firm adherence to the doctrine of Divine sovereignty, never led him to fancy he was released from the law as a rule for his temper and conduct; but he was as truly concerned to bear the image, and follow the example of Christ, as to be arrayed in his righteousness. He was always ready to promote the interests of the gospel; but shewed too great a predilection for those Christians who were of the same sect with himself, and was too n-uch attached to the forms and rites (for every church has its forms and rites) of his own particular church. He had a spice of bigotry in his composition, and yet he never suspected it. He perceived the bad tempers, and mourned over the hard speeches, which his bigotry occasioned; but the principle itself he rather cherished than opposed, mistaking it for steadiness to his profession; and rather gloried in his inordinate zeal for peculiar systems, modes, and forms, under the notion, that he was "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." There was a want of sympathy in Mr. Rigid's natural temper, which prevented him from entering into the feelings of the distressed; he had scarcely ever tasted the cup of affliction, and was, therefore, backward to believe what others said concerning the bitterness of its contents; his favors were, on this account, sometimes conferred in a manner which grated on the feelings of those who received them, yet it

would be unjust not to acknowledge that he was always ready to help the poor, and to open his purse to the necessitous.

Before it pleased God to take this good man to himself, his heart was both softened and enlarged in the school of affliction. In the course of a tedious illness, which preceded his dissolution, he experienced much kind attention from a person who belonged to the connexion over which the late Rev. John Wesley presided. Mr. Rigid was often in great pain of body, and, occasionally, felt great darkness of mind; the affectionate behavior of his friend overcame his natural reserve, and they conversed freely together. Though, nothing could be more opposite than the views of Mr. Rigid, and those of his friend, in some points; and though he had often expressed, in strong terms, his abhorrence of Arminianism, and the inconsistency of any sort of Christian communion with the Arminian Methodists, he now began to think that vital, experimental religion, and unaffected piety, might exist in a person whose views thus differed from his own. At one time when he was expressing his entire dependence on Christ for salvation, his friend repeated to him that beautiful hymn which begins, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress.

The whole was congenial with the feelings of his own mind; and so consistent with his views of Divine truth, that he exclaimed, in his usual emphatic manner; "He who could write that hymn, and adopt those words as the language of his heart, will one day sing gloriously in heaven." When he was informed it was one of Mr. Wesley's hymns, he was covered with shame, on recollecting how ill he had

formerly thought, and spoken of a man concerning whom he could now say, "May my lot be with him, and may his portion be mine.”

His heart was now expanding, and while he retained his former well digested opinions of Divine truth, he felt a degree of love to other Christians, which he had never before experienced. He saw that he had made modes and forms, the mere scaffolding of the building, of equal consequence with the building itself. His religious consolations also sensibly increased; the roughness was removed from his temper, and the graces of his mind shone forth with new lustre.

At length, to the regret of all who knew him, he expired; but to the comfort of his Christian friends, he had, in his last moments, the full possession of "peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

SUNDAY SICKNESS;

OR, AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND

CAUSES OF A

DISEASE OF THE TYPHOUS KIND, WHICH THOUGH OF LONG STANDING AND GENERAL PREVALENCE, HAS NEVER BEEN NOTICED BY ANY MEDICAL WRITER.

Principiis obsta, Sero medicina paratur.

Cum mala per longas invaluere moras.

OVID.

Resist disease betimes, if you would see

Your health the same as once it us'd to be;
Too late we at last call for med'cine's aid.

Our pow'rs, by long affliction, all decay'd.

DOCTOR Easy, amongst other papers, has given me one containing the particulars of the disease which is repre

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sented by the patients as a natural, but which, he thinks, I shall give

bears the symptoms of a moral disorder.

his history of it in the present number.

There is a disease, at this time, too prevalent in our neighborhood, an account of which is not to be found in our popular books of medicine; I shall, therefore, endeavor to communicate some particulars respecting it.

The disease, to which I refer, is evidently of the intermitting kind; and in all cases, that have fallen under my notice, has attacked the patients by violent paroxisms which return every seventh day. It may be thought to savor of superstition to mention it, and yet it is a fact,and therefore must not be passed over, that, these paroxisms return only on the Lord's day, on which account the disease is called the Sunday sickness; and the faculty know it by no other name than Dici Dominici morbus. On account of its periodical attacks, some have thought it to be a sin. gular kind of ague, especially, as it is attended with a great degree of coldness, though I do not perceive the symptoms of shivering which are usual in that complaint.

I have observed the paroxisms commence at different periods, but generally in the morning of the Lord's day, and in many cases it seizes the patient before he has left his bed, and makes him indisposed to rise till a later hour than usual. A coldness has first been noticed about the region of the heart; and a dulness in the head, which stupifies the brain, not unusually succeeds; this is followed by yawning, and a sort of lethargy. The patient is, sometimes, deprived of the use of his limbs, especially the legs and the feet, so that he finds himself indisposed to walk to the house of God. Some, indeed, have gone up to the solemn

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assembly; but they have generally entered it later than their neighbors; and even there the paroxisms have seized them, and the symptoms of yawning and lethargy have been so violent, that, they have fallen into a dead sleep, even, when the preacher has been delivering the most solemn truths in the most animated manner; and others have been extremely uneasy in their confinement during the time of service, though they have been known to sit, very contentedly, in a playhouse, for several hours together.

This disease appears to stupify those who are subject to it, so that, however, they may appear to suffer, they are seldom, if ever, heard to complain. I have known persons under other diseases mourn on account of their confinement from public worship; but the victims of this extraordinary disorder were never heard to exclaim, "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart, and my flesh crieth out for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?"

I was at first greatly surprised, after hearing that a patient could not get to public worship, to find her the next day as active as if she had not been subject to any kind of indisposition; but I have since found it very common, after the paroxisms are removed, for the patient to appear perfectly well till the approach of the next Sabbath; though most of the faculty agree, that, there is a low feverish heat to be perceived during the days of interval, which is called Febris mundi; or the worldly fever. There seems also to be a loss of appetite for savory food, and an entire want of relish for panis vitae, which, it is thought,might be of service to remove their disease, as a very skilful and experi

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