may watch their restless course, and shall not our hands be outstretched, and our hearts lifted up to Him, who commandeth alike the winds and the waves, and they obey him?

What does the English lady think of Ireland, as her eye glances over the newspaper, with its details of agitation, and deeds of persecution and superstition? Does she rejoice that her lot was not cast in such an unquiet dwelling-place, and exult in Protestant England, disturbed as yet only by Popery's young veiled sister, Tractarianism. Does she give a pitying thought to the o'ershadowed isle, or does she merely wonder if its inhabitants will never be weary of wrangling? Oh! lady, stop not there: Ireland is indeed a thorn in England's crown, but who but herself pointed it, when she forced the papal yoke upon the bleeding land? Well, we would not call up long inflicted wrongs to reproach a sister country, alas! we need not to refer to the page of history, when each succeeding year fresh concessions are yielded to appease the clamours of those who rest not, save in subjection or supremacy, and coldness is meted out to those who think of England as the motherland. Oh, sit not then at ease, while scriptural light is darkening beneath Rome's unfurling banner, or the lamp extinguishing under the extracts of national education, so nicely suited to please the prejudices of the majority, whose fear of God is taught by the precept of men. Fold not your hands in sleep, while your senators help on the affliction, turning aside support from Protestant institutions, to conciliate Roman Catholic fellow subjects, and starving the meek to strengthen the unruly. None can question the apparent expediency of such measures, and they have their reward, for much of the praise of men attends them-so doubtless the

counsel of Caiaphas, that one man should die, that the whole nation should not perish, was well received by the unbelieving Jews,-it was also acted on, and we know the result of his spiritually unenlightened sagacity. John xi. 50.

The Most High will not honour those that do not honour him; see then that ye be not silent partakers in national sins, but seek unto Him, by whom "Kings reign, and princes decree justice," that he may inform the rulers after his will, and bring on England the blessing of a land, governed in truth and righteousness! AN IRISH LADY.

DEVICES OF THE EVIL ONE.

NOTHING that has appeared in our magazine, from its commencement, has brought us so many letters as the Tract on Mesmerism, published in our last. Of these, some, and those chiefly from persons of no less judgment than piety, contain a full assent to, a cordial approval of our views: others almost accuse us of blasphemy, in attributing to Satan the healing gift which they believe to be vouchsafed by the Most High, through mesmeric influences; others, not crediting the reality of things reported, which amount to supernatural interferences, rebuke our weakness in believing their existence; some refer to electricity, and other more recent discoveries in science, as being sufficiently wonderful to assume in the eyes of the uninitiated the character of witchcraft, until duly explained; and the largest number take their stand on this point: "Satan,' say they, has never been known to soothe suffering, or to heal disease; his work is to torture and to destroy. How, then, can that be of him, which you allow to possess and to exert a healing influence on the afflicted body?'

A careful perusal of our former paper would, we think, make it clear to any mind, where we draw the limit between what may be natural, and harmless, and good, and what is unnatural, pernicious, and devilish : but since such patient analization does not seem to have been afforded by the majority of our correspondents,

we will briefly notice a few points touched on by each

:

class and to begin with the first,- -a dear friend thus writes from a place where mesmerism has been practised, and to a great extent exposed in the two-fold character of a satanic delusion-both as a clumsily executed fiction, and a real exhibition of unlawful powers. 'There is a woman here, who has been confined to her bed for three years; at times suffering excruciating agony. Scarcely a doctor in -, who has not unsuccessfully endeavoured to afford her relief. A short time ago, a mesmerist entered her house, telling her that if she would permit him to operate on her, he had no doubt that he could in time cure her. She replied, God had mercifully supported her hitherto, and she was satisfied to trust him with the future; and his word (laying her hand on the Bible beside her) had been her comfort throughout. He asked, Could she believe the fables recorded in that book? adding many infidel arguments to shake, if it were possible, her faith in God; until she requested him to leave her house. A lady coming in shortly afterwards, gave her the "Letter to Miss Martineau," to read; with which she was greatly pleased.' Few of our readers will be disposed to deny that this woman had been tempted of the devil; had resisted him, and forced him to flee; and this she seems to have done, even before he commenced his blasphemies, under a secret persuasion that the power tendered to be used in her behalf was not of God. We ground no argument on this incident; but it struck us very forcibly. No doubt, there are infidels, too many, among our regular practitioners in the healing art; but they do not commence their professional services by assailing the faith of the patient.

The second class of our annotators tax us with doing

Satan's work, by stigmatizing as his a "gift of God," by which some seem to indicate merely the healing process, and others, the revelations made of things, the discovery of which tends to some advantage. We repeat, that a soothing, soporific effect may, and very probably does attend the merely manual operations of the mesmerist, affecting, independently of all contact, the nervous susceptibility of its subject. To say nothing of the subtle, and extensive, and mysterious agency of electricity, we remember a somewhat ludicrous illustration of the command in which any one may hold the nerves, and the muscles too, of a large, unwilling circle. We can recollect, in our childish days, tracing a face on divided paper, attaching some simple machinery to the lower part of it, and suitably painting what was afterwards to appear. By this means, having first directed the attention of the company to our subject, the unobserved pulling of a thread produced so natural and irresistible a yawn in the picture, that before the jaws were again allowed to close, the whole party were either yielding to, or painfully and visibly contending with, that unpolite contortion of countenance. However beneath the dignity of mesmerism, this we regard as a kindred phenomenon; and on the self-same principle we believe that greater things may be done, through a somewhat different medium; even to the amelioration of severe suffering; and in the same sense in which we would say the same thing of a vapour bath, we may call it a gift of God: an additional discovery in the wide field of remedial or palliative agency: but neither the vapour bath, nor any other known medium of bodily relief has overstepped the bounds of matter, and passed into the region of mind and spirit, investing them with a power, not of discerning, for the individual FEBRUARY, 1845.

M