A know myfelf incapable of fuch charge; a great flock terrifies me, but I can do fome good to a fmall one. I have ftudied enough of the law to hinder, as far as I can, my poor parishioners from ruining themfelves in law-fuits. I know enough of phyfic to point out to them fimple remedies when they fhall be ill. I have knowledge enough of agriculture to give them fometimes fome useful advice. The Lord of the place and his wife are good fort of people who are no devotees, and who will affift me in doing good. I flatter myself that I fhall be happy B enough, and that no one will be unhappy with me. Arift.] Do you not regret the want of a wife? This would be a great comfort; it would be delightful, after having preached, fung, confeffed, administered the facrament, christened, buried, to find at home a pleas ing, agreeable, and virtuous woman, who would take care of your linen, and your perfon, who would entertain you when well, would nurse you when ill, and would bring you pretty children, whofe good education would be of ufe to the itate? I am grieved that you who ferve mankind, fhould be deprived of a confolation fo neceffary to mankind. Teot] The Greek church is very careful in encouraging the clergy to marry; the English church and the protestants are as wife; the wisdom of the Latin church is quite the reverfe: I muft fubmit to it, perhaps at this time when the fpirit of philofophy has made fo great a progress, a council may enact laws more favourable to humanity, than those of the council of Trent; but till that happens, I muft conform to the prefent: It costs me dear, I know; but as many of more confequence than I fubmitted to it, I ought not to complain. Arift.] You are a wife man, and have a great deal of eloquence; how do you intend to preach to the country people? C D E F G Tect. As I would preach to kings, I would always fpeak of morality, and never of controverfy: God preferve me from fearching into the concurrent grace, the efficient grace, which we refift, the grace fufficient which H faffices not; from examining whether the angels who eat with Abraham and Lot had a body, or whether they only feemed to eat; there are a thoufand things which my congregation would not understand, nor myself neither. I fhall endeavour to make them good, and to be good; but I would not make them divines, and 1 will be fuch as little as poffible. Arif] O rare Curate! I'll buy a country houfe in your parish. Pray tell me what ufe you will make of confeffion? Teot.] Confeffion is an excellent thing, a check to crimes, instituted in the earliest ages; they confessed when they celebrated the ancient myfteries; we have adopted and fanctified this wife practife; 'tis of great ufe to appeale hearts inflamed with hatred, and to make little pilferers restore what they have ftolen from their neighbours. It has indeed fome inconveniencies. There are many indifcreet confeffors, especially among the monks, who fometimes teach the girls more folly than they would be able to learn from all the youths of village. In confeffion there is no defcending to particulars; it is no judicial examination; it is an acknowledgment of his faults, which one finner makes to the fupreme Being thro the hands of another finner, who in his turn will go to confeffion. This falutary acknowledgment is not made to fatisfy the curiofity of man. Arift.] And excommunications, will you make use of them? Teot. No; there are rituals by which grafshoppers, witches, and players are excommunicated. I fhall never exclude the grafshoppers from church, because they never enter it. I fhall not excommunicate witches, because there are no witches; and as to the players, fince they are paid by the king, and licensed by the magiftrate, I hall take care not to defame them. I will even own to you, as my friend, that I have a relish for a play, when it is not immoral. I am paffionately fond of the Misanthrope, Athaliab, and fome other pieces which feem to me the schools of virtue and decorum. The lord of my village has fome of these acted in his catle, by young perfons who have a talent for it: These representations inspire virtue by the allurements of pleafure; they form their taste, they teach good language, and good pronunciation. I fee nothing in them but what is very innocent, and even highly useful: Í reckon much on frequenting thefe plays for my inftruction, but in a grated box for fear of giving offence to the weak. Arift.] The more you difcover to me your fentiments, the more I defire to become your parishioner. With one point of great importance I am much embarraffed. How will you prevent the peafants from intoxating themfelves on holidays? That is their chief manner of keeping them; you fee fome oppreffed with a liquid poifon, their heads bowed towards their knees, their hands hanging down, feeing nothing, hearing nothing, reduced to a ftate little above that of the brutes, led home ftaggering by their weeping wives, unable to work the next day, and frequently difeafed and brutish the reft of their lives. You fee others made frantic by wine, provoking bloody quarrels, beating and being beat, and fometimes terminating by murder, thofe dreadful fcenes, C which are the difgrace of human nature: It must be owned that the state lofes more fubjects by feftivals than by battels; how can you leffen in your parish an abufe fo execrable? B the fertile plains of Zepbirim, on the borders of Colchis. The good old Dondindac was in his great hall, between his large fheepfold and his vaft barn; he was on his knees with his wife, his five fons, and his five daughA ters, his relations and his fervants, and all were finging the praises of God, after a flight repaft. What are you about there, you Idolator? faid Legomacos. I am no Idolater, replied Don dindac. You cannot but be an Idolater, anfwered Logomacos, because you are a Scythian, and not a Greek: Well, tell me what you are finging in your barba rous Scythian jargon? All languages, faid the Scythian, are alike to God: We are finging his praises. A most extraordinary thing indeed, replied the divine! Scythian family praying to God without having been inffructed by us. A dialogue immediately enfued between him and Dondindac; for the divine understood a little Scythian,and the other a little Greek. This dialogue was found in a MS, preferved in the library of Conftantinople. Teat.] I am refolved what to do: I will allow them, I will even urge them to till their fields on holidays D after divine fervice, which shall be over at an early hour. It is the idlenefs of the week-day that leads them to the tavern. Working days are not the days of debauchery and murder. Moderate labour contributes to the health both of foul and body: Be- E fides, this labour is neceffary to the fate. Let us fuppofe fix millions of men, who earn by their work, one with another fix-pence a day, and this calculation is very moderate; you render thefe five millions of men ufelefs thirty days in a year. The ftate, therefore lofes thirty times five F millions of fix-pences in manual labour. Now most certainly, God never enjoined this lofs, or drunkennefs. Arif.] Thus you will reconcile prayer and work. God enjoins them both. You will ferve God and your G neighbour: But in ecclefiaftical dif putes, of what party will you be? Teot. Of none. We never difpute on virtue, becaufe that comes from God: We quarrel on opinions which come from men. Arift.] O rare Curate! O rare Cu Logomacos.] Let me hear if you can fay your catechifm? Why do you pray to God, Dondindac.] Because it is right to adore the fupreme Being, to whom we owe every thing. Log.] Well enough for a barbarian! And what do you afk of him? Don.]. I thank him for the bene fits I enjoy, and even for the afflic tions with which he tries me; but I am very careful to ask him nothing; He knows better then we what we want; and, befides, I am afraid of praying for fair weather when my neighbour may pray for rain. Log.] Ah! I had no doubt but he would anfwer like a fool. Let us take the matter a little higher. Who tells you Barbarian that there is a God? Don.] All nature. Log.] That is not enough. What is your idea of God? Don.] The idea of my Creator, of my governor, who will reward me if I am good, and punish me, if I am wicked. Log.] How poor, how trifling is this! Let us proceed to effentials, is God infinite fecundum quid, or as to his effence? Don.] I do not understand you. Log. Brute beaft! Is God in place, or out of place, or in every place? Don. I know nothing about it. 'Tis jult as you pleafe. Log.] What ignorance! Can he prevent what has been from having been, or a ftick from having two ends? Does he fee the future as the future, or as the prefent? How does he produce fomething from nothing, and reduce it to nothing again? Don.] I have never examined these things. Log.] What a blockhead! Well, I lower myself to his ftandard, Tell me, my friend, do you believe that matter can have been eternal ? A Don.] What is it to me whether it B has existed from all eternity, or not? I myself have not exifted from eternity. God is always my governor; he has given me an idea of juftice; I ought to follow it, I will not be a philofopher, I will be a man Log.] One has a deal of trouble with fuch thick fculls. Let us go ftep C by step. What is God? Don.] My fovereign, my judge, my father. Log.] That is not what I ask. What is his nature? Don.] A powerful and good Being. L.] But is he corporeal or spiritual? Don.] How would you have me know? Log.] What! don't you know what a fpirit is? Don.] Not in the leaft, and what good would it do me? fhould I be nore juft? fhould I be a better hufband, a better father, a better maf- E ter, a better citizen? Log. I muft, by all means, teach you what a fpirit is. Attend It is, —it is,it is—I'll tell you another time. FR Obfervations on the Apoplexy. ROM the public papers and bills of mortality it appears, that during these last twelve months, apo plexies have been uncommonly frequent. A diligent obfervation of the fymptoms, which conftitute this difeafe, plainly demonftrate that it is occafioned by fome caufe, which intercepts the influence of the nervous power, or that medium, by which all voluntary motion and fenfation is performed. The various caufes which may intercept the diftribution of the nervous power from the fenforium commune to the different organs, and thereby bring on an apoplexy, may be reduced to two heads, viz. com. preffion, or irritation. Accordingly, we often fee apoplectic fymptoms induced, when the brain is injured by fractures, or contufions of the skull, or when compreffed by extravafated blood, or ferum. The perfons who are most liable to the difeafe, are the plethoric, the corpulent, the gouty, and that too at a time of life when congeftions of blood and plethoric symptoms are most freD quent, i. e. between the ages of 40 and 60. The infpection of bodies who have died apoplectic, further confirm this doctrine: For the most frequent phænomena are found to be extravafations of blood, or ferum, diftenfion of the plexus choroides, and finuses of the brain, fometimes large polypi, or steatomatous tumors. Now, there is hardly room to doubt, but thefe all act by irritating, or compreffing the fubftance of the brain. It may, indeed, be objected, that fometimes, by the most careful diffection, no vifible caufe of this kind can be detected, and that the ferum found in the ventricles feems nearly in its natural ftate, betraying no fenfible marks of acrimony, when applied to the eye, or to the tongue; and that, confequently, in fuch cafes, compreffion, or irritation, could not be fupG pofed to have any fhare in the difeafe. But it does not follow, that the difease was not occafioned by fome la. tent acrimony in this liquor, although it might not difcover any evident caufticity to the fenfes. The viper's poilon, one of the moft virulent liquors in nature, betrays no fenable acrimony to the tongue, or when ta. ken into the ftomach, yet how fmali a portion of it when allowed to pafs the circulation, and come in contact with the medullary portion of the Don.] I am afraid that you will rather tell me what it is not than what "it is. Give me leave, in my turn, to F afk you a question. I have formerly Teen one of your churches; why do you paint God with a great beard? Log.] 'Tis a very difficult question, and one that requires fome preliminary instructions." Don.] Before I receive your in ftructions, I must tell you what one day happened to me. I had just built a fummer-house at the bottom of my garden: I heard a mole reasoning with a cock chaffer. What a beautiful fabric is that; faid the mole; it must have been a most powerful mole that buit it. You are in jeft, replied the cock-H chaffer; a cock chaffer of great genius was the architect of that building. From that time I determined never to difaute. (Gent. Mag, Nov. 1765.) nerves, nerves, is able to excite the most for. midable fymptoms? That a latent acrimony may fometimes, by a fudden metaltafis to the brain, produce an apoplexy, feems clear from confidering how often, gouty, cachectic, and fcorbutic fubjects are cut off by this disease. From this account it would appear, that befides the fanguineous, and ferous apoplexy, mentioned by authors, there is another kind arifing from the acrimony of the fluids. I fhall briefly enumerate the pre- B difpofing caufes, and the diftinguifhing marks by which the different fpecies may be known. The ift may generally be known readily, being accompanied with fymptoms of plethora, as turgefcency of the blood veffels, intenfe redness of the eyes, and countenance, hæmor- C rhages, &c. The 2d by extraordinary corpulency, or obefity, thick fleshy neck, pale fwarthy complexion, leucophlegmatic habit. The 3d by gouty, fcorbutic, or cachectic fymptoms, having made their appearance before the attack. When D the difeafe is occafioned by polypous concretions, or fteatomatous tumors in the brain, the caufe is feldom fufpected before death, nor indeed if it was known, could any remedy be applied. The pre-difpofing caufes above- g mentioned, whether natural, or acquired, are not fufficient to conltitute the disease, without the intervention of fome occafional cause. The occafional causes of apoplexy may be referred to whatever determines an inordinate afflux of blood to the brain, or prevents its egrefs by the jugular veins, or defcending aorta. Or finally, whatever occasions a preterna. tural rarefaction, or induces a morbid acrimony in the mass of Aluids, Such are intemperance in eating or drinking, fudden paffions of mind, obftructions of the blood's motion thro' the heart or lungs,a warm moist, or light atmosphere. Accordingly, of late it has been observed, that apoplexies have been most frequent when the mercury in the barometer féll very low. And no wonder, as fuch a state of the air is neceffarily attended with a turgefcency and arefaction of the humours. As this difeafe attacks an organ, fo immediately effential to life, no wonder that it generally baffles the ut. G most efforts of art. If the rapidity of its progrefs will admit of advice and affiftance, a moment's time ought not to be loft. The chief intention, in the fangui neous apoplexy, is to relieve the verfels of the encephalon, by a speedy and copious blood-letting from different places at the fame time. After the jugular vein is opened, leeches thould be applied to the temples and occiput, or to the veins of the feet, (if poffible) to follicit the blood towards the lower extremities, If the warm pediluvium is added, it will contribute not a little towards the fame intention. 2d. By antiphlogiftic purgatives and glyfters, compofed chiefly of a folu tion of the neutral falts, and fuch laxatives as are of the moft fpeedy operation. 3d. By blifters to the extremities, and cupping with fcarifications. In the ferous apoplexy, the indication is to evacuate the watry colluvies by hydrogue purges, perpetual blifters, fetons, diuretics, halagogues, Bleeding in the jugulars, or temples, may likewife be neceffary, but requires to be used more fparingly than in the fanguineous apoplexy. In the apoplexy occafioned by a tranflation of the morbific humour of the gout, fcurvy, &c. befides the ge neral treatment propofed, remedies of approved efficacy in those diseases must be exhibited. If by these means an apoplectic patient furvives the paroxyfm, ftri&t care must be afterwards taken that be carefully avoids all kinds of intemperance, and the other occafional caufes above-mentioned. The attentive reader will eafily perceive, that the method I have propofed, to be purfued during the 3poplectic paroxyfm, is very different from the ordinary treatment, which directs the ufe, not only of emetics, and fternutatories; but the repeated application of the most pungent volatile falts to the nofe, and fances, and various other remedies of the heating and ftimulating kind. I have fometimes wondered to find this ir rational method pursued, not only by illiterate people, but also by phyficians of fome eminence. But what effect Hit may be expected to have on the tender veffels of the brain, gorged with blood, or perhaps already ruptured, I leave to their ferious reflec tion. If the hints above propofed, fhould afford any information to thofe whofe time and avocations have not allowed them opportunity thoroughly to inveftigate the nature of the disease, I thall think my pains well beftowed; and ftill more fo, if they fhould be A found in anywife to contribute to préferve but one miferable perfon from the brink of ruin, whether owing folely to the ravages of the difeafe, or the prepofterous treatment too often practifed, by ignorant, tho' officious, and well-meaning friends. Northampton. M.D. B Remarkable and authentic Inflances of the fafcinating Power of theRATTLESNAKE over Men and other Animals, with other curious particulars, communicated by Mr Peter Collinfon, from C a Letter of a Correfpondent at Philadelphia. MR D D TR NICHOLAS SCULL a furvey. or, told me, that when he was a young man, as he happened once to be leaning upon a fence, and looking over it, he faw a large rattle-fnake in coil, looking fteadfastly at him. He found himself furprised and liftless immediately, and had no power for about a minute (as he thinks) but to look at the fnake, and then he had the refolution to push himself from the fence, and turn away, feeling fuch horror and confufion as he would E not undergo again for any confidera. tion. Doctor Chew tells me, a man in Maryland was found fault with by his companion, that he did not come along; the companion ftepping towards him, obferved that his eyes were fixed upon a rattle-fnake, which was F gliding flowly towards him, with his head raifed as if he was reaching up at him; the man was leaning towards the fnake, and faying to himself, be will bite me! he will bite me!Upon which his companion caught him by the fhoulder and pulled him about, and cryed out, What the devil ails you? He will bite you fure enough! This man found himfelf very fick after his inchantment. One Jafbua Humphreys in Weft Jersey, a perfon of good natural fenfe and courage; went to do fomething with This pitch-fork at the remains of an hay ftack, the top of which was held him and was charmed. His wife wondering he ftaid fo long (for he remained fixed above two hours) the went haftily to him, and then the fnake looked at her; but the regarding her husband moft, efcaped the inchantment, and he alfo was releafed, the fnake's eyes being turned from him. He prefently came to himself, and faid to his wife fhe had faved him, and that if fhe had not come he should have died by that fnake.-He then turned to the fnake and killed him with the fork. A perfon of good credit was travelling by the fide of a creek, or fmall river, where he faw a ground fquirrel running to and fro between the creek and a great tree a few yards diftant; the fquirrel's hair looking very rough, which fhewed he was fcared, and his returns being shorter and fhorter, the man ftood to obferve the cause, and foon fpied the head and neck of a rattle-fnake, pointing at the fquirrel thro' a hole of the great tree, it being hollow; the fquirrel at length gave over running, and laid himself himfelf quietly down with his head clofe to the fnakes; the fnake then opened his mouth wide, and took in the fquirrel's head; upon which the man gave the fnake a whip acrofs the neck, and fo the fquirrel being releafed, he ran into the creek. feffions concerning charms, fays, that My wife, who has very few prepofwhen he was a girl, and lived in the country, he was one day left in the houfe, with only a chicken with her; the door was open, and, after fome time, the obferved the chicken to be very uneafy, going across the doorway many times, and friving to keep back from the door, falling down firit on one fide and then on the other in turning; but still gathering nearer to the door; which gave her a fight of the head and glistening eyes of a large fnake, directed over the door-fill at ftairs, where the fhut herfelf in a room, the chicken; which, frighted her up and the does not remember any more of the matter, nor knows what fnake it was. When I was about thirteen years old, I lived with William Atkinfor, an honeft man in Bucks County, who, returning from a ride in warm weather, told us that while his horfe was drink ing at a run, he heard the cry of a blackbird, which he fpied on the top of a fapling, fluttering and training the way he feemed unwilling to fly, and |