which for a long time may not become apparent. The majority of what are called nervous diseases are probably of this class. Some grief, like a thorn at the heart, as Hippocrates says, by its secret and incessant irritation, gradually wears out the vital energy. Some vulture preys upon almost every heart, and it needs not the pride and ambition of a Napoleon, fastened to the lonely rock, to feel its gnawings, for disappointment as keenly follows every intense and absorbing passion.

Every part of the body testifies to the potency of emotions over the organism of life, though the anatomist searches in vain for the cause of functional derangement; it must be sought among agents which he cannot handle. An idea has frequently force enough to prostrate the strongest man in a moment. A word has blasted all his dearest, fondest, most habitual hopes. His only child has died—the partner of his life is snatched away ;-he has but heard of the calamity, or he has seen but a few dark words; nothing has touched his body, but the 'iron has entered his soul.' He reels-he trembles ; some demon grasps his brain-sleep is gone; he dares not look at the light. A dull pain and a heavy cloud fix themselves over his eyes, and if the efforts of nature and art are unavailing, or if the balmy spirit of religion breathe not healing through his soul, and speedily bind up the broken heart, some fatal malady of the brain more or less rapidly ensues, and the man of energy and affection becomes an outcast from society till death releases his spirit.

Next to the brain, the stomach suffers from continued mental distress. The appetite fails; digestion is suspended; atrophy succeeds, and perhaps some nerve-ache racks the sufferer. Sometimes pulmonary consumption, or disease of the heart, the liver, or the bowels is induced. The secretions are of course proportionally affected. Thus the milk of a nurse is often entirely suppressed by

mental disquietude. Hence a nervous, excitable woman is hardly fit to suckle her own children; for the fluid that should nourish her infant undergoes so many changes, from the mother's mental variations, as greatly to distress the child, and perhaps even to destroy it. Ninety-eight out of a hundred deaths from convulsions are of children, thus proving them to be especially liable to this disorder; and as the majority die in early infancy, it is not unlikely that the state of the mother's mind may be the secret cause of this unnatural mortality. And let it not be forgotten, that the unborn offspring receives the impress of injury from the parent's unholy passions, and that to a degree which influences the temperament of all after-life. The means of morally regenerating the world are the means of promoting health and happiness; and Christianity advances and exalts humanity from its birth, by improving the condition of woman, as regards body, mind, and home.

Under mental depression the nervous energy becomes exhausted, the conservative power of nature is wanting, and the body is rendered especially obnoxious to external influences.

Captain Ross, in the narrative of his arctic voyage, particularly alludes to the circumstance of mental depression increasing susceptibility to cold. The disastrous retreat from Moscow also affords a striking and extensive instance. This kind of susceptibility to the skyey influences' is more marked, but it equally exists in other forms; thus those who are depressed by any cause, are most likely to take contagious diseases.

Now look at him who is emphatically the miser: that is the wretch. He seems as if all his affections had been congealed by a dip in Lethe, as Dr. M. Good observes. Yet some demon of anxiety, some cunning fiend, sits like a night-mare on his bosom and will not let him sleep, while whispering in his ear of robberies

and of destitution. No cordial cheers-no wealth makes him comfortable-he grows thinner and thinner—his limbs totter and his nerves ache. Even if the charitable, whom he cheats, consent to feed him, though in the home of plenty, he cannot gather strength: his soul starves him. This poor pitiable being has been the subject of sarcasm from age to age; but many who laugh and point the finger at him are doubtless his descendants, for they bear a strong family likeness in their features, even to him of whom Valerius Maximus relates, that he took advantage of a famine to sell a mouse for two hundred pence, and then died famished, with the money in his pocket.

Duty to our neighbour, our country, and our God, requires us to be diligent in business and fervent in spirit. With a right motive we shall find our utmost efforts both healthy and happy; but are there not many, however, who ask not, with a mockery of prayer, for their daily bread, until they have plotted some scheme upon their beds by which they may file a fortune from the wages of industry, or cheat their less crafty brethren of some part of their due portion? How can these be healthy? Perhaps it is possible that such contrivers may be rubicund in their success, but it is more likely that the money-mania will at last absorb all the cheering springs of kindly sympathy, and leave them weak and weary in the dry desert of their selfishness,—their whole being a disease.

This is a common termination of a vicious course, whatever form of selfishness the vice assume; for vice is always selfish, and therefore apt to be increasingly anxious and wretched, till habit dries the heart up in despair.

When Reason, like a skilful charioteer,
Can break the fiery passions to the bit,
And, spite of their licentious sallies, keep
The radiant track of glory ;-Passions, then,
Are aids and ornament.

YOUNG.

CHAPTER IX.

SYMPATHY.

SYMPATHY is the natural check which the Almighty puts upon uncharitable self. In spite of themselves, there are few who have not felt compassion for others. This affords a beautiful proof both of the beneficence of our Maker and of the power of the mind over the body.

The same power that formed this orderly universe out of chaos, reduces the confusions of the moral world into regularity. By the mere principle of sympathy all discord in the social feelings becomes accordant. The sad unconsciously become gay; the gay are softened into a joy which has less of mirth, but not less of delight; and though there is still a diversity of cheerfulness, all is cheerfulness.' 'How much more admirable, however, is the providence of the Creator's bounty in that instant diffusion to others of the grief which is felt only by one, that makes the relief of this suffering not a duty merely, which we coldly perform, but a want, which is almost like the necessity of some moral appetite.'*

Pity, like love, imparts a sedate tenderness to the carriage :

Soft words, low speech, deep sobs, sad sighs, salt tears,
Rise from the breast;

FAIRFAX.

and if it cannot be relieved, the face becomes pale and wan, the appetite fails, and the slumber is invaded with

* Dr. Brown.

frightful dreams; and thus a broken heart, from pity as from grief, is no fiction.

Mr. Quain, at the Westminster Medical Society, detailed the following case. A gentleman who had constantly witnessed the sufferings of a friend afflicted with stricture of the oesophagus, had so great an impression made on his nervous system, that after some time he experienced a similar difficulty of swallowing, and ultimately died of the spasmodic impediment produced by merely thinking of another's pain.

A curious and interesting effect of pathetic feeling is the production of tears. We may laugh till we cry, but true tears are not then produced. There is a particular nerve supplying that part which causes the formation of tears, and it seems to be naturally stimulated only by the suffering of the mind. An infant, however strong its cries, sheds no true tears until its affections are awakened; and it smiles long before it can weep, as if to assure us that sorrow belongs to the higher actions of the soul, and is intended to lift our eyes and hearts to heaven. It is commonly observed that deep grief is apt to be dangerous if the brain be not relieved by tears in fact, it indicates that the blow has been so severe as to paralyze that part of the nervous system which causes them to flow. Hence we so often hear lamentations from the wounded heart, that it can obtain no relief from its overwhelming sorrow, because the fountain of tears seems dried up.

:

As, without direct cause of pain, we may, so to say, catch pain by the contagion of sympathy, so also, in like manner, we may be infected with pleasure. We all feel the charm of a general joy. We laugh with those that laugh, we know not why, and almost as readily are touched with the visible sorrow of those who mourn. But, alas! it is not so easy to catch virtue from the virtuous as vice from the vicious, and we are more moved