whose bar I cite thee to appear.' A short time afterwards this 'Father Lactance' seemed to be overcome by depression of spirits, and died in violent convulsions.

After this tragical drama, the malady of the Ursulines continued to increase. The epidemic was accompanied with the usual phenomena-the seeing of visions, the speaking of unknown tongues, and the augmentation of physical force. Letters of blood appeared on the hand of the abbess. Apparently these seizures were of a cataleptic nature, and without attributing intentional imposture to these nervous girls (who, after prolonged fasting and exciting thoughts, may have imagined themselves to see and feel all that they described), it is evident what a dangerous opportunity for treachery was afforded to the Barnums' and impostors, who made a traffic of their infirmities. As to the claim to the possession of new faculties following on these states of magnetic somnambulism, the evidence is unsatisfactory, and there was probably a transmission of signs between the exorcists and their patients.

The acuteness of particular faculties in abnormal physical conditions is, however, singularly illustrated by the history of the Huguenot prophets, of whom M. Figuier has collected some curious anecdotes. No independent party in any kingdom ever merited more tolerant treatment than the reformed burgesses of France. The sect of French Protestants was composed of pious, honest, and industrious citizens, who were animated by conscientious scruples, but who would rather have laid down their own lives than risen as insurgents against the legitimate authority of their king. But these pacific intentions could not mollify the cruel resentment of a grandson of Philip II. The men who had enriched their country with their labour were termed 'monsters of heresy'-their religious meetings were pronounced to be 'cradles of pestilence and synagogues of Satan. The magnificent Bourbon, troubled in his illicit amours by the stings of his conscience, is forced to quiet this inconvenience by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Protestants are hunted down like runaway slaves. They are tortured in secret, and deprived of their children. Their emigration is forbidden; their wives are surrendered to the brutality of the soldiery; their priests are confined in damp dungeons, chained to pillars which suffer them neither to lie nor to stand. The infirm and sickly among them are tortured till they retract in the agony of their sufferings; and meanwhile, from groaning thousands, a terrible cry goes up to heaven, How long, O Lord? how long? Avenge thy scattered saints!'

We have not patience to record the shallow excuses made for these cruelties by the panegyrists of Louis XIV., nor to cite the

pompous

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The Protestant Prophets.

199

pompous periods of Bossuet, in which he is compared to Constantine-the saviour of the church. To the glory of Fénelon be it acknowledged, that he alone had courage to raise his voice in stern condemnation of such criminal excesses, which religious women like Madame de Maintenon could witness and approve. For a while the Huguenots bore up against their afflictions with unexampled courage and patience; but the cruelties practised against them were suited, with diabolical calculation, to numb and depress every energetic tendency of the mind. Their fathers were sentenced to the galleys; their marriages were declared void; their children were considered as bastards; and the comforts of their worship were forbidden them under the most horrible penalties. The strongest minds could not bear up against such overwhelming pressure, and bodily and mental prostration soon succeeded to their former spiritual exaltation. The belief that Divinity would interpose in their favour, grew into a monomania. Torn from his people by persecution, one of their aged pastors had exclaimed, Fear not. The Spirit of the Lord will never abandon you. If we are taken from you, He will speak by the lips of women and children.' These words were literally accepted, and engendered a sort of preaching delirium. To excited imaginations the hills and the mountains echoed with unearthly voices. A party of fanatics went about advocating long fasts, and prophesying from the pages of the Apocalypse. Women fell into a state of ecstatic sleep, and preached during somnambulism. The 'beautiful Isabeau' (a girl of eighteen) was one of the first to be so affected. She would preach sunk in so profound a lethargy that the application of hot irons could not recall her to her senses. At these times, her features (otherwise irregular and ordinary) would seem as if transfigured, and be lighted up with an unearthly beauty. On awaking from her trance, she would remember nothing she had said, and show no power of eloquence. The 'gift of the Spirit' was soon communicated far and wide. Children of six years old would preach, and admonish their seniors. Animated by the promises of their prophets, the Calvinists began to pluck up spirit, and instead of yielding themselves quietly to their tormentors, they routed large forces of their enemies. The appearance of these wild recluses issuing from their fastnesses in the mountains, with streaming hair, outstretched hands, and countenances lit up with unearthly joy, crying in tones of thunder, 'Arrière Satan!' was such as to strike terror into the hearts of the merciless soldiery.

For a long time they maintained a doubtful contest under their leaders Roland and Cavalier; but being at last overpowered by the number of their enemies, and routed by the superior military skill of the generals who were sent to defeat them, this insurrection

in the desert was at last suppressed. Multitudes of the unfortunate prophets were burnt alive, whilst others carried their supposed gifts into the lands of their exile.

During this obstinate struggle the 'enfants de Dieu' (as the prophets were called) represented a sort of military theocracy. Everything was delivered into their management, and the people had the utmost confidence in the reality of their inspirations. In his Letters on Enthusiasm,' Shaftesbury ridicules the contortions of those prophets who took refuge in England. This ecstatic illuminism was invariably accompanied with tremblings and spasms. After a while the convulsive violence gave way to a calmness and serenity of demeanour when the prophet commenced his exordium, beginning always in the same manner, 'Je te dis, mon enfant; je t'assure, mon enfant.'

Sometimes this state of ecstacy was artificially produced, by one of the initiated breathing into the mouth of a neophyte, with the words, Receive the Holy Spirit!'

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It is worthy of notice that these ecstatic conditions invariably commenced by the sudden falling down of the sufferers, as if they had been struck to the ground by some unseen force.

The limits of this paper preclude the possibility of considering the analogous cases which have occurred in the middle ages, and more modern times. Many of those who attended the preaching of Tauler in the fourteenth century, were found lying prostrate in states of insensibility. During the sermons of Wesley and Whitfield, such was the violence of the feeling aroused in their auditors, that they fell on all sides, and often remained for hours in death-like swoons. In the fourteenth century the monks of Mount Athos produced a great sensation by throwing themselves into states of ecstacy. Their method consisted in fixing their eyes steadily upon one spot, by which means they imagined themselves surrounded with uncreated light (the essence which shone upon Mount Tabor), and thought they were transported into_the holiest of holies. About the same time the sect of the 'Free Spirit' told wonderful stories of their own miraculous powers. By depriving themselves of food and sleep, they managed to remain for weeks in trances, and deliberately believed themselves to be inspired, and to have attained to a state of perfection.

The desire for dancing and leaping seems often to have been connected with fanatical hysteria. The priests of Baal shrieked and leapt in their excitement. The Galli discovered the same method of producing a state of frenzy ; and it is curious that the Methodist Jumpers relieved their hysterical raptures in the same morbid and unnatural manner. The mania for making noises and talking gibberish has always been infectious. The citizens of Athens went about wildly reciting verses, from hearing those of Euripides.

Euripides. Congregations flocked to Mr. Irving's church, in later days, and were taken with the infection of raving. Shrieks and maniacal exclamations are heard during the camp-meetings of America. Jonathan Edwards, in his account of the revival in New England, in 1734 and 1735, describes the converts as 'yelling for mercy.' This account, couched in the technical phraseology of Puritan divines,' relates the wonderful effect of sympathy amongst the people but attaches no value to the visions of imagination.

Dr. Copland remarks that partial insanity may be propagated by infection. In times of religious excitement, suicides have often been common. Some of the Mullerites who, in 1844, expected the end of the world, sat up all night in their shrouds, determined to be prepared for the event.

If such phenomena as these were to become general, the machinery of society would be stopped, the lands would lie untilled, and men might return to a barbarous state.' Derangement of the senses, ecstacies, and hysterical affections were not enumerated by the apostle in his account of the fruits of the Spirit. Amongst these we may notice a precise mention of that moderation or 'temperance-that habitual inner self-government, with which the Christian should regulate his passions and affections, and be able to resist the temptations arising from religious terror or epidemical delusion.

ART. II.-1. Tobacco; its History and Associations. By F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. 1859.

2. Tobacco; its Use considered with reference to its Influence on the Human Constitution. By Andrew Steinmetz, Esq., Barrister-atLaw.

1857.

3. The Narcotics we indulge in. No. VIII. The Chemistry of Common Life. By J. F. W. Johnston, M.A.

4. Mr. Solly's Letters in the Lancet,' February 1857. 5. Tobacco. Lecture by the Dean of Carlisle, 1859.

TOB

OBACCO hath three stages. In the first it is a matter of luxury, in the second of indifference, in the third of necessity. And here lies the pith of the matter in three lines. Mr. Steinmetz is a votary of tobacco, and pleads eloquently and pleasantly in its favour. Mr. Fairholt takes a middle course, and holding the scale in equal hands, confines himself, as far as possible, to the history of tobacco and pipes, &c. Mr. Johnston almost exhausts the subject in his valuable work, The Chemistry of Common Life;' while Mr. Solly is a vigorous and damaging opponent to the Virginian weed. With an ample field in which to exercise his powers of observation, endowed with a practical intellect, and copious and energetic speech, armed with an imposing professional celebrity, he Vol. 3.-No. 11.

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has

has unsparingly denounced the use of tobacco in all its forms, in a series of letters to the Lancet;' while Professor Laycock, a man of European reputation, has endorsed the assertions contained therein, and re-echoes the word from the northern metropolis. To lay the finger on the exact line where weakness degenerates into wickedness, and where wickedness develops into crime, is a very difficult matter; but the after consequences all who are not wilfully blind can see, and every one of moderate intelligence can reflect on; and that physical and moral deterioration is invariably and rapidly the result of disobedience to the laws of God, the laws of man, and the laws of nature, few will wish or be able to deny. To the advocate of extreme liberty it has been well said, that if 'whatever is, is right,' nothing that has been was ever wrong; and by pushing this theory to its logical consequences, we reduce it to an absurdity. It must be borne in mind, that if no one be sufficiently sure that his way is right and other ways wrong, there would be neither cause nor inclination to check anything in this world; and all coercion, either physical or moral, must necessarily cease. However much, therefore, we may, for the sake of blunting the edge of the bitter intolerance natural to man, advocate the theory of extreme personal liberty according to the tenets of Mr. J. S. Mill, practically we must and do act differently. Bearing all this in mind, we shall endeavour to investigate our subject impartially, and to consider, first, the evidence as to the increasing appetite among us for narcotics; and, secondly, its probable influence on the social condition of mankind.

Probably few of our readers are unacquainted with those excellent maps of physical geography in which the geological formations, and the diversifications of the climate and productions of each country are, by means of different colours, distinguished at a glance. On the same principle there are maps of Great Britain containing the result of the laborious industry of our RegistrarGeneral, in which the social condition of our people is placed in evidence. Those counties are distinguished from the others, where morals are at a low ebb, and illegitimate births are reported as being above the average; where ignorance of reading and writing prevail, of which the number of marks instead of signatures to the marriage-registers are one means of proof; and where the number of convictions for crimes of violence are in excess. There are also, we believe, in course of preparation maps of our sanitary condition, in which the localities where the greatest amount of preventible death occurs will be pointed out, distinguishing between that which arises from neglect or carelessness in the use of machinery (as happens frequently in our manufacturing counties), and death from miasma, the effect of inefficient or defective drainage, or endemic disease, such as appears constantly in certain marshy districts.

Mr.