Homer nods; and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as dreams (even in his golden dreams) are apt to be ill-placed and incongruously put together, his Grace presented this idea of reproach to me, but took the subject-matter from the Crown grants to his own family. This is the stuff of which his dreams are made. In that way of putting things together, his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the house of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility.-The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the Crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the Royal bounty. Huge as he is, he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over with the spray, everything from him and about him is from the throne. Is it for him to question the dispensations of Royal favour?"

In addition to other Church property, the Russell family possesses the following:-A Preceptory of Knight Hospitallerswith a manor and a church, at Melchburn, Bedfordshire, valued at £241 9s. 10d.now worth £4,829 16s. 8d.-granted by Edward VI. to John, Earl of Bedford; a Cistercian Abbey, found at Woburn, Bedfordshire, valued at £430 13s. 11 d., now worth £8,613 19s. 2d.-granted by Edward VI. to John, Lord Russell; a Benedictine Abbey, at Thorney, Cambridgeshire, valued at £508 12s. 5d., now worth £10,172 8s. 4d. -granted by Edward VI. to John, Earl of Bedford; a Cistercian Abbey, at Dunkeswell, Devonshire, yearly income £289 11s. 10d., now worth £5,971 16s. 8d.-granted by Henry VIII. to John, Lord Russell; a Dominican Priory at Exeter, near the Cathedral church, now called Bedfordhouse-granted by Edward VI. to John, Lord Russell; a Benedictine Abbey, at Tavistock, valued at £902 5s. 7 d., now worth £18,045 12s. 6d.-granted by Henry VIII. to John, Lord Russell; an Alien Priory, at Hagh, Lincolnshire-granted by

Henry VIII. to John, Lord Russell; an Augustine Priory, at Castle Hymel, Northampton, valued at £62 16s., now worth £1,256-granted by Henry VIII. to John, Lord Russell. Can any one be surprised that a member of this family can see no necessity for reform, or at least such a reform as will satisfy the people? And did not the same motive influence Lord William Russell, who was beheaded in the reign of Charles, lest his son James should succeed him to the throne, and restore the property of the church to the Catholics? Note-Covent-garden Market, said to produce £10,000 yearly, is not included in this statement.

THE CHURCH OF THE ARISTOCRACY.

THAT the Church should be a mere political engine in the hands of the aristocracy, is just what might be expected from the system of patronage; which deprives the people of all power in the election of their pastors, and leaves them at the mercy of political, family, and mercenary arrangements. Can we wonder at the strength of Church influence in the House of Lords, when we find that, to say nothing of the holders of a smaller number of presentations, the

Duke of Devonshire is patron of
Earl Fitzwilliam

Dukes of Beaufort and Rutland,

Livings.

48

31

58

27

24

20

36

and that our hereditary Legislators, exclusive of the Bishops, have altogether 4,050 livings in their gift! Thus, not only are the resources of a whole nation unjustly applied to the maintenance of a single sect, but the State-Church becomes a source of increased strength to an already too powerful aristocracy.

VOL. XV.

was the language at that time in Israel, and in that language God, for reasons of obvious wisdom and utility, sent the Scriptures. But when the New Testament was given by inspiration of God, Greek had become widely diffused in Europe, Asia, and the most cultivated

I

con

portion of Africa, and, so far, therefore, as the original languages were cerned, they had clear and irresistible evidence that God intended his revelation for general and public use, and not for sacerdotal monopoly and aggrandisement. Under the Mosaic dispensation, the testimony of Jehovah was not locked up in a tongue to which the priest alone had access, and under the new economy Greek was selected as the medium of communication, thus proclaiming, with no uncertain sound, the comprehensive and beneficent intentions of the Divine Author.

The Church of God had always recognised the paramount and important duty of supplying the Scriptures to the people in their native language. For many ages the Jewish Church in its state of comparative isolation, found the Scriptures in Hebrew not only profitable, but sufficient; yet, when the Greek language spread, and the Greek empire numbered among its subjects many of the Jewish people, they did not hesitate to furnish a Greek version of their sacred books; and there was evidence that that version not only attained a high character among Jews, but was consulted, and even quoted, by the inspired writers of the New Testament. In the Christian Church the same course was pursued, and the history of primitive times would supply the student with abundant proof that in the onward march of Christianity the reception of Christianity by any particular nation appeared to have been the signal for translating the Scriptures into the language of the nation.

With respect to the old Latin version of the second century, and the Vulgate, or improved version of Jerome in the fourth century, the primary object of both was manifestly to present the Scriptures in their own language to the Latin-speaking population. In the absence of direct historical proof, there existed a strong probability that the Latin version in its primitive form visited Britain, and it appeared certainly to have given birth to the AngloSaxon translation of the Scriptures. There was proof that, between the first and fourth centuries, the old Latin version must have been accessible to British Christians in the Roman provinces. Had it not arrived before the sixth century, it would then have been in the form of the Vulgate, by which the old translation had been super

seded; but it was certain that the old Anglo-Saxon version, which had been traced up to the eighth century, had for its basis, not the text of the Vulgate, but of the old Latin translation; and from internal evidence it was plain that it had been used in the public services of religion.

Having thus adverted to the arrival of the Scriptures in Britain, and translation into the different languages successively known to the people, Dr. Wilson passed on from the eighth to the fourteenth century, when they were transferred into English. The age of Wycliffe was preceded or attended by some attempts to transfer to the language of that period portions of Scripture; but for the illustrious Reformer was reserved the laborious and honourable enterprise of leading the way and conferring upon his countrymen the inestimable boon of an entire English Bible. Wycliffe was born about the year 1324, and after an eventful life, devoted to the advancement of religion and liberty, he died in 1384. For talent, learning, eloquence, and moral courage, he stood forth on the page of history the most prominent Briton of the fourteenth century.

Dr. Wilson, after noticing that Wycliffe had relied mainly upon the Vulgate, which was in a tongue he had perfectly mastered, paid a tribute to the memory of the illustrious Reformer, for his defence of the right of the people to the free and unrestricted use of God's Holy Word. He adverted to the proceedings taken against him for his labours by the Vatican, to the fierce denunciations of Pope Urban, and the citations before archbishops, and to the support of the people, high and low, which had enabled him, notwithstanding all, to finish his course in peace, at the ripe age of threescore years. He remarked how marvellous it was that Wycliffe's New Testament should not have appeared in print before the year 1731, and that an edition of the entire version should have been withheld from the public till near the middle of the nineteenth century, or, as an author had expressed it: "We would never have imagined that about twenty sovereigns would have sat on the throne of England since the invention of printing, before such a work had issued from the press."

He then passed on to the age of William Tyndal, who, he said, was born

about the year 1477, and educated in the University of Oxford, and who had diligently studied the old Hebrew and Greek learning with a success which merited the praise of his contemporaries, and qualified him for the task of translating the Scriptures from the languages in which they were written. Tyndal had translated the New Testament, and also the Pentateuch, with certain other historical books, and the prophecy of Jonah. Dr. Wilson then replied to the charge that William Tyndal had based his translation upon the German edition of Luther, by passages which he had collected from both editions, and he said that while Tyndal seemed to have availed himself of aid from every legitimate quarter, he had never surrendered his right to decide for himself upon the meaning of the original.

The labours of Tyndal in the cause of the Bible and of practical godliness formed his imperishable monument; and, in comparing his translation with the authorized version, they would, perhaps, be surprised to discover for how very large a proportion of Scripture terms and forms of expression, with which they had been familiar from childhood, they were indebted to the zeal, and learning, and fidelity of the persecuted disciple and martyr, William Tyndal, whose martyrdom took place in September, in the year 1536. The Bishops' Bible appeared in 1538, and King James's Bible in 1611; and during the eighty-six years between the first appearance of Tyndal's Bible and 1611, 278 separate editions of Bibles and Testaments in English were known to have issued from the press, and the list was considered to be still imperfect.

It might be said that the Church of Rome was not, after all, antagonistic to the dissemination of the sacred volume. They would see. The Rhemish New Testament, "Translated faithfully into English out of the authentical Latin," as the title-page set forth, was published at Rheims in the year 1582, about 200 years after Wycliffe's version, and fifty-six years after the publication of Tyndal's New Testament. During these fifty-six years, at least 166 editions of the Scriptures in English, reckoning Bibles and Testaments, issued from the press under Protestants of anti-Papal patronage, and were extensively circulated in Britain; while not one English Bible or Testament was

supplied to the people by the Romish Church.

A contrast between Rome and the Reformation, in diffusing the light of the Scriptures, might be learned impressively, by looking at the successive reigns of two British sovereigns. Edward VI. reigned six years and ahalf, and in that brief period there were published fourteen editions of the Bible and thirty-five editions of the New Testament. To him succeeded Queen Mary, a strong and bitter adherent of the Romish Church, and during her reign of five years and four months, not a solitary edition of the Bible or New Testament was printed in the Three Kingdoms.

One edition of the New Testament was issued from the press at Geneva in that reign. Under these circumstances the Rhemish translators found it necessary to make some apology for the late appearance of their edition; they stated that it had been long before translated, and that its publication had been delayed for the lack of means. The translators did not even recognise the right of the people to have the Scriptures in their own language, and stated that, but for special considerations of the state and condition of the country, the translation might neither be requisite nor wholly valuable. And had it not been for the efforts of the Reformers in circulating the Scriptures in Britain, the Rhemish edition might not have been issued. That edition avowedly adopted as its basis the Latin Vulgate, and was thus presented to them as the translation of a translation, and not as the translation of the sacred original, and it was in many passages so un-English, that Fuller had said, more truthfully than complimentarily, that it was a translation that needed to be translated.

Dr. Wilson gave several examples of the un-English modes of expression made use of in the Rhemish version, and it was a curious fact that, in the editions lately published under the authority of the Church of Rome-for instance, that published in the present year under the sanction of Paul Cullen and twenty-five other prelates-in most of the examples he had given, and others he could mention, the un-English expressions were left out, and almost the words of the authorized version adopted in their stead.

The authorized version was published

under the auspices of King James, in 1611. Among the translators they found not a few men of distinguished ability, and it appeared to be acknowledged on all hands that they made a decided advance in the best antecedent English translations. If they had not availed themselves of the assistance of other translators who had gone before them, all their talent, learning, and fidelity, would not have produced the authorized version. It might, in fact, be contemplated as the growth of nearly 100 years. In all its great elements of idiom and style, our version was not the mushroom product of the early years of the reign of King James. It was indebted to that period for many of its highest excellences, but it did not, like Jonah's gourd, come up in a night, nor was it destined, like Jonah's gourd, to perish in a night.

The early history of the authorized version was particularly instructive. At the time of its appearance there were in the field several rival translations-the Bishops' being extensively in use in England, and the Geneva circulated almost exclusively in Scotland, besides many other translations throughout Britain, and no powers were put forth to supersede these editions, or to secure a monopoly for the edition of King James's translators. Under these circumstances, its wide circulation was a proof of its intrinsic excellence. Some of its rivals kept up for forty years after its publication, but eventually they all succumbed, leaving it in almost undisputed and exclusive possession. It was in use among all classes in the United Kingdom, as well as in its dependencies; and beyond the limits of the British dominions, it is circulated in hundreds of thousands. No other version of the Scripture, ancient or modern, had obtained the same high and commanding position. They dared not pronounce it faultless, or its authors infallible; nor could they conscientiously express universal and indiscriminate admiration; but, viewing it in comparison with all other translations which had come under their notice, they were prepared to say of it"There is none like it."

STOMACH MYSTERIES EXPLAINED.

From an American Paper.

THE case of Alexis St. Martin is one with which the public,.and especially

those who have given particular attention to the subject of physiology in connexion with medical science, are already somewhat familiar. It is indeed a most extraordinary one,-perhaps we might say, the most extraordinary one known in the annals of surgery.

St. Martin is a Canadian of French descent. In the year 1825, when he was eighteen years old, and while employed in the service of the American Fur Company, in Canada, he was accidentally wounded by the discharge of a musket loaded with duck shot, as he calls it, but which must, we infer, have been about the size of a buck shot. He informed us that he did not feel or know that he had been hit, but a moment afterward he felt a cold chill, as if a pail of cold water had been dashed over him. The charge, entering laterally from behind, passed quite through his body, tearing off the muscles, carrying away half of the sixth rib, lacerating the left lobe of the lungs as well as the diaphragm, perforating the stomach, and exposing to view the pericardium, or covering of the heart! A portion of the lung, as large as a turkey's egg, lacerated and burnt, and just below this portion of the stomach, protruded from the wound, the food at the same time passing from the orifice thus made in the stomach. This orifice has never healed, and through it the process of digestion can plainly be seen in the stomach.

Dr. Beaumont, the surgeon who attended him, published some years ago a volume made up from facts connected with this case, and entitled, "Dr. Beaumont's Physiology and Experiments." This work embraced the observations and experiments of St. Martin, and may be said to be the foundation of nearly all the positive knowledge now possessed on the subject of digestion. In this book the Doctor gives the particulars of the treatment of the case, and the singular recovery of the patient. Curiously and happily enough, by the adhesion to the sides of the protruded portions of the stomach to the pleura costalis and the edge of the external wound, a free exit was afforded to the contents of that organ, and effusion into the abdominal cavity was thus prevented, and the man's life saved.

Probably not one man in a million, if wounded in a similar manner, would recover at all; while the chances against just such a direction and result of an

other accidental or even an intentional shot would be so enormous, as to defy computation, and almost to surpass belief. The case of St. Martin is probably the first, the last, and the only one of the kind the world will ever see; and opportunities which it affords for the acquisition of positive knowledge concerning the human stomach and digestive functions are of corresponding interest and value. Think of the idea of actually witnessing the process of digestion and the assimilation of various foods in the interior of the stomach !

This interesting subject for study was recently in Hartford, and we had the opportunity of seeing him. He was under the care of Dr. John G. Bunting, formerly a surgeon in the British army, and who proposes to exhibit this living wonder to the medical men of some of our large cities, previous to a journey with him to Europe. While here St. Martin and the Doctor were the guests of Colonel Colt, at whose invitation they were induced to stop, while on their way to Boston, for the purpose of allowing to the Hartford Medical Society an opportunity of noting the process and the effects of digestion, the absorption of different kinds of food, &c. Some of the facts thus obtained are new and interesting; others seem to confirm previous theories of the physicians.

It was found that brandy taken upon an empty stomach, half an hour before dinner, has the effect to temporarily paralyze the process of digestion for a period of four hours. Moreover, its influence upon the stomach, under the circumstances, is such as to prevent that organ from recovering its natural and healthy tone for thirty-six hours after the brandy is swallowed; when, at the expiration of that time, its restoration to a healthy tone is indicated by the appearance of red patches on the internal coats of the stomach, from which minute drops of blood are seen to exude. Curiously enough, during this interval, appetite is not the least impaired, although the functions of digestion are greatly impeded. The immediate effect of the brandy is to induce upon the coats of the stomach a condition either of inflammation or congestion; the physicians were unable to agree, from appearances, which of the two conditions really existed in this case. If, however, the brandy be taken with the dinner or after it, the food prevents its direct contact with the coats of the stomach, and

the result then is to facilitate the process of digestion; as has been frequently proved by observations which show that food, under these circumstances, digests considerably quicker than it does without this stimulus. This, however, does not prove that brandy is beneficial as a regular concomitant of the dinner-table. It may well be questioned if it is the part of wisdom to make such regular and unceasing application of the whip and spur to a horse that is disposed to do his best without the sharp stimulus ; though there may be cases of weak stomachs where the very moderate use of pure brandy might prove advantageous. But the physicians who have watched the process going on in St. Martin's stomach, do not purpose to deal in theories; they are after bald, literal facts.

Hundreds of people have an idea that game and meat that has been kept until it has almost reached the verge of putrefaction, is more easily digested than fresh game or beef. This belief has led to the taste that likes, or professes to like, what is called the game flavour in woodcock, venison, &c. But it is seen, in this case, that tainted meats or game require a longer time for digestion than fresh meats. By a curious process of the stomach, the tainted meat is seen to undergo a very effective cleansing before the work of digestion begins. It is rolled over and over, and repassed from one portion of the stomach to the other, the subtle agencies of that interior laboratory all the while acting upon it, and eliminating, particle by particle, the offensive portion, until all is clean and ready for the proper work of digestion to commence.

The interior of the stomach, contrary to the impression of many persons, is cleanly, and not uninviting in its appearance. Its delicate pink coatings are as clean and perfect as all the rest of Nature's handiwork; and it is not until the pampered and unnatural appetite of individuals has, by overloading it, and by eating and drinking improper things, rendered it weak and incapable of performing all the work thrust upon it, that the stomach, or rather its contents, become "foul."

Cooked (melted or drawn) butter, and the lard used in "shortening" pie-crust, is not digested at all. It is seen swimming upon the surface of the stomach, in the form of yellow or light-coloured grease, and it finally passes off undi