of the holy Jesus, who, as the necessities arose, failed not to heal at all times, and with special solemnity declared that it is "lawful to do good on the Sabbath-days."

Dr. Bird was obliged to resign his physicianship at Guy's in 1854. Since 1848 disease had been undermining his strength. In the summers of 1852 and 1853 he had to seek repose in the country. It was not easy for so eminent a practitioner to get rest. At Torquay and at Tenby the "physician's holiday" was broken by visits of invalids.

It was difficult for him to decline to see patients where there were so many; and though he only visited such as were recommended to him by their own medical attendants, these were enough to divert him often from his recreation. His love of nature contributed much to make his retreat at Tenby pleasant. Dr. George Wilson of Edinburgh, who frequently met him, says of him: "During his six weeks' stay at Tenby, his enjoyment was that of a child. Earth, air, and sea, all contributed to his joyous happiness. With a mind capable of deriving pleasure from the most varied sources, he took particular delight in natural history; the field pursuit of which was quite new to him, and he passed much of his time in the investigation of our marine fauna. In all social questions, sanitary, political, and general, he was deeply interested; but the peculiarity which struck his friends most was his delight in all that concerned man as an heir of immortality." His health did not improve much by a temporary cessation of labour. Disease had preyed too deeply.

He now saw that it was his duty to retire from practice. But God had prospered him so much that he could retire upon an ample competency. He had laboured too severely and bore the fruit in an early death. "A sense of neverfinished work," he wrote to a friend, "broken health before

forty years have passed over one's head, are the fines paid for large success. Yet do not think I mourn. I see God's smile, and our blessed Saviour's love, more in calling me from this work than ever in giving it to me."

He took up house at Tunbridge Wells in August 1854, but soon sank under his disease. "He bore all patiently," says Professor Balfour; 'his heart was fixed; his ambitious views as to time were humbled, and he was resigned to the will of his God. His time and thoughts were absorbed in preparation for eternity, and earthly honours were seen to be unsatisfactory. To him to live was Christ, and to die was gain. On the 27th of October, at the early age of thirtynine, he departed to be with Christ, expressing in his last moments a firm reliance on him, committing to his care a wife and five little children, and joying in hope of a blessed resurrection."

Like Dr. JOHN REID* of St. Andrews, who died from disease affecting the eighth pair of nerves, on which he had experimented and published, Dr. Golding Bird, "the great renal authority, died of renal disease." Both found the Lord by means of their afflictions; and their biographies are most touching records of the grace of God, full of encouragement and instruction to young medical men. They were both ambitious, both successful; but they found a Saviour, and died in peace. "What things were gain to them, these they counted loss for Christ."

Medical men! are you decidedly Christian? True piety is no hindrance to the pursuit of such a calling as yours. It is essential to the peace of your souls and your good hope for eternity. Of what consequence would it be to many a patient were their medical attendants men of God like Gold

* See his very interesting biography by Dr. George Wilson.

ing Bird, not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, ever evincing a concern in the souls of the sick and dying, and never deluding with false hopes!

Are you not decidedly Christian? Have all the warnings of the dying made no impression? Have the testimonies of the departing Christian not wrought conviction? Have the fruits of sin, seen in all their loathsomeness, not evidenced the need of a great Physician for soul as well as body? A medical practitioner ought not to neglect his own soul. By knowing the Saviour, he might be able "to minister to a mind diseased;" and while attempting a bodily cure be instrumental in saving a soul from death. Such was the object of Dr. Golding Bird, and of Dr. Cheyne of Dublin. The latter, a very successful physician, was most anxious to do good to souls, and when he could no longer give medical aid, and his name be of no more value in counsel, he directed his tombstone to be his advice. It contained this inscription, without his name: “The name, profession, and age, of him whose body lies beneath, are of little consequence; but it may be of great importance to you" (i.e., the passing reader) "to know, that by the grace of God he was brought to look to the Lord Jesus as the only Saviour of sinners, and that this looking to Jesus gave peace to his soul. Pray to God that you may be instructed in the gospel, and be assured that God will give the Holy Spirit, the only teacher of true wisdom, to them that ask Him." "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 66 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” *

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*See Dr. Tweedie's Lamp to the Path.

Dr. Golding Bird died while in the prime of life, but he had accomplished a work which left a blessed memorial.

"What though short thy date?

Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures
That life is long which answers life's great end.
The time that bears no fruit deserves no name'
The man of wisdom is the man of years.

In hoary youth Methuselahs may die,-
O how misdated on their flattering tombs!"

CHAPTER X.

FREDERICK PERTHES, THE PUBLISHER.

"He gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs."— ECCLES. xii. 9.

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New shape and voice the immaterial thought
Takes from the invented speaking page sublime,—
The ark which mind has for its refuge wrought,

Its floating archive down the floods of time."

SCHILLER.

THE last half century has been eventful in Germany. The Fatherland has passed through an experience of a peculiar kind, productive of influential results on literature and religion, both on the Continent and in other lands, and forming a series of chapters in history worthy of the closest study. Fifty years ago, literature was sceptical and the church rational. Religion was a form; true piety was rare, frowned upon, and sickly. The study of the word of God was deemed unbecoming a man of mind or of the world. The purchase of a Bible elicited an apology. It was for a friend about to be confirmed, not for the buyer. The Augsburg Confession and Formula Concordia, and Melancthon's Common-Places, were not expressions of existing belief, but regarded as the historic monuments of a less enlightened though earnest age.

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The Scriptures were not reckoned to be obligatory on the conscience. St. Paul was a Calvinist," said Bretschneider; but his learned critic professed more liberal and less humbling sentiments. Strauss attempted to resolve all gospel history into a myth, and the life of Jesus into a fable; and many followed, and went farther into error than their teachers. The church was perishing in the place of its great revival. But a change for the better has since been evident. The truth struggled anew for life, and its period of throes pressed into usefulness many right-minded men. Schleiermacher and Neander, Hengstenberg and Tholuck, Olshausen and Krummacher, and others pursuing the truth, have enunciated it with varied clearness, and contributed greatly to revive the piety and orthodoxy of the German Church. Rationalism is less popular; its preachers decrease. Evangelical doctrine is boldly taught, and a revived church is the blessed result.

Among those who shared both experiences, and who aided not a little, though silently, in working the change, was Frederick Perthes, the publisher, of Hamburg and Gotha. His biography presents us with a deeply interesting and fascinating recital of German life, in its most important phases, during the fifty years preceding 1843.

FREDERICK CHRISTOPHER PERTHES was born on the 21st April 1772, "the great hunger" year of Germany. He was early orphaned by the death of his father. Dr. John Justus Perthes left his family destitute of means, save the memory of a pious father. But the seed of the righteous was not forsaken. Frederick found a loving friend in his maternal uncle, F. Heubel, under whose eye and example his education was advanced for five years, till he could enter the gymnasium of Rudolfstadt. More fond of reading than of study, history and travels occupied him, to the neglect of language