shall be exchanged, and the soul be clothed upon with its celestial body? The mind, no longer cramped and straitened by its clogs of materiality, shall display the full grandeur of its mysterious and eternal power. The keen vision of its eye, undimmed by distance, unobscured by mist or cloud, shall sweep along the entire range of our past being.

V. A FIFTH CLASS OF FACTS ILLUSTRATING THE EXTRAORDINARY POWERS OF RECOLLECTION POSSESSED BY THE HUMAN MIND, MAY BE FOUND IN THE MENTAL PHENOMENA RESULTING FROM INJURY TO THE BRAIN.

In such instances the action of the memory has been of a most remarkable character. Sir Astley Cooper relates the case of a sailor, who was received into St. Thomas's Hospital in a state of stupor from an injury upon the head. By a surgical operation he was suddenly restored to consciousness, and was able to talk, but no one could understand him. Soon after, a Welsh nurse entering the ward at once comprehended his language, for he spoke Welsh, which was his native tongue. On inquiry, however, it was found that he had been thirty years absent from Wales, and previous to the accident had so entirely forgotten the language that he could not speak a single word in it. Now, he conversed fluently in Welsh, but could not remember a word of any other tongue. What is still further remarkable, upon the perfect recovery of his health he lost again his Welsh, so as to be utterly unable to speak it, and spoke only the English. . . . Dr. Abernethy mentions a similar instance of a Frenchman, who had for many years entirely lost the knowledge of his native tongue, but while under medical treatment for an injury upon the head, he spoke only the French.

Dr. Pritchard mentions a man who had been employed with a beetle and wedges splitting wood. "At night he put those implements in the hollow of an old tree, and directed his sons to accompany him next morning in making the fence. In the night, however, he became insane. After several years his reason suddenly returned, and the first question he asked was whether his sons had brought home the beetle and wedges. They, being afraid to enter into an explanation, said they could not find them; on which he arose, went to the field where he had worked so many years before, and found, in the place where he had left them, the wedges and the iron rings of the beetle, the wooden part having moldered away." Another instance of still more striking character is thus given: “A British captain, at the battle of the Nile, was giving an order from the quarter-deck of his vessel, when a shot struck him in the head, depriving him instantaneously of sense and speech. Living, however, he was taken home, and remained in the Greenwich Hospital fifteen months. At the end of that period, during which he had exhibited no signs of intelligence, an operation was performed upon him by a skillful surgeon that in a moment restored him to his faculties. He immediately rose in his bed and completed the order." Instances of a similar character might be multiplied to almost any extent. But these clearly show the astonishing power of reminiscence in the human soul.

VI. BUT WE MUST PASS TO ANOTHER CLASS OF FACTS OF STILL MORE FREQUENT OCCURRENCE, AND STILL MORE STRIKING IMPORT; NAMELY, THE QUICKENED ACTION OF MEMORY OCCASIONED BY DISEASE.

As a general thing, disease affects the mental as well as the bodily powers, and in the same way. It engenders

weakness, lack of vital action. But there are special instances in which the reverse has been the case. The nicely-adjusted blinds upon a house in a dark night may conceal from the outer world the brilliant illumination within; but let one of those shutters become misadjusted or fractured and the light within will beam out. So disease often makes rents and crevices in this outer bodily tenement of the soul, through which the mysterious light within beams out with dazzling brightness.

Mr. Flint, in his Recollections of the Valley of the Mississippi, referring to a period of partial derangement from a severe attack of bilious fever, says: "I repeated whole passages with entire accuracy, in the different languages which I had read. I recited, without losing or misplacing a word, passages of poetry, which I could not so repeat when I had recovered my health."

The late Professor Fisher, of New Haven, has recorded facts concerning himself very similar in character, though not resulting from the same physical cause. He says that, while in this half-delirious state, "ideas crowded upon me. My thoughts flowed with a rapidity that was prodigious, and the faculties of association and memory were gifted with wonderful power. I could render different languages into English, and English into Hebrew, with a fluency which I was never before nor since master of."

Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of a child, who, at four years of age, underwent the operation of trepanning while. in a state of stupor from a fracture of the skull. After his recovery, he retained no recollection of either the operation or the accident. But at the age of fifteen, during the delirium of a fever, he gave his mother an exact description of the operation, of the persons present, their dress, and many other minute particulars. A lady mentioned by Dr. Pritchard, when in a state of delirium, spoke a language

which nobody about her understood, but which was discovered to be Welsh. None of her friends could form any conception of the manner in which she could have become acquainted with that language; but after much inquiry it was discovered that in her childhood she had a nurse, a native of a district on the coast of Brittany, the dialect of which is closely analogous to the Welsh. The lady at that time learned a good deal of this dialect, but had entirely forgotten it for many years before this attack of fever. How striking that these half-acquired ideas of childhood, after slumbering in forgetfulness for years, and when the very circumstances which gave them origin had also been forgotten, should be so mysteriously revived in later years! Dr. Mackintosh, of Edinborough, gives a similar case of a woman under his care. She was a native of the Highlands, but accustomed to speak English. When she was recovered from her stupor to intelligence and speech, no one could understand the language she spoke, nor could they make her comprehend what they said to her. At length some one addressed her in Gaelic, when she replied with ease and fluency. It was then discovered that she had lost her English and recovered the forgotten speech of her childhood.

One more instance, narrated by Mr. Coleridge, must suffice: In a Catholic town in Germany, a young woman of four or five and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized with a nervous fever, during which she was incessantly talking Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Ignorant, and simple, and harmless, as this girl was known to be, no one suspected any deception, and the case attracted much attention. Some began to think it a supernatural inspiration, and the poor, ignorant girl came very near being manufactured into a saint. Others, viewing the case as one calling for philosophical investigation, at length ascertained

that the girl, at nine years of age, had been taken to reside in the house of a Protestant minister, and that it was long the habit of this minister to walk in his hall, reading aloud from the Greek and Latin fathers; and that the girl, attracted by curiosity, sometimes opened the kitchen door to listen. Some of the coherent passages uttered by the young woman, were written down by a German scholar as they fell from her lips, and, on comparison, were found to be favorite passages with the old minister. One mystery was now solved; but another was called up. It was no longer a mystery as to the origin of these passages. The question of supernatural inspiration was disposed of, and the poor girl lost her chance of being placed upon the calendar of the Romish saints. But a fact of deep philosophical moment, revealing something of the mysterious power of the human intellect, was established. It is not probable that this young woman reduced a single one of these passages to memory, so as to be able to repeat it at the time. But now-years after all traces of the impressions they had made seemed to be utterly obliterated—they are called forth, while the memory is quickened into extraordinary action, with a clearness and a precision that almost transcends belief.

These facts give unmistakable indication that the history of the past-including all its events, however minute or apparently unimportant-is stereotyped upon the soul in characters never to be effaced; and that it only requires a quickening of our intellectual powers to cause all that past to be unfolded, like a written roll, till every thing it contains shall be spread out before the broad and piercing gaze of the soul.