JEREMY TAYLOR'S NIGHTLY PRAYER

FOR bimself and his friends, was for God's merciful deliverance and preservation

'From the violence and rule of passion, from a ser· vile will, and a commanding lust; from pride and vanity; from false opinion and ignorant confidence ;

"From improvidence and prodigality; from envy and the spirit of slander; from sensuality; from presumption and from despair;

"From a state of temptation and hardened spirit; from delaying of repentance and persevering in sin; from unthankfulness and irreligion, and from seducing others;

"From all infatuation of soul, folly and madness; from wilfulness, self-love, and vain ambition; from a vicious life and an unprovided death."

of interest, to the majority of your readers.

gods, and appeals to the oracles, failed, and were at last relinquished. One thing is very remarkable,that the year of the pestilence was unusually free from all other diseases; but if any one was labouring under sickness before, it generally ended in this disease. The first symptoms were violent heat in the head, redness and inflammation of the eyes. The throat and tongue became bloody, and the breath foul and noisome, with sneezing and hoarseness, and a heavy cough settling on the chest. Then it attacked the stomach, and utterly disordered it; and painful bilious vomitings succeeded. Hiccup, with convulsion, and a strong spasmodic affection of the nerves, followed. and continued in some cases for a considerable time. The body was not outwardly to the touch very hot, but was flushed and livid-covered with pimples and blotches. But there was so much internal heat, that it made the sufferers unable to endure any clothing. THE BILLS OF MORTALITY. They were glad to expose themselves to cold air and cold bathing; and their thirst was unquenchable. Rest- HAVING observed in the Saturday Magazine an enquiry lessness and want of sleep continually harassed them into the origin and nature of the Registers of Mor-yet they did not fall away; but the body appeared tality, I conclude that any further information on the for a time to maintain its strength, till in seven or origin of a practice so exceedingly valuable and nenine days they were overcome by the internal inflam-cessary, will not be without its use, nor wholly devoid mation. Or, if they got over this stage of the disease, it then seized their bowels, and by ulcerations and violent looseness exhausted them, and so carried them off. The disease appeared to begin with the head, and to descend gradually to the lower parts of the body-and the last struggle was in the extremities. Some of those, who did survive, were so altered in mind, that they did not know their relations, nor even appeared to retain a sense of their own identity. Thucydides also mentions that the mode of treatment, which seemed to suit one patient, was utterly destructive to others; and strength or weakness of former constitution, formed no judgment as to the probability of getting over the disease. The historian also notices the dreadful lowness of spirits which the disease produces, and its ill effects. Those, that withdrew from society, died themselves, desolate and deserted; and those of more generous principles, who neglected their own safety in attendance on their friends, fell a still more frequent sacrifice. Under the violence of the calamity, men also lost all recollection of the difference between things sacred and profane. The temples were filled with corpses, and the rites of decent burial disregarded. The dreadful state to which the Athenians were reduced seemed to break down all sense of right and wrong. They were led by observing the indiscriminate sufferings of the good and the bad, to abandon themselves to their licentious and unbridled passions; for, in addition to the disregard which their duties seemed to manifest to the good, they did not fear that they should live to be brought for their actions before any human tribunal,—and thus they thought only of immediate gratification.

The whole forms a dreadful picture of the desperate depravity to which men may be reduced, when suffering under a calamity that frees them from all human restraint, while at the same time they are not under the influence of religious principles. It cannot, indeed, be denied, that fearful excesses have been committed in places visited by pestilence, even where a better faith has been established. Yet, on those occasions, the gloom of the picture has been relieved by some of the finest instances of Christian charity and self-devotion, that history can produce. We may, perhaps, have an opportunity in a future article of recording some of these deeds of heroic benevolence.

TRUTH is the most powerful thing in the world, since fiction can only please by its resemblance to it.--SHAFTESBURY.

The establishment of Bills of Mortality in Great Britain, owes its origin to the frequent and alarming devastations caused by the plague, and to the serious loss of life which attended its appearance in this country. However great the cause for this aların might really have been, it is well known, that the horror of taking so disgusting a disease, the awful rapidity of the approach of death after receiving the infection, and the great doubt and shade which was thrown around all its transactions, especially with regard to the real state of the patients, and to the actual number of sufferers by the disorder, conspired to increase the alarm to a frightful extent, and to raise and multiply unfounded and injudicious reports as to its fatality. To prevent the constant recurrence of these annoyances, the government devised the establishment of such weekly bills of the deaths in the metropolis, or in the cities, towns, and boroughs, in which a tendency to this awful disease was apprehended, as would enable the inhabitants to judge of the real progress made by the calamity, and of the actual grounds which they had for apprehension of danger or for fear.

This was, it is believed, and is currently reported by most historians to be the primary cause, of the establishment of bills of mortality in this kingdom. These weekly bills so became swoln into yearly, and from the period of this their first and early origin, they have been continued, and are now the greatest and most valuable sources to which the statistician can apply for information of the important points, of the increase and decrease of the population, either in the kingdom at large, in peculiar cities, or in provincial towns; of the waste of human life at its different stages, and of the comparative degrees of salubrity and sickliness in the different towns and parishes of Great Britain.

In

The first period at which we find the government issuing orders for keeping Parish Registers, is in the year 1538, in the reign of our eighth Henry, about the time when Thomas Cromwell was appointed the king's vicegerent for ecclesiastical jurisdiction. this capacity, Cromwell issued several injunctions to the clergy, one of which ordains that "every officiating minister shall, for every church, keep a book wherein he shall register every marriage, christening, and burial." This injunction then goes on to direct the time and manner in which such entries shall be made

VOL.-I.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

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AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRINCIPAL MOUNTAINS IN THE WORLD. THOSE majestic elevations which are found upon the surface of the earth in almost every part of the world are termed MOUNTAINS; and the inequalities of lesser height are distinguished by the name of HILLS. When several mountains occur together, covering a plain, they are called Groups, and a series several miles in length is termed a Chain, or Ridge, of Mountains. Mountain Groups are generally highest in the middle. Each group constitutes a connected whole, both in regard to its base and its acclivity; but it is not an entire mass, being intersected in many places, though never quite down to its foot or base. Mountainous Land, is composed of single mountains collected into chains, but which, not being joined together by a central or high mountain chain, do not form groups. Hilly Land consists of rounded and undulated elevations; it is much lower than mountain land, and by means of the plains, which sometimes constitute a part of high land, forms a transition into low land.

and appear to descend almost perpendicularly into the body of the earth. In their interior there are natural caverns, abounding in crystallizations of great beauty, and various minerals; but no calcareous spar, except in the fissures or rents, which have some extent and an evident direction. Of this kind are the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apenines, the Tyrolese and Carpathian mountains, with some others in Europe; the Riphæan Mountains, Caucasus, Taurus, Libanus, and the Himmaleh range, in Asia; Atlas, in Africa, and the Apalachian mountains, and the Andes or Cordilleras, in America.

The form of mountains is generally conical, that is, gradually tapering from the base upwards, and usually terminating in a more or less pointed peak. Some of the countries covered with high mountains present, in the summer, different climates at different elevations, within a very narrow compass. We may ascend gradually from flourishing and delightful vallies, decorated with corn, fruit trees and vines, to pastures covered with odoriferous alpine plants, and, near the declivities, with evergreens, and perceive the vegetation diminishing and dwindling as we advance, till, at last, all organic life ceases, and the cold prevents all further progress.

II. Another class of mountains are of volcanic origin. These are either detached or surrounded with groups of lower hills, the soil of which is heaped up in disorder, and consists of gravel and other loose substances. Many of these mountains are truncated, or have a funnel-shaped opening towards their summits, which are composed of, and surrounded by, heaps of lava and half vitrified bodies, making their gradual increase by strata raised up and discharged into the air, upon occasions of the eruption of subterraneous fire. Such, among many others, are Mounts Ætna and Vesuvius, in Sicily and Naples; Adam's Peak, in the island of Ceylon; the Peak of Teneriffe, in the Canary Isles, &c. When very high mountains of thie kind are covered with marine shells, their summits are supposed to have once constituted part of ths bottom of the ocean. These mountains are usually more easy of access than those of the first class, and have fewer springs.

III. A third rank of mountains, whether isolated or disposed in a group, are such as are composed of stratified earth or stone, consisting of different substances, of various colours. These are produced by the slow deposits of water, or by soil gained in the time of great floods. Mountains of this kind are always of small elevation compared with those of the first order, and are round at the top, or covered with soil, frequently forming a pretty flat and extensive surface; on which are found sand and heaps of round pebbles, similar to those which have been exposed to the waves on the sea beach.

The first view of such amazing heights, (some of which are not less than five miles above the level of the sea, others four miles, and many two and three miles) leads to a belief that they must greatly detract from the regularity of the earth's spherical form: but on comparing them with the bulk of the earth, they sink into insignificancy, bearing in reality no greater proportion to it than a grain of sand would bear to an artificial globe of twelve inches diameter, or than the little risings on the rind of an orange bear to its fruit. Mountains are supposed by naturalists to have different origins, and to date their commencements from various periods. I. Those which form a chain, and are covered with snow, are accounted primitive, or antediluvian, that is, to have existed before the Flood. They greatly exceed all other mountains in height; in general, their elevation is very sudden, and their ascent steep and difficult. Their shape is mostly pyramidal; they are crowned with sharp prominent rocks, from which the soil has been washed away by rain, presenting an awful and horrible aspect. Their sides are less steep, and they abound in thundering cascades, frightful precipices, and deep chasms or valleys. The depressions and excavations correspond with the quantity of water, the motion of which is quickened in its fall, and sometimes produces a sinking or inclination of the mountain. The wrecks to be found at the foot of most peaks, shew how much they have suffered from the hand of time. IV. The strata of mountains, which are lower and There the eye meets with enormous rocks, heaped of more recent date, or formed by recent accidents, upon each other in an almost inconceivable state of sometimes appear to rest upon, or to take their rise disorder and decay. On the summit of these moun- from the sides of primitive mountains, which they tains, which are only a series of peaks, frequently de-surround, and of which they form the first steps in tached, the prominent rocks are covered with perpetual snow and ice, and surrounded by floating clouds, which are dispersed into dew, These primitive mountains are composed of vast masses of quartz, destitute of shells, and of all organized marine matter;

The interior of these mountains consists of numerous strata, almost horizontally disposed, containing shells, marine productions, and fish bones, in great quantities. These fossils are intermixed and confounded with heaps of organized bodies of another species, presenting a picture of surprising disorder, and affording indications that some extraordinary and violent inundation, such as the general Deluge, has accumulated in the greatest confusion and precipitation, foreign substances of very opposite qualities. Mountains of this class may be considered as composed of the wrecks of once organized bodies. In these mountains we likewise find wood, prints of plants, strata of clay, marl, and chalk; different beds of stone, succeeding each other, as slate, marble, (often full of sea shells,) plaster stone; and ochre, bitumen, mineral, salt and alum.

the ascent; and they end by being insensibly lost in the plains. The strata of recent mountains are not always similar as to number and thickness; some are only a quarter of an inch thick, others more than ten feet. In some places, thirty or forty beds suc