details and improvements which are yet in store for the studious, observant, and neat handed mechanic.

Let no one, however, think that he will stumble upon inventions in mechanics as a man at the "diggings" may occasionally stumble upon a nugget of gold. Humphrey Potter wishing to join his comrades at play without exposing himself to the consequences of failing to open and shut the regulating and condensing valves, might, inadvertently on his part, by attaching strings of proper length to the levers which governed the two cocks connecting them with the beam, so that as it moved up and down it should open and close the cocks with the most perfect regularity, thus hit upon a noble invention, making the engine an automaton; but could Humphrey have made anything of the circumstance had it not been for a more observant eye and shrewder head than his own? As there is no royal road to learning, so there is no royal road to mechanical invention and discovery. If persons would rise to the fame of Watt, like Watt they must be content to study mathematics and engineering, to master the laws of mechanical and chemical science, and perseveringly to model and experiment, unheeded and unrecognised, till they have matured their invention, aye, and have brought it to a state of perfection worthy of being patented. The records of industry and ingenuity tell us that success in mechanical invention is not confined to any one rank of life, and that the poorest boy that ever blew the bellows, and heated the nail, and carried it with his pincers to the man with his sledge-hammer to drive it through the pierced hole, may, by study and industry, and observation and invention, rise to a position in society as high as that of Archimedes, or Newcome, or Franklin, and be hailed by all succeeding generations as a great and signal benefactor of his race. The truimph of genius in the arts of life is far to be preferred to the triumphs of war, and greater honour is to be gained in the dusty workshop than ever was won on the field of battle-and it shall be more enduring; for when men shall learn the art of war no more, the workers in iron shall be beating swords into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

THE DOWNWARD COURSE OF ERROR.

From Dr John Brown's Sufferings and Glories of the Messiah.

THE path of error, like that of vice, which lies so near it, and from which and into which it has so many openings, is a downward one; and it is equally true of both, that he "who leaves the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness," is likely to descend to a depth, and, in his ultimate progress, with a rapidity, which, had he been forwarned of it, would have excited in him a mingled feeling of scepticism and horror. The declivity my seem gentle at first, but it gradually increases the descent becomes steeper and steeper; and by the time he has reached the precipice of infidelity and profligacy, which was not at all in his view when he left the table-land of truth and virtue, he is sure, unless held back by a power superior to his own, to take the desperate leap. He has got an impetus he cannot resist. To change the figure: The angle at which he leaves the straight onward path is so acute, that for some time he is scarcely aware that he has abandoned it; but he has changed the direction, and the terminating points of the two paths in eternity are wide as heaven and hell. Every step leads him farther and farther from the right road, till the divergence becomes distinctly evident to himself and every one else, and he finds himself, not without something like alarm, where he never meant he should come-where he never dreamed he could come.

These remarks have, if we mistake not, often been verified to a most melancholy

extent in the experience of those who have been led to deviate, as they thought, only in a slight degree, from any one of the great principles of evangelical truth. These are not, as many seem to suppose, unconnected facts or principles; they form part of one great, closely linked together system; and if a man is determined to be consistent, he will find that he must either hold them all, or let them all go. The following history is, I am afraid, not an uncommon one. A young man has been instructed in the letter of the doctrines of the Christian faith. Man can instruct man in nothing more. He thinks he believes them all. He is quite sure he has never doubted as to any of them. But he has not he never has had― true seriousness. His faith lies on the surface, or, if it have at all penetrated into the mind, there does not lie at the root that deep sense of the reality and power of "things unseen and eternal "-that realisation in the mind of the existence, and character, and government of God, and of his own relation to God as a creature and a sinner, without which men may speculate, but can never believe in religion, and without which, indeed, speculation about religion, however ingenious, or even accurate, is likely to do more harm than good. He meets, in some of the sceptical publications of the day-wearing, it may be, the form of an attempt to purify the prevailing notions of Christian doctrine or evidence or in the intercourse of society, with certain suggestions which lead him to suspect that the doctrine of redemption through the vicarious sufferings and death of the Son of God, which he has been accustomed to hold as the very key-stone of the arch of Christianity-though he never felt his own need of it as a guilt-stricken, consciencecondemned sinner-is not reconcileable with the fundamental principles of reason and justice; and, trusting to his own understanding, he renounces a doctrine which he perhaps had long zealously maintained, but had never rightly understood nor really believed. He has made one change, and, likely, has no wish to proceed any farther. He is not aware of the many alterations of sentiment to which, if he is a reflecting man, this one change must lead, should he wish to preserve anything like conscious consistency in his religious opinions. It will probably not be long before he discover that, as he has renounced the atonement, he cannot hold the divinity of the Saviour. With his new creed, he will find it difficult to assign a reason why a divine person should become incarnate to do all that which his new system gives Jesus Christ to do. Something far inferior to Deity might have answered the purpose. The divinity of Christ is certainly not less mysterious than his atonement, and it is not wonderful that any man's reason should recoil at the incongruity that an incarnation of Divinity should suffer and die, merely to attest the truth of doctrines, however important, or exhibit an example of virtue, however perfect. The Saviour is now degraded, in his mind, to the rank of creatures, though he still occupies the highest place in that rank. He thinks of him as the incarnation of some superangelic and perfectly holy nature. But a little reflection must convince him that even still his system wants coherence and consistency. For how, upon any principle his system allows him to assign, does it consist with the leading attributes of the Divine character-how is it reconcileable with the benevolence, or even the equity of God, to inflict, or allow to be inflicted, on a creature so dignified and excellent, such sufferings and such a death as Jesus Christ did undergo? To get rid of this difficulty, in opposition to the plainest declarations of Scripture, the Saviour is brought down to the level of humanity, and Jesus Christ is now with him a mere man-with this distinction, that he was free from and incapable of moral guilt or depravity. But there is no secure standing even here. The last movement has not materially lessened his difficulties. A perfect, impeccable man suffering and dying, seems as incongruous with the Divine justice and benignity, as the sufferings and death of the highest created being clothed in human nature; and revolting as the thought would once have been to him, he begins to question whether the freedom from sin ascribed to Jesus Christ in Scripture can reasonably be supposed to extend farther than exemption from mistake or fault in his public conduct as a divinely commissioned teacher, and ends with holding that, like other men, he was liable to sin, and with thinking his personal guilt to a certain degree, a possible and probable thing, as being that which alone, on the principles adopted, can reconcile his sufferings and death with the perfections of the Divine character,

and the principles of the Divine government. Dismal as is this depth of errormore deplorable, indeed, in some points of view, than an entire renunciation of the Christian faith-I do not wonder so much that some who began with doubting or denying the doctrine of atonement have reached it, as that any considerate person who gives up with that doctrine, can stop short of this or of open infidelity. Indeed, the denial that the Scriptures are a Divine revelation is the more reasonable course; for there are doctrines contained in them, stated in terms as explicit as language can furnish, which nothing but the admission of the doctrine of the atonement can prevent from appearing utterly contradictory. How, but on this principle, can we reconcile the equally clear statements respecting the justice and benignity of God, the moral perfection of Jesus Christ, and the Divine agency in his sufferings and death, and the bestowment of the highest blessings on persons deservedly doomed to punishment? These truths, which nothing but the doctrine of vicarious atonement can harmonise.

DR JOHN REID AND MEDICAL PIETY.*

THE revival of religion among medical men is one of the most hopeful facts of our times. Members of that profession, taken in general, have never been wanting in benevolence and self-sacrifice in the discharge of their responsible and dangerous duties; but, in days bygone, there has been widely exhibited among them a lack of Bible religion. It has often been thought and said, that in whatever way it might be accounted for, there was a strong affinity existing between medicine and infidelity. The sneer of students and the cold indifference of practitioners could be pointed to, with ominous uniformity, in support of this allegation. The habits indulged in by the profession too were strongly confirmatory of the opinion; the Sabbath scarcely regarded except perhaps to crowd into it the by-work of the other six days; the hours of public worship systematically appropriated to professional visiting; as a necessary consequence, the house of God seldom entered -in practice the canon scrupulously observed, that religion, as far as possible, should be excluded from the sick-room, and, though a fatal issue were manifest, the truth must be withheld from the patient and the deception persevered in, that sanguine hopes of recovery were yet entertained. Such a state of things is an enormous blunder in addition to its sin. Even in a professional point of view, it is much to be desired that the practitioner have both the character and the experience of a Christian. In health these may be looked upon as qualifications of little consequence; in slight attacks of disease they may be deemed of inferior moment; but in critical cases when medical assistance is most urgently required, they are assuredly often of first importance. It cannot be doubted that in multitudes of instances the most violent symptoms of disease, if not absolutely originating in the mind and conscience, are, at least, greatly modified and perchance greatly aggravated, by the movements there. At stages the most alarming a sense of danger often urges the sufferer to serious reflection-the fear of a fatal termination, with its impending consequences, fills the mind with distressing forebodings -then agitation is excited, and then symptoms appear that the mere materialist physician had not anticipated and cannot understand. This is no fancy, but a strict reality, far more frequently occurring than general observers are apt to suppose a reality too whose occurrence can never be prevented, in a land where religious knowledge is diffused, so long as the longings and anticipations of the human heart remain what they are. And how are such junctures to be successfully met? Not by a hand that can merely administer opiates and soporifics, but by an understanding that can comprehend and guide the working of the patient's mind—a heart that can sympathise in his feelings-a voice which in the due measure and the softened intonation, can speak of mercy and soothe his fears. Without these, in thousands of instances, all the drugs of the laboratory are but an impotent mockery.

*Life of Dr John Reid, late Chandos Professor of Anatomy and Medicine in the Univer sity of St Andrews. By George Wilson, M.D., Author of the Life and Works of the Hon. Henry Cavendish. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox. 1852.

It is not wished that the medical man should be loaded with the functions of the Christian pastor, but simply that he have such knowledge and experience as are commensurate with the plain demands of his own profession; and we maintain that he is not fully equipped for the emergencies of his calling, till he understand not merely the physiology of the body, and the pharmaceutical qualities of his medicines, but also the deeper mental, and especially religious conditions, which so remarkably modify diseases and the modes of treating them. Let him carefully study pharmacy and physiology,-let him learn to use the stethoscope, and to manipulate the nicely-adjusted mechanism of the joints. We rejoice in these acquirements; but let him, in addition, learn the pathology of mind, and the sacred art of sounding, and following the profounder utterances of the inner man. The religious instructor is not to be freed from his proper duties; but there are times when it is much to be desired, that no one be required to enter the sick-room, except the physician himself,—there are times when, perhaps, with instruments in hand, the physician needs, above all men, to encourage and soothe the trembling patient; and there are times when the physician is utterly incompetent to account for the various phases of disease, apart from the operation of the religious element. That he may have the ability to comprehend and treat such cases, it becomes most desirable that the medical practitioner should be possessed of the higher qualifications of religious experience and sympathy.

We have referred to days bygone, but we are not ignorant that we have more than remnants of those days remaining. Still religion is sadly ignored in the study and practice of medicine, and still the religious and mental in man are singularly disregarded. A great and pleasing change has, however, come over the medical profession. It is now made manifest, in fact, that there is no necessary alliance between medicine and infidelity. We say it, to the honour of the profession, that men of sounder religious principle,-more fervent piety,-more enlightened zeal, are, perhaps, not to be found in any other class of the community. We point to the eldership of our Christian churches,—to the friends and teachers of our Sabbath schools,-to the advocates of our religious societies, in proof of this assertion. We especially appeal to the productions which have of late years come through the press from medical men enriching our Christian literature, and above all, to the singularly interesting memoirs of medical men, which have been, in our own day, added to our Christian biography. Among these is now ranked the memoir at the head of this paper,-fascinating from the high standing of both its subject and author, in the ranks of literature and science, and absorbing to the devout mind, from the Christian experience evinced alike in the narrative of the one, and in the congenial spirit and pen of the other.

Premising that we have found it impossible to condense the narrative within necessary limits, we will content ourselves in a sentence with a statement of leading facts, and then present, with passing remarks, two or three specimens of what the volume contains. Dr Reid was born at Bathgate in the year 1809-studied at Edinburgh and Paris-was for several years lecturer in the Extra Academical School of Edinburgh-in 1841, was elected Professor of Anatomy in the University of St Andrews, and closed a life of great professional success, and yet higher promise, at the early age of forty, in the year 1849.

At an early period of his course, Dr Reid exhibited a bias less for the ordinary avocations of a practitioner than for those of the teacher and original inquirer. At the close of his curriculum he seemed disposed to linger about the class-rooms, and indefinitely prolong his student life. The branch to which he gave a special attention was that of physiology, in which he made important discoveries.

"We are convinced,' says Dr Carpenter, that few, save those who have made physiology a special object of pursuit, are at all aware how largely the world is indebted to Dr Reid for the series of important researches,' referred to.

"As a physiologist,' observes Dr J. Hughes Bennett, he may be considered to have been unsurpassed, not, indeed, because it has fallen to his lot to make those great discoveries, or wide generalizations which constitute epochs in the history of the science, but because he possessed such a rare degree of caution and conscientiousness in all his researches, that no kind of investigation, whether literary, anatomical, physiological, or pathological, that could illustrate any particular fact, did he ever allow to be neglected. His volume

contains more original matter and sound physiology, than will be found in any work that has issued from the British Press for many years."-Pp. 109, 110.

Pursuing the subject of physiology, the author exhibits a remarkable power in the use of simple and popular illustration. This is particularly the case in speaking of the nervous system, to which Dr Reid devoted much of his research. Cautioning his readers that he employs the electric telegraph only for illustration, and not that he holds the opinion that the nerves are electrical conductors, he proceeds—

"The nervous system of man and of the higher animals, is a singularly complex aggregate of structures. Within the protecting skull lies the brain, and continuous with it, and protected from injury by the strong and supple spine or back-bone, extends the spinal cord, which is not formed of marrow, as its familiar name implies, but of exactly the same kind of substance, speaking generally, as the brain. Spreading in all directions from the brain and spinal cord are the nerves, which appear to the unassisted eye like soft white cords enclosed in protecting sheaths, and extend their fibres to every portion however minute of the body. The office of these nerves is to convey certain impulses from the great nervous centres (by which term we conveniently denote the brain and spinal cord) throughout the body, and to convey certain other impulses, in the reverse direction, from the surface and more distant points of the system to the nervous centres.

“The nerves so far resemble, as has already been implied, the wires of an electric telegraph, stretching, for example, from London to the cities and villages in the provinces, and conveying messages from the metropolitan centre to the outlying towns, and from these towns to the metropolis. But there is this great difference between the two arrangements:-In the electric telegraph there is but one endless wire (or its equivalent) needed, which, though not in formal arrangement, yet in fact is a great ring or circle, round the circumference of which are placed all the towns which it links together. By the same wire the electrical impulses, which originate the messages, travel north or south, east or west; from London to Thurso or Land's End, and from Land's End and Thurso to London.

"In the living telegraph, on the other hand, there are at least two sets of conductors, living wires or nerves, and two distinct kinds of impulse, each of which is propagated or transmitted by a set of nerves appropriated to itself, and never invaded by the other. The one set of nerves may be considered as commencing on the surface of the body, in the substance of each structure, and specially in the organs of the external senses, such as the eye and the ear. These nerves pass thence to the brain and spinal cord, and convey to them the sensations impressed upon them at the places of their origin; or rather, they convey to the nervous centres certain impressions, which beget in the mind those sensations of heat, cold, pressure, pain, and the like, of which during waking existence we are every moment conscious. The nerves thus referred to are termed nerves of sensation, or sensific nerves. The nerves of the second class commence at the brain and spinal cord, and from these pass throughout the body to the various muscles or bundles of fleshy cords, which produce, by their contractions, the majority of the movements of the body. These are named nerves of motion, or motific nerves. An example will illustrate the total difference between the functions of the sensific and motific nerves. When the hand by chance touches a nettle, and a sting of pain is felt, it is by nerves of sensation that the impression is transmitted to the brain, and there begets in the conscious mind the sensation of uneasiness. But the swift deliberate withdrawal of the hand from the nettle is determined by a volition which acts along nerves of motion, and summons into action the muscles requisite to draw back the hand. The eye can discern no difference between the sensific and the motific nerves, but the office of the one cannot be discharged by the other. The proof of this lies in the fact, that if by accident or disease, or design, the nerves of motion which proceed to the muscles of the hand are divided, the will is powerless to move it, however intense may be the desire to do so; whilst, if the nerves of sensation are uninjured, the acutest pain may be felt. If, again, the nerves of motion are intact, whilst those of sensation are destroyed, a mass of ice and a piece of red-hot iron will be equally inoperative in conveying any impression to the hand which touches them, although the power of withdrawing it remains entire. In cases of palsy we often see the one set of nerves thrown totally out of action without the other being affected, so that the sufferer can move his limb, but has no feeling in it, or feels in it, but cannot move it. When chloroform is given to a patient, it suspends the functions of the nerves of sensation, but the nerves of motion remain unaffected, and the patient, though painless, often writhes and struggles as if in pain, and calls into action most of the muscles of the body.

"The nervous centres, and the sentient points of our living frames, are thus quite unlike corresponding telegraph-stations, which only send back and forward, or round and round, the same electric shuttle along a common line. The comparison would hold if there were some such arrangement as a voltaic battery at London, which employed a set of copper wires to transmit its commands to the provinces by means of electricity; and a magnetic apparatus at each provincial station, which employed a set of iron wires to convey its intelligence to London by means of magnetism. But even this twofold system would fall far short of what is realized in the living body, as the sequel will show.

"From the back of the eye proceeds a nerve, which alone, of all the nerves of the body, can receive the picture of the outer world, which light is ever painting, and can transmit that impression which the mind realises as vision. This optic nerve has no other function. It cannot call into action the muscles which roll the eyeball, nor does it convey ordinary