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numerous agents are busy, and in concert and harmony, in the great work of spreading the sciences and literature throughout the land.

The literature of theology in this country suffered, as well as the literature and science of other professions, during the revolution. The pulpit rang with patriotism and politicks, and harangues upon the good and sound christian duty of fighting for freedom; all very excellent lessons for the times, and which certainly had their uses. After the warning appeals to the brave defenders of the country, it was dull to go back to detailing the enormities of papal power, or speaking of the great beast of seven heads and ten horns; therefore his holiness was left quite alone, except now and then in some good man's form of prayer, from which the epithets of abhorrence for Babylon never had been expunged. Dissertations on Antinomians, Pelagians, and all the host of sectarians, had begun to grow stale, and the doctrines of eternal decrees and predestination were not so attractive to the new generations as they had been to their fathers. From all appearances, the timid began to fear that the pulpit had lost its legitimate, primitive influences. Under this impression, many were turned from the study of this profession, who were intended for it by their parents, and engaged in medicine or law. At this weak moment, if the defenders of the faith will allow that there ever were such moments, infidelity reared its monstrous head, and stalked through our part of christendom with gigantick strides; but, as it has often happened, that which threatened destruction to the altar and the priest, was the cause of giving new and lasting honour to both. Infidelity had for years been disseminated by the philosophers into inquisitive minds, but had never come upon us in the form of popular eloquence, and had not reached common minds engaged in ordinary pursuits, until about the time of the French revolution; it now came under the potential form of superiour wisdom, free from the thraldom of error. It dealt out a strong denial of the great truths of the gospel, and made impudence, with now and then a flash of witty scurrility, pass for common sense and true reasoning upon the revelations of God to man, through nature and her laws, and by the inspirations of holy writ. At first, great shipwreck was made of the faith of thousands; the weak were bewildered, and the unlearned entangled. The truly pious still believed that the church was built upon a rock, and that the gates of hell should not, finally, prevail against it, yet they were discouraged at the progress of infidelity, and were cut to the heart at hearing the authenticity of the scriptures doubted, and the ministers of our holy religion ridiculed in every possible form of contempt; called by opprobrious epithets; charged with ignorance and

hypocrisy ; and their downfall prophesied with confidence and joy. For a while there was some confusion in the church, but the purest men soon roused themselves from idleness, or rather from idle disputes about trifles, or non-essentials, and many of them plunged into the depths of learning, to answer the falsehoods and sneers of the scoffers, who laid pretensions to having penetrated into the recesses of oriental literature, and having detected the errours of christianity. The contest was animated, and the ministers of light struggled hard with the ministers of darkness. Great minds entered the contest, and, after a while, the dreams of Condorcet and the scurrilities of Paine, were swept away together, and infidelity was first scouted by learning, piety, and taste, and, at length, proscribed by the irresistible power of fashion. The works of Watson and Tytler, and, towards the close of the struggle, of many others, were found, not only in the hands of the polemick, or in the library of the speculative, but on the toilets of the fair, with the last work of the imagination from Southey or Campbell; for the ecclesiastical writers had added to the science of theology the most sublime of all contemplations, the charms of literature and taste. The reading and thinking part of the community were delighted to witness the commencement of a new era in the rhetorick, eloquence, and logick of the pulpit; useless divisions and subdivisions, and their scholastick divinity, with loose and spongy declamation, gave place to fair, inductions, correct illustrations, and philanthropick views. The ways of God to man were satisfactorily justified to the understandings of the mighty in intellect, and to the humble and lowly seekers of the truth. Religion wore the smile of innocence and the robe of purity, as she was destined to do from the beginning. The charms of a delicate and finished literature now came from the pulpit, and the temple of God became, as it ought ever to be, a place of instruction for the mind and for the affections, as well as for learning the great doctrines of salvation.

تو

LECTURE VIII.

"The poet grieves to find his page grow scant,
And he must stint the praise of those he loves;
Nor number half that cluster round his pen."

AMONG the literati of our country, in the different ages of her growth, may be numbered many eminent physicians, who were not only useful in their profession, but distinguished for a spirit of inquiry and a knowledge of letters. At the first settlement of the provinces, the clergy were the physicians, and often the surgeons of the community. They practised, in general, without fees, from a religious belief that they ought not to receive any compensation for their services, as what they could do for the body was intimately connected with the cure of souls. This union of the professions had long been in use in Europe. The confessors of the convents and monasteries had made, in many orders, the healing art a part of their vows; and after the suppression of the religious houses in England, by Henry VIII., the clergy still continued the art among the people; and, after the reformation was entirely effected, kept up the custom without any dread from the bulls against the practice of dissection.

The first settlers of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, as well as those of Jamestown, had physicians and surgeons with them. Gager, an eminent surgeon, came to Charleston in 1630, but soon fell a victim to what has since been called the spotted fever. He practised physick as well as surgery. Firmin, a physician and surgeon, in 1639, was settled at Ipswich, but left the profession for that of divinity, which was the safest road to distinction in those days.

The skill of the early physicians was speedily put to the test, for, besides the fevers incident to the hard living of new settlers, the small-pox and yellow fever were soon brought among them from the West-Indies; and, after several years, the "cynanche maligna" baffled all their skill for a time. The measles, often an obstinate disease, was constantly among the new settlements. The yellow fever, which we now trust has left for ever most of our cities, prevailed, in its most malignant form, in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1699, 1703, 1732, 1739, 1740, 1745, 1748; and Dr. Harris says it was there in 1761 and 1764. This fever prevailed in Philadelphia in 1741, 1747, 1762, and 1793; in New-York in 1792, 1798, and several times since. Hutchenson says, that, as early as 1693, it was preva

lent in Boston. It came from the West-Indies in the fleet of Sir Francis Wheeler, which was sent from that station to join the NewEngland forces, destined against Quebeck. This fleet lost 1300 sailors out of 2100, and 1800 soldiers out of 2400. Previous to this period, a disease swept through the country in 1647; its precise character has never been known; the Indians fell victims to it, as well as the European colonists; and in 1655 it was nearly as extensive and fatal. The small-pox was a great scourge; it prevailed in Boston in 1689, 1702, 1721, 1730, 1752, 1764, 1776, and in 1792; and the probability is, that it was as frequent in other cities. We state these facts, to show that there were constantly subjects for the inquiries of the medical mind; and as early as 1647, Thomas Thatcher, of Weymouth, in Massachusetts, turned his attention to the subjects of diseases, and wrote a treatise on the small-pox and measles, called "a brief guide in the small-pox and measles." He was a great man, learned as a mathematician, and a practical mechanick, whose inventive genius was equal to his scientifick acquirements. He was also a profound oriental scholar, and had explored all the wisdom of the East in the healing art. This treatise of Thatcher's was probably the first book written in this country, upon any of the diseases incident to it. This eminent physician, scholar, and divine, died at the age of fifty-eight; a greater man than whom, this country has not since produced. At this time, some of the physicians educated abroad, attracted by the novelty of a new country, or dissatisfied with the old world, came among our ancestors to diffuse their information, and to find new sources of knowledge. Robert Child, educated at the university of Padua, came to Massachusetts as early as 1646. The name of this physician was connected with an attempt made to diffuse a spirit of religious toleration, which received the censures of the magistrates, but which may form his eulogium now, however severe they were thought to be at that time. The next physician and surgeon of note in our annals, is Gershom Bulkley, of Connecticut, son of the learned Mr. Bulkley, of Concord, in Massachusetts. He was a clergyman; in Philip's war of 1676, was appointed surgeon to the Connecticut troops, and such was the confidence of the legislature in his abilities, that he was made, by their order, one of the council of war.

The next publication from a professor of medicine, that I can find, but probably my researches may not have been so thorough on this subject as on some other subjects, was one of Dr. Douglass' on the small-pox, whose character I have sketched in a former lecture. He was opposed to inoculation, and ridiculed Boyleston, who was there in 1721, introducing the practice of it. This provoked Boyleston to a defence. Cotton Mather had his share in the

dispute; he was in favour of the practice. At this time, Nathaniel Williams, a clergyman, a schoolmaster, successor to old master Cheever, and a distinguished physician also, being a good-natured man, wrote a humourous dialogue upon this dispute, entitled “Mundungus, Sawney, Academicus, a debate ;" these names glanced at the different characters who had been distinguished in the dispute; and it is said to contain the arguments on both sides of the question, as far as facts had then developed principles. The old physicians spoke of this work with great respect. Williams was a man of such benevolence and sincerity, that in that day of gratuitous epithets, he was called "the beloved physician." The next work was a treatise on pharmacy, by Thomas Harwood, a good medical writer of some eminence. This work was published in 1732. In 1740, Dr. Thomas Cadwallader published an essay on the "Iliack Passion," which gave him great celebrity in this country and in England. In 1745, he published some medical papers in the "Royal Transactions, London." This was the mode pursued by eminent physicians in this country; for the fact of appearing in such a publication, was sufficient to ensure the attention of the publick, or that part of it one would wish to attract. Dr. Cadwallader was one of the first professors in the medical art, who, in this country, taught his pupils from hospital practice; being one of the visiting physicians in the Philadelphia hospital, which was founded in 1752.

Previously, the subject of plants had attracted the attention of men fond of pursuing nature in "the herb and flower." Mark Catesby had the honour of being among the first engaged in this pursuit in this country. He was sagacious and indefatigable, but his works are far inferior to Clayton's Flora Virginiana. The history of the labours of this great botanical work is very singular. The art of printing and engraving in this country, would not admit of printing a flora here; he therefore sent his production to Leyden, to professor Gronovius, who published it in several editions; the first of them in 1739, the second in 1743, the third in 1762. Clayton began this work in 1705, when the forests were extensive, and when the lily of the valley and the mountain daisy breathed their fragrance on the same gale. Dudley and Douglass, whom we have named before, were at the same time engaged in the same pursuit. Clayton's descriptions of the plants he collected are remarkable for neatness and accuracy, and often beautiful and elegant. It is a fact worthy of notice, that some of the finest descriptions to be found any where, are in the works of naturalists and botanists. Some descriptions of plants by Linnæus, Darwin, and their fellowlabourers in the garden of nature, are models of beauty; and what

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