religious reading should have its defined ob- | the sacred volume, in which they differ from ject and specific end, viz. the spiritual improvement of the student-improvement in knowledge of holy scripture, in knowledge of his own heart, and advancement in that truth and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord, whatever be the extent of his external privileges, the vehemence of his professions, or the power of his intellectual attainments. what we are now accustomed to-the periods at which the different parts were written -the habits of the people and countries of the Eastthe imagery drawn from their natural scenery their relation to other countries, and many other circumstances of a similar nature. The most complete work of this kind is Rev. Hartwell Horne's "Introduction to a Critical Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures," a perfect mine of wealth on all biblical subjects-4 vols. 8vo. There is, however, an excellent compendium, or abridgement, in one small volume, which will be found very useful, and may at first supply the place of the larger treatise. A work of a similar character has also lately been published-an abridged edition of "Colnet's Dictionary," by Taylor--1 vol. "Harris's Natural History of the Bible,' and Burder's Oriental Customs," are also excellent as illustrations, and explaining many peculiarities connected with the sacred writings; and so indeed do almost all narratives of travels in Palestine and the East, by familiarizing the mind with habits and manners often essentially different from our own, but which are, in fact, the habits and manners we meet with in the bible. In connecting the history of mankind with the sacred history, a complete course will be found in the works of Shuckford, Prideaux, and bishop Russell. With marginal references, a concordance, and such books of illustrations, the study of the sacred volume will furnish a delightful occupation-an occupation ever growing in interest and usefulness, to the end of life. II. The next point to be considered is the selection of books, and the order of his study. The first and chief object with the Christian student is to know the bible. This is the point round which all his researches and all his labours turn. Of commentaries, or works, intended directly to illustrate scripture, it is extremely difficult to recommend one which is altogether unexceptionable; and, in truth, it is doubtful how far it is an advantage to give much time to them. Perhaps that is a point which may be left for the student's own selection, when a little more advanced. In the meantime, for the Old Testament, Patrick and Lowth, and for the New Testament, Doddridge's Family Expositor may be found useful. The reading of the sacred volume, with comparison of one part with another, must be a regular and constant occupation. A bible with marginal references is indispensible; and it is astonishing how much light is thrown upon scripture by this method, by studying the law in reference to the gospel, the psalms and prophecies in reference to Christ; thus making the bible its own interpreter-comparing spiritual things with spiritual." On this subject I need not do more than appeal to the powerful authority of bishop I recommend a short course of evidences Horsley. That eminent prelate, in his com--not because necessary to remove sceptical mentary on the 97th psalm, has recommended the practice in the strongest language:-"It should be a rule with every one who would read the holy scriptures with advantage and improvement, to compare every text which may seem either important for the doctrine it may contain, or remarkable for the turn of the expression with the parallel passages in other parts of holy writ. I will not scruple to assert that the most illiterate Christian, if he can but read his English bible, and will take the pains to read it in this manner, will not only attain all that practical knowledge which is necessary to his salvation, but, by God's blessing, he will become learned in everything relating to his religion-that he will not be liable to be misled either by the refined arguments or the false assertions of those who endeavour to engraft their own opinions upon the oracles of God." One class of works illustrative of scripture are extremely valuable-I mean all those which explain the peculiarities connected with doubts in the minds of those for whom I write, but rather because they are useful, as containing illustrations of the beauty and wisdom of holy writ, and as, under God's teaching, having a direct tendency to strengthen the faith of the young Christian, and to give him that reverence for the word of God which is essential to his peace and welfare. A course of reading, which might be advantageously taken for this purpose, would consist of Butler's Analogy, Leslie's Short Method, Paley's Evidences, and Horæ Paulinæ, Bp. Sumner's and Bp. Wilson's (of Calcutta) Internal Evidences. Bp. Sumner's work is exceedingly valuable, because, in pointing out the internal evidences, he deals with the subject matter of the gospel itself. It is a work which, I have reason to believe, has been blest to the edification of many. On the polity, order, and discipline of the church, I would only mention Hooker's immortal "Ecclesiastical Polity," and Mr. Sinclair's dissertation on episcopacy. In studying the sacred volume, particular | skill in scriptural illustration, of glowing eloregard must be paid to the prophetical writ- quence, of clear reasoning, abound in our ings; I mean, let it be observed, to confine language. Barrow, South, and Horsley, are the observation to the study of fulfilled pro- giants in that department of sacred literature. phecy. No subject tends more to unfold the Horne is tender and winning. Of living, or unity and harmony of plan which pervades recent authors, it were difficult to make sethe sacred volume: no subject more fully lection; but I may particularly notice the corroborates and confirms the evidences from spirit-stirring and splendid discourses of its sacred origin. It will be sufficient to re- Henry Melvill; discourses, where evangelical commend, on this head, "Davison's Dis- truth is clothed in the rich apparel of elocourses on Prophecy,' and "Bishop New- quence, on which thousands hang delighted ton's Dissertations on the Prophecies;" the every Sunday, and from which, I trust, former being treatises on the interpretation of many go away more thinking, and more prophecy generally, and the latter an exami- serious. nation of the particular prophecies of scripture in detail. Add to these Dr. Keith's work on the prophecies, which, although in the main similar in matter to bishop Newton's, contains accounts of some very remarkable fulfilments of prophecy derived from the east; researches of modern travellers, especially by captain Mangles and Irby, Sir R. K. Porter, and Burckhardt. There are three authors, who are generally admitted to stand pre-eminent among divines of the church of England; Richard Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and Isaac Barrow. A diligent and systematic study of their works, cannot fail to improve and elevate the mind. A distinguished scholar has thus marked their respective peculiarities and his own admiration: "I reverence Hooker, I admire Barrow, and I love Taylor." To these three, I would add the works of archbishop Leighton and of bishop Hall, both distinguished for deep piety and devotional feeling. They, perhaps, develope the peculiar motives and principles of the gospel with more fulness and effect, than the three other great divines. But we need not make comparisions where all are excellent. Let the young Christian student devote himself for some years to his bible, to Hooker, Taylor, Barrow, Leighton, and Hall; and he will, by God's blessing, find himself growing "wise unto salvation," and well instructed unto the kingdom of heaven," and able to Another branch of study remains to be particularised; I mean the study of church history, and especially of the early church. "Milner's Church History" is a popular book, and, though it certainly contains inaccuracies, it is interesting, and may be read to advantage. "Waddington's" is, in parts, remarkably well done. "Cave's Lives of the Apostles, and Primitive Christians:" "Burton's Church History;" "The Book of the Fathers;" "Russell's History of the Church in Scotland;" "Southey's Book of the Church;" "Burnet's History of the Reformation;" "Walton's Lives," may all be read to advantage, as bearing upon the history of the early church, and of our own" bring forth out of his treasure things new church in more recent times. 66 For an historical and authentic knowledge of the book of common prayer, "Wheatly" and Sheppard" will be found to supply much useful, edifying, and curious information. In "Biddulph's Essays on the Liturgy," will be found discourses, which imbibe the spirit of piety and devotion, which so copiously breathe through all our church services and prayers. For devotional and practical reading, I may mention 66 Beveridge's Private Thoughts;"" Taylor's Holy Living and Dying;" "Pascal's, Thoughts;" "Bickersteth on Prayer;" and, as a commentary on the psalms, a treasure-house of which the piety and spiritual application can never be exhausted, let me earnestly advise the young Christian student to make the volume of the amiable bishop Horne his companion and guide. The study of the psalms, with such an expositor, cannot fail to produce a deep and lasting impression on the heart. Sermons, of deep religious feeling, of powerful and old." Such a course of study, patiently followed out with meditation and prayer, will be a better training for the Christian student, than indulgence in that desultory habit of promiscuous reading, which, I fear, is often the cause of superficial knowledge and of unsettled opinions. Let the student pursue this method carefully and diligently, until the judgment be rightly formed and the mind well stored; then he will be the better able to estimate the current theological literature of the day; better qualified to profit by what is good; better able to detect what is flimsy or injurious. * See Notes to Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, p. 114, first edit. MOURNING. "Man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the ECCLESIASTES, xii. 5. streets. tries by various signs; and their diversity partakes of much of the characteristic peculiarities of the people by whom they are employed. Thus the symbol of grief in one nation is figurative of joy in another; that which in one clime fills the heart with sad recollections of the privation it has suffered, will, under a different sky, animate it with emotions of pleasure and delight. Of all the passions which affect the human heart, grief is the most powerful and violent. "The person who grieves,” says Burke, "suffers his passion to grow upon him, he indulges it, he loves it. It is the nature of grief to keep its object perpetually in its eye, to present it in its most pleasurable views, to repeat all the circumstances that attend it, even to the last minuteness; to go back to every particular enjoyment, to dwell upon each, and to find a thousand new perfections in all, that were not sufficiently understood before." The prince of poets has made Menelaus lament the calamitous fate of his friends in a manner peculiarly mournful and affecting :— Αλλ' εμπης παντας μεν οδυρόμενος και αχεύων, HOM. OD. LIB. 4. Still in short intervals of pleasing woe, THE custom of mourning for the dead appears among the few which have been preserved immutable from the earliest antiquity. In order to trace its origin we have but to examine our own hearts, and in their most genuine and unalloyed sympathies, find the secret impulses which have given it birth. The shock that awakens them has a power which all humanity obeys, because it is the disjunction of that universal tie by which humanity is bound together. With an extent circumscribed only by Nature herself, it embraces every diversity of clime and condition, and under no modification of circumstances does the heart of man refuse its control. Love, which unites hearts together, and imparts to friendship all its sweetness, will as readily find an echo in the breast of the fierce tenant of the wigwam, as in the sensitive bosom which the lordly palace covers. The unsophisticated savage and the polished | courtier, are here upon a level-have each feelings in | common-are equally susceptible of emotions which reciprocate joy in others; and are neither, the one by barbarity, or the other by refinement, exempt from the poignancy of grief-the agony of a separation from the companions of life. Great part of our happiness, therefore, depending upon others, it is but natural hat we should give a loose to sorrow, when the hand of death has snatched away those we love. The rememorance of ancient and youthful connections melts every human heart; and the dissolution of them is, perhaps, the most painful feeling to which we are exposed here below. Yet, throughout the almost countless varieties of the human race; in every clime, and under whatsoever degree of intelligence the mind modifies itself, mankind seem linked together by sympathies which have something more than a connection with present existence which anticipate the future, and paint uncertainty in the colours of reality. In the savage as well as in the sage, fancy can create a sanctuary be-expressed after this manner by the Hebrews must be yond the grave, in which the divided shall once more re-unite; where friendship shall again reciprocate, and happiness, without interruption or alloy, continue in eternal duration. The unlettered Indian, as well as the Christian philosopher, has a place of rest to which the grave is but the portal. Yet who can behold the young and gay, in the full flush of hope, sink into the narrow house, without reflecting that the vicissitude which blotted them from the page of existence, must, in its ceaseless uniformity, carry with it an awful lesson of the uncertain tenure on which mortality depends; a lesson intelligible to all whom nature has made the depository of a sentient mind? "Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, So flourish these, when those are pass'd away. But it is not in language, however forcible, that the bosom can unburthen its griefs. The silent sorrow that pales the cheek and dims the eye, is far more potent than the inspiration which prompts the flow of words. Sorrow by lamentation is but half expressed; in the exterior emblems of woe must read the anguish of the heart. Mourn ing has been typified in all ages and in all coun we POPE'S TRANSLATION. In the bible we find mourning expressed in a variety of ways, such as rending the garments, wearing sackcloth, and sprinkling dust and ashes upon the head. Thus when Jacob was informed of his son's death, it is stated that "he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days." When the patriarch Job heard the tidings of his bereavement "he arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head." The numerous instances of grief Thirty in the familiar recollection of most readers. Mourning Among the Hebrews the mode by which grief should be testified was strictly forbidden to include any act of personal cruelty," Ye are the children of the Lord your God, ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead; for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." (Deut. xiv). With the Greeks the custom of cutting off the hair and scattering it on the bier was a common mode of expressing sorrow for the dead. Pope has some observations on this in his notes to the Iliad, where the funeral of Patroclus is mentioned. The rites and games by which they celebrated the death of distinguished persons will be found fully described on the same occasion, in the twenty-third book of the Iliad. Among the Romans the time of mourning for departed friends, as well as funeral rites, and offerings to appease the manes, were appointed by Numa. There was no limited time for men to mourn, because, according to Seneca, none was thought honourable. It usually did not exceed a few days. Women mourned for a husband or parent ten months or a year, according to the computation of Romulus, but not longer." After the celebration of funeral rites the day was usually closed by a solemn repast, which nine days after was followed by a second called novendiale. During the interval between the two, no stranger was admitted the family were left to an uninterrupted indulgence of grief. It was not lawful to summon any of its members before a court of justice, either on a public or private account; though, for certain sacred rites, as those of Ceres, &c., and the public games, mourning was laid aside. On the tenth day the house was purified, by being swept with a particular kind of broom. Its inhabitants also purified themselves by stepping over a fire, after which they resumed their usual habits. The ceremonies of purification for the family were called Feria Denicales; and at their conclusion it was customary to make presents to the people. In a public mourning the senators laid aside their latus clavus and rings, the magistrates the badges of their office, and the consuls did not sit on their usual seats in the senate, which were elevated above the rest, but on a common bench (sede vulgari). Although immoderate grief was supposed to be offensive to the manes, yet it sometimes happened in a public mourning for any signal calamity, that the temples of the gods were struck with stones, and their altars overturned. Among the Hindûs the funeral obsequies are performed ninety-six times in the course of a year; but the formal mourning, which includes the abstinence from betel, is very brief. After the funeral, the nearest relation goes to the house of the deceased with a staff to drive off the evil spirits. In China a widow mourns three years for the death of her husband, and the man one year for his wife, and one for a brother. It is customary to keep dead bodies above ground for a very long time; rich people, indeed, sometimes delay the funeral for a year or more, and are thereby thought to testify their respect and reverence for the departed.† The Turks, on the other hand, and for nearly the same reason, hurry their dead to the grave within a few hours after dissolution. They neither weep nor bewail the departed; in prayers and in alms the Mohammedan shews his grief. To repine at the death of friends is held an act of impiety, for the same reason that they inter so speedily, namely," that if the deceased was a good mussulman, he is entitled to happiness ;which ought not to be grieved at,-nor ought he, by any delay of interment, to be prevented immediately attaining the full enjoyment of it. If, on the contrary, he was not a good mussulman, he does not deserve to be grieved for, and ought at once to be sent from the world." The men accordingly follow their friends to the tomb, exhibiting no symptom of regret of bewailing at what they consider the dispensation or Providence; but the women rend the air with lamentations and cries. This custom of mourning for the dead in shrieks and howlings prevails almost universally among the followers of Mohammed, though in all cases it is strictly confined to the women. At Aleppo, the funeral procession is attended by the acquaintance and kindred of the deceased, and one After the battle of Cannæ, by a decree of the senate, the mourning of the matrons was limited to thirty days. Sec Adam's Roman Antiquities, art. Funerals. When death visits the throne, all public business is suspended for fifty days; a universal mourning being observed throughout the empire. person (a female of course) is the chief mourner, who manifests her grief by the most frantic cries and gestures other mourners are hired, who, at intervas join the general wulwaly. The sepulchre is visited by the near relations of the deceased on the third, seventh, and fortieth day after the interment. Solemn prayers are offered at the tomb for his repose, and money and victuals distributed to the poor. The women, in their visits to the tomb, strew it with herbs and flowers, constantly repeating the wulwaly. For a husband the common period of mourning is twelve months; for a father, six. After the burial of an Abyssinian, the toscar, or feast of the dead, is celebrated. An image of the deceased, in rich garments, is set upon his favourite mule, and carried through the city, accompanied by other mules, &c., in gay apparel, together with a number of hired female mourners, crying out, as in Ireland," Why did you leave us? Had you not houses and land? &c." On the return of the procession, an immense number of the people are feasted, and a repetition of this feast, at intervals, is given by the different relations, who vie with each other in profusion and liberality. A nearly similar custom prevails in Guinea. The friends and neighbours of the deceased assemble round the corpse, with loud cries, asking it the cause of its death, whether from lack of food, or the effects o necromancy. The term of mourning is six weeks, during which time lamentations are made at the grave every morning and evening. The Mingrelians testify their grief in loud and doleful lamentations, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and even wounding their flesh; the men shave their heads and beards, and rend their garments. For the space of forty days this mourning continues, during all which time the body continues unburied. In Lycia the men were accustomed to clothe themselves in female habiliments during the whole time of their mourning; in order, it is related, that the ridicule attached to their vestments might make them ashamed of their grief. At Delos they cut off their hair. Among the ancient Cretonians, according to Herodotus, it was usual for widows to desire the honour of being killed on the grave of the deceased husband. The excessive melancholy into which Cleopatra was plunged by the death of Antony, and the many blows she had given her breasts, brought on a fever, which it was thought would terminate her life. She had besides resolved to abstain from eating, if her physician had not discovered the secret to Octavius, who immediately threatened to put her children to death if she persisted in her obstinacy. Her subsequent tragic end is well known. After Cæsar's murder, all the strangers then in Rome mourned according to their peculiar customs; and it is more particularly related of the Jews, that they watched several nights at Cæsar's pile. Among the Indianst and Thracians, wives wero Schultens in his valuable and learned commentary on Job x. 15 (tom. i. p. 978), considers the Arabic wulwal, as correspond ing to the Hebrew and to the Greek oλoλvw and aaaw. The former Greek word was, however, applied in a joyful sense, but the Arabic wulwaly is used only in distress and affliction, and, as such, bears a closer affinity to the latter term. + It has been well observed by a recent writer on India, "that the anxiety which the sacred writers of the Hindûs show to have all widows perform that most barbarous rite (the suttee as it is termed), to enforce it as a duty, and to encourage the performance by the highest temptations of future felicity, which the most extravagant phantasies of their mythology can hold out, is a proof of how much study they devoted to every means of degrading the human mind." "The wife," it is said, "who commits herself to the flames with her husband's corpse, shall equal Ahrundhati, and reside in the Swerga; accompanying her husband, she shall reside as long in Swerga as there are thirtyfive millions of hairs on the human body. As the snake-catcher forcibly draws the serpent from his earth, so she, bearing her husband from hell, shall with him enjoy the sweets of heaven, while fourteen Indras reign. If her husband had broken the burnt on the piles of their husbands: and, as it sometimes happened that one man had several, it was usually determined by lot which of them should have the preference. According to Caesar, the Gauls used to burn slaves and clients on the piles of their masters. Thus also among the Romans, instances are recorded of friends having testified their affection after the same manner; as Plotinus to his patron, Plautius to his wife Orestilla, soldiers to Otho, and Mnester, a freedman, to Agrippina. but The Greeks used frequently, when overwhelmed with grief, and unable to bear up under it, to throw themselves upon the earth and roll in the dust; and the more dusty the ground was, the better it served to defile them, and to express their sorrow and dejection. They beat their breasts and thighs, and tore their flesh, making furrows in their faces with their nails; but these actions, though practised sometimes by the men, were more frequent among the women, whose passions are more violent and ungovernable. Solon thought fit to forbid this amongst other extravagancies at funerals. The Lacedæmonians bore the death of their private relations with great constancy and moderation; but, when their king died, they had a barbarous custom of meeting in vast numbers, where men, women, and slaves, all mixed together, tore the flesh from their foreheads with pins and needles. The design of this was not only to testify their sorrow, also to gratify the ghosts of the dead, who were thought to feed upon and delight in nothing so much as blood. It is difficult to what origin the practice of mourners distinguishing themselves by a peculiarity of dress, should be assigned. The most natural would seem to be, that negligence and indifference to attire in which persons overcome by affliction are prone to indulge. The custom has been observed by almost all nations, and is not more remarkable from the peculiarities of the dress itself, than in the characteristic variety of colour, by which each has alluded to the extinction of life. For this indeed a kind of philosophical interpretation has been found out. Black is the emphatic emblem of that darkness which conceals the world beyond the grave; and, as it is also the privation of light, is supposed to denote the privation of life. White is the symbol of purity, and as such typifies the spiritual world. Yellow is to represent that death is the end of all human hopes, because it is the colour of leaves when they fall, and flowers when they fade. Brown signifies the earth, to which the dead return. Blue is an emblem of the happiness which it is supposed the deceased enjoys; and purple is understood to express a mixture of sorrow and hope. Osiris, who was treacherously murdered by his brother Like Such, as I have briefly described them, are a few of those ceremonials by which the living honour the dead; and, though diversified by the varieties into which the great family of man is subdivided, they all partake more or less of the same nature-are prompted by the same feelings-and are each the imperfect emblem of that universal love and benevolence which death never fails to awaken. To human lips it is not given to taste the cup of pure joy; our lives are diversified by sorrows and inquietude; "our days are a handbreadth, and our age is as nothing." The dissolution of those ties which had bound men together in intimate and familiar union, gives the most painful shock to every In Europe, the ordinary colour for mourning is black. In China and Japan white. Among the Turks it is blue or violet. In Egypt yellow; in Ethiopia brown. The Peruvians at the time of the Spanish conquest wore it of a mouse colour. The Romans dressed in black-sometimes in skins, laying aside every kind of ornament. During the republic the women dressed in black like the men, but, under the 'emperors, when party-coloured clothes came in fashion, they wore white in mourning. Dio says, that senators, in great mourning, appeared in the dress of the equites.human heart. When we behold the comparions of The mourning garments of the Greeks were always black. To this custom Pericles had respect when he boasted that "he had never given cause to any citizen to put on black." Artemidorous, who, in the reign of Antoninus, wrote a learned work on the interpretation of dreams, still extant, holds it to be a presage of recovery for a sick person to dream of black clothes, since not those that die, but those who survive to mourn, are apparelled in black. The Egyptians are said to have introduced this custom, when they mourned for the death of Liber, otherwise called ties of gratitude, or murdered his friend, or killed a Brahmin, she expiates his crime." It says much for the humanizing influence of British government, that the custom prohibited in our own territories is now elsewhere considerably on the decline our happiest hours suddenly torn away by the hand of death, and hurried into the dark and dreary grave, there to "moulder into silent dust"-when they are swept from our sight and shrouded in the impenetrable gloom of the eternal world-then is the time when the heart is made to drink all the bitterness of human woe! "The silver cord being loosened, and the golden bowl broken, the pitcher being broken at the fountain, and the wheel at the cistern, man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets." To We believe that this old custom prevailed from the claim the English monarchs so long asserted to the crown of France, whose kings mourned in purple, and that it is now disused. At least we have seen both our kings and queens mourning in black.-ED. |