IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I Jfriia 2.5 ■^ M 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 -« 6" — ► VI y credit for not flinching from their plain and proper duty in such cases, seems to involve a supposition that men whose whole employment relates to the business of preparation for eternity, and who preach CIIUIST as the resurrection and the life, are /e^.v expected to be armed against the fear of death than all the other persons who are engaged in visiting and tending the sick, and perform- ing the various oflices successively recpiired after death. A medical man might argue in the same words, although not throughout used precisely in the same sense, as those which I have heard suggested for the use of a Clergyman : These are cases in which 1 can do much less good than in other labours of my profession : many of them are almost hopeless, with respect to my doing any good at all : is it riglu that 1 should consume my time and expose my life for the sake of such cases, when if it is prolonged, 1 may be an instrument of Lsaving many oi my fellow-creatures ? — There is indeed a iis well as parts of the passage in Milton whicli depictures a scene exbibitcd In vision to Adam : — » * * * Ininiediately a pbice * Before his eyrs appe^ared, sad, noisome, ('ark ; A lazar-house it seemed, vvliorein were laid Nunibcis of all diseased ; all m.iladies Of ghastly s])asm or racking torture, qualms Of licart sick agony. ***** *** * «*** * « Dire was the tossingr, deep the groans : despair Tended the sick busiest from couch to coueii. Despair was to be seen every win re, as far as concerned i\ip recovery o( the sutierers. And sometimes despair of tli(?ir souh. It is loo late, they ;vould sometimes say to the Minister, themselves. S4 Canon which directs the Clergy to visit their parishioners in sickness, if it be not known or probably suspected to be infectious. But the rubric of tlie prayer-book was framed in belter days, which provides for the case "where none of the parish or neiirhbours can begotten to communicate with the sick in their houses for fear of the infection," and assumes it as a matter of course, that their Minister will visit them under those circumstances. With respect, however, to the much agitated question of the contagious or infectious nature of the Cholera Morbus, the ob- scurity of the disease iiuhisand in all respectshas beenthesub- ject of remarkin theSermon; and lam far from offering to lifi a presumptuous Imnd to cut the entanglements of this Gordian knot, nor am I qualified to set the subject in a scientific light, but as it regards simply the courage called into action, in visiting the sick, it does not seem necessarily of a very high order, when it is recollected that the medical gentlemen who areconstantly busy incontact with the patients ; the Clergy who, to talk witli them to any purpose must, in many instances touch them and receive their breath clf3se to their own ;* — the friends and attendants about them night and day, who relieve them by friction of the hand till they are themselves perspiring with open pores, — and others who handle their clothing and bedding before and after death, remained quite as exempt as any other classes of persons^ from the di sense, f That this disease may be propagated and made to adhere, in a manner, to particular places by causes which tend to generate diseases at large, appears sufficiently natural and is supported by a variety of instances which are known to have occurred. * Upon occasions such as these, whatever constitutional repugnance may exist to things apt to create disgust, or wliatever of that refinement may, more or less, be found, vvhicli is engendered by education and habit, are, (even it not mastered by some previous experience,) overcome by the necessity of the case and lost before long, in the absorbing nature of tiie occupation. All studiedprecautions are at the same time almost necessarily discarded. I sometimes administered the Sacrament, by means of a portable ai)paratus, to dit!"ereiit Cholera patients successively in a very short time, in the hospital, or in pas?«ing from house to house, and of course used the same cup myself which was used by them all. The only protective that I ever adopted was the suspension of a small bag of camphire round the neck, and this was forgotten after two or three days. The same was the case with junior Clergymon wlio were full as much engaged in the same general way and much more < onstantly in the hospitals. t One physician died of the Cholera in Quebec. — I believe that no Clergy- man or Minister of any denomination, exercising any charge in the Province, fell a victim to it. An Irish Roman Catholic I'riest who died of it in Quft- iuH'. htui 111 wlv iinived and had not assumed any ecclesiastical duties. 25 The Roman Catholic Clergy connectetl with the estab- lishment of the Seminary, gave public notice of the closing of that Institution in order to enable them to assist in the task of attending the sick, in which the whole body were unceasingly engaged. One after another, indeed, all the schools of the city were closed. The conveyance of bodies to the burial-grounds in open carts piled up with coffins, continued after the Board of Health had provided covered vehicles for this pur- pose, (attached to the hospitals, but disposable for the same service elsewhere,)from the unavoidable insufhciency of the ])rovision. I saw upon one occasion twelve bodies thus con- veyed from one hospital and at one time to the Roman Ca- tholic place of interment alone. Many fables were abroad among the lower orders, respecting persons said to have been buried alive in consequence of the order for their in- terment within a certain number of hours. It is a fact, however, that the hospital-servants were in the act of taking an old Englishman from his bed to the dead-house, when some sign of life appearing, they brought him back, and he ultimately recovered. This I had from his own lips. One of the Roman Catholic Clergy also informed me that a person whom he had visited was found to be alive, after being laid in his coffin, but died shortly afterwards. The symptoms, in general, were much less horrible, al- though the disease, 1 believe, was equally fatal, among children. 1 do not remember to have seen an instance in which they were affected by the cramps. 1 saw two little things of the same family, lying, one day, in the same bed, at the hospital, to die quietly together like the babes in the wood. In some instances the hand of death produced very little immediate change of appearance. I recognised a man one day in hospital, whom I had visited the day before at his lodging ; and upon my going up to speak to him, the apothecary said to me, " Sir, that man is dead." His eyes were quite open. It was one of the characteristic occurrences of the time, that boards were put out in various quarters of the town with the inscription COFFINS MADE HERE. I remember seeing one day at the foot of Mountain-treet, a coffin containing a body, let down from a high garret, on 26 tlio ouUidt' of tlie house, by ropes. It had never [)assed pro- bably in the mind of the unfortunate lodger, that the ntairs by which he gained his lodging, would not afford passage to him for his leaving it, in case of death. 1 was informed of a similar occurrence at another liouse^ where the coffin burst open. 1 have mentioned in the Sermon the case of a drunkard smitten in the street in a state of drunkenness. 1 saw lijin seized by the cramps, and with the assistance of a couple of health-wardens, got him conveyed to the Emigrants' Hospi- tal. His wife, who was also intoxicated, made violent re- sistance to his removal. It was, I think, a day or two after this, that the Cholera Hospital was opened. Upon my going there, the first person to whom my attention was directed, was this woman. She was then dying. They left two orphans who were afterwards received into the Female Orphan Asylum. I was once attending to bury a young man who had died of cholera after having just obtained a decent situation in a mercantile house, and while I was still over his grave, an affectionate letter from » is sister in Europe was put into my bands, which bad arrived too late for him to read it. She reminded bim that perhaps before that letter could reach hiniy himself or some of the persons interested about him might be mingling with the clods of the valley* She ear- nestly conjured him to abstain from the seductive poison which it appeared that he had used imprudently before. — I believe that he had not been guilty of intemperance in Quebec. 1 have been assured that some men were brought into hospital, having been picked up in the streets under the supposition of being affected by cholera, but found to be only what is vulgarly called dead drunk ; and that the same individuals, having been discharged as soon as sobered, again gave themselves up to drinking and were brought in under no false alarm, a second time, but actually sick and that unto death, of the disease. In the early part of August, when the pestilence had much abated, the Bishop held a Visitation of the Clergy at Montreal, which, in the earlier stage of the calamity, had been postponed. I was appointed to preach the Visitation Sermon, and of course left Quebec for that purpose. Upon my return, I was in company in the steamboat, with an un- i 87 t [I 11 fui'tuuate gentleman who had lost himself by habitual ex- cess. He was at tlic breakfast-table with the other pas- sengers, on the morning of the second day. A few hours afterwards, on tliat same day, hi3 corpse was sewetl up in sacking, and thrown overboard with weights attached to it, in conformity with the orders of the Board of Healtli. 1 rer.d over the body, part of the burial service aj)pointed to be used at sea, with some slight adaj)tation to the case. I had been with him in Ids dying liour, and it was one of the worst cases that I witnessed. He could scarcely articulate ; but, in broken iialf-sentences or single words, was every instant importunately crying for soniething to assuage his tliirst, tossing and turning at the same time without the respite of a moment. A kind of half mucilaginous drivel streamed profusely from his mouth. His countenance was ghastly and his skin clammy in the extreme ; and the short work of this wonderful disease was exemplified (as in other cases,) by his having the ai)pearance of a person reduced and worn down by the severe action of some long-continued illness. After his death, the Captain of the boat proceeded to take a kind of inventory of such effects as he liad on board. Among these was a snufF-box with a representa- tion upon the lid, of some figures carousing at a table, and a stanza from a drinking-song beneath : Ah ! said the Cap- tain, that is the soMg that he ivas singing when he came on board yesterday. It was a horrid death. 1 cannot say that the unhappy man could be called impenitent — if the tern» penitence can be applied to the distress of mind under which he laboured. He seemed alarmed about himself, and very anxious that something or other should be tried in behalf of his perishing soul. When I first went in, he was able to say, 1 am a dead man. He afterwards put his finger to his open mouth, as a *=ign, and uttered the single word Sacramenty the ad- ministration of which was, of course, utterly out of the question, and 1 believe that I succeeded in turning him from such an idea.* A minister can hardly be placed in a more painful situation. He can hardly pray with hope; and without Iiope he can hardly pray with faith. * It was impossible to suppose that his desire for the Sacrament, was prompt- ed by his having in that moment clearly apprehended a proper interest in the sacrifice which it represents. 28 Slioukl this publication fall into the hands of any person upon whom a habit of undue indulg^ence in liquor, is gra- dually stealiner, let liim be warned by these fearful exam|)les. And oh ! let those who live by selling what so often caries ruin to soul and body, consider well their own case. There was another case of cholera among the female pas- sengers in the steerage, but the woman recovered and is now living. The unfortunate gentleman mentioned above did not be- long to the Province. It is a common idea, and to be found sometimes in the writ- ings of divines, that the dtafh-bed of an evil liver will be sure to afford a warning spectacle of remorse. A familiar experience of such scenes will completely contradict this notion. Such cases do, indeed, occur ; but men who have led a godless life, very frequently die either in a stupid or else in a deceived state, saying to their consciences; "peace, when there is no peace," and clinging, like drown- ing men to straws, to any delusive expedient which will " promise life to the wicked.'* It is thus that they will sometimes demand the s^^rament as a kind of passport to the other world ; and it is thus that when they are past all possible capacity of judging of controverted points, or Ivnowing what the Religion is which they emorace, there are instances of their abjuring Protestantism, if the occa- sion chances opportunely to offer for settling their account by a nominal transfer of their faith. 1 am impelled to a notice of this subject because a statement, which 1 cannot avoid thinking to be enormously exaggerated, of such con- versions in this Province during the cholera, has been pro- claimed as a matter of triumph in one of the Provincial nevA'Spapers. I shall content myself with observing, for the comfort of my Protestant brethren, and injustice to our cause, that, according to the views which ivemust entertain upon the subject, the loss of credit in such cases has cer- tainly uot been on the side of the Church so deserted ; and the more the circumstances are known, the more strikingly will this truth appear. I believe, however,| that the exam- ples in Quebec were extremely few indeed ; and among them, w^ere persons who after recovery renounced w'hat they had done. 2{) No person into wliose hands tlirsc hIh.* ts nmy . ill, wli ♦- ever may l)e his creed, outfiit to tal\e utnlnat^e at vvli»t ( liave iiei'e said. We mai/, indeed, be called upon to ly more. There are other exemplifications of this propensity to self-deception in death as well as in life, of which one or two which occurred durini,^ the late visitation, may here be added. It may well be snpposehonld be received at first with caution, if not with dis- trust. But care must be taken at the same time, that we do not push the rule so far as to reject any well-supported testimony of the marked power of God's word and grace, or overlook any awful lesson by which he in- , tends that we should profit. There are, I believe, various inslances satisfactorily attested, of facts closely similxtr to that which is selected in the following? extract from Pinnock's County Histories as havinir occurred at the town of Devizes, in "Wiltsiiire :— '* In the market-place is a monumental stone, on which is recorded a most awful instance of Divine vengeance, almost immediately inflicted on nn unhappy wretch, who had repeatedly called God to witness the truth ofs what she advanced, although it was a falseliood. She solemnly affirmed that she had paid the money for some corn she had bought, and wished God would strike hp"- d'^ad if she had not. She died, and the munej was found in her liaiid." — From the Christian Sentinel. OJ principle of death which was in such fearful activity among the delegated lords of creation. I was particuhu'ly im- pressed with this kind of feeling upon some of the lovely summer evenings, on which 1 officiated at the burial- ground, then still unenclosed. The open green, skirted by the remains of a tall avenue of trees, and contiguous to the serpentine windings of the River St. Charles, beyond which you looked across meadows, woods, and fields dotted with rural habitations, to the mountains which bound the pros- pect, the whole gleaming in the exquisite and varied lights of a Canadian sunset, formed altogether a beautiful and peaceful landscape and seemed a " fit haunt of gods." How melancholy and striking the contrast with all that had been deposited, and which it remained to deposit, in the spot upon which I stood ! How full of deep reflection upon the ravages of Sin ! How coupled with deep thankfulness to Him who came to repair those ravages in the end, and to *' make all things new !'* The materials composing this Appendix have been has- tily thrown together from very rough and very slight notes taken at the first opportunity after the occurrence of each separate incident that was noted ; and the sheets have been successively furnished for the press as they were ready, so as to render impossible any attention to nicety of arrange- ment, or any revision of the whole together, in which it might have occurred to make alterations or retrenchments. With this apology I send them forth, and trust that they will find the indulgence which they require. I believe that between my notes and my memory refreshed by their aid, I have made no statement of facts which is not perfectly correct in all material points. DA VENIAM SCRIPTIS QUORUM NON GLORIA NOBIS CAUSA, SED UTILITAS OFFICIUMQUE FUIT. %* Shortly will be Published by the same Author, and in a manner uniform with the foregoing; Sermon, TWO SERMONS on some prevailing notions respecting thr Millennium or Reign of Saints.