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all the advantages resulting from the important discovery of Vaccination would run the risk of being lost to society.

We have sent matter, since our last Report, to almost every quarter of this country, and to most of the colonies; and also to Lisbon, to Madrid, to Cochin-China, and to China; and it has been received every where with grateful acknowledgments: so that the name of Great Britain is associated throughout the world with acts of beneficence as well as of power.

We have the honour to be, &c. &c. &c.

HENRY HALFORD, President of the Royal College of Physicians.

R. Powell,

Thomas Young,

Arch. Billing,

Censors of the Royal College of Physicians.

Jer. G. Cloves,

HENRY CLINE,

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London, March 18,

1824.

President of the Royal College
'of Surgeons.
CLEMT. HUE, M.D.
Registrar.

Mansion-house. - Lately a number of publicans were brought before the Lord Mayor, charged under a new act, passed for the regulation of public houses in the city, with having each incurred the penalty of five pounds, by permitting tippling in their houses during Divine service.

Herring, one of the new police inspectors, and an officer, stated that in the houses of all the defendants, they found men drinking, without the least restraint.

The Lord Mayor said the act required that all convictions under it should be made by two magistrates, as the penalties which it inflicted, were heavy; but, as he could not then obtain the attendance of a brother Alderman, he would dismiss the whole of the charges. He wished it, however, to be public, that those who offended in this respect, would be dealt with severely; and he hoped that the mercy shewn in the present instance, would operate more effectually than if penalties had been inflicted. This act, it should be remembered, gave the magistrate the power of inflicting a penalty of one hundred pounds for the third offence, and of preventing the offender from holding a licence for ever after.

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We have received H. D. M. L.; G. H.; Epitaphs from Benson Church-yard; Explanation of the Collects; and the Cottager's Garden Directory for October.

THE

Cottager's Monthly Visitor.

OCTOBER, 1824..

A VILLAGE CONVERSATION ON THE ORDER FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

(From " Village Conversations on the Offices of the Church.”)

William Walker and his Wife.

Mrs. W. Well, dear, and so you are come back from the funeral. Poor old Sam Brown!-I think he will be a good deal missed. He was, I do believe, a Christian-minded man; and his advice and help were often very useful to his neighbours.

William. I believe so indeed. But he is gone to a better place: he has been long a sufferer here, but he was enabled to bear his sufferings with patience, and indeed with thankfulness; his hopes were fixed on the right foundation, and he died "the death of the righteous." His faith was strong in the merits of his Lord and Saviour; there he rested all his hopes, and this rock was his strength.

Mrs. W. O yes; he rested on a support that could not fail him and it is a great comfort to think, that, as far as we can judge, his life was in agreement with his death. He has long been a man who seemed desirous of walking in all the ways of truth and of Christian duty; his faith shewed itself by his works.

W. And yet he never seemed to trust to his works. His trust was in Christ. He built on the right foundation; and thus his death was happy. It is NO. 46.-VOL. IV. U

true that we cannot always judge of a man's state by his feelings on his death-bed; but, generally speaking, a Christian who understands the Gospel right, and has lived according to his knowledge, will be the happiest in his end. To live the life of the righteous is the best of all preparations to die the death of the righteous :-and so I think it was with poor Brown. Poor fellow, I cannot forget him. And the thoughts of what he was, gave a sort of solemn feeling during the whole time of his funeral,-very different from what we experience when we attend the funeral of a man whose past life and whose death we cannot think of with comfort.

Mrs. W. O yes: it is very different indeed.

W. The whole of the Funeral Service seems to me as if it were made upon a supposition that the man has been a true Christian;-that he has lived and died in the faith.

Mrs. W. Yes, I think so.

W. And this is all right. Our Church brings us up to be Christians from our childhood; she supplies us with spiritual help from our Baptism to our Burial; and all the services of the Church contain such promises and such instructions as the Scriptures offer to those, who, having professed the faith of Christ, are desirous of serving him. Those who fall from the Christian faith and practice, will be called to an account hereafter. We need not judge them: we must hope for the best. But, whenever we attend a funeral, we see what manner of men we ought to be;-and we cannot help being filled with a very melancholy feeling when we fear that the character of him whom we lament has been very different from what we know that it ought to be, and which, at such a time, we could so much wish that it had been.

Mrs. W. It is very true. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." But I cannot help thinking that the Burial service was intended for the good of

the living-so that it is our business to try what benefit we can derive from it, that we may thus be induced to prepare for our own end, that we may inherit the blessings of those who," after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity.".

W. O yes. And no service can be more likely to produce this effect than the Funeral service; and no time can be more favourable for such impressions, than when we are standing by the grave of one who is gone to his account.

Mrs. W. A man must indeed be in a sad state who cannot be touched at such a time: and, as you say, the service in itself is particularly suitable for such a purpose.

W. Yes. How awful and yet how full of comfort is the opening! "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord," &c. "I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c. And then the Psalms,how noble!-and how full of true religious consolation and instruction! And the lesson from St. Paul to the Corinthians! who can hear this read, without the most anxious desire to be one of those to whom God hath given "the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord?"And who does not wish to be "stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,"-" for as much as he knows that his labour is not in vain in the Lord?" And then, when we get to the grave, and have our hearts humbled at the thought that earthly things must soon come to an end with us all ;-when we look at the coffin which contains the mortal remains of a beloved friend, and when we know not whose turn it may be next, we cannot help wishing and praying that we may be prepared for the change when our time shall come. We know that we must alldie,-for "man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live :"-" In the midst of life we are in death." And such thoughts make us utter this

prayer from our hearts. "O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death."-" But spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death to fall from thee."

Mrs. W. And when we commit the body to the ground, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;" what a blessing it is to think that, for the Christian, it is "in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." I own I have not received much comfort from these words, when I have attended the funeral of any one whose life has not given us reason to judge favourably of his future condition.

W. Why no; we cannot, but we must remember, that it is not our place to judge. These things are in the hands of the Almighty. We may hope, —and we will hope for the best. And thus, in one of the prayers, by the side of the grave, we pray that we "may rest in the Lord, as our hope is," that our departed friend does. This should be our hope we say no more:-we do not say that it is our belief, because we cannot know for a certainty.

Mrs. W. Very true; and, as we have said before, the services of the Church were made for the cases of those who wish to go on regularly in a course of Christian teaching, and Christian performance; and then we may reasonably hope that their eternal state will be a happy one. We cannot make a religious service for those who break their Christian vows, and live in opposition to the rules of a holy Church. They must answer for themselves. The Church undertakes to nourish and bring up, and supply, with spiritual food, her faithful children; and she begins with them in their infancy, and she does not desert them in their death;"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,

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