of relaxation, there tonics are good; because they brace up and tighten the loosened string. Bracing is a correct metaphor. Bark goes near to be a combination of a bitter and a tonic; but no perfect medical combination of the two properties is yet known.

The study of specific medicines is too much disregarded now. No doubt, the hunting after specifics is a mark of ignorance and weakness in medicine, yet the neglect of them is proof also of immaturity; for, in fact, all medicines will be found specific in the perfection of the science.

May 25. 1830.

EPISTLES TO THE EPHESIANS AND COLOSSIANS. OATHS.

THE Epistle to the Ephesians is evidently a catholic epistle, addressed to the whole of

what might be called St. Paul's diocese, It is the divinest composition of man. It embraces every doctrine of Christianity; — first, those doctrines peculiar to Christianity, and then those precepts common to it with natural religion. The Epistle to the Colossians is the overflowing, as it were, of St. Paul's mind upon the same subject.

The present system of taking oaths is horrible. It is awfully absurd to make a man invoke God's wrath upon himself, if he speaks false; it is, in my judgment, a sin to do so. The Jews' oath is an adjuration by the judge to the witness: "In the name of God, I ask you." There is an express instance of it in the high-priest's adjuring or exorcising Christ by the living God, in the twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew, and you will observe that our Lord answered the appeal.*

* See this instance cited, and the whole history and moral policy of the common system of judicial swearing examined with clearness and good feeling, in Mr. Tyler's late work on Oaths. - Ed.

You may depend upon it, the more oathtaking, the more lying, generally among the people.

May 27. 1830.

FLOGGING.

I HAD one just flogging.

When I was

about thirteen, I went to a shoemaker, and begged him to take me as his apprentice. He, being an honest man, immediately took me to Bowyer, who got into a great rage, knocked me down, and even pushed Crispin rudely out of the room. Bowyer asked me why I had made myself such a fool? to which I answered, that I had a great desire to be a shoemaker, and that I hated the thought of being a clergyman. "Why

so?" said he.

"Because, to tell you the truth, sir," said I, "I am an infidel!" For this, without more ado, Bowyer flogged me,

-wisely, as I think,

soundly, as I know.

Any whining or sermonising would have

gratified my vanity, and confirmed me in my absurdity; as it was, I was laughed at, and got heartily ashamed of my folly.

May 28. 1830.

THE AMERICANS.

I DEEPLY regret the anti-American articles of some of the leading reviews. The Americans regard what is said of them in England a thousand times more than they do any thing said of them in any other country. The Americans are excessively pleased with any kind or favourable expressions, and never forgive or forget any slight or abuse. It would be better for them if they were a trifle thicker-skinned.

The last American war was to us only something to talk or read about; but to the Americans it was the cause of misery in their own homes.

I, for one, do not call the sod under my feet my country. But language, religion,

laws, government, blood, —

identity in these

makes men of one country.

May 29. 1830.

BOOK OF JOB.

THE Book of Job is an Arab poem, antecedent to the Mosaic dispensation. It represents the mind of a good man not enlightened by an actual revelation, but seeking about for one. In no other book is the desire and necessity for a Mediator so intensely expressed. The personality of God, the I AM of the Hebrews, is most vividly impressed on the book, in opposition to pantheism.

I now think, after many doubts, that the passage*, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c. may fairly be taken as a burst

* Chap. xix. 25, 26.