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informed, that on his next turn to occupy that pulpit, a substitute would be provided.

1741. November 2d. Mr. Wesley, whilst at Bristol, suffers under a severe attack of fever; so that for three weeks he is incapacitated for the discharge of his wonted duties.

December 31st. Sir John Ganson, one of the Magistrates for the county of Middlesex, informs Mr. Wesley, he has "orders from above" to do the Methodists justice, when seeking redress from the brutal treatment of their opposers.

1742. January 25th. Mr. Wesley, whilst preaching in Longlane, London, is disturbed by a tumultuous mob, who break down part of the house in which the congregation is assembled, and endanger the lives of many. The evening following a similar scene is witnessed at Chelsea; where, in addition to other annoyances, combustible matters are thrown into the room, filling it with thick smoke: "but they who could praise God in the midst of the fires," observes Mr. Wesley, were not to be affrighted by a little smoke."

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Monday, February 15th. The division of the "United Society" into classes commences in Bristol. A meeting being held to devise means for liquidating the debt on the chapel, it was agreed, that each member of the society should contribute a penny a week; that the whole society should be divided into little companies, or classes, about twelve in each; and that one person in each class should receive the contribution of the rest, and bring it in weekly to the Stewards. The advantage of this system was quickly after turned to higher and spiritual purposes by the Founder of the body.

Thursday, March 25th. Mr. Wesley, after consultation with "several earnest and sensible men," divides the London society into classes, "like those at Bristol;" observing, that for such an institution, he can never sufficiently praise God, "its unspeakable usefulness having been more and more manifest."

Sunday, April 4th. Mr. Charles Wesley preaches before the University of Oxford his celebrated sermon, from Ephesians v. 14, entitled, "Awake thou that sleepest." Of this most energetic and faithful address, Mr. Jackson observes,

"It is doubtful whether any sermon in the English language, or in any language upon earth, has passed through so many editions, or has been a means of so much spiritual good.” P.

SENSATION AND THE SENSES.
No. III.

POPULARLY speaking, the word consciousness comprehends two facts of our living being; and it might almost be said a third, made up of the other two. There is the consciousness of our thoughts,—our particular mental states. There is the consciousness of bodily parts, actions, states. And there is the entire consciousness of our own one and undivided being. But this is not sensation. When this last refers to what is caused by something from without, the usual term by which it is denoted is feeling. Perhaps the chief difference between this and what is called the sense of touch, is in the use of the words. The former word is mostly passive; the latter, active. We use the former when any substance is applied to any particular part of the body; but our fingers were evidently made, among other purposes, that we might, voluntarily, ourselves apply them to particular substances. In the former the sensation does little more than inform us of the fact that some substance touches us in this or that particular place. If it be in temperature above or below that of our own body, we say it feels hot or cold. We have a general but indistinct feeling of its size; and some feeling also, but very vague, and only within certain limits, of its shape. If it be moved up and down, moved without removal, we may feel whether it be rough or smooth; and, under certain conditions, we may feel whether it be hard or soft. Still our feeling was not so much given us directly for the purpose of ascertaining the properties of bodies, but chiefly for the purpose of informing us of the fact that certain bodies touch us in some certain part. When we want to know the properties of the body, we must use the organs intended to enable us to touch it ourselves, and to regulate the touch by the character of the information which we wish to acquire. We might have been fearfully injured could bodies have come into contact with

us, or we with bodies, and we had been without any means of knowing it. The skin, therefore, by means of the nerves, is made sensitive, capable of feeling, of conveying a sensation to the mind. Properly speaking, the skin consists of three portions: 1. The cuticle, or epidermis, which is the outside coat, a delicate, transparent membrane, itself not sensitive. 2. Then comes the rete mucosum, the mucous network. 3. And, lastly, the cutis vera, (true skin,) or chorion, a fibrous texture, in which cellular tissue, arteries, veins, and nerves, are all interwoven together. It is this latter, cutis vera, that, from its immediate connexion with the nerves, is the instrument of this particular species of sensation.

When we speak of the sense of touch, using the term particularly, and giving it an active signification, we refer to the hand and its fingers: though not exclusively. Where, by means of the muscles, we can apply an organ, capable of this feeling, we do not hesitate to say that we touched the object with it. We should thus say that we just touched some substance with the tip of our tongue, that we touched some body with the end of our toe. Where we have muscular control, and the organ has this capacity of nervous sensation, we say that we touch with it. But, in the vast majority of instances, we mean, by touching, touching with the fingers,

Most wonderfully is the hand constructed. And, as in other departments of nature, one contrivance is beautifully and skilfully adapted to accomplish more purposes than one. Easily and delightfully could we now be drawn from the subject directly before us, for a more extended consideration. How admirably is the hand and its fingers adapted for the purpose even of holding on, so far as such a creature as man needs this! How admirably for such holding as is required for giving a stroke, holding the axe or hammer! How admirably for gathering, picking up, holding what we gather, and, where requisite, conveying to the mouth, or lifting up to be examined by the eyes! The fingers must be taken with the hand, the hand with the arm, the arm in its two leading divisions, and then, again, in its position, as proceeding from the shoulder, and having a length agreeing with its designed purposes, but going no further.

But we must refrain from what might gratify and instruct, but would, so far as our present subject is concerned, by dividing, distract our attention. We take the hand therefore now, only considered as the instrument for active touch. Instrument, we say, only as the term seems to be somewhat more simple than organ. By the construction of the hand, we are enabled to make an active use of the passive sense of feeling.

The parts which are intended to exercise the sense of touch, are for that purpose amply provided with nerves. This is the case with the fingers, especially at their tips, which are thus prepared not only for ascertaining the presence of very minute substances, but also, by movement over them, some of them most important properties. A good idea of the shape of a body of moderate size may be obtained by passing the fingers slowly along its boundaries; passing them over its surface, we ascertain whether it is rough or smooth; and generally, by touching it, we discover its temperature, its hardness, softness, dryness, and such other properties of matter as are designed to be known by this particular instrumentality. Indeed it is here that the wisdom and power of the Creator are most distinctly seen. The nerves, to the anatomist, appear all alike; and there is no reason to believe that, essentially, they differ at all. But the sensations they cause are very different. By the eye, that property of a body which gives the notion of colour is conveyed to the mind; by the touch, we perceive the temperament of the body. We cannot feel colour; we cannot see heat or cold. Why does one corporeal filament convey one class of properties, and another filament, of exactly the same kind, another class? No answer can be given but the will of the Creator. The connexion of nerves and sensation is evidently arbitrary; it is an annexed property. Nerves in one place shall be susceptible of one order of sensations ; nerves in another place shall be susceptible of another order. All sensation is by means of the nerves; but that we may see that the nerves come not from a blind cause, all nerves are not able to produce all sensations. Exquisitely sensitive as the ends of the fingers are, they cannot feel the sound that passes by; they cannot touch light. The distribution of the

senses among the same kind of filaments, whereby each filament is utterly incapable of any other work than what is assigned to it, shows living and intelligent causality. If the nerves, in their own nature, were essentially connected with the properties of bodies, and able of themselves to convey the knowledge of them to the mind, every nerve would be excited by all properties, and we should see and hear with our fingers, as well as touch with our eyes and ears. Sensation, by the nerves generally, is a wonderful fact: the distribution and limitation of it, will be seen to be not less surprising. At every step we are reminded that we are fearfully and wonderfully made."

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STORMS OF HAIL AND LIGHTNING.

IN nothing are the divine omnipotence, and the perfect helplessness of man, more clearly seen than when the elements of nature are let loose in all their power, and man is found exposed to their fury, and utterly unable to resist them. A large vessel of war, sailing in fair weather along the ocean, with a favouring breeze, appears as a monument, not merely of human skill, but of human might. He who is on board, beholds a contrivance by which natural laws are placed under contribution for the service of man; and the vessel, as though instinct with life, moves along as though both wind and water were at length subdued, and man had become their ruler. But the tempest arises, and the billows grow to mountains, and then the impotency of man is evident. The sails are torn away by the resistless wind, and the masts are snapped asunder as though they were the dry twigs broken off from the tree. The mighty bulk is lifted and tossed by the billows like the foam on the surface, and at length, perhaps, is whelmed beneath the flood, and leaves not a fragment to tell the tale of destruction.

So, too, sometimes on land, furious tempests proclaim the power of God, and prove that when He permits who sways the sceptre of universal nature, and beneficently directs the course of the elements for the life and happiness of his creatures, they become the instruments of destruction, before

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