day, at Walsall, much disturbance arises, in the midst of which he calmly proclaims the message of salvation. 1743. Wednesday, May 25th. The first "preachinghouse in Sheffield, built by Mr. Edward Bennett, a sugarbaker, near Peniston-lane, is this day demolished by a riotous mob; Mr. Charles Wesley, whilst preaching, being frequently struck by the stones which flew in every direction. Saturday, May 28th. Mr. Charles Wesley visits Leeds, where, chiefly through the instrumentality of the mason-preacher, John Nelson, a society of about fifty in number had been gathered together, most of whom were enabled to rejoice in God. In the evening, standing at the door of William Shent, who kept a barber's shop in Briggate, he gives to thousands the evangelic invitation, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." By the Clergy of Leeds, Mr. Wesley is, on this visit, treated with great respect; and, at their request, unites with them on the following Sabbath in the administration of the holy sacrament: "Yet,” writes he, "I dreaded their favour, more than the stones in Sheffield." May 30th. Disgraceful riots, instigated by the Clergy and Magistrates of the neighbourhood, take place in Wednesbury, and the adjacent villages. For the crime of serving God, the members of the Methodist societies are abused in the most outrageous manner; even women and children are beaten, stoned, and covered with mud; their houses broken open and pillaged, their furniture destroyed or carried away. A statement of these outrages is subsequently published under the title, "Modern Christianity exemplified at Wednesbury, and other adjacent places in Staffordshire." P. SENSATION AND THE SENSES. To another and most important inlet, both of knowledge and pleasure, attention must now be directed. There is the sense of hearing. And a remarkable distinction requires notice, in the very first instance, between this and the other senses. By means of them, what may be termed the proper ties of bodies are made known to the mind: we learn what they are. By this sense, however, we rather learn what they do. If we speak of feeling, for instance, we feel a certain substance; but when we speak of hearing, it is not the substance itself that is the object of the sense, but something which it does. It occasions sound; and it is the sound that we hear. Generally speaking, the instrument of sound is the air, considered as elastic, and capable of certain vibrations. Other elastic bodies, however, are capable of communicating what may be termed these sonorous vibrations. Sometimes the air itself, by its own forcible and rapid motion, becomes sonorous. The whistling of the wind is a familiar instance. The primary cause of sound, however, appears to be an impression made on the air; and the character of the sound depends either on the nature of the impression itself, or on the manner in which the air is influenced after the first impression has been made. When a person strikes the notes of a pianoforte, the sound arises from what (popularly speaking) is the first impression made on the air by the strings which are thus made to vibrate; but the different notes of a flute are occasioned by the modifying influence exercised on the air, by means of the small apertures which the player opens or stops, according to the effects which he seeks to produce. The entire subject of sound is so diffuse, and so extremely complicated, that the student must be content, in the first instance, with such an imperfect account as may be sufficient to give him that general notion which will prepare him to go over the subject again, making his more particular inquiries with a previous knowledge of the leading facts which the science includes. That science bears the name of acoustics, and consists of the arrangement of the various phenomena of sound, and the statement of the laws according to which they are produced, or by which they are governed. A very general description of sound would it be, that it is an impression made on the organs of hearing by the peculiar vibrations of an elastic fluid, which are produced by a certain impulse. The all-wise Creator, designing that man should receive knowledge and pleasure from this particular source, has made the air capable of receiving this particular class of impulses, and has constituted the ear for receiving impressions from the vibrations which the impulse has occasioned. This impression is sound, and the mind becomes conscious of it through the nerves, prepared for the purpose, and connecting the organ and the brain. That the original impulse moves through the elastic medium, is a well-known fact. A man is seen at a distance striking with a hammer: we see when the hammer strikes the object, but we do not at once hear the noise made by the blow. Perhaps the man has lifted up the hammer, and it is at its greatest distance from the object when we hear the blow. That blow gave the impulse which produced the vibrations, and not till these reached the ear was the sound heard. The same fact is shown by the firing of a gun, and by the clap of thunder after the lightning. Numerous observations seem to have established the conclusion, that sound travels at the rate of about eleven hundred and forty feet every second of time. It is a curious fact that the vibrations which occasion sound, though not uninfluenced by the movement of the whole body of air, are yet by no means to be identified with it. Within certain limits, the vibrations are independent of it. Let two persons stand at a moderate distance from each other, and let the wind be rushing between them, at a right angle to their position, and yet they will converse with the most perfect freedom. Still, every one knows that the sound of bells in a church-tower, say, half a mile off, is heard rising or falling, according to the strength of the evening breeze. Again: not every impulse on the air, though sufficient to set it sensibly in motion, will produce the vibrations on which sound depends. Our hands, our face, feel the waves of moving air, as wind; but the nerves of feeling are not impressed by the vibrations which cause sound, although the auditory nerves are most acutely sensible to them. It seems, on the whole, that it is only certain peculiar impulses, fixed by the divine wisdom and power, which can produce what are likewise the peculiar vibrations which the auditory nerves perceive, but which can be perceived by no other. Acutely sensible, even to a proverb, as is the eye, (where are the And optic nerves,) sound produces no impression there. why? The eye was made for seeing; the ear for hearing. So the Creator has willed; so it is, and therefore is it so. Such being sound, and hearing being the sensation of sound, what is the organ on which the impression is made, and by which it is conveyed to the mind? That organ is the ear; for although there are two, yet, by the wonderful appointment of the Creator, the impressions on each ear so unite as to furnish but one conscious sensation; and, as both ears are alike, it will be sufficient to speak only of one. The ear is a very complicated organ, and to all its observed portions anatomists have given names. To enumerate these, however, would here only confuse the reader. Our object is to give a general notion. Afterwards, possessing this, a more exact and scientific one may be acquired from anatomical works. Every one knows both the situation and the external form of the ear: from this, a small tube proceeds, the meatus auditorius externus,—about an inch long, and is directed inward, upward, and forward. This leads to the middle ear, comprehending a small cavity, resembling part of a cylinder, called the tympanum, separated from the tube by the membrana tympani. This is often termed the drum of the ear, and on it sound makes its first impression. In this cavity are four small bones, connecting the membrane adjoining the tube with that adjoining the innermost ear, and completing the separate cavity of the tympanum. Beyond the inner membrane is the internal ear, consisting of several canals, called, from their complexity, the labyrinth, the entrance to them being the vestibule: this also comprises the meatus auditorius internus. The Eustachian tube, though internal, is generally reckoned as belonging to the middle ear, as it opens from the cavity of the tympanum, and leads to the upper and back part of the throat. The whole apparatus is wonderfully complicated, and furnishes a complete system of wonderful mechanism. Sound seems to be conveyed to the nerves of the internal ear by the impression made on the external tympanum, and so, by means of the air in the cavity, to the inner membrane; and also by the small bones which connect the two membranes. The undulations are thus communicated to the cavities forming the internal ear, and there impress the nerves, which convey the sensation to the brain and to the perceiving mind. Even this very general and unavoidably imperfect description, connected with what has been said of the impulse and vibrations which cause the peculiar sensation called sound, will nevertheless be sufficient to bring before the thoughtful reader an intelligent and powerful Designer. Sound was caused for the ear, and the ear for sound. It was intended that living creatures, especially man, should receive knowledge and pleasure from external objects in this particular way; and therefore, not only has the ear been formed, but a system of physical actions arranged, between which and the ear there is a mutual and anything but casual adaptation. Plain a subject as sound seems to be, at first, there is nothing in physical science more mysterious, either as to the nature of the vibrations, or the nervous power of perceiving them in their final result. Nor is the faculty of hearing to be considered as merely connected with sound in general. The mind has the power, not only of forming thoughts, but of expressing them by means of speech; so that a purely spiritual operation shall be, as it were, materialized by its connexion with physical vibrations, caused by the power of articulation; while these, perceived by the ear, are conveyed to the mind, and thus the conceptions of one mind, by a series of corporeal operations, become the conceptions of another mind. Wonderful as hearing is, it becomes yet more wonderful when viewed in connexion with articulate speech; and the adaptation of the two systems shows, still more impressively, the action of a living Designer. The ear hears; but no other nerves can be impressed by the mysterious vibrations. Whence this difference, but from the will of the Designer? The subject of sounds is exceedingly extensive. Nothing shows more completely the extreme sensitiveness of the nerve for its appointed work. Our plan will only allow us to introduce the reader to the subject by a few general and miscellaneous remarks. He is, at the same time, earnestly requested to follow them out, by his own close reflections, |