"'one, and another, and another,' we are told, 'sank to the earth. They dropped on every side as thunderstruck.' Men and women by 'scores were sometimes strewed on the ground at once, insensible as dead men.' During a Methodist revival in Cornwall, four thousand people, it is computed, fell into convulsions. 'They remained during this condition so abstracted from every earthly thought, that they staid two, and sometimes three days and nights together in the chapels, agitated all the time by spasmodic movements, and taking neither repose nor refreshment. The symptoms followed each other usually as follows: A sense of faintness and oppression, shrieks as if in the agony of death or the pains of labor, convulsions of the muscles of the eyelids—the eyes being fixed and staring—and of the muscles of the neck, trunk, and arms; sobbing respiration, tremors, and general agitation, and all sorts of strange gestures. When exhaustion came on, patients usually fainted, and remained stiff and motionless until their recovery.'" (P. 358.)
Finally, in speaking of the "diverse forms of ceremonial expression," he says,
"Jacob leans on his staff to pray, Moses falls flat on his face, the Catholic bows his knee, and the Protestant settles himself into a seat." (P. 114.)
We don't know whether to prefer Protestant taste, or Feejee, or Hindoo.
"Thus, out of love to a mother, the Feejee eats her, and the European erects a mausoleum. The sentiment is the same, but the mode of exhibition is different." (P. 115.)
"The Hindoo represents Brahm, the Great Absolute, absorbed in self-contemplation, as a man wrapped in a mantle, with his foot in his mouth, to symbolize his eternity and his self-satisfaction." (P. 188.)
We remarked before that the author of this book displays considerable learning. Here is a specimen which gives some pleasant information about the old Saxon laws:
"Three shillings were deemed sufficient compensation for a broken rib, while a fine of twenty shillings was inflicted for a dislocation of the shoulder. If a man cut off the foot or struck out the eye of another, he was compelled to make satisfaction with fifty shillings. Each tooth had its fixed price: for a front tooth, six shillings were demanded; for a canine tooth, four; and for a molar, only one shilling; the pain incurred by a loss of a double tooth, however, led King Alfred to alter this portion of the law, as unjust, and he raised the price of a molar to fifteen shillings." (P. 364.)
He thinks that the idea of compensation, which is here certainly clearly set forth, gave rise to the religious idea of sacrifice.
We will close with a favorable specimen of his style. He thus describes Greece:
"Under a blue sky, in which the clouds lie tranquil like lodged avalanches, in the midst of a twinkling sea, strewed with fairy groups of islands, is a little mulberry-leaf of land attached to a continental bough, a little land ribbed with mountain-chains of rough-hewn marble, veined with purple gorges, pierced with winding gulfs; a land of vineyards and olive-groves, where roses bloom all the year, and where the pomegranate holds its glowing cheek to a sun that is never shorn of its rays." (P. 148.)