its ancient trunk grown over with parasitical moss, and its withered branches broken by every gust, the fury of the winds may reck upon it, when the fabric bends as it were imploringly to that earth which is so shortly to receive it.

As age creeps on, the body gradually yields to its iron grasp, it thins and loses vigour, tremors prevail, the hands are palsied, "the keepers of the house tremble;" the diminished weight of the wasted fabric is too much for the frail legs to support, and they give way under the burthen, “and the strong men bow themselves;" the gums are absorbed, the teeth drop out, so that "the grinders cease because they are few;" and the eyes are dimmed, "for those that "look out of the windows are darkened."

Thus Solomon traces the progress of bodily infirmity; and equally true to nature do we find the decay of the faculties of the organs themselves figuratively detailed.

Digestion is impaired, not only in consequence of the altered state of the internal organs specially devoted to its purposes, but owing also to the incomplete mastication of the food, resulting from loss of teeth; "for the doors are shut in the streets when "the sound of the grinding is low."

Old age requires less sleep than youth; and what rest it does take, is broken and generally uneasy: "senibus naturale est

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vigilare;" and such is evidently the condition alluded to, when it is said, "he is to "rise at the voice of the bird."

The speech becomes thickened, almost unintelligible, from the altered condition of the lungs, from the mucus that overcharges them, and from the organic changes in the different parts of the system that tend to the production of the voice.

The ears are deafened, for "the daughters of music are brought low."

"Can I hear any more," says Barzillai, (') "the voice of singing men and singing

women, wherefore then should thy ser

"vant be yet a burthen to my lord the king?"

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Then come childishness and timidity, grey hairs, and disrelish for all kinds of before-beloved merriment, and all desire is lost; it is, indeed, a sad picture of humanity, "when they shall be afraid of that "which is high, and fears shall be in the

way, and the almond-tree (2) shall flourish, "and the grashopper shall be a burthen, "and desire shall fail, because man goeth "to his long home, and the mourners go "about the streets."

This beautiful allegory is concluded by describing the progressiveness of death in

(1) 2 Sam. xix. 35.

(2) The flowering of the almond is very white, hence used as an emblem of the hoary head of age.

language as euphonous and magnificent as it is striking and characteristic.

"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern:" need these words any explanation, any commentary? they cannot. Such then is the course of life, uninfluenced by diseases but a whole host of these, from the merest ache, to "the arrow that flieth by day," and the " pestilence that walketh in darkness," is the inheritance of human nature.

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From the Sacred writings we learn, that disease and death are the consequences or wages of sin," and that both are of divine imposition, for "with a great plague will the Lord smite;" and each may say to himself, "I know THOU wilt bring me to death."

So impressed were the Hebrews with a

narrow superstitious mode of considering these subjects, that they would not permit the least idea of an influence from natural causes to intervene between their prejudices, and what should have been obvious to them by the tenor of the Mosaical law.

For it is there plainly shewn that the plague, though expressly stated to be of divine infliction, is to be treated under the sanction of God by human efforts and natural means, as is ordered of every thing in this world.

But so far were they opposed to this reading of the meaning of the laws of Moses, that "the ancient Hebrews,"(1) according to Mr. Cruden, "who were very "little versed in the study of natural phi

(1) I am sorry to say it is not only the ancient Hebrew or the predestinarian Turk that offer these arguments: -no; every day do I hear persons oppose, to the use of medical means, similar narrow and superstitious observations.