fallen perhaps suddenly and with crushing weight upon it. But when those passions or feelings that cause the heart to beat with more rapid and violent action are excited, there must be, of course, an increased flow of the blood to the skin. The first result of this is blushing, whether from shame or anger. It is not unfrequently the case that when the emotion is very powerful a copious effusion of sweat follows. We can readily conceive that greatly increased mental excitement might force out the blood itself through the pores, and this, mingling with the natural perspiration, would exhibit the phenomenon of "bloody sweat." The natural meaning of the text is, unquestionably, that the blood was mingled with his sweat, and thus it poured from him profusely, and fell in great drops upon the ground. Physiologists recognize the occurrence of this bloody sweat as a physiological fact. Dr. Millingen, in his "Curiosities of Medical Experience," speaks of it as the most singular of all the maladies that affect cutaneous transpiration, and says, "It is probable that this strange disorder arises from a violent commotion of the nervous system, turning the streams of blood out of their natural course, and forcing the red particles into the cutaneous excretories. A mere relaxation of the fibers could not produce so powerful a revulsion." He says also that it may arise in cases of extreme debility in connection with a thinner state of the blood. This malady is called diapedesis. Haller says that the passions of the mind sometimes force blood from the skin; and from this he infers that "the sudoriferous tubes are not much smaller than the capillary blood-vessels." He also says that a mental passion which effects no change except a contraction of the nerves may make wonderful changes in the secretions, and expel both the blood and bile through the vessels of the skin. Kannegiesser remarks, in the German Ephemerides, as quoted by Dr. Stroud, that "violent mental excitement, whether occasioned by uncontrollable anger or vehement joy, and, in like manner, sudden terror or intense fear, forces out a sweat, accompanied with signs either of anxiety or hilarity." After ascribing this sweat to the unequal constriction of some vessels and dilation of others, he further observes: "If the mind is seized with a sudden fear of death, the sweat, owing to the excessive degree of constriction, often becomes bloody." But let us prosecute this inquiry in the light of facts. Dr. Stroud, on the authority of De Thou, an eminent French historian, gives the following instance: "An Italian officer who commanded at Monte-Maro, a fortress of Piedmont, during the warfare in 1552, between Henry II, of France, and the Emperor Charles V, having been treacherously seized by order of the hostile general, and threatened with public execution unless he surrendered the place, was so agitated at the prospect of an ignominious death that he sweated blood from every part of his body." The same writer relates a similar occurrence in the person of a young Florentine at Rome, unjustly put to death by order of Pope Sixtus V, in the beginning of his reign, and concludes the narrative as follows: "When the youth was led forth to execution, he excited the commiseration of many, and through excess of grief was observed to shed bloody tears, and to discharge blood instead of sweat from his whole body--a circumstance which many regarded as a certain proof that nature ́condemned the severity of a sentence so cruelly hastened, and invoked vengeance against the magistrate himself, as therein guilty of murder." We have already referred to the German Ephemerides. This work gives several examples of bloody tears and bloody sweat occasioned by extreme fear. Among them is the case of "a young boy, who, having taken part in a crime for which two of his elder brothers were hanged, was exposed to public view under the gallows on which they were executed, and was thereupon observed to sweat blood from his whole body." In his commentaries on the four Gospels, Maldonato refers to "a robust and healthy man at Paris who, on hearing the sentence of death passed on him, was covered with a bloody sweat." Another mentions the case of a young man who was similarly affected on being condemned to the flames. Lombard mentions a general who was affected in the same manner on losing a battle. A similar case came under the observation of Sporlinus, a physician of Bal: "The patient was a child of twelve years of age, who never drank any thing but water; having gone out into the fields to bring home his father's flocks, he stopped upon the road, and, contrary to habit, drank freely of white wine. He shortly after was seized with a fever. His gums first began to bleed, and soon after a hemorrhage broke out from every part of the integuments, and from the nose. On the eighth day of the malady he was in a state of extreme debility, and the body was covered with livid and purple spots, while every part from whence the blood had exuded was stopped with clots." We might rest the case here, and claim that we had given sufficient facts, as well as philosophy, to authenticate the Divine narrative. But we wish to go farther, and show that the cases are not so exceedingly rare but that they are fully recognized, and their diagnosis fully observed by competent physicians. Schenck gives the case of "a nun who fell into the hands of soldiers; and, on seeing herself encompassed with swords and daggers, threatening instant death, was so terrified and agitated that she discharged blood from every part of her body, and died of hemorrhage in the sight of her assailants." In the Memoirs of the Society of Arts in Haarlem, the case of a sailor is mentioned "who was so alarmed by a storm, that he fell down, and his face sweated blood, which during the whole continuance of the storm returned like ordinary sweat as fast as it was wiped away." Dr. Millingen cites the case of a widow of forty-five years of age who had lost her only son. "She one day fancied that she beheld his apparition beseeching her to relieve him from purgatory by her prayers and by fasting every Friday. The following Friday in the month of August a perspiration tinged with blood broke out. For five successive Fridays the same phenomenon appeared, when a confirmed diapedesis set in. The blood escaped from the upper part of the body, the back of the head, the temples, the eyes, the nose, the breast, and the tips of the fingers. The disorder disappeared spontaneously on Friday, the 8th of March, in the year following. This affection was evidently occasioned by superstitious fears; and this appears the more probable from the periodicity of the attacks. The first invasion of the disease might have been purely accidental; but the regularity of its subsequent appearance on the stated day of the vision may be attributed to the influence of apprehension." The case of Catherine Merlin, of Chamberg, is well authenticated and worthy of being recorded. She was a woman of forty-six years of age, strong and hale. She received a kick from a bullock in the pit of the stomach, which was followed by vomiting blood. This having been suddenly stopped by her medical attendants, the blood made its way through the pores of various parts of her body, the discharge recurring usually twice in twenty-four hours. It was preceded by a prickly sensa tion, and pressure on the skin would accelerate the flow and increase the quantity of blood. The MedicoChirurgical Review, for October, 1831, gives the case of a female subject to hysteria, who, when the hysteric paroxysm was protracted, was also subject to this bloody perspiration. And in this case she continued at different times to be affected with it for three months, when it gave way to local bleeding and other strong revulsive measures. But the case of the wretched Charles IX, of France, is one of the most striking that has as yet occurred. The account is thus given by De Mezeray: "After the vigor of his youth and the energy of his courage had long struggled against his disease, he was at length reduced by it to his bed at the castle of Vincennes, about the 8th of May, 1574. During the last two weeks of his life his constitution made strange efforts. He was affected with spasms and convulsions of extreme violence. He tossed and agitated himself continually, and his blood gushed from all the outlets of his body, even from the pores of his skin; so that on one occasion he was found bathed in a bloody sweat." From these and other instances that might be cited, it is clearly evident that the sweating of blood may be produced by intense mental emotion. The instances of it are comparatively rare, it is true, but, nevertheless, perfectly well authenticated. We think we have abundantly elucidated the fact that they who make this subject a ground of caviling against the Bible display their own ignorance and malignant opposition, rather than any shrewdness of discrimination or superior intelligence. But the skeptic again inquires, "How could the disciples, in the dead of the night, at the distance of a stone's cast, and without any light, know that Jesus Christ sweat at all-much less could they know that he sweat blood?" Let us examine this cavil. As to the distance, it must be borne in mind that when our Savior said to the disciples, "Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder," he took three of them along with him, and he was only a little removed from them when he endured his agony. What Luke says of his being “withdrawn from them about a stone's cast" is closely connected with his arrival "at--the place," and may, therefore, refer, not to the three he had taken into the interior of the garden to be the special witnesses of his agony, but to the eight he had told to "sit here"-that is, at or near the entrance. That our Savior could have been but "a little" removed from the three disciples is evident from the fact that the garden itself must have been small. Maundrell, if we recollect right, makes it only about one hundred and fifty feet square; while Dr. Durbin says that it contains "about a quarter of an acre," which would make its dimensions something over one hundred feet. These three disciples appear to have been near enough to observe his movements and to hear portions of his prayer. Mark says, "He went forward a little, and fell on the ground." His separation from them, as well as their heaviness-sinking down into the helplessness of sleep-beautifully symbolizes the fact that he had no support from human sympathy, and placed no reliance upon human aid-an "arm of flesh" in his mighty struggle. Yet he had them sufficiently near to be witnesses of what occurred-or at least a part of it. We have a glimpse only of the scene; while, for wise purposes, a vail is drawn over most of it, hiding it from the inspection of mortals. Again, the caviler assumes that the night was dark, and that they were without torches. How does he know that? It is not said that the night was dark. Every known fact is against such a presumption. Our Savior and his disciples evidently were not troubled either in going forth to the garden or in their intercourse with each other on account of the darkness. They must, then, either have been provided with torches, or the night could not have been very dark. The disciples saw him fall to the earth; they saw also the angel that appeared to strengthen him in his agony. The "lanterns and torches" brought by those who came to arrest him might have been brought simply to enable the officers to explore the dark hiding-places where they supposed he would endeavor to conceal himself from them. Dr. Clarke saysJohn xviii, 3-"They could have needed the 'lanterns and torches' for no other purpose; it being now the fourteenth day of the moon's age, in the month of Nisan, and consequently she appeared full and bright." At this time of night, too, she would be nearly overhead, and thus would shed a brilliant light, not only to guide the party that were seeking to arrest him, but also to enable the disciples to discern all his movements, and especially the bloody sweat which overspread his face, and rolled down to the earth in great drops. Nor could the indications of it wholly have passed from him when arrested; and the place where the blood dropped upon the earth, even in the morning, must have been a sad witness of the Savior's overwhelming agony. Thus, without any necessity of supposing a supernatural revelation of the fact, we have abundant evidence of our Savior's bloody sweat in the garden. And any cavils that arise out of it must ever rest upon what we do not know, rather than upon any thing we do know-upon our ignorance, and not upon our knowledge. Again, the skeptic has objected, "If Christ really were divine, really God, it is absurd to represent an angel as being sent to strengthen him." Here, again, is an entire overlooking of the character and office of Christ. He came in his human nature, and in that nature was he at once to set before the world an example of perfect holiness, and to make an atonement for sin. He must then submit to the common conditions of humanity; he must meet his trials, endure his sorrows, and be sustained in his conflicts as are men. It was not wonderful, then, neither was it out of place, but perfectly in keeping with his character and condition, that one of those who are sent forth to be ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation, should appear and minister to him in the midst of the sorrowful agony of his soul. We have not room to append a few thoughts upon the cause of our Savior's agony. Nor have we space to add some practical suggestions we had intended. We would say to the sinner, Look upon this picture of a Savior's agony, and learn what a fearful thing sin must be, and how awful the agony of despair when the burden of its own sins falls upon the soul, and no ministering angel comes to its relief. Christian, look upon this scene; mark the divine Redeemer's submission to the Father;" and behold here not merely the sufferings of thy redeeming Lord, but a living example of submission, of patience, of calmness, and of trust in God in the severest trial and conflict of thy life's pilgrimage! Items, Literary, Scientific, and Religious. DEATH OF BISHOP CAPERS.-Rev. William Capers, D. D., one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, died of disease of the heart, at his residence in Andersonville, near Charleston, South Carolina, January 29th. Bishop Capers was born in St. Thomas parish, South Carolina, January 26, 1790, and was consequently sixty-five years old at his death. He received the degree of A. M. from the South Carolina College, where he was educated, and was admitted into the annual conference of his native state as a traveling preacher in 1808. In 1828 he visited England as the representative of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States to the British conference, and for several years was one of the general missionary secretaries. He was elected bishop in 1846. In the work of instructing the slaves no man ever did a better or nobler work. His manners were easy and agreeable, his piety marked, his pulpit elocution good, and his style of writing of a superior cast. His remains sleep in the Washington-Street Cemetery, Columbia, South Carolina. PEWED CHURCHES.-The Episcopalians have recently had considerable discussion on the question of free seats in churches. The Churchman, New York, is one of the ablest papers of the denomination in this country, and it, editorially and by correspondents, has been laboring zealously to show that the system of renting and selling pews is impolitic and antiscriptural. The leading objection which we have seen urged against the practice is, that the poor are in part or entirely excluded from church going. THE DEMERARA BELL-BIRD.-The campanero, or bellbird of Demerara, is of snowy whiteness, and about the size of a jay. A tube, nearly three inches long, rises from its forehead, and this feathery spine the bird can fill with air at pleasure. Every four or five minutes in the depths of the forest, its call may be heard from a distance of three miles, making a tolling noise, like that of a couvent bell. progress; but the missionaries, inflated by success, became haughty and presumptuous, and beginning to interfere in politics and government, brought about a violent persecution. So deadly a hatred was conceived against the Portuguese, that in the space of forty years they and their religion were completely extirpated. Even to this day, in certain parts of the empire, the custom of trampling on the cross is annually celebrated. To such a pitch were the Japanese exasperated that none of the Romish ceremonial was permitted to survive. THE GREAT RESPIRATORY APPARATUS.-Dr. C. D. Gris wold, in a communication to the Home Journal, has the following: "The great air-passage into the lungs is supposed to divide into six hundred millions of branches, the termination of each being a minute cell— Weber— like the buds upon the terminal branches of a tree. The blood which has been partially exhausted of its nutrient principles in its circulation through the system, returns to the heart, and from thence is sent through the lungs the vessel through which it passes dividing up in as many branches as the air-tubes, and each passing over an air-cell. Now the air in the air-cell parts with its oxygen, which is received into the blood, and the impurities of the blood-carbonic acid-pass into the air-cell in exchange, to be carried out. So rapidly does this change go on, that the blood, in passing around these air cells, parts with its impurities, and takes up the necessary nutrient principles for the uses of the system, and is then conveyed back to the heart through the returning vessels, to go out into the general system again." BAPTIST NEWSPAPERS and ColleGES.-Of regular Baptist periodicals in the United States there are twentyeight weekly newspapers, fifteen monthly publications, and two quarterly reviews. In the British provinces are four weekly newspapers and a quarterly publication, called the Grand Ligne Mission Register. There are in the United States twenty-six Baptist colleges and ten theological institutions, or departments of theology connected with the colleges. OPERATIONS OF THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.-The American Tract Society publishes an abstract of its proceedings, and gives the following results of their twentynine years' operations: Books published, 9,463,374; tracts, 138,764,824; periodicals, 24,102,600; making 212,330,000 publications of which 682,933,000 pages have been given away. MUSKETS AND MISSIONS.-The United States army numbers about 10,000, who cost the country last year $8,525,240 for pay, subsistence, clothing, etc.-a sum ten times as much as is annually contributed by all the Protestant Churches of the country for missionary purposes, and thirty three times as much as is raised by the Methodist Episcopal Church for both foreign and domestic missions. In thirty years the United States have spent $200,000,000, for which they have nothing to show but some old forts, guns, battered uniforms, and demoralized veterans. PeoEASTERN AND GREEK CHURCHES.-The numbers belongple sometimes talk about the money "used up" in trying to the Eastern and Greek Churches are given in the ing to evangelize the heathen; but it would take the Churches, the way they are going on now, at least two hundred years to spend the same amount of money which the United States Government has squandered in thirty years. JAPANESE RELIGION.-A newspaper item to the effect that the Japanese were a race of Atheists has been wilely circulated; but it turns out untrue. They are true and ardent worshipers of a Supreme Being, and belive in a future state, though they do not receive Christianity. During the seventeenth century Christianity was introduced by the Jesuits, and for a time made rapid Church Review, from Neale's History, as follows: Patriarchate of Constantinople, Servia, etc..........................12,000,000 46 66 Moscow.... Antioch and Cyprus..... .......50,000,000 120.000 15,000 800,000 In Greece, Montenegro, etc................. Total......... MARRIAGE IN ENGLAND.-In England it seems that the twenty-sixth year is the mean age at which men marry, and the twenty-fifth that at which women marry. The average age of the wife is about forty and a half years, of the husband forty-three years; or, the husband in Great Britain, on the average, is two and a half years older than the wife. INTERESTING STATISTICS.-The number of languages spoken throughout the world is 8,064; of which 587 are in Europe, 896 in Asia, 270 in Africa, and 1,264 in America. The inhabitants of the globe profess more than 1,000 different religions. There are nearly as many males as females. The mean duration of human life is 28 years. One-fourth part of all children die before the age of seven years. The population of the globe is estimated at nearly 1,000,000,000-of whom about one third die every ten years, or more than 40 each second. There are more deaths and births in the night than in the day. DISASTERS OF THE YEAR.-The entire loss by fire in the United States during 1854 is estimated at $20,578,000: 171 lives were lost at these fires. There were 40 fires where the loss was $100,000 and upward. There were 587 persons killed and 225 wounded during the year by 48 steam-boat accidents; 186 persons were killed and 589 wounded in the 193 railroad accidents that occurred. During the year there were 682 murders, 74 of which were in New York, 64 in California, 50 in Texas, 47 in Louisiana, 46 in Kentucky, 45 in Virginia, 43 in Ohio. A WATER-CIRCLED BEDSTEAD.-The bedstead of the Emperor of Japan is superbly carved and gilded. By a singularly ingenious contrivance, a current of water may be conducted off around the tester, and at pleasure made to fall in transparent curtains of rain, completely encircling the royal couch, for the double purpose of keeping off the musketoes, and tempering the warm air to the delicious coolness which, in that sultry climate, is the consummation of bliss to reposing listlessness. CHANGE OF NAMES.-Toward the middle of the fifteenth century it became the fashion among the wits and learned men, particularly in Italy, to change their baptismal names for classic ones. Among the rest. Platina, the historian at Rome, calling together his friends, took the name of Callimachus, instead of Philip. Pope Paul II, who reigned about that time, unluckily for the historian, chanced to be suspicious and illiterate. He had no idea that people could wish to alter their names unless they had some bad design, and actually scrupled not to employ imprisonment and other violent methods to discover the fancied mystery. Platina was most cruelly tortured on this frivolous account. He had nothing to confess; so the Pope, after endeavoring in vain to convict him of heresy and sedition, released him. The Mr. ENGLISH PEOPLE'S COLLEGES.-A late number of the English Literary Gazette gives some account of the People's Colleges, which have been established in Sheffield, Nottingham, etc., where courses of instruction adapted for the working classes are efficiently carried on. old system of "Popular Lectures" having degenerated into mere passing entertainment, the People's College will only introduce lectures as a secondary part of the system, supplementary to the class instructions. Ruskin has volunteered to teach in the department of drawing and perspective. The fees will be from half a crown to four shillings a course, though the teachers of the first course of the College, at 31 Red Lion Square, will give their lessons gratuitously. The Gazette deprecates the theological element in this course of training. SOUTHERN METHODIST BOOK CONCERN AND PUBLISHING INTEREST.-The Committee and Agents in this establishment have recently had a special examination of its other of $3,000-to the authors of the two best treatises on "The Being and Attributes of God," was announced January 20th. The successful competitors were found to be for the first prize, the Rev. Robert Anchor Thomp son, A. M., Louth, Lincolnshire; and for the second, the Rev. John Tulloch, manse of Kettins, Cupar Angus, Principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's, Scotland. The judges were Professors Baden Powell, Henry Rodgers, and Mr. Isaac Taylor. They were unanimous in their judgment. The essays varied in length, from a few sheets to six volumes, and several of them were written in female hand. Several other candidates, and one in particular, were declared to have attained high excellence. NEW BOOKS. Literary Notices. THE FEMALE PROSE WRITERS OF AMERICA. With Portraits, Biographical Notices, and Specimens of their Writings. By John S. Hart, LL, D. Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co.-This is a large 8vo. of five hundred and thirty-six pages, double column, printed on fine calendered paper, and is an elegant specimen of typography as well as binding. It contains sketches of sixty-one female prose writers of America, with choice selections from their writings, and constitutes a splendid gallery of distinguished literary women. Among the distinguished names on this catalogue are C. M. Sedgwick, Caroline Gilman, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Willard, Mrs. A. H. L. Phelps, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Child, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Stowe, Elizabeth Wetherell, Alice Cary, H. F. Lee, Ellen Louise Chandler, etc. It is illustrated with portraits of Fanny Forrester, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. Hentz, Mrs. Ellett, Mrs. Stephens, Margaret Fuller, and Mrs. Neal. editorial labor has been performed by Professor Hart with sound discrimination, excellent good taste, and great fidelity. The great difficulty of obtaining material for biographical sketches has been overcome with good success, and the sketches are well prepared and full of interest. As a "gift-book," this work has few equals. We trust ladies who are providing elegant books for their center-tables will honor both their own good taste and their sex, by putting there such works as this instead of the elegant trash too often found in such places. It may be obtained through booksellers generally. The distinguishing between elements of mind which lie at the foundation of mental action, and elements of mind which lie at the foundation of moral action." The analysis of the mental powers followed here lacks simplicity in some points and involves some repetition. The author also has in some instances failed to express himself with that perspicuity especially necessary in treatises of this kind. Yet the work contains very much that is valuable, and we commend it to the attention of students in mental science. MEMOIRS OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON. By Count De Las Casas. New York: Redfield. Four Volumes. 12mo.— This work contains the life, exile, and conversations of Napoleon, and is enriched with portraits and other illustrations. Las Casas is a most enthusiastic admireralmost worshiper-of the great military adventurer. He says in his preface: "Circumstances the most extraordinary have long kept me near the most extraordinary man that ever existed. Admiration made me follow him without knowing him, and when I did know him, love alone would have fixed me forever near his person. The world is full of his glory, his deeds, and his monuments; but no one knows the true shades of his character, his private qualities, or the natural disposition of his soul. This great void I undertake to fill up, and for such a task I possess advantages unexampled in history. "I collected and recorded, day by day, all that I saw of Napoleon, all that I heard him say, during the period of eighteen months in which I was constantly about his person. In these conversations, which were full of con Boyfidence, and which seemed to pass, as it were, in another FULL PROOF OF THE MINISTRY: A Sequel to the who was trained up to be a Clergyman. By John N. Nor ton, A. M., Rector of Ascension Church, Frankfort, Ky.A pretty good story, in which "the sects" receive some side thrusts, and "the Church" through great tribulation rises to honor and great success. The work gives evidence of Mr. Norton's loyalty to "the Church," but is a poor comment upon his catholicity. Indeed, a meaner manifestation of narrow-minded bigotry we have rarely seen. Published by Redfield, New York; and for sale by H. W. Derby, Cincinnati. A YEAR OF THE WAR. By Adam G. De Gurowski, a Citizen of the United States. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Here is a Pole who seems ambitious to do honor to "the Great Bear," and to write the epitaph of a hopeless denationalization over the grave of his own country. ELEMENTS OF MENTAL SCIENCE. By Rev. Moses Smith, THE WAY FROM SIN TO SANCTIFICATION, HOLINESS, AND A. M.-The whole title of the above work is, "A New HEAVEN, is a carefully prepared and practical volume and Extensive Analytical Examination of the Elements from the pen of Rev. T. Spicer, A. M., embracing the folof Mental Science: containing evidence of difference, lowing topics: The Moral Disease; The Healing Fount |