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it ranked third on the list of the great cities of the world,-next only after Rome and Alexandria, and hardly inferior to the latter of the two, at least, in size and splendour. It acquired a severer and sadder renown in more recent, though still remote history, as having been doomed to undergo vicissitudes and catastrophies of the most disastrous and deplorable character: now sacked and pillaged by the Persians, now captured by the Saracens, and now besieged by the Crusaders; a prey, at one moment, to the ravages of fire, at another to the devastations of an earthquake, which is said to have destroyed no less than two hundred and fifty thousand lives in a single hour. Its name has thus become associated with so many historical lights and shadows,-with so much of alternate grandeur and gloom,-that there is, perhaps, but little likelihood of its ever being wholly lost sight of by any student of antiquity. Yet it is not too much to say, that one little fact, for which the Bible is the sole and all-sufficient authority, will fix that name in the memory, and rivet it in the affectionate regard of mankind, when all else associated with it is forgotten. Yes: when its palaces and its temples, its fountains and its groves, its works of art and its men of learning, when Persian and Saracen and Crusader, who successively spoiled it, and the flames and the earthquake which devoured and desolated it, shall have utterly faded from all human recollection or record, the little fact the great fact, let me rather say will still be remembered, and remembered with an interest and a vividness which no time can ever efface or diminish,-that "the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch; that there the name of Christ given at the outset, perhaps, as a nickname and a by-word, but gladly and fearlessly accepted and adopted, in the face of mockery, in the face of martyrdom, by delicate youth and maiden tenderness, as well as by mature or veteran manhood-first became the distinctive designation of the faithful followers of the Messiah.

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That record must, of course, stand alone, for ever, on the historic page. Christianity will never begin again. Christ has lived and died once for all, and will come no more upon these earthly scenes, until he comes again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead. But should numerous Associations and Unions which have recently sprung into existence as from a common impulse in both hemispheres, hearing a common name, composed of congenial elements, and organized for the same great and glorious ends with that now before me, should they go on zealously and successfully in the noble work which they

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have undertaken,-should they even fulfil but one-half the high hopes and fond expeetations which their progress thus far has authorized and encouraged,-it may be, it may be, that the city from which they all took their first example and origin, if it can then be identified,-whether it be London or New York.-Liverpool, Edinburgh, or Boston,-Berlin, Geneva, or Richmond,— will have no prouder or loftier title to the gratitude of man or to the blessing of God, than that there was set on foot the first Young Men's Christian Association,-that there the young men of the nineteenth century, by a concerted movement, and in so considerable companies, first professed and called themselves Christians. . .

Reflect, my friends, for an instant, what a spectacle almost any great city would present, at almost any single moment of its existence, to a person who had the power to penetrate within its recesses and privacies, and to behold at a glance all that was going on by day or by night within its limits! Nay, reflect, if you have the courage to do so, what a spectacle such a city actually does present to that all-seeing Eye, before which every scene of immorality and crime is daguerreotyped with unfailing accuracy and minuteness,-just as it occurs,-just as it occurs.-no matter how close may be the veil of mystery in which it is involved to human sight, or how secret the chambers of iniquity within which it is transacted! What a panorama must be ever moving before that Eye! Oh, if there could be a more prevailing and pervading sense, that although no human agency or visible machinery be at work, the picture of our individual lives is at every instant in process of being portrayed and copied,-every word, act, thought, motive, indelibly delineated, with a fulness and a fidelity of which even the marvellous exactness of photograph or stereoscope affords but a faint illustration; if the great ideas of Omniscience and Omnipresence, which are suffered to play so loosely about the region of our imaginations, and of which these modern inventions-the daguerreotype, with the instantaneous action and unerring accuracy of its viewless pencil,—the Electric Ocean Telegraph, with its single flash, bounding unquenched through a thousand leagues of fathomless floods-have done so much to quicken our feeble conceptions; if, I say, these great ideas of Omniscience and Omnipresence could now and then be brought to a focus, and flashed in, with the full force of their searching and scorching rays, upon the inmost soul of some great city, like Paris or London,-to come no nearer home,-and of those who dwell in it,-what swarms of sins, what troops of

FORBES WINSLOW.

sinners, would be seen scared and scampering from their holes and hiding-placesjust as even now the inmates of some single abode of iniquity or infamy are sometimes seen flying from the sudden irruption of an earthly police, or from the startling terrors of some self-constituted vigilance committee! Christianity, neither Sectarian nor Sectional, the Great Remedy for Social and Political Evils: An Address delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association, Boston, April 7. 1859. Repeated before the Young Men's Christian Association of Richmond, Virginia, May 5, 1859. Republished in Addresses and Speeches, Boston, 1867, r. 8vo, 408450.

FORBES WINSLOW, M.D.,
D.C.L. OXON.,

born 1810, died 1874, was author of a
number of valuable medical works upon in-
sanity and other subjects, of which the most
important is On Obscure Diseases of the
Brain, and Disorders of the Mind, Lond.,
1860, 8vo; Phila., 1860, 8vo; 4th ed., Lond.,
1868, p. 8vo.

"The future British text book on mental and cerebral pathology... What an amount of bodily suffering and hopeless mental imbecility might be prevented if the practical and scientific views propounded in Dr. Winslow's book were generally diffused."-Lond. Lancet.

"The master effort of a great philosopher."Dub. Quar. Med. Jour., 1860.

NEGLECT OF INCIPIENT SYMPTOMS OF IN

SANITY.

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the human body, the physical instrument of intelligence, centre of sensation, and source of volition, is permitted, in many cases, to be in a state of undoubted disorder, without exciting any attention until some frightfully urgent, alarming, and dangerous symptoms have been manifested, and then, and not till then, has the actual extent of the mischief been appreciated, the condition of the patient recognized, and advice obtained for his relief!

Other deviations from organic conditions of health do not, as a general rule, meet with similar systematic neglect. In affections of the stomach, liver, bowels, lungs, and skin, &c., the first symptoms of approaching disease are immediately observed, and the patient, without loss of time, seeks the aid of his physician. But when the brain is affected, and the patient troubled with persistent headache, associated with some slight derangement of the intelligence, disorder of the sensibility, illusions of the senses, depression of spirits, loss of mental power, or modification of motility, his condition is, in many cases, entirely overlooked, or studiously ignored, as if such abnormal symp toms were signs of robust health, instead of being, as they undoubtedly are, indications of cerebral disorder requiring the most grave and serious attention, prompt, energetic, and skilful treatment!

One reason of the neglect to which the brain is subjected when under the influence of disease, is a notion, too generally entertained, that many of the more fatal forms of cerebral diseases are suddenly developed affections, presenting no evidence of any antecedent encephalic organic change, and unaccompanied by a premonitory stage, or incipient symptoms.

It is indeed natural that such an idea should be entertained, even by an educated un-professional man whose attention has not been specially directed to a study of this class of disease, or whose opportunities of watching the progress of such affections have been limited and circumscribed.

Upon investigating the history of the diseases of the brain, how frequently does the medical man discover that positive and equivocal cerebral symptoms have existed, and perhaps, during the early stage, even been observed for months, and in some cases for years, without exciting any apprehension on the part of the patient, his family, or friends!

In many of such instances, clearly manifested head symptoms were entirely overlooked. If noticed, no right estimation was made of their value. My attention has been called to cases in which serious mischief to the delicate structure of the brain and its investing membranes has thus been permitted by the patient's friends to proceed uninterruptedly for years, no treatment being adopted to arrest the progress of the fatal disorganization!

The brain, that most important, and exquisitely organized, of all the structures of

A man apparently in vigorous health, mixing daily with his family, going to his counting-house, engaging in the active pursuits of commerce, or occupying his attention in professional or literary duties, whilst stepping into his carriage, or when entertaining his friends at the festive board, falls down either at his door in a state of unconsciousness, or quietly bows his head on his plate at the dinner-table and dies, surrounded by his family, in a fit of cerebral hemorrhage!". A gentleman during dinner complains suddenly of giddiness and sickness. He retires to another room, where he is found a minute afterwards supporting by a bed-post, con

Before concluding this subject, I would briefly address myself to the consideration of two important questions intimately connected with the interesting facts previously discussed, viz.:

fused and pale. Being put to bed he soon be- tend successfully in its many battles, strugcomes comatose and dies. . . . Fully recog-gles, and trials. nizing the obscurity in which this subject is involved, I would ask, whether the affections of the brain, in the majority of cases, are not preceded by a well-marked, clearly-defined, but often undetected and unobserved precursory stage? Is it possible for a person to be 1. At what particular period of life does the suddenly laid prostrate in the arms of death intellect begin to decline, and when, as a genby an attack of apoplexy, cerebritis, menin-eral rule, is first observed the commencement gitis, paralysis, acute softening, or mania, of an insenescence of the intellectual principle? evidencing after death long-existing chronic 2. Is great strength of memory often associalteration in the cerebral structure, without ated with limited powers of judgment and having existed, for some time previously, reasoning, and conjoined with a low order of faint and transitory they may be, but never- intelligence? theless decidedly characteristic symptoms, pointing unmistakably to the brain as the fons et origo mali?

On Obscure Diseases of the Brain.

THE MEMORY.

I should regret if, in the preceding observations, I were to convey the impression that I estimated lightly the benefit to be derived from a steady and persevering cultivation of the memory in early life. It is, in every point of view, most essential that this faculty should be carefully developed, disciplined, and invigorated during the scholastic training which most boys intended for the universities, and subsequently for political and professional life, have to undergo. The knowledge then acquired is seldom if ever obliterated from the mind, except by disease. How much of the pure, refined, and elevated mental enjoyment in which men of education luxuriously revel in afteryears is to be traced to that period when they were compelled to commit to memory, often as a task, but more frequently as a part of the regular curriculum of the schools, long and brilliant passages from illustrious classical authors? Do we ever regret, when our bark is being tossed upon the noisy and tempestuous ocean of life, having had to go through such an intellectual ordeal? Is not the mind thus stored with an imperishable knowledge of passages from the poets, orators, and historians of antiquity full of vated thoughts, profound wisdom, exquisite imagery, noble and magnanimous sentiments?

"In old persons," says Cabanis, "the feebleness of the brain, and of those functions which originate therein, give to their determination the same mobility, the same characteristic uncertainty, which they possess during childhood; in fact, the two conditions closely resemble each other." The Professor of Physiology at the University of Montpellier, Dr. Lordat, denies the truth of this aphorism, and terms it a "popular de lusion." This able physiologist and philoso pher maintains that it is the vital, not the intellectual, principle that is seen to wane as old age throws its autumnal tinge over the green foliage of life. "It is not true," he says, "that the intellect becomes weaker after the vital force has passed its culminating point. The understanding acquires more strength during the first half of that period which is designated as old age. It is impossible," he says, "to assign any period of existence at which the reasoning powers suffer deterioration." Numerous illustrations are adduced to establish that senescence of the intelligence is not isochronous with that of the vital force.

The conversation of the celebrated composer, Cherubini, at the age of eighty, is said to have been as brilliant as during the meridian of his existence. Gossec composed a Te Deum when at the age of seventy-eight. Corneille, when seventy years of age, exhibited no decay of intellect, judging from his poetic address to the king. M. des Quenele-sounnières, the accomplished poet, at the advanced age of one hundred and sixteen, was full of vivacity, and fully capable of sustaining a lively and intelligent conversation. M. Leroy, of Rambouillet, at the age of one hundred, composed a remarkably beautiful and spirited poem. Abbé Taublet, when speaking of the intellect of Fontenelle when far advanced in life, says, "His intellectual faculties, with the exception of a slight defect of memory, had preserved their integrity in spite of corporeal debility. His thoughts were elevated, his expressions fin|ished, his answers quick and to the point

It would be absurd to undervalue a system of educational discipline productive of such obvious advantages. My animadversions are directed against the too exclusive cultivation and undue straining of the memory. We are disposed to forget that there are higher and more exalted mental faculties that require to be carefully expanded and fortified before the mind is fitted to enter into the great arena of life, and qualified to con

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GEORGE SHARSWOOD.

his reasoning powers accurate and profound." Cardinal de Fleury was Prime Minister of France from the age of seventy to ninety. At the age of eighty Fontenelle asked permission, on the ground of physical infirmity, to retire from the post of perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences. The prime minister refused the request. Three years subsequently Fontenelle again expressed a wish to resign office. "You are an indolent, lazy fellow," writes the Cardinal; "but I suppose we must occasionally indulge such characters." Voltaire, when at the age of eighty-four, came to Paris, agreeably to his own language, "to seek a triumph and to find a tomb." Richelieu died at the age of ninety-three, full of mental vigour. A few minutes before his death, his daughter-in-law, wishing to encourage him, said, "You are not so ill as you would wish us to believe; your countenance is charming." "What!" said he, with the utmost vivacity, and full of wit and humour, "has my face been converted into a mirror?" On Obscure Diseases of the Brain.

GEORGE SHARSWOOD, LL. D., born in Philadelphia, 1810, graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, 1828, admitted to the Philadelphia bar, 1831, Judge of the District Court of Penna., 1845, and President Judge from 1851 until Dec. 1867, when he took his seat as an Associate Justice in the Supreme Court of the State; Professor of Law in the University of Penna., 1850 et seq.; for three years a member of the Penna. Legislature. Professional Ethics, Phila., 1854, 8vo, 3d edit., 1869, 12mo; Popular Lectures on Common Law, 1856, 12mo. Edited: Blackstone's Commentaries, Byles on Bills of Exchange, Coote on Mortgages, English Common Law Reports, Laws of the United States, vols iv. and v. (in continuation of Story), Leigh's Nisi Prius, Roscoe on Criminal Evidence, Russell on Crimes, Smith (J. W.) on Contracts, Starkie on Evidence, Stephens's Nisi Prius.

LAW STUDIES.

It is proposed to present a few considerations upon the proper mode of training for the practice of the profession of the law in this country. They will be altogether of a practical character."

The bar in the United States is open to all who wish to enter it. It is mostly under the regulation of the varicus courts, and their rules have been framed upon the most liberal principles. Generally a certain period of

483

study has been prescribed, never, it is believed, exceeding three years. In some States, however, even this restriction is not found. The applicant for admission is examined, as to his knowledge and qualifications, either by the courts or by a committee of members of the bar.

The profession is the avenue to political honours and influence. Those who attain eminence in it are largely rewarded, and, with ordinary prudence, cannot fail to accumulate a handsome competence. Hence the young and ambitious are found crowding into it.

There is a great-perhaps an overduehaste in American youth to enter upon the active and stirring scenes of life. Hence it is undoubtedly true that many men are to be found in the ranks of the profession without adequate preparation. Very often the difficulties presented by the want of a suitable education are overcome by native energy, application, and perseverance; but more commonly they prevent permanent success, and confine the unlettered advocate to the lower walks of the profession, which promise neither profit nor honour. Unless in cases of extraordinary enthusiasm and where there are evident marks of bright, natural talents, a young man without the advantages of education should be discouraged from commencing the study of the law. Not that a collegiate or classical course of training should be insisted on as essential,although it is doubtless of the highest importance. Classical studies are especially calculated to exercise the mental faculties in habits of close investigation and searching analysis, as well as to form the taste upon models of the purest eloquence. The orators and historians of Greece and of Rome are a school in which exalted patriotism, high-toned moral feeling, and a generous enthusiasm can be most successfully cultivated. With a good English education, however, many a man has made a respectable figure at the bar.

Lord Campbell has said that "he who is not a good lawyer before he comes to the bar will never be a good one after it." It is, no doubt, highly necessary that the years of preparation should be years of earnest, diligent study; but it is entirely too much to say, with us, that a course of three years' reading, at so early a stage, will make a good lawyer. In truth, the most important part of every lawyer's education begins with his admission to practice. He that ceases then to follow a close and systematical course of reading, although he may succeed in acquiring a considerable amount of practical knowledge, from the necessity he will be under of investigating different questions, yet it will

not be of that deep-laid character necessary to sustain him in every emergency. It may be safe, then, to divide the period of a lawyer's preparation into first, a course of two or three years' reading before his admission, and, second, one of five or seven years' close and continued application after that event.

At the commencement of his studies in the office of his legal preceptor, the cardinal maxim by which he should be governed in his reading should be non multa, sed multum. Indeed, it was an observation of Lord Mansfield, that the quantity of professional reading absolutely necessary, or even useful, to a lawyer, was not so great as was usually imagined. The Commentaries of Blackstone and of Chancellor Kent should be read, and read again and again. The elementary principles so well and elegantly presented and illustrated in these two justly-celebrated works should be rendered familiar. They form, too, a general plan or outline of the science, by which the student will be able to arrange and systematize all his subsequent acquisitions. To these may be added a few books of a more practical cast; such as Tidd's Practice, Stephen on Pleading, Greenleaf's Evidence, Stephens's or Leigh's Nisi Prius, Mitford's or Story's Equity Pleading, which, with such reading of the local law of the State in which he purposes to settle as may be necessary to make up the best part of office-reading. It will be better to have well mastered thus much than to have run over three times as many books hastily and superficially. Let the student often stop and examine himself upon what he has read. It would be an excellent mode of proceeding for him, after having read a lecture or chapter, to lay aside the book and endeavour to commit the substance of it to writing, trusting entirely to his memory for the matter, and using his own language. After having done this, let him reperuse the section, by which he will not only discern what parts have escaped his memory, but the whole will be more certainly impressed upon his mind, and become incorporated with it as if it had been originally his own work. Let him cultivate intercourse with others pursuing the same studies, and converse frequently upon the subject of their reading. The biographer of Lord Keeper North has recorded of him that "he fell into the way of putting cases (as they call it), which much improved him, and he was most sensible of the benefit of discourse: for I have observed him often say that (after his day's reading) at his night's congress with his professional friends, whatever the subject was, he made it the subject of discourse in the company; for, said he, I read many things which I am sensible I forget; but I found, withal, that if I had once

talked over what I had read, I never forgot that."

Much, of course, will depend upon what may be termed the mental temperament of the student himself, which no one can so well observe as his immediate preceptor; and he will be governed accordingly in the selection of the works to be placed in his hands and his general course of training. No lawyer does his duty who does not frequently examine his student,-not merely as an important means of exciting him to attention and application, but in order to acquire such an acquaintance with the character of his pupil's mind-its quickness or slowness, its concentrativeness or discursiveness—as to be able to form a judgment as to whether he requires the curb or the spur. It is an inestimable advantage to a young man to have a judicious and experienced friend watching anxiously his progress, and competent to direct him when, if he is left to himself, he will most probably wander in darkness and danger.

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In regard to the more thorough and extended course of reading which may and ought to be prosecuted after admission to the bar, the remarks of one of the most distinguished men who have ever graced the American bar, whose own example has enforced and illustrated their value, may be commended to the serious consideration of the student. "There are two very different methods of acquiring a knowledge of the laws of England," says Horace Binney (art. Edward Tilghman, Encyclopedia Americana, vol. xiv.), and by each of them men have succeeded in public estimation to an almost equal extent. One of them, which may be called the old way, is a methodical study of the general system of law, and of its grounds and reasons, beginning with the fundamental law of estates and tenures, and pursuing the derivative branches in logical succession, and the collateral subjects in due order, by which the student acquires a knowledge of principles that rule in all departments of the science, and learns to feel, as much as to know, what is in harmony with the system and what not. The other is to get an outline of the system by the aid of commentaries, and to fill it up by desultory reading of treatises and reports, according to the bent of the student, without much shape or certainty in the knowledge so acquired, until it is given by investigation in the courts of practice. A good deal of law may be put together by a facile or flexible man in the second of these modes, and the public are often satisfied; but the profession itself knows the first, by its fruits, to be the most effectual way of making a great lawyer."

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