II. THE LATE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. EARLY on Advent Sunday morning, after a restless night, the Archbishop of Canterbury fell into a quiet sleep, and, sleeping, died. For several days it was evident that the sands of life were fast running out, and more than once all the family were summoned to his bedside. On Friday afternoon the Marchioness of Ely saw him, bearing a message from the Queen. The Archbishop expressed a determination to write a message to Her Majesty himself, and for that purpose he was raised in his bed, and endeavoured to pen a few lines. Nothing but the signature, however, could be read, and the missive was then written by his son-in-law, Mr. Davidson. It was to the effect that, after twentysix years' faithful service of Her Majesty, from his appointment as Dean of Carlisle, he begged to express his affection for herself and her Royal family. He suffered a good deal during the afternoon, and while this continued he said, "If this is death, it is not so bad after all." In reply to other kindly questions as to the pain, the reply was, "Oh, it is not pain:" and then he added, "Oh, my God, I am happy." At moments of restlessness, if one of his daughters, or his son-in-law, Mr. Davidson, or the Bishop of Dover, asked if they should pray, he would say "Yes," and as soon as one began to pray he became quiet. The repetition of a hymn, again, had a quieting effect, and he would join in saying it. The day of his death is noteworthy. When on Friday he felt that he was dying, he said, "What day is it?" Some one answered, "The 1st of December." The Archbishop remarked, "The very day poor Catherine died," referring to his wife, who died on that day four years ago: "we shall soon meet." It is, however, stated that he never looked on the anniversary of her death as the 1st of December, but as Advent Sunday. The proposal to bury the Archbishop in Westminster Abbey was declined by the family, and the funeral took place on Friday, Dec. 8th, at Addington. The Duke of Connaught and the Duke of Albany were amongst the mourners, and more than twenty members of the episcopate were present. Well were it for the Church and world if living Christians, in the daily service of their Lord and Master, aimed more simply to anticipate the dying experience so wisely commended by the Archbishop in some closing words of his address at the Croydon Congress an experience so fully realized by himself during the last hours of his life : "It is when a man is waiting for death-when he feels himself in the Eternal Presence-that the truths of the Gospel of Christ appear in their due proportions; and he dwells then, not on this or that opinion in which he differs from his fellowmen, but on those great, vital, fundamental truths of the Gospel of Christ which are the comfort and solace of the soul as it passes into eternity." III. THE SEE OF CANTERBURY. DR. TAIT was the ninety-second occupant of the See of Canterbury, reckoning from the first arrival of Augustine. According to Sir Harris Nicolas, the Archbishop is accounted Primate and Metropolitan of all England and is the first peer in the realm, having precedence of all Dukes not of the blood Royal and of all the great officers of State. He is styled "his Grace," and he styles himself officially Archbishop of Canterbury Divinâ Providentiâ, whereas the prelates of his province are styled Bishops Divinâ Permissione. At coronations it is his duty and privilege to place the Crown upon the Sovereign's head, and wherever the Court may be, the King and Queen are the proper domestic parishioners of the Archbishop. The See is generally said to be valued in the King's books at £2,816 a year; but in the good old days, before the Ecclesiastical Commission, the income was probably ten times that amount, though it varied from year to year. It is now fixed at £15,000, with the Palaces of Addington and Lambeth. The diocese of Canterbury includes nearly the whole of Kent, except the deanery of Rochester and a few suburban parishes, and also the parishes of Addington and Croydon, in Surrey. The Archbishop, as such, enjoys the patronage of between 180 and 190 livings. The province of Canterbury includes 22 diocesan sees, exclusive of suffragans. IV. A YEAR IN INDIA. INDIA has lately sent in her returns for a year, giving the results of that great war which is perpetually waged within her confines between man and the "wild beasts." The total of human lives lost by beasts and reptiles during the year in British India was 21,427, of which 18,670 cases were due to the bites of poisonous serpents. Wild elephants slew 58; tigers, 889; leopards, 239; bears, 75; wolves, 256; hyenas, 8; and "other animals," 1,232. These last are to be specified in future returns, and they will be found to include, no doubt, all sorts of strange "feræ," from bison, rhinoceros, and wild dog, to the magar, or alligator of the rivers, and the wild boars, whose scimitar-shaped tusks gore many a hunter and peasant. and It will be seen that hyænas rarely attack man, probably all the few victims placed to their account were little children. The greater number of the lives taken by wolves would also be those of infants or young children, and, indeed, the grey brute which infests the North-West Provinces will sometimes steal the babe out of the Hindoo mother's arms as she sleeps in the open air. During the year there were slain and paid for by Government 1,014 hyænas and 4,538 wolves: so that the "enemy" in these two departments suffered a very preponderant loss. The bears killed 75 human beings, and lost in the conflict with man 991 of their shaggy ranks. A continuance of such warfare would thus eventually cause the disappearance of the ursine family. But the fight grows more equal when we come to leopards and tigers. Of the former there were slain and paid for 3,397, but not before they had slaughtered 339 men, women, and children; so that each ten skins of panther cost a life. As for the tigers, the returns under this head exhibit a sort of drawn battle, with heavy losses on both sides. There were shot or trapped 1,557 of the striped prowling tyrants of the jungle, but these in return killed 889 of their human enemies, a great deal more than one life for every two tigers. Yet even this would not do justice to the ferocity and destructiveness of the greater cats. We must add to their account 43,669 cattle slain by them and their allies the leopards; and this large total, moreover, is exclusive of sheep and goats. Nearly a thousand human victims, together with all these cows and calves, done to death in one year by tigers! But the serpents are by far the most destructive of all. No less than 18,670 human beings were killed last year by serpents, besides 2,029 head of cattle. This last item shows, however, how entirely accidental are most of these encounters. The peasant or his oxen tread upon the basking cobra, foorsa, or black snake, and the reptile turns in fear and anger, striking at what it sees or feels, foot or leg, whether of man or cattle. If it be the bare limb of a man which the cobra has struck, there will be observed two tiny punctures, round which soon arises a burning pain. In fifteen minutes the pain shoots upward, and a sense of intoxication and staggering is presently felt-in ten more minutes control is lost over the muscles, the lower jaw begins to fall, and foam moistens the lips. The speech is next affected, and the victim now only moans and moves his head restlessly, though still remaining conscious. The throat grows clogged, the respiration becomes laboured and slower and slower, finally ceasing about an hour and a quarter after the stroke of a strong and fresh cobra has been suffered; the heart continuing to beat for a minute or two longer. Such is the general character and course of these sad deaths, of which 18,670 are here recorded, and it is a poor consolation to notice that 254,963 poisonous reptilia were destroyed during the year under the system of rewards. V. THE DIOCESE OF ROCHESTER. THE Bishop of Rochester's Pastoral read in the churches of his diocese on Advent Sunday, reveals a distressing picture of spiritual destitution in many parishes. The recent census showed that the population of Rochester Diocese was more than a million and a half, distributed in less than 300 parishes. Forty-six of these parishes contain more than 10,000 souls, seven contain more than 20,000, and in the several suburban districts the growth in the last decade has been at the rate of nearly seventy per cent. In many of these populous districts the Church is only represented by a temporary church and a single missionary clergyman. The Bishop may well say:-" Of this I am confident, that from the hour that the English Church ceases to appreciate and recognise her blessed task of proclaiming the Gospel of the Incarnation to the masses of the people, she will begin to strike the death-knell of her own pre-eminence. If we, English Churchmen, do not sufficiently believe in the Divine power of our message, and in the Divine errand of our Church to make it seem worth while for us to minister Christ's religion to our brethren, the question will occur to others, if not to ourselves, What sort of Christians can we be?" VI. PRAYER FOR THE PRESS. WE hope the Press will not be forgotten during the New Year's Week of Prayer. The Record says:We do not remember to have seen in any manual of devotion for the family or the closet any specific mention of and supplication for the Press. We do not know how it may be in the solemn assemblies of Nonconformity, but we suspect that the same conspicuous omission might be observed there. We cannot point to one phrase in our own Liturgy, rich as it is in varied detail, which can be applied, without more or less force, to this comparatively new power in human society. Yet the importance of this great force in the complex dynamics of human life it is scarcely possible to overstate. Every man reads his paper; and though no one professes to be guided by it, every one sooner or later-non vi, sed sæpe cadendo-is swayed by its influence. And some read nothing else. They are not men of one book.' Their Bible and library is the newspaper. We need not do more than advert to this, and remind our readers of the new and peculiar influences of the magazine literature of the day in order to justify our urgency in requesting all readers of the Record to make special supplication for the Press, that wisdom and sound judgment, charity and courage, understanding of the Word and understanding of the times, may be given to all that are engaged in its service." Most heartily do we unite with our contemporary in urging this request upon all the readers of The Church Standard. If they could realize the weight of responsibility attaching to editorial labour, and the anxieties it involves, we are quite sure the request would meet with a very general response.The Church Standard. VII. A NEW YEAR'S THOUGHT. HERE is a happy thought for the New Year, as given in the words of John Newton: "Sometimes I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of faggots far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry to-day, and then another, which we are to carry to-morrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again to-day, and adding to-morrow's burden to our load, before we are required to bear it!" There may be as many as three hundred and sixty-five faggots of trouble, or even more, wrapped together in the bundle of the coming year; and hard will it be for any of the burden-bearers to carry it all at once. But a merciful distribution will be made, and each day will bring its own proportion of its own particular need. We live by days and moments, with varying tides of hopes and fears-breath by breath, moment by moment, step by step. Oh, for the broken burden! Oh, for the distributed weight! Oh, for the Great Burden-Bearer-" And I will give you rest!" VIII. THE TURKEY. THE name of the modern competitor with the invincible" baron" has a curious interest. How is it that a bird, which all respectable authorities seem to agree came to us from Mexico, is called after the name of the empire of the Sultan? The only explanation we have met with is to the effect that the bird first made its appearance at a time when everything new and foreign and fashionable was described as from Turkey. "Turkey" merchants in the City were the most important and wealthy; or, more correctly, perhaps, the most important and wealthy merchants in the City were described as "Turkey" merchants. When this strange bird first put in an appearance among us, therefore-albeit it came from Americait was described as a "Turkey" bird, and then as a turkey; and that, perhaps, the more readily from the fact of the foreigner wearing, as it were, a bright red cap upon his head, after the custom of the Turks. IX. LEAD-POISONING. HOME-MADE wines are often contaminated with lead from being carelessly allowed to ferment in jars glazed with a composition containing lead. Shot used for cleaning bottles is accredited with the power of causing lead-poisoning if not removed before bottling the wine. Formerly, chronic leadpoisoning was so prevalent in Devonshire, that an inquiry was instituted into the origin of what was called the Devonshire colic. In the first place it was found that it occurred chiefly in persons who drank the cider there manufactured, and by degrees the malady was traced to the admixture of lead with the cider, either designedly for the purpose of sweetening it, or by the inadvertent employment of lead in the construction of the cider mills and vats. Under somewhat similar circumstances arose the colic of Poictou. Preparations of lead were largely used to prevent the wines of the country from turning sour, the injurious effect of the metal upon the human body not being at that time recognised. It has been found that in public houses the beer first drawn in the morning is largely impregnated with lead de rived from standing during the night in the pipes used to convey it from the barrels to the bar. The early tippler has to encounter more dangers than is generally supposed. Several curious cases of slow poisoning have occurred from the habitual use of snuff coloured with red lead. It occasionally happens that even when the snuff has not been intentionally adulterated, enough lead has been absorbed from the leaden packing to cause well marked symptoms. Children's farinaceous foods, which have been packed in lead, should be carefully avoided. Wafers are sometimes coloured red with lead, a circumstance which has been ingeniously employed by a sensational novelist in the elaboration of a plot in which slow poisoning was the chief incident. Many ladies will hear with surprise, not altogether unmixed with alarm, that lead is one of the commonest ingredients of hair dyes, and that it enters largely into the composition of some of the most popular cosmetics. Many cases of lead-poisoning have arisen from the too frequent and liberal application of preparations rejoicing in the name of "Bloom of Youth," or some equally attractive title.-Family Physician. X. "PHYSICKING" THE YOUNG. THERE is far too much of "physicking " practised, with good or evil intentions, at the cost of the young. Many mothers and nurses, especially the inexperienced, remarks the Lancet, seem never to feel satisfied as to the health and well-doing of their little ones unless they have them "under treatment." They are perpetually "purging" or "cooling," or "soothing" or "strengthening" the helpless victims of their solicitude. This is the more to be deprecated because the great majority of the so-called ailments with which very young children are troubled are the direct effects either of bad feeding or of ill-management of some sort, or are in themselves efforts of nature to get rid of the stomach-hardening or irritating masses with which children are fed or physicked. The practice of administering sedatives to infants is particularly reprehensible, and ought to be strongly denounced by the profession. There is no sedative which can be used with safety in the case of infants, except by medical men versed in the action of drugs and familiar with the indicative phenomena of health and disease. The use of cordials and drams is simply a reckless play with poisons. If mothers and nurses who mean well to those under their care could only know one-half of the pain they inflict and the mischief they do, under the guise of solicitous domestic doctoring, they would not readily forgive themselves. No inconsiderable proportion of the maladies of very young children are made, and therefore needless. They are faults of a fussy endeavour to treat diseases which have no existence, and to preserve health which is only jeopardised by the measures taken to render it doubly assured. |