ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 172, 22 January 1848, Page 3

ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.

Dr. Plaifairc, in a sermon before the University of Cambridge in 1753, says, " Before the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, no church here existed, but the temple of an idol ; no priesthood but that of Paganism ; no God but the sun, the moon, or some hideous image. In Scotland stood the temple of Mars. In Cornwall the temple of Mercury. At Bangor the temple of Minerva. At Maiden the temple of Victory. At Bath the temple of Apollo. At Leicester the temple of Janus. At York, where St. Peter's now stands, the temple of Bellona. In London, on the site of St. Paul's Cathedral, the temple of Diana. At Westminster, where the Abbey rears its venerable pile, a temple of Apollo. Who can read such a itatementof facts, well authenicated as they aie, and consider what England now is, without acknowledging the vast obligations under which we are laid to divine revelation ? What but the Bible has produced this mighty moral renovation?

The Irish Judges have postponed the Summer Assizei in consequence of the prevalence of typhus fever throughout the country. Captain Fitzgerald, R. N., late Governor of the Britihh settlements on the Gambia, has been appointed Governor of Western Australia. The Ministry have appointed Sir Henry Pottinger to the Governorship of Madrm. It is stated that Sir Harry Smith will obtain the appointment of Governor General of the Cup-j of Good Hope. A s.ilutary blow has been struck at duelling in Mississ-ipi, by a ense of enforcement of a law of the State, which requires that the survivor shall be responlible for the debts of a man he lulls in a duel. A magistrate of Buckinghamshire hat given notire of his intention to propose, at the next quarter session! for that county, th»t the expenses of persecutions for offences against the game laws, shall be defrayed by the persecutors, and not by the country. Much astonishment has been lately created among 1 the Venetian populace, by the circumstance that the water of an Artesian well, which was lately sunk at Venice, burns brilliantly when brought into contact with a flame. This seemingly wonderful combustion is caused by the carburettcd hydrogen gas which the water contains. Mr. Daniell, the African traveller, hai reached this countiy, after escaping all the vicissitudes of a comparatively unknown country in South western Africa. He had several attack* of fever, and escaped death under various guises. He has. however, reaped a rich ethnological collection, which he intpndi immpdiatply to lay before the Ethnological Society. — Morning Pott. A Neapolitan surgeon nnmed Cervelleri, is said to have succeeded in dissolving stone in living persons by the vie of electricity.

Toleration.— To the man on whole heart is impressed the image of a greater glory than it here, will every where be found revelations of that glory and antitypei of that image. God— the Life — speaks not by one word alone, nor is His presence in one pace alone. The tempest, and the song of the lark — the giant rock immovable in iti mountain bed, and the j tender bud, so tender that the butterfly's wings wnis;h it to the earth— alike are books, wheie, written indiffe» rent ways, but speaking the same word, stand recording tidings of the Everlasting And surely He, there told of, will not condemn His children, when they too sneak in many and strange tongnes. the one, same, beautiful speech of worship. The Father who has created life and loveliuess in endless varieties — who has given one voice to the grasshopper, and another to the englet — who has cloHud the rose in crimson, and the lilly in snow — who has bestowed on the mountain torrent, and rock, and on the valley, verdure and flowers — who has made the north man and the south brothers, though so different, He will not demand from all hearts the same form of prayer — He will not deny the word of nature, which tells that uniformity is not one of the requirements of the Lord of the universe. From all things that have life are demanded worship and love ; yet they may be shown in ways varying one from the oilier. From all men is demanded religion— the wonhip of a Higher— the earnest, unceasing endeavours to resemble thatjHigher, as the Idea is impressed on the heart ; but the way in which each man endeavours, will never be deemed sinful, because it differs from the way of his brother man. A Cider Drinker.— An old man, named Abraham Heliard, approaching fourscore, who has livrd in the family of the Holmans. large farmers, at Glastonbury, Somersetshire, for the last 40 years, as farm-bailiff, has through the whole of that time one gallon of cider daily allowed him for his own drinking, from his master's stores, and though he is now too aged for work, he still is neen going for his favourite beverage. The father of the present Mr. Holman, Bt his death, left in his will 8a p.T week, to he given to this faithful servant as long as be lived ; this he (the old man) regularly has paid, and his daily potation of cider drawn for him alto ; during that 40 years this man must have received 14,600 gallons, or 270 hogcheads 20 gillons, which, at 40s. the hogshead, w uld have realised £540 and upwards. A Chrck to the Gambler.— The Globe states on authority, that his Royal Highness Prince George of CambriJpe, commanding the troops in the Dublin district, lately intimated his intention of withdrawing his name from the list of members of the Hibernian United Service Club, unless an immediate stop were put to the gambling which had been carried on there for some time; and which had led to the ruin of teveral officers. Association of Ideas.— Bishop Stillingfleet tells a story of a clergyman who was eagerly engaged in a fox chase, when the fox took to enrth, on which he cried out, •* Gentlemen, I must leave you. This puts me in mind that I have a corpie to bury at four o'clock this evening, and I fear I shall be an hour too late." An American paper has this advertisement :— " Two sisters want washing.' 1 Theodore Hook, when dining with the author of a work called Three words to the Drunkard, was asked to review it. " Oh, my dear fellow, that I have done already in three words — pass the bottle.'' Misfortunes. — There are misfortunes in which we discrrnan overruling hand, and inevitable fate ; these arc like thunderbolts from the clouds. There are sufferings of another kind, which may be compared with the torture of a perpetual pin-pricking. These are occasioned l>y the hand of man ; they arise frequently in families, when husband and wife, parents and children, only live with one another to create the worst of hells within their home : these are torturing, and tortured spirits ; it is difficult to say which are most to be pitied. The first kind of miifortunc is easiest to bear ; it is much better to suffer under the hand of God than that of man. The lightning from above gives death, as also light and power. The prick from the hand of

man contumei the strength like a slow cancer. Thus the heart becomes embittered, and bitterness ii life's liraoom ; wherever its influence reachei, it becomes desolate. But even for such cases there are remedies. There it an angelic patience which blunts the point of every misfortune ; which enables the tutterer, amidst all hit tortures, to sanctify himielf, and eventaally, others also. There are moments, brief, fleeting moments, whoie hasty flight scarce seems to weave a link in Time's great chain, so small and so minute the threads ; and yet these little seconds contain within their narrow cells whole years of anguish, or ages of delight. Like a lightning-flaih the thought may pass. It may have glanced swiftly over the brain— so swiftly that the bystander, calm and cool, and paisionless at he it, may have been unconscious of its existence. He did not feel. But does the heart which does thus feel, name that moment swift ? Are the passions which are engendered, transient ? The effects toon effaced > The volcano whose birth has rent the mountain atunder — it may be the work of a moment ; but Hb work endures for ever 1 Not an instant't space, and the rock stood firm and unshaken in its eternal bed, where it had reposed from the beginning. The instant has fled, and its fragments are strewed on the plain. The mountain is rent, the volcano hath burst forth. The passion which hath risen in th<j heart may pass with the thought, but the scar which it hath left will never be blotted out by teart of after soriow, nor its seared blackness eflaced by all the verdure of its joy. Ay, there urc, indeed, brief seconds in which ai^es of thought, and suffering, and crime, sweep over the soul, and bu rn it to the inmost core— so deep, that even Death cannot whiten the stain. • Slkep. — Sleep is the surest, and oftentimes the only friend which misfortune is not certuiu to drive from the side of the unhappy. It pours the privileged treasure of its wealth upon the poor, unbuught ; it sheds its opiate upon the couch of agony, when the doi tor desp.iiis ; at its magic touch, the straw of the maniac is turned to softest down; the dungeon and the fetter dissolve before its spell ; and even remorse itself forbears to prey upon the victim whom its shield protects; while, of all the luxuries of life, it is the only one that pampered opulence can nevv.r command.