But perhaps the most touching picture extant of the bishop's humane labours is to be found in a letter of his own, written to the Bishop of Soissons, Sep. 27, 1720. " Never," he says, "was desolation greater, nor was ever any thing like this. Here have been many cruel plagues, but none was ever more cruel: to be sick and dead was almost the same thing. What a melancholy spectacle have we on all sides! We go into the streets full of dead bodies, half rotten through, which we pass to come to a dying body, to excite him to an act of contrition, and give him absolution. For above forty days together the blessed sacrament was carried every where, to all the sick, and the extreme unction was given them with a zeal of which we have but few examples. But the churches being infected with the stench of the dead flung at the doors, we were obliged to leave off, and be content with confessing the poor people. At present I have no more confessors. The two communities of the jesuits are quite disabled, to the reserve of one old man of seventy-two years, who still goes about night and day, and visits the hospitals. My secretary and another lie sick; so that they have obliged me to quit my palace, and retire to the first president, who was so kind as to lend me his house. We are desolate of all succour : we have no meat; and whatsoever I could do going all about the town, I could not meet with any that would undertake to distribute broth to the poor that were in want. "There is a great diminution," he adds, "of the mortality; and those that hold that the moon contributes to all this, are of opinion that we owe this diminution to the decline of the moon. For my part, I am convinced that we owe all this to the

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mercies of God, from whom alone we must hope for relief in the deplorable condition we have been in so long a while."

PLAGUE AT MALTA.

All the other miseries of mankind have no parallel to the calamities of the plague. The sympathy which relatives feel for the wounded and the dying in battle, is but the shadow of that heart-rending affliction inspired by the ravages of pestilence. Conceive in the same house the beholder, the sickening, and dying. To help is death! to refuse assistance is inhuman! It is like the shipwrecked mariner striving to rescue his drowning companion, and sinking with him into the same oblivious grave. In 1813, such was the virulence with which the plague raged at Malta, such the certain destruction which attended the slightest contact with the infected, that at last every better feeling of the heart was extinguished in a desire of self preservation; and nobody could be procured to perform the melancholy offices which make up the funeral train of sickness and death. In this woeful emergency, a band of daring and ferocious Greeks came over to the island, and clad in oiled leather, volunteered their services with very happy effect: but their number was so small, that recourse was obliged to be had to some French and Italian prisoners of war for assistance. What will not man for liberty perform! Tempted by the promise of a handsome reward and their liberation at the disappearance of the plague, numbers of these unfortunate captives engaged in the perilous task of waiting on the sick,

burying the dead, cleaning and whitewashing the infected houses, burning their furniture, &c. Providence appeared to have taken these children of despair under its special protection: few of them comparatively fell victims to their humane intrepidity. Mr. Murdo Young, in his notes to his poem of Antonia, mentions that he saw some of them, when duty led them near the prison where they had left their less enterprizing companions confined, climb up to the chimney tops of the infected houses; and being "Free from plague, in danger's dread employ, Wave to their friends in openness of joy."

COLONEL HILL.

In the summer of 1819, the yellow fever committed dreadful havoc among the British troops in Jamaica, particularly among some regiments recently arrived. The contagion, like that at Malta, was so virulent, that nobody could attend on the sick without becoming infected by it; and great numbers fell victims solely to their humanity, in administering to the wants of their afflicted comrades. The soldiers at length appalled at the inevitable destiny which awaited every man who entered the hospital as an assistant, refused in a body to supply the service of the sick any longer. Their officers represented to them in moving terms the claims which every soldier in affliction has on his brothers in arms. After a short pause, four privates of the grenadiers stepped forward and offered their services. Two of these in a short time fell under the pestilence, and the other two instantly withdrew their assistance. In this hopeless state of things, Colonel

Hill, of the 50th regiment, heroically exclaimed, Then, my men, we must change our coats; since I cannot find a man in my regiment to attend a sick soldier, I must do it myself." Many days had not elapsed ere this noble-minded officer was himself attacked with the malady, and added one more to the number of its victims. Colonel Hill was the oldest officer in the corps, and had served for forty-seven years.

CRUELTY PUNISHED.

At Abo, in Finland, a dog that had been run over by a carriage crawled to the door of a tanner in the town; the man's son, a lad of fifteen years of age, first stoned, and then poured a vessel of boiling water on the miserable animal. This act of diabolical cruelty was witnessed by one of the magistrates, who informed his brethren of the fact. They unanimously agreed in condemning the boy to punishment. He was imprisoned till the following market day; then, in the presence of the people, he was conducted to the place of execution by an officer of justice, who read to him his sentence. "Inhuman young man! because you did not assist the animal that implored your aid by its cries, and who derived its being from the same God who gave you life; because you added to the torments of the agonizing beast, and murdered it, the council of this city has sentenced you to wear on your breast the name which you deserve, and to receive fifty stripes." He then hung a black board about his neck with this inscription: "A savage and inhuman young man!" And after inflicting on him

twenty-five stripes, he proceeded: "Inhuman young man! you have now felt a very small degree of the pain with which you tortured a helpless animal in its hour of death. As you wish for mercy from that God who created all that live, learn humanity for the future." He then executed the remainder of the

sentence.

INDIAN CHIEF.

"Father!" said the Indian chief, Captain Pipe, to the British commanding officer at Detroit in 1801, "here is what has been done with the hatchet you gave me (handing a stick with a scalp on it). I have done with the hatchet what you ordered me to do, and found it sharp. Nevertheless I did not do all that I might have done. No, I did not. My heart failed within me. I felt compassion for your enemy. Innocence (women and children) had no part in your quarrels ; therefore I distinguished---I spared. I took some live-flesh (prisoners); which, while I was bringing to you, I spied one of your large canoes, in which I put it for you. In a few days you will receive this flesh, and find that the skin is of the same colour with Father! I hope you will not destroy what I have saved. You, father, have the means of preserving that which with me would perish for want. The warrior is poor, and his cabin is always empty; but your house, father, is always full."

your own.

G