dropsy, are often ushered in by nervous affections, before they assume their own character and shape." Still more terrific is the picture, Cheyne has left us of these complaints. "Of all the miseries," says he, "that afflict human life, and relate principally to the body, in this valley of tears, I think nervous disorders, in their extreme and last degrees, are the most deplorable, and beyond all comparison the worst. It was the observation of a learned and judicious physician, that he had seen persons labouring under the most exquisite pains of gout, stone, colic, cancer, and all the other distresses that tear the human frame; yet he had observed them all willing to prolong their wretched being, and scarce any ready to lay down cheerfully the load of clay, but such as laboured under a constant internal anxiety, meaning those sinking, suffocating, and strangling nervous disorders. It is truly the only misery, almost, to be dreaded and avoided in life. Though other evils be burthens, yet an erected spirit may bear them; but when the supports are fallen, and cover the man with their ruins, the desolation is perfect." other ailments, which are often cured by change alone?" So much for the preliminary part of this subject. It may be thought unnecessarily extended: But it seemed idle to attempt a delineation of the influence of nervous complaints upon religious experience, if our readers regard such complaints as imaginary, or entitled to no charity. We are aware that our remarks will contradict the opinions of very many; and that they will be regarded by some, as too favourable to the nervous invalid. We only request such persons to point out the errors in our statements, by an appeal to the only proper source of information on the subject, viz : respectable medical writers. We wish not to be understood as saying, that the complaints of the nervous invalid are not in any degree distorted and exaggerated by unreasonable fears and a disordered imagination. We acknowledge, not only that such false and ridiculous apprehensions exist, but we believe they constitute in most cases, some of the most decided symptoms of the disease. But we think that these fears are not without some foundation; and that there is a real bodily disease, that lies at the bottom of them, which is a most troublesome one, and which, if not checked, becomes dangerous and incurable. There is one more fact on this subject which we shall just notice, because it is frequently misapprehended. Nervous maladies are sometimes entirely cured by mere And upon the whole, we look change of place, without the appli- upon the influence of nervous comcation of any new remedy. On a plaints upon the mind to be the superficial view this seems to be con- worst part of them. So long as the clusive evidence that these com- intellect remains unshattered, a plaints are not merely imaginary. man can see, with comparative We quote the words of Dr. Philip, composure, his bodily powers gradin reply. "Let me add, those who ually yielding to decay. But to ascribe to fancy, all diseases which perceive the immortal part losing may be cured by change, know lit- its energy-the memory failingtle of the nature of disease, or the the power of attention and discrimlaws of the universal economy. ination weakening the imaginaWill they ascribe the hooping- tion throwing over objects a false cough to fancy, or eruptions and colouring-the judgment clouded sores of the surface, pains and stiff-in short the whole mind tending ness of the joints, and a thousand to fatuity;-who, but those that have felt it, can tell the anguish of such experience? We know, indeed, that this too is generally regarded as mere imagination. But if so, why, as we shall presently show, have the most respectable medical writers described this mental decay as one of the symptoms or consequences of nervous debiliity? Patients of this character do indeed regard their intellectual powers, in many cases, as more debilitated and shattered than they actually are; but all medical authority will justify us in saying, that these powers are in some respects always weakened by nervous complaints; and in some instances reduced almost to idiocy. And so long as the man labouring under these complaints endeavours to fill any station where effort of mind is required, he cannot but see the gradual failure of his powers. For he will find that, in order to maintain his standing, he must make continually greater and greater efforts. And the embarrassment of his situation is often increased, by knowing that those around him often impute those deficiences and failures to negligence and sloth, which result from disease. From the general character of nervous complaints already given, it might be inferred that their influence upon the mind would be powerful. But the general symptoms of indigestion are but a small part of those that accompany the disease and as these adventitious affections have a close connection with mental operations, it is desirable that a particular statement of them be given in this place: and we shall do it in the words of a medical writer. "But in addition to these morbid sensations and phenomena in the stomach itself, an infinite variety of symptoms occur, in different instances, indicating the sympathetic affection of the constitution at large, or of particular organs. These VOL. 1.-No. IV. 24 have commonly been called nervous symptoms, inasmuch as they have originated merely from a sympathy of parts, independently of any disordered state of the circulation, or of any morbid change in the structure of the suffering organs; and they are often more distressing than the primary symptoms belonging to the affection of the stomach. Among the symptoms to which we allude, are languor, sluggishness, and indisposition to exertion, either mental or corporeal, but especially the latter; drowsiness, particularly, after meals or slight exercise; giddiness, noise in the ears, occasional dimness of sight, or a sense of objects floating before the eyes, with headache under various forms, most frequently affecting the forehead and temples, sometimes the crown and the occiput; severe flying pains; palpitations of the heart or intermissions in its pulsations, with considerable variations in the state of the pulse; total restlessness, or unrefreshing sleep during the night, with frightful dreams, the incubus, or night-mare, &c.; temporary absence of mind, impaired memory, unusual timidity and despondency; and in short, all the train of symptoms which belong to hypochondriasis and hysteria in the constitutions in which they are liable respectively to occur.' "— Rees' Encyclopedia, Article, Indiges tion. The following description of the mental influence of a particular paroxysm of these complaints, from the pen of Dr. J. Johnson, could not have been written by a person who had not experienced it, and it is so graphical, we cannot withold it. "The mind becomes suddenly overcast, as it were with a cloud; some dreadful imaginary evil seems impending, or some real evil of trifling importance in itself, is quickly magnified into a terrific form, attended apparently with a train of disastrous consequences, from which the mental eye turns in dismay. The sufferer cannot keep in one position, but paces the room in agitation, giving vent to his fears in doleful soliloquies, or pouring forth his apprehensions in the ears of his friends. If he is from home when this fit comes on, he hastens back, but soon sets out again, in the vain hope of running from his writhed feelings. If he happen to labour under any chronic complaint at the time, it is immediately converted into an incurable disease, and the distresses of a ruined and orphaned family rush upon his mind, and heighten his agonies. He feels his pulse and finds it intermitting; disease of the heart is threatened, and the doctor is summoned. If he ventures to go to bed, and falls into a slumber, he awakes in the midst of a frightful dream, and dares not lay his head again on the pillow. This state of misery may continue for 24, 36, or 48 hours; when a discharge of viscid, acrid bile, dissolves at once the spell by which the strongest mind may be bowed down to the earth, for a time, through the agency of a poisonous secretion on the intestinal nerves." Although statements, similar to the above, are to be found in every pandect of medicine, the opinion is still very prevalent, that these mental extravagancies have no necessary connection with a disordered body, and that a man is able to throw them off; and is consequently blameworthy, if he do not break the spell. Only let the dyspeptic get rid of the belief that he is sick, say some, and he will cease to be so. Let him only imagine that he is able to eat, and drink, and sleep, and be active, like other men, and the power will not be wanting. True, if the nervous invalid can be made to believe himself in good health, he can accomplish as much as others: because he would prob ably, in such a case, be in health. And nearly the same may be said, if he can divest himself of all false impressions and extravagant fears. But how can he do this, so long as the disorder that produces them remains? For these illusions and wanderings of mind universally accompany nervous disorders, in a greater or less degree. They are as much the symptoms of a disordered state of the digestive organs, as pain is of the tooth-ache: and it is just as proper to say, that a man has only to believe he is not in pain and he will no longer have the toothache, as to say to the dyspeptic, that he will be well enough if he will only believe himself well. Be his impressions ever so erroneous, and his fears ever so extravagant in the view of others, they are not so to himself: because his mind is oppressed by a diseased body, and you cannot prevent the effect, until you remove the cause. Something, we believe, may be done by the dyspeptic, who is acquainted with his disorder, in preventing his mental aberrations from proceeding to the highest degree of extravagance: still, we believe that some degree of causeless depression of spirits, and mental hallucination, as necessarily result from this disease, as pain from the separation of a nerve. And it seems as unreasonable to us to impute blame in the one case as in the other. We appeal here once more to high medical authority, that of Dr. Johnson. "Those mental causes which produce or aggravate disease," says he, "though apparently most, are in reality least within our power, either as to prevention or removal. The philosopher may declaim and the divine may preach against the folly and danger of giv ing way to despondency and dread but it is in vain! Wherever there is derangement in the hepatic functions, there will, in general, be low spirits; timidity, fickleness of mind, ; irritability of temper, and hypochondriacism, whatever efforts we may make to the contrary by way of reasoning. Religion, it is true, is more powerful but the corporeal disease is apt so to cloud the mental faculties, as to convert the bright hopes and consolations of revelation into gloomy superstition and unconquerable dispair."-So again, speaking of journeys and voyages, in hepatic disorders, he says: "It is but too true, however, that in the class of diseases now under review, a sombre tint is thrown over every landscape, and the mind is perpetually called off from external amusements and observations to a gloomy rumination on our morbid corporeal feelings and infirmities! Whether we climb the tall bark, or repose in the gilded carriage, corroding care pursues us with ceaseless vigilance, and rarely suffers us to escape from ourselves."* It might be added, that facts confirm this view of the subject. Many have been the attempts by reasoning, by ridicule, and by sensible demonstration, to convince nervous invalids how preposterous and absurd were some of their impressions but with how little success ! Generally the result has been only an aggravation of the case. What could be a wilder whim than the impression imbibed by the famous hypochondriac Vincentinus, that he had attained to such an enormous size that he could not go through the door of his apartment. And how easy it seemed to dissipate the delusion by forcibly leading him through the door! But mark the consequence of the attempt. As he was conducted along, he cried out that his limbs and flesh were torn off, and in a few days actually died of this terrible impression, accusing those who conducted him, of being his murderers. Scandit æratas, vitiosa naves Much is said about the whims of nervous people and many of their peculiarities of belief and conduct appear so absurd to those in health, that they have no patience with them, and often treat even their friends, who entertain these extravagant notions, with severity, as if criminal in so doing. If a man, who for a decade or two of years has been struggling with dyspepsia, and whose vital warmth and energy are well nigh exhausted, heats his study, or workshop, or parlour, in winter, some ten degrees higher than the man in health requires; if he double and treble his outer garments, when he goes out to encounter the cold of a New-England January; if he avoid the evening air and a stormy, or even lowering sky, as he would a pestilence; if he carries in his pocket his dyspeptic bread when he visits, or is on a journey; if he abstain with Mahomedan exactness, from the pound cake, and the loaf cake, the condiments, the sweetmeats, and the other paraphernalia of a modern visiting party; if, in short, he do many other things of the like kind, he is set down, by those in health, upon the list of the whimsical and particular, whose oddities it is no slander to retail and to ridicule.* *On many constitutions, and particularly on people denominated nervous, certain barometrical changes in the atmos phere, have a remarkable effect. Thus when the glass is very low, the wind southerly, and a storm impending, such a sense of sinking, weakness, tremor, and dejection is often felt by valetudinarians, that they are quite miserable till the equilibrium of the atmosphere is restored, when all their morbid feelings vanish "into air-thin air." "By the superficial observer, and often by medical men themselves, these ailings are laughed at as vaporish or imaginary; but they are real physical effects, result ing from sudden diminution of pressure in the airy medium, that surrounds us; and requires rest, with some cordial drink and generous diet for their relief; for they cannot be entirely removed till their cause ceases to operate."-Johnson on the liver, &c. p. 186. But how comes it to pass, that the But we will no longer detain the reader from the particular point at which we aimed in the commencement, viz: the influence of nervous disorders upon religious experience. For the sake of method, we shall speak first, of their effect upon the intellectual powers; and secondly, upon the passions, affections, and conduct. which earliest and most distinctly manifests the inroads of nervous maladies. In the latter case, however, there is a singular capriciousness of memory, not observable in the former. The man finds that the most impressive and interesting circumstances, which he fancies to be indelibly fixed in his recollection, suddenly and strangely to pass away, like the morning cloud or the early dew while those objects and facts that are disagreeable and of little importance, will remain impressed in painful distinctness as long as he lives. That morbid sensibility which awakens a double attention to the darker scenes of life, and to the sinful part of the Christian's character, seems to close the eye on all the sunshine around him, and the marks of holiness and purity within. Hence, when he looks back upon his past exercises and actions, for evidence of his interest in Christ, memory is but too faithful in presenting all that has been unholy in motive and action, while only a dim twilight is shed over his penitence, humility, and efforts to glorify God. The judgment that is formed is thus liable to be perverted by the imperfect and distorted view of facts the memory presents. And it is chiefly by this influence upon the judgment, that an enfeebled memory can affect the religious experience. 1. Upon the intellectual powers. One of the first marks of superannuation appears in a failure of the memory; and it is this faculty |