particular case by the native medical officer being questioned, the patient was examined by a number of English physicians. At least one of them declared the man to be suffering from a simple boil, and all came to the conclusion that it was not the plague. Nevertheless, the man died within twentyfour hours, and they were then convinced that it was the plague, of the carbuncular type.1

If this was the type of Hezekiah's disease, as seems very probable, considering all the circumstances and the prevalence of plague at the time, his exalted rank no more protecting him than it did the Emperor Justinian, we can understand the prophet's abrupt announcement as soon as he saw the king's condition: "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt surely die." Impressed with the sense of his great danger, the king prayed to God for longer life, and his request was granted. The prophet returned and gave him the assurance that he would live. Natural means of cure, however, were not disregarded; the simple remedies of those days were directed to be used. When plague tumors remain hard and dry and the skin above them unbroken, “mortification quickly ensues, and the fifth day is commonly the term of life; . . . . but if they come to a just swelling and suppuration, the patient is saved by this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humor." One of the measures employed even to-day to hasten suppuration is poulticing, and in ancient times figs were commonly used for this purpose. "Figs are applied topically," writes Pliny," "in all cases where sores require to be brought to a head or dispersed." Accordingly, Isaiah directs a poultice or plaster of figs to be laid on the boil, and the king recovers. But so narrow had been his escape, that 1 Hossack, art. "Diagnosis of Plague," Lancet, Nov. 24, 1900, p. 1487. 2 Book xxiii. c. 63.

for the remainder of his days the king declared he would walk as in a solemn procession. It may be objected that no mention is made of any epidemic prevailing among the Jews at this particular time; but this need not occasion any difficulty. As a rule, national disasters are only narrated when they are clearly seen to be the result of national sin. Moreover, with the departure of the Assyrian soldiers to their own country, the disease had probably spent its greatest force; the remaining cases would then appear to be sporadic. In any event, the illness of the king would attract the attention of the annalist far more than would sickness among the people.

As to the appalling mortality of over fifty thousand in the Philistian epidemic, and the death of one hundred and eightyfive thousand soldiers of Sennacherib's army, there need be little cavil. In the Justinian epidemic, a "myriad of myriads" are said to have perished. In the European epidemic of the fourteenth century, twenty-five millions died. In the Great Plague of London of 1665, about seventy thousand died. Six hundred thousand have died during the course of the present epidemic in India, and it is still pursuing its dreadful

course.

With somber detail the different historians dwell on the homes made desolate by this terrible scourge. In the Justinian epidemic, "the order of funerals and the rights of sepulchers were confounded: those who were left without friends or servants, lay unburied in the streets or in their desolate houses, and a magistrate was authorized to collect the promiscuous heaps of dead bodies, to transport them by land or water, and to inter them in deep pits beyond the precincts of the city." When the plague was in London, Defoe tells of a family ten in number, counting the servants, who were all seemingly well on the Monday; "that evening one maid and

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one apprentice were taken ill, and died the next morning; then the other apprentice and two children were touched, whereof one died the same evening and the other two on Wednesday. In a word, by Saturday at noon, the master, mistress, four children, and four servants, were all gone, and the house left entirely empty, except an ancient woman, who came to take charge of the goods for the master of the family's brother, who lived not far off." It was a saddening event of this kind to which the prophet Amos alludes in the words: "And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. And when a man's kinsman and the man to burn him, shall lift him to bring the body out of the house, they shall say unto him that is in the innermost part of the house, Is there any yet with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall they say: Hold thy peace, for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord."

The text again is somewhat obscure, but, as the commentator well says, the uncertainty "does not weaken the impression of its ghastly realism: the unclean and haunted house; the kinsman and the body burner afraid to search through the infected rooms, and calling in muffled voice to the single survivor crouching in some far corner of them, 'Are there any more with thee?' and his reply, 'None: 'himself the next." And then, in the terror of superstition, the injunction to silence, lest mention of the name of Deity should loosen some fresh avalanche of his wrath.

Although scenes such as these are still common in India and other Oriental countries, we are happily so unfamiliar with such visitations, that when we hear of them our imagination and interest are but faintly stirred. Yet it is well to 2 Amos vi. 9-11.

1 History of the Plague.

G. A. Smith, Book of the Twelve Prophets, Vol. i. p. 178.

remember that our deliverance from such epidemics is due to sanitary laws wisely made and faithfully administered by authorities ever on the alert to guard the public health; and the frightful suffering and loss of life in the epidemics here alluded to or described, have been part of the heavy price which the human race has had to pay to learn unforgettably the laws of physiological as well as of moral righteousness.

ARTICLE VI.

JAMES MARSH AND COLERIDGE.

BY PROFESSOR JOHN WRIGHT BUCKHAM.

SOMEWHAT apart from the centers of education, in the beautiful Champlain Valley, where for a hundred years Vermont University has been performing earnest and efficient service to the cause of learning, President James Marsh accomplished a work for which American philosophy will always be his debtor. The man was as modest as the institution of which he was head. The impulses and aims under which he worked were singularly pure and disinterested. He was a student of philosophy by divine appointment, and he felt it. This was his high calling, and he resolutely adhered to it.

Born at Hartford, Vt., in 1794, the son of a farmer, James Marsh entered Dartmouth College at nineteen and graduated in 1817. His chief characteristic as a student, as of many another man of mark, was his ambition to acquire a broad and systematic conception of human knowledge rather than proficiency in any one department. He read widely and thoughtfully. Two-years' connection with the college as tutor gave him further opportunity to explore and acquire, and he carried to Andover Seminary an exceptionally broad and thorough collegiate education. Here, also, his thirst for comprehensiveness would not permit him to confine his mind to the studies of the course, and he indefatigably pursued studies in literature and history, science and philosophy.

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