THE POOL OF BETHESDA.

THERE has been a great deal of speculation in respect to the character of the waters of Bethesda. No historian of antiquity, except the evangelist John, affords us any light on the subject; and the little that this writer says is hardly sufficient to give us more than a general idea of the spring that, in the time of our Saviour, had received that name. The narrative connected with it, from the pen of the writer alluded to, is briefly this :-There was a pool in the city of Jerusalem, called Bethesda-a "house of mercy," the name signifies. In the rooms connected with this pool there were numerous people, afflicted with different diseases, waiting for an opportunity to bathe in the water-it being a notion current among the Jews of that time, that there was a healing property in the water, and especially, immediately after the pool had been agitated from the bottom, so that the medicinal element, whatever it was, became more generally distributed through the entire pool. An angel, they thought, went down at certain periods, and agitated the water, and then, before the minVOL. XVIII. NO. VIII.-15

eral substance, held in suspension, had subsided, the invalid, by plunging into the pool, could be cured. A man who had been sick nearly forty years, according to the divine historian, was found by our Lord, in one of the rooms built over or near the pool, waiting for an opportunity to try the virtues of the water. He was nearly, perhaps quite, helpless; so that he was unable to get into the pool. Several different agitations of the water had taken place while he had been lying there; but he was unable to take advantage of them. In every case, some more fortunate and less helpless invalid supplanted him. In this situation the poor man was found by our Saviour, and by a palpable miracle on his part, instantly cured.

From this narrative we are hardly warranted in the opinion that there was anything miraculous in the cures that were effected at this spring. It does not appear, indeed, that the Jews ascribed miraculous influence to the water. Probably Bethesda was a mineral spring, possessing medicinal virtues of considerable value in some diseases, but which were, naturally enough, greatly overrated.

The Jews were in the habit of speaking of all their blessings as if they came directly from God. This pool was called the "house of mercy." When its waters were agitated, they spoke of the effect as having been produced by one of God's messengers. In this light our blessings ought always to be viewed. But how differently do the great mass of mankind regard them. Thousands, who, during the summer months, resort to Saratoga, and other fashionable watering-places, though sensible that their health is improving under the influences which God has so kindly made accessible to them, never, it is feared, feel one thrill of gratitude to their divine Benefactor. On the contrary, perhaps, they are more gay, more thoughtless, more reckless, while at this Bethesda, than they allow themselves to be at other times. And what is worse, and more to be deplored, professed disciples of Christ too often forget their obligations at such places. They seem to leave their religion behind them, shut up in their deserted houses-as if the great end of life was amusement. O! how is Christ dis

honored by his friends, at the summer resorts of the fashionable

world! Christian, be on your guard. Let not your breast become dry as summer dust," while you are indulging in a season of perhaps necessary relaxation and recreation. Carry your religion with you, wherever you go.

Original.

THE GROTESQUE-ITS INFLUENCE ON THE YOUNG.

BY REV. F. C. WOODWORTH.

I Do not know precisely what idea is attached to the word grotesque, by people generally; but, in this connection, I take the liberty to give it considerable latitude of signification, in order to embrace sundry specific ideas which I cannot readily find another word to indicate. By the grotesque, if the reader so pleases, I mean those forms, whether in nature or art, which are ludicrously disproportionate, and extravagantly, comically, perhaps hideously contorted. I believe that there is a strong tendency in models bearing the impress of the grotesque, directly to deprave the mind, and indirectly to corrupt the heart of the young, and I ask for this subject the attention of those who have at heart the interests of our children and youth.

To the mind of one whose thoughts have been directed especially to this topic, this proposition will not need argument: that good taste is very nearly allied to virtue, and that it often forms the stepping-stone to a virtuous character and life, while a depraved taste as surely and directly leads toward vice. Show me a family, for example, where the children are uniformly well washed and dressed on the morning of the Sabbath, and I will show you one, in almost every case, where at least the outward form of morality, if not of religion, is respected. There is something kindred in baths, combs, and clean linen, on the one hand, and good morals, politeness, and orderly conduct, on the other. Other things being equal, I would sooner trust a boy with clean hands and face than

one all covered with dirt. And this elective affinity between models of good taste and virtue holds in a great many other circumstances, too, though it is unnecessary, in this place, to trace the affinity.

The fact that there is such a connection being premised, (and I am confident no one will dispute the connection; otherwise I should spend some time in attempting to prove it) there is, it seems to me, but a step to the conclusion, that there is a tendency in whatever is palpably grotesque to injure the mind of the child. I shall be told at the outset, that there is in every well-formed mind an innate, or at least a natural faculty, by which the ludicrous is perceived, and through which comes much of innocent, rational amusement. Very well. I do not feel disposed to dispute that sentiment. I enjoy a laugh too well myself, to rail against the machinery that sets it in motion. It is not against such a windmill that I am contending. I shall be better understood, if I refer specifically to some of the forms of the grotesque from which, in my estimation, the evils deprecated legitimately flow.

In this class are especially to be grouped caricatures of the human form and features. There is immense mischief resulting from these caricatures-more, I apprehend, than the great mass of parents and others interested especially in the well-being and welldoing of the young have ever dreamed of. I shall not stop now to inquire precisely what is the effect of such objects upon more mature minds. I will grant, if you please, that it is entirely, as it certainly must be comparatively harmless. But the “human face divine" cannot be represented in hideous disproportion to the eye of the child, especially if he be familiar with it thus exhibited, without producing, in a greater or less degree, an unhappy effect upon the mind of that child-without depraving the taste, and rendering it, in some, if not in all of its departments, morbidly and unnaturally grotesque. How is the taste of a child formed? To say nothing of the influences adapted to deform it, how is it formed in the first place? By models, surely; and it will take the impress of the mould it is formed in. Keep apart from the mind those models that are graceful, natural, truthful, and let it come in contact mainly with forms which are imperfect, unnatural,

distorted, and it would require a miracle to introduce such a thing as good taste to the perceptions of the child. Where these graceless forms are placed more rarely before the vision of the young, there is less danger, it is conceded; but it does not follow that there is no danger at all. Because the great mass of a person's food is harmless and nutritious, it is not safe, as a matter of course, to use such condiments as arsenic and deadly nightshade. What if the library of the children in a family is well supplied with such publications as they get at the Sunday school-it does not follow that an occasional series of the worst of caricatures are safe companions. What if the great majority of the playthings of the nursery are unexceptionable it does not follow that may give your children unrestrained license to play with a hideous mask, or a frightful dragon, or the personification of the archfiend, curiously enshrined in a box with springs. In this world, children will make the acquaintance of the spirit of all evil soon enough, do what you will to prevent the introduction. In the name of humanity, then, do not urge on this intercourse.

you

The whole genus of comic almanacs belong in this category. I would admit a moderate viper-not an ultra one, perhaps into a family of children, just as soon as I would a comic almanac, filled with pictures, miserably executed, representing men, and women, and children, in all the hideous aspects which a depraved imagination ever conceived. These pictures are not simply whimsical forms to be laughed at. They are something more. From them there proceeds to the mind of the child a certain moral influence, and often a potent one, too. They haunt him. They give a tone to his perceptions of other objects. They lend a color to the mind itself. They become a part of it.

Unless I greatly misjudge, the same may be said of a great portion of those anonymous communications which, at a certain season of the year, in many parts of the country, are sent under the name of Valentines. Without characterizing the practice itself of honoring St. Valentine, by playful, amorous epistles, I must protest against that class of these epistles that are prefaced by wretched and horrible caricatures. The worst feature of the case is, that these caricatures find their way generally into the