IDA. Then we are to contrast the state of the unhappy girl with the _voluntary_ endurance of heroism depending on the power of _concentrating mind_? The almost superhuman endurance of pain is finely displayed among the North American Indians, who even chant their own death-song calmly amidst worse than the tortures of the Inquisition, or sustain with a smile those probationary trials for the dignities of a chief, or the admission to the class of warriors, that are modelled with all the refinement of cruelty. On the banks of the Orinoco, especially, (if Robertson be right, or Gumilla, his authority, to be believed,) the ordeal begins by a rigid fast, reductive of the body’s energy; then commences a flaying of his body by lashes as dreadful as the knout, by the hands of the assembled chiefs, and then, if the slightest sensibility be evinced, he is disgraced for ever. His raw and reeking flesh is then exposed to the stings and venom of insects and reptiles, and again suspended over the scorching and suffocating flames of herbs of the most disgusting odour; and, to close this tale of torture, it is not seldom that the victim sinks in mortal agonies beneath the dreadful ordeal. EV. The two great springs of voluntary endurance of pain are _religion_ and _honour_. Thus, among other heroic acts of England’s martyrs, Cranmer held the apostate hand which signed his recantation in the midst of the flames until it was _wasted_. And the unyielding fortitude with which the victim bore the rack and other excruciating tortures of the popish Inquisition is almost beyond belief. The fanaticism of the wild enthusiasts of the east it were profanation to call religion; but with the hope of rejoining her husband in the realms of bliss, the Hindoo widow clasps his corpse in her arms, and, without a sigh, sets the torch to his funeral pile. And, to inherit the paradise of Brahma, the Fakir or Yoghee keeps his fist clenched for years, until the nails grow through his hand; or forces the hooks between his ribs, and whirls himself aloft until he expires, or throws himself prostrate beneath the crushing wheels of Juggernaut. It is written that Cardan rendered himself by great efforts insensible to external irritants. And analogous to this, was the almost superhuman effort of that determined action of Muley Moloch quoted in the “Spectator,” from Vertot’s “Revolutions of Portugal:”—“In a condition of extreme prostration he was borne in a litter with his army. On the sounding of a retreat, although in a half-dying state, he leaped from the litter, and led his quailing troops to a charge, which ended in victory. Ere this was accomplished his life was fast ebbing, and, reclining on his litter, and enjoining the secrecy of his staff, with his finger on his lip, he died.”