Such were the sufferings of the people of Scotland in the seventeenth century, and such the phenomena of character which the sufferings elicited. We ourselves have seen nearly the same process repeated in the nineteenth, and with nearly the same results. The study of mind cannot be prosecuted in quite the same manner as the study of matter. We cannot subject human character, like an earth or metal, to the test of experiments which may be varied or repeated at pleasure; on the contrary, many of its most interesting traits are developed only by causes over which we have no control. But may we not regard the whole world as an immense laboratory, in which the Deity is the grand chemist, and His dispensations of Providence a course of experiments? We are admitted into this laboratory, both as subjects to be acted upon and as spectators; and, though we cannot in either capacity materially alter the course of the exhibition, we may acquire much wholesome knowledge by registering the circumstances of each process, and its various results. In the year 1817 a new and terrible pestilence broke out in a densely-peopled district of Hindostan. During the twelve succeeding years it was “going to and fro, and walking up and down,” in that immense tract of country which intervenes between British India and the Russian dominions in Europe. It passed from province to province, and city to city. Multitudes, “which no man could number,” stood waiting its approach in anxiety and terror; a few solitary mourners gazed at it from behind. It journeyed by the highways, and strewed them with carcases. It coursed along the rivers, and vessels were seen drifting in the current with their dead. It overtook the caravan in the desert, and the merchant fell from his camel. It followed armies to the field of battle, struck down their standards, and broke up their array. It scaled the great wall of China, forded the Tigris and the Euphrates, threaded with the mountaineer the passes of the frozen Caucasus, and traversed with the mariner the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean. Vainly was it deprecated with the rites of every religion, exorcised in the name every god. The Brahmin saw it rolling onwards, more terrible than the car of Juggernaut, and sought refuge in his temple; but the wheel passed over him, and he died. The wild Tartar raised his war-cry to scare it away, and then, rushing into a darkened corner of his hut, prostrated himself before his idol, and expired. The dervish ascended the highest tower of his mosque to call upon Allah and the prophet; but it grappled with him ere he had half repeated his prayer, and he toppled over the battlements. The priest unlocked his relics, and then, grasping his crucifix, hied to the bedside of the dying; but, as he doled out the consolations of his faith, the pest seized on his vitals, and he sunk howling where he had kneeled. And alas for the philosopher! silent and listless he awaited its coming; and had the fountains of the