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monster the Druids were mighty men, and Moelmud a true pillar of the Isle of Britain. There seems reason to believe that he built Caer Oder, and the calendar of Ricart tells us that Bryn, his son, "builded Bristowe," and set it upon a high hill. Bryn and Beli, his brother, are better known by their Romanised names of Brennus and Belinus, and their quaint and serene figures, carved probably about 1357 A.D., are still to be seen on the tower of St. John's, Broad Street, the smallest church in Bristol.

The camps of the ancient Britons were not, like those of the Romans, merely places of occasional protection for marching armies. They were residences and hill-folds surrounded by a rampart, into which they drove their cattle when threatened by banditti. They generally chose commanding heights, and their fortifications of turf still remain. They held hill-to-hill communication by beacon fires. Blaize Castle thence derives its name; the Worcestershire and Herefordshire beacons, on the Malvern Range, recall such times of yore; and there was a British camp at Caer Oder, where the observatory now stands at Clifton.

Many of us have looked down thence on St. Vincent's Rocks, to the Avon winding below, and over to the rich Leigh woods, where here and there a grey cliff towers above the oaks of the forest, and reveals the wild grandeur of the precipitous banks.

occurred on the occasion of great festivals might be seen by the tribes around.

The divination of the Druids by the flight of birds or the motion of serpents, or by yet darker methods involving human sacrifices, and their midnight processions, have been thus pictorially and faithfully described by a sister poet of the Isle of Jersey :

"Three times nine the Princes be,

And the Priests are three times three.
Princes, with the club and shield,
Arm'd as for the battle-field.
Priests, with mystic fillet crown'd,
Flowing white or azure vest;
Snowy beards that swept the ground,
And the serpent's egg their crest.
Prisoners three, in silence follow,
Up the hill and down the hollow.
"Over Dundry's sacred height,
Clamber they at dead of night:
And the priest and princely band
Round the solemn altars stand!
Hark! a hollow gurgling moan;
Hark! a fainter-fainter groan.
Now the distant Future's cast
From the way the life-blood past.
Has it flowed from East to West?
Peace is broken, war expressed.
Did it spout towards the skies?
Direful mischief hidden lies.
Does it slowly leave the vein ?
Justly is the victim slain,

And his death his country's gain.

"Morning breaks, and hushed and still,
Echo sleeps on Dundry's hill.

Has the midnight hid the crime
From the dark records of time?
Still o'er many a stone-crowned height
Bursts the tempest, beams the light:
Seven-and-twenty circling stones,
Witnesses of dying groans,
Guard the sacred altars three
With their antique mystery.
Ages since have rolled away;

Priests and people-where are they?"

In the west the sun-to heathen eyes a God in heaven-may be sinking, still as of These ancient circle-builders used no tool in old, in gold and crimson, and to the left we the construction of their altars, and thereby look over the valley to Dundry Tower, aware obeyed the precept in Exodus xx. 23, enforced that two miles on the other side of the ridge upon the Israelites-" If thou lift up thy tool lies Stanton Drew, the "stone town of the upon it thou hast polluted it." The British Druids," with its three circles of stones, in doom-rings" were the counterparts of the their time not fallen prostrate and half buried Court of Judicature at GILGAL—which means underground, but crowning the hill as open-circle-one of the places where Samuel air courts of judgment and temples for worship of the ancient Britons.

Near to the church of Stanton Drew there is, or was within twenty years, a cove ten feet wide and eight feet deep, formed of three large stones, which, though somewhat sunken, has endured through all the Bristol ages, and stands as a relic to bind them together now that the heads of those who sat there to administer justice to the neighbouring tribes have long mouldered into dust.

Dr. Stukeley considers Stanton Drew as far more ancient than even Abury itself. We may suppose that the Druids sat in this cove, or within the "Doom Rings," to decide suits or complaints, questions of property, peace or war; and on these heights whatever

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judged Israel, the site of the first Israelite camp, and of the twelve stones taken from the Jordan. Here was kept their first Passover; here was enforced the rite of circumcision, and the camp remained there during all the early part of the conquest. It may also be inferred that Joshua returned there at the conclusion of his labours.

How often were the Israelites worshippers of Baal, and how much of his idol worship we know to have been transferred to Britain !

There probably was much very early Phoenician emigration to Britain, in the times of the kingdom of Israel, and possibly not a little that was Israelitish also, for Dan "abode in ships," and he also "leaped from Bashan -and with them came many of the customs

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both of the "chosen people" and the unchosen. We may find a tolerable outline of Druidical customs in our sacred writings (see Isaiah lvii. 5)—"Enflaming yourselves with idols among the oaks, slaying the children in the valleys under the cliffs of the rocks."

to declare by symbol their union with Gomeric or Japhitic peoples (ch. i.), that God would visit upon them the days of Baalim, and that they should be swallowed up among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure (Hosea viii. 8); that their feast days, their new moons, their Sabbaths, should cease; therefore the exiles would not be known as a Sabbath-keeping people, or as the Lord's "chosen people; and yet that being "driven into the wilderness "—such a wilderness as Britain then was—the merciful Lord would open for them a door of hope

Like the heathen of old, they may have thought human sacrifices most acceptable to God. "Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" (Micah vi. 7.) And to Britain the Lord's voice had not then been uttered, further than that, as a people trading freely with both Syria and Palestine, indi-"give them vineyards" from that wilderness, viduals (in the priesthood especially) may have had knowledge not only of the idolatrous customs of the Canaanites, but also something of the scriptural worship of the Jews. It is said by HOSEA, the prophet to the exiled ten tribes, who was instructed

and teach them to know the Lord. That God did thus deal with our own forefathers, the early Britons, very soon after the birth of our Saviour, and at what chief points of our islands the good news found entrance, we hope to explain in our next chapter.

"FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE."

Glimpses of the Marvels of the Human Frame.

BY MISS CHESSAR.

I. THE HEART AND ITS ACTION.

THE HE wonders of the human body are not | tiniest hairs, and as the blood is rushing from the least of those with which we are the heart through these, it gives to each part surrounded. True it is that the sentence, of our structure just that exact nourishment "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou which it needs. Thus the bones get their return," has been spoken about our bodily due material, the flesh has its waste made up framework. But, between the dust out of to it, the brain has new matter given to it to which they have sprung, and that into which take the place of what has been used; and, day by day and hour by hour they are pass- in a word, every part of the body is fed. If ing, what marvellous changes do the materials the heart were to cease its action, to stop of our bodies undergo, and into what perfec- sending moment by moment these fresh tion of form and working are they not supplies of new matter, we could not live. brought! The more we get to know about Our bodies waste away far faster than most our bodies, the more are we struck with the people imagine. There is not the smallest way in which they are suited for the work action that we do, nor is there the least that they have to do. Not only are we con- thought we think, which does not cause some strained to say with the Psalmist, "I am little waste of the substance of our bodies, fearfully and wonderfully made," but we and this constant waste must be met by an exclaim, "Marvellous are Thy works, and equally unceasing supply. It is not difficult that my soul knoweth right well.” to see the importance of the heart's work in feeding the body.

Of all the parts of which our bodies are built up, none is more worthy of notice than the heart. This part or organ by its steady action forces the blood through every part of our body. Great tubes or vessels go out from it, dividing and dividing as they get farther away from the heart, and entering into every substance of the body-flesh, bones, skin, nerves, every part. The tubes into which the blood-vessels are finally divided are very small and fine, far finer than the

But the blood has to come back to the heart after it has fed the body. The little finer-than-hair vessels (capillaries), of which mention has been already made, exist everywhere except in the nails, the hair, the enamel of the teeth, and some parts of the eye. These tiny vessels make a kind of network, and pass back again from the various parts of the body. Then they come together, just as little pipes may be made to

unite to form larger ones, and so coming together they at last form themselves into two great tubes, one from the parts of the body below the heart, and one from the parts above. These two tubes bring back to the heart all the unused blood. This, however, is not fit to be sent out at once again to feed the body; for it has come back poorer by all that it has given out, and with certain impurities which it has collected during its return journey. Before it goes again into the body, it is sent into the lungs to be made pure, and this second sending out is also done by the force of the heart. The blood this second time is driven out through vessels which also divide all through the substance of the lungs, and while rushing through these vessels it is purified. As in the other parts of the body, the little vessels reunite, and large tubes bring the blood back to the heart fit once more to go on its journey of feeding the body.

We see then that the heart has in it blood of two kinds-(1) That which is pure and fit to nourish the body, and which is to be sent out to feed it in every part; and (2) that which has come back poor and impure from all over the body, and is going to be sent into the lungs to be made fit for use again. These two kinds of blood are quite different to look at; the pure blood, feeding the body, is red, bright scarlet red, quite dazzling to look at; the other is dark, purplish-what people sometimes call "black blood." In the heart these do not mix; the pure fresh blood is always on the left side of the heart-that is, the side nearest our own left arms--while the impure blood is all in the right side. The two sides are quite distinct, for a fleshy wall divides the heart into two parts which have no direct connection with each other. It is as if we had two hearts, which, for saving of space and work, are united into one. There is never any waste of power in the marvellous economy of our bodies.

The heart has sometimes been compared to a pump, because it sends out its contents with force to a great distance from itself. It would be better to compare it to a somewhat firm but elastic bag with a division in the middle. If both sides of this bag were filled with fluid, it is clear that two streams could at the same moment be squeezed out from the bag, one from each side. In our heart that is pretty much what happens. The two sides fill at the same time, one with the pure blood from the lungs, the other with the impure blood from the

body; and then, when the heart makes the great effort that sends the blood out of it again, both sides contract at once, and two great jets rush out, one from each side, with a force like that of the water in a fountain. This force is so great that it shakes the whole body a little. We feel the jerk under our finger when the pulse moves in our temples, or wrists, or ankles, and we feel it more strongly just between the fifth and sixth ribs of our left side, where the point of the heart tilts up, and knocks with all its force against the ribs. Beat, beat, the heart goes regularly, and jet, jet, does the blood rush out along the great vessels (or arteries) which lead out from the heart. Each beat of the heart, or of the pulse, that we feel means that the heart has contracted once-squeezed its sides together with force-and propelled the blood through lungs and body. If either part of the heart's action were to cease we should die, for the body would cease to be fed in one case, and in the other the blood itself would not be made pure and fit for use. How marvellously do the various things hang together!

A few words have been said on the quickness with which the body wastes. Note now the quickness with which the waste is supplied. Put your finger on your pulse; take your watch in your hand, and count the number of times that your pulse throbs while the minute hand of your watch travels over the space marked for one minute only. You will find that the throbs vary according to many circumstances. The pulses of men differ from those of women. Little children's pulses are very rapid, because of their quick eager movements, and the extra supply of blood which has to help to build up their bodies and make them larger, as well as to make up for waste going on. Old people, slow in movement, and with the body shrinking from its fair proportions, have slow pulses. The pulse varies according to the state of health, the hour of the day, and many other things; but, taking one with another, it will be found on an average to beat seventy times in a minute. Seventy beats in a minute! That means seventy strong contractions of the heart, so strong as to send the blood rushing through the largest blood-vessels at the rate of a foot in a second, and even through the smallest and most distant tubes at the rate of an inch to an inch and a half in a minute. At each contraction of the heart, between three and four fluid ounces are sent out from each side of the A fluid ounce is two tablespoonfuls.

weight of a hundred and twenty tons could be lifted a foot up from the ground. Some learned persons who have searched into the matter think that even more is done; some say twice as much. Just think of the time that it would take a strong man to lift a hundred and twenty tons, and the weariness which would follow his days of hard work! But the heart goes on unwearied, unstopping-for weariness and stopping would be death. Again, the force with which the heart drives the pure blood out of its left side into the great vessel which is to branch all over the body, is equal to the pressure of a weight of thirteen pounds. How strong must be the walls of the heart which can contract with such power! How strong, and yet how elastic, must be the tubes into which the blood is driven with such force, so often, and at such a rate, and yet without injury! Seventy times in a minute are these strong blows given; seventy times in a minute does fresh blood pour out to renew the waste caused by the actions of our bodies. Truly there are wonders within us of which we take but little heed!

heart; and this movement goes on from birth to death, regularly, steadily, and when we are in good health without a moment's pause, a work with the ordering of which our wills have nothing to do; and steadily through all the minutes of each day, through all the days of each year, through all the years of the life, does it keep on its regular beating. In the course of seventy years it will have beaten thousands of millions of times. What machine of man's making or devising can go on so steadily and so long as this? The machinery made by men has to be taken to pieces now and then to be altered, and cleaned, and repaired; but our hearts go on, repairing their own waste while we live, and working with marvellously equal strokes in all that they have to do. Even tempers, quiet dispositions, regular habits, help the heart to go on steadily with its work. The injunction is applicable in a bodily as well as in a spiritual sense-"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Not only is there much to wonder at and to admire in the steadiness, the quickness, and the constancy with which the heart does its work, but the force which it uses in filling The strength of the heart is shown not all the vessels of the body is marvellously only in the force with which it sends out great, and all the more astonishing when we blood, but in the way in which some of its remember the small size of the organ. Close parts resist pressure. The heart has hitherto your hand tightly, and look at its size; that been spoken of as if it were merely a double will show you as nearly as may be the size of bag into each side of which tubes come to your heart. Put your hand on your breast-fill it, and out of each side of which tubes bone about the middle, and you will be very go, through which it empties itself. nearly opposite the place where, in the centre is necessary now to think of each side of your chest, your heart lies surrounded by as again divided into two parts, one upper the lungs. Put your finger-tip between two of chamber and one lower. So that there are your ribs on the left side, and you will feel really four hollows or chambers in the heart, where the point of the heart strikes in beating. two upper and two lower. These must, All who have ever noticed the shape of a sheep's however, be thought of as in pairs. The heart will know the shape of the human heart. two chambers of the right side are quite Those who have not must imagine it to be separated from those of the left by a wall, something of the shape of a short thick in which there is not the smallest openpear. The thick end, which is called the ing. But the chambers of each side base, is turned towards the back-bone, and have only doors between them, doors which, the point, or apex, is downwards, and a on the right side, are three-leaved, and on little inclined to the left. It has no bones, the left side two-leaved. These doors, or but is held in its place by the tubes valves, swing back freely in one direction. which come to it and go out from it. It They let the blood go from the upper to the lower chamber of each side very easily. But when that is done, they swing back to their places, and they are held there so strongly by cords attached to them, and to the walls of the lower chambers, that all the force with which the lower chambers of the heart contract, all the force with which the blood is pushed against the doors, avails not to push them open in the wrong direction. Nay, the pushing of the blood up against them

is made of flesh or muscle, not quite the same as that of our arms or legs, but still capable of contracting or squeezing itself together with very great force. If we want to say how much work any machine can do, we often speak of it as being able to lift so many tons a foot up from the ground. Now so strong are our hearts, that if all the work a heart does during twenty-four hours could be concentrated into one effort, a

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only shuts them tighter. How marvellous and then the under ones in their regular
here is the adaptation of means to the re- order. It was at one time thought that the
quired end! Again, the parts of the heart presence of the blood in the heart excited
which we may call the walls of the upper the walls and made them contract, so that
chambers (though they are movable, contract- when one of the chambers got filled with
ing, fleshy walls) are not nearly so strong blood, the walls were uneasy until they had
and thick as the walls of the lower chambers. squeezed together and pushed it out again.
That is because the walls of the upper But, although it is thought that some effect
chambers have comparatively little work to of that kind may help the heart in its con-
do. These chambers have only to receive traction, still it is known, and has been seen,
the blood as it comes into the heart, and the that the heart, even when all the blood is
walls, in contracting, have to push it gently out of it, continues to contract while any
through the valves or doors into the lower force is left in the nerve-masses that lie on
chambers. But the lower chambers have it. Here, then, we see the constant moving
much harder work to do. The lower cham-power of the heart provided for.
A very
ber on the right side has to send the blood remarkable thing about these nerves is, that
throughout the structure of the lungs, they are not directly connected with the
while that on the left side has to send the brain, or with the nerve-cords over which
blood into every part of the entire body. So our wills exercise control. These heart-
numerous are the vessels which its efforts nerves form part of a system which only
have to fill that no part of the body can be sympathizes with our brain, which our brain
wounded by even so much as a pin-prick only touches indirectly, but which controls
without injuring some tiny vessels. This not only the motion of our heart, but the
left lower chamber is said to perform three-motions of all the other parts of the body
fourths of the work of the heart, so that, if that move without being moved by our wills.
the whole heart could lift a hundred and
twenty tons, this portion, by its work of one
day alone, could raise ninety tons. Yet how
smoothly and quietly does this all go on!

What is it that makes the heart contract and beat? We know that our legs and arms move as we will that they should; but our will can neither stop the heart nor make it go on. Its movements are what are called involuntary; our wills have nothing to do with them. Is this not a wise provision for our comfort and well-being? We have seen how important the work of the heart is, and we can see further how well it is ordered that we should not have to think about it to set it going, nor that our mere forgetting to think about it could stop it. Our Creator has wisely ordained that all the work of our bodies which must be done in order that our life may go on should be taken out of our own management, so to speak, and should be ruled by means to which He Himself has given the power of government. The heart is a self-governing body. All over its surface there are found greyish-white cords called nerves, and connected with these are small masses of nervous matter. These nerves and nerve-masses act by themselves. How they act is still one of the mysteries of which there are so many in even things about which we think we know most. But it is certain that so long as these nervemasses have any life in them, they cause the heart to contract-the upper chambers first,

But although the constant movement of the heart is thus provided for, and is wisely taken out of our hands, we know very well that our thoughts do affect the movement of our hearts. Sometimes they beat rapidly, sometimes slowly, according to what we think about; and so direct is the influence of our feelings on the action of our hearts, that we speak as if our hearts really did the action. We heartily love or we heartily hate, our hearts are full of joy or overwhelmed with fear. Now, really, these feelings are in our minds, and they touch our brain first. But from the brain there go out nerves which pass down into the body, and run even to the organs which are not under the will's control. Two nerve-branches go from the brain to the heart-one of these acts upon the heart so as to make it beat more slowly; the other, when it is excited, makes the heart beat quickly. So that when a strong feeling excites the brain, the excitement runs like a message to the heart, and makes it beat either more siowly or more quickly according to the nerve by which it comes. Sometimes mere bodily feelings, such as cold or the pain of a blow, will set the nerve in action which makes the heart go slowly, and may even stop it altogether. But as a rule these nerves counterbalance each other, and enable the constant steady motion to be kept up. How marvellous is this arrangement!

A few only of the chief wonders of the

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