OBSERVATIONS ON PROGNOSTICATIONS OF THE WEATHER: To the Editor of the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine. Canonbury Square, London, DEAR SIR,-I have formerly sent you some papers on curious facts in agriculture; particularly on the strange power that seeds have of multiplying themselves by means of slips. I believe these facts and experiments were not lost either on the heads or hearts of many of your readers. I wish to change the subject a little, and speak of the WEATHER, and of the best means of prognosticating its variations; a subject of the highest consequence to every agriculturist, and especially to every poor farmer. Suppose I be asked, as one of old, Chrema, tantúmne ab re tuâ est otii tibi, Aliena ut cures, ea quæ nihil àd te attinent? "ADAM, have you nothing to do in your own affairs, that you meddle with those of others that do not concern you?"-to this I feel disposed to give the same answer that was formerly given to the question quoted above: Homo sum: humani nihil à me alienum puto. T'ER. Heaut. " "Sir, I am a MAN: and whatever concerns HUMAN BEINGS, interests me. And I may add, that I do not remember the time in which I was unconcerned about the changes of the weather. From my earliest childhood I was bred up on a little farm, which I was taught to care for, and cultivate, ever since I was able to spring the rattle, use the whip, manage the sickle, or handle the spade; and as I found that much of our success depended on a proper knowledge and management of the weather, I was led to study it ever since I was eight years of age. I believe Meteorology is a natural science, and one of the first that is studied; and that every child in the country makes, untaught, some progress in it at least so it was with me. I had actually learned, by silent observation, to form good conjectures concerning the coming weather, and, on this head, to teach wisdom among them that were perfect, especially among such as had not been obliged But you may ask, what has this to do with the subject on which you have set out?-Very much; it shows at least that I pretend to be qualified to judge concerning the matters which I recommend.-I wish to help your more simple readers to a few good general rules, by which they may be able to tell, pretty nearly, the probable changes of the weather, so as to be the better able to conduct their work in the field. About twenty years ago a Table, purporting to be the work of the late DR. HERSCHEL, was variously published, professing to form prognostics of the weather, by the times of the change, full, and quarters of the moon. I have carefully consulted this Table for several years, and was amazed at its general accuracy:-for though long, as you have seen, engaged in the study of the weather, I never thought that any rules could be devised liable to so few exceptions. When, on those maxims, I have been able to give to my neighbours and friends, directions relative to their field-operations, even in fickle and dangerous times, I have often been led to glorify GOD for the discovery of the principle on which this Table is constructed; and frequently said, "If DR. HER SCHEL had lived for no other purpose than this, posterity would have reson to bless his memory." But how was I surprised, when, some time ago, I was informed that his son had come forward and disclaimed the Table as any work of his late father; and as being unworthy of him! Well: great most certainly was DR. HERSCHEL, and honourable to himself, and his adopted country, were the discoveries which he made; and had the above principle and its application been among them, he would, in my sight, have had yet greater honour. However the thing may be, the Table, judiciously observed, may be of great public benefit. I have made a little alteration in the arrangement, given it a significant name, illustrated it with further observations, and have sent it that you may insert it in the Magazine, as it has hitherto been confined generally to a few Almanacks. TABULA EUDICHEIMONICA, OR THE FAIR AND FOUL WEATHER PROGNOSTICATOR: BEING A Table for foretelling the Weather through all the Lunations of each Year for ever. THIS Table, and the accompanying Remarks, are the result of many years' actual observation; the whole being constructed on a due consideration of the attraction of the Sun and Moon in their several positions respecting the earth; and will, by simple inspection, show the observer what kind of weather will most probably follow the entrance of the Moon into any of her Quarters, and that so near the truth as to be seldom or never found to fail. OBSERVATIONS. 1. The nearer the time of the Moon's Change, First Quarter, Full, and Last Quarter, are to MIDNIGHT, the fairer will the weather be during the seven days following. 2. The space for this calculation occupies from ten at night till two next morning. 3. The nearer to MIDDAY, or NOON, these phases of the Moon happen, the more foul or wet the weather may be expected during the next seven days. 4. The space for this calculation occupies from ten in the forenoon to two in the afternoon. These observations refer principally to Summer, though they affect Spring and Autumn nearly in the same ratio. 5. The Moon's Change,-First Quarter,-Full,-and Last Quarter, happening during six of the afternoon hours, i. e. from four to ten, may be followed by fair weather but this is mostly dependant on the WIND, as it is noted in the Table. : 6. Though the weather, from a variety of irregular causes, is more uncertain in the latter part of Autumn, the whole of Winter, and the beginning of Spring; yet, in the main, the above observations will apply to those periods also. 7. To prognosticate correctly, especially in those cases where the wind is concerned, the Observer should be within sight of a good vane, where the four cardinal points of the heavens are correctly placed. With this precaution he will scarcely ever be deceived in depending on the Table. 8. It need scarcely be added, that to know the exact time of the Moon's Changes, Quarters, &c., a correct Almanack, such as the Nautical,-WHITE'S Ephemeris,— or the one called Temporis Calendarium, [compiled by MR. W. Rogerson, and published by MR. KERSHAW, 14, City-Road,]-must be procured. With this Table, and a good Barometer, to what a certainty may we arrive in prognostications concerning the weather! By these the prudent man, foreseeing the evil, will hide himself, and will feel the weight of the proverb, Make hay while the sun shines. By not paying attention to the signs and the seasons, many have suffered, and charged GoD foolishly, because he did not change the laws of nature to accommodate their indolence and caprice. It is said, that the late DR. DARWIN, having made an appointment to take a country jaunt with some friends on the ensuing day, but perceiving that the weather would be unfavourable, sent, as an excuse for not keeping his promise, a poetical epistle containing an enumeration of most of the signs of approaching ill-weather. I have enlarged these by adding several new ones, and re-modelling others; and subjoin it as very useful, and a thing easy to be remembered. Signs of approaching FoUL WEATHER. The hollow winds begin to blow; The clouds look black, the glass is low; The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep; And spiders from their cobwebs peep. Last night the sun went pale to bed; The moon in halos hid her head. The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, For, see, a rainbow spans the sky. The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Clos'd is the pink-ey'd pimpernell. Hark! how the chairs and tables crack, Old BETTY's joints are on the rack: Her corns with shooting pains torment her, And to her bed untimely sent her. Loud quack the ducks, the sea-fowl cry, Illum'd the dewy hili last night. Then wades through clouds to mount the "Twill surely rain, we see't with sorrow, No working in the fields to-morrow, Hoping that this Paper will be of soine use to your country readers, I am, dear Sir, yours, truly, ADAM CLARKE. REVIEW. Sacred Dissertations, on what is commonly called the Apostles' Creed. By HERMAN WITSIUS, D.D., Professor of Divinity in the Universities of Franeker, Utrecht, and Leyden. Translated from the Latin, and followed with Notes, Critical and Explanatory, by DONALD FRASER, Minister of the Gospel, Kennoway. 8vo. 2 vols. pp. 1194. £1. 2s. Glasgow. 1823. THE antiquity of that Compendium of Christian Doctrine, on which these Dissertations are written, and the veneration in which it has been held in the Church of CHRIST, are circumstances which deservedly entitle it to be publicly pronounced from time to time in our assemblies, as containing the great outline of the faith we profess, and to be committed to the memory of our children, for the perpetuation of that faith from age to age. Important explanations of this Creed have been written at different periods;-not because in itself it is deficient in clearness or simplicity;-but for the purpose of exhibiting its accordance with the Scriptures, and of carrying out the mind of the adult and inquiring Christian into the lengths and breadths of its doctrines, and into the relation of those facts which it so admirably embodies to our faith, practice, and hope. Our own country and language have produced some of these expositions, excelled by none in learning, power, and usefulness and yet, so various are the methods in which minds replete with theological knowledge, and possess ing different talents of illustration, pour out their treasures on subjects closely connected with the best interests of men, that all standard works of this kind may be read with edification; and their interest will continue as long as the truths which they explain and defend retain their hold on the human heart.-Were the work before us less excellent than it is, we should by no means regard its translation as intrusive or unnecessary. Much inapplicable and unbecoming censure has been bestowed upon Christian Churches for the use of Creeds and Confessions of Faith. It is a specious observation, that a profession of faith in the Scriptures is sufficient to entitle any person to initiation into the Church by baptism, and to continued communion with it. Against the loose and crude suggestions of modern times we may, however, set the wisdom and discipline of the primitive Churches, who required, in order to the baptism of adult persons, a profession of faith in "the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST." That profession was conveyed in few words, it is true; but those words were so used as to import the character and offices of each Divine Person, as understood among the faithful, (among whom great dif ference of opinion on fundamental points had not then erept in,) and as they had been explained to the candidates in their catechetical preparation. Christians were, in those first and purest times, required to be distinguished by their faith as well as by their practice; and the sense in which they took the words of Scripture was demanded of them, as well as a profession of their belief in the authority of its letter. As errors, grounding themselves on perverse expositions of Holy Writ, were multiplied, the true Church of CHRIST enlarged the clauses of its ancient Creeds, by a declaration of the scripture-doctrine on the controverted points; and new tests were added for the detection and the exclusion of heresies, especially on those articles to which the subtlety of unhumbled minds, and the bewildering habit of philosophising, drawn from the heathen schools, most readily directed themselves. Of this kind were the mode of the divine existence, the persons of the holy TRINITY, and the union of natures in the SoN. The Creed called "the Apostles'," was a brief expansion of the first still more compendious confession of 3 faith. The Nicene, probably as old as the Apostles' Creed, in its present form, is a noble declaration of the faith of the primitive Church on the Godhead and Divine Sonship of CHRIST, and the Divinity and Personality of the HOLY GHOST, as well as on other less controverted doctrines. And the Athanasian Creed, though not composed by that distinguished champion of the true and primitive faith respecting the Trinity in Unity, whose name it bears, was another of those compendious means of embodying the import of Scripture, on these vital subjects, by which the evasions and equivocations of men of corrupt minds were detected, and guarded against. We owe it, under Gon, to these declarations of the faith of the early Churches, that a sense of the importance of these grand truths of our religion has been maintained against latitudinarianism in matters of doctrine; they have been the rallying points for the confessors of "the mystery of GoD;" they have kept human reason in its proper subjection to the authority of the Divine Oracles; they have rendered professions of faith more honest and explicit; they have brought heresy out of its subterfuges; and, by obliging it to contend openly, they have deprived it of half its danger. The first object of Creeds, was to distinguish the Church from the World, from Jews and Pagans. In this view, the earliest formularies of this kind contained simply the leading doctrines and facts of the Christian Religion; and it was only necessary that they should be gene. rally and briefly expressed, the difference lying not in the exposition, but in the credenda, the things to be believed themselves. The second object was to distinguish between persons professing the christian faith; between those who retained the apostolic doctrine, and those who, through unauthorized speculations, had departed from it, and fallen into different errors on important points. Creeds of this kind, therefore, contained the fundamental truths, with brief expositions, declaratory of the sense in which they were to be understood, in order to the full reception of the doctrine of Scripture + respecting them. The Apostles' Creed is of the first class; the Nicene and Athanasian, of the second ;the Nicene, especially, having the most solemn sanction of the congregated Churches of CHRIST. Other Creeds and Confessions have been, at later periods, adopted by different Churches, orthodox in fundamentals, but differing greatly on some ques tions of comparatively lighter moment. These were so extended, in consequence, as to embrace not only the principal doctrines of the faith, but the peculiar views of the Churches which agreed upon them, on those subjects of controversy by which the age was distinguished.-All these are unquestionably tests, and were designed as such, and all were necessary;-the first class, to secure the renunciation of Judaism and Paganism; the second class, to exclude those from the Church who had made shipwreck of the faith; the third class, to promote peace, by obliging Christians differing considerably in non-essentials to form them. selves into distinct religious societies. The only evils which could arise, through human infirmity, respect the second and third classes. Creeds of the second class ought to contain only fundamentals; or they ought not to be so enforced, that communion with the Church should be denied on account of the smaller shades of opinion on the points of mere exposition, when the truth is substantially held. Those of the third class may lawfully guard the fellowship of particular Churches, especially as to their Ministry, against persons holding different opinions on non-fuudamentals; but this ought never to be considered as an exclusion from the general community of the faithful, from the church universal. Such offences against charity have taken place, but they are not necessarily connected with the establishment of these tests themselves. Order, fidelity, and charity, are all compatible; and where an error is fundamental, it is charity to the erring party not to sanction his mistakes and unbelief. The Church of GoD is the depository of The Truth; and to that trust she is required to be inflexibly faithful.. |