National Repository Volume 1-2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ...The rule that fires and candlesshould be extinguished at an early hour, was no more arbitrary than the same rule aboard ship, when we consider the condition of society as it then was. The houses were chiefly built of wood, and were far more combustible than they are now; the accidental outbreak of a fire often ended in the destruction of half a city and the loss of many lives. There were no engines to put out the fire--no water supply to be at once obtained--no fire escapes to rescue endangered lives--no fire offices to make good the losses. The curfew was simply a useful police regulation, and if it was sometimes barbarously enforced, it was merely characteristic of the barbarity of the times. No doubt Norman William was rapacious, tyrannical, and arbitrary, but no censure can attach to him on account of the curfew. The custom was, in all probability, practiced before his time, and it was certainly continued for six hundred years afterward. Even now, in many places, the ringing of a bell is still continued at the appointed hour, when "The curlew tolls the knell of parting dar." The custom of ringing the public bell at nine o'clock every night long survived in New England villages, as well as elsewhere; but on the introduction of town-clocks, and the general use of timekeepers, the necessity for this practice no longer continued, and it has gradually ceased. LITEKATUEE. To the Christian scholar no more pleasant or profitable occupation can be thought of than the quiet contemplation of the life and character of some one of those great men of God to whom the Holy Scriptures introduce us. The method almost exclusively pursued, till within a comparatively recent period, of making these as unreal as possible, and surrounding them with a mist and glamou...