592 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 243. 



grow from grace to grace, and his status in the 

 spirit world would be higher than in the first life, 

 and vice versa ; an evil man* would be more com- 

 pletely evil, and would rank in a darker and more 

 bestial form. They who hear not the good tidings 

 will not be persuaded though one rose from the 

 dead; and those with whom the experience of 

 one life failed would not repent in the second. 



The testimony of the Shunamite's son, Lazarus, 

 and of those who rose from the dead at the cruci- 

 fixion, is not recorded ; but they who have escaped 

 from the jaws of death, by recovery from sickness 

 or preservation from danger, may in a certain 

 sense be said to live life over again. After the 

 fright is over the warning in most cases loses its 

 influence, and we have a verification of the two 

 proverbs, " Out of sight out of mind," and — 

 " The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be ; 

 The devil was well, the devil a monk would he." 



In a word, this experiment of a second life would 

 best succeed with him whose habits are formed for 

 good, and whose life is already overshadowed by 

 the divine life. Even of such an one it might be 

 said, " Man is frail, the battle is sore, and the flesh 

 is weak ; even a good man may fall and become a 

 castaway." The most unceasing circumspection is 

 ever requisite. The most polished steel rusts in 

 this corrosive atmosphere, and purest metals get 

 discoloured. 



Finally, it is very probable that God gives 

 every man a complete probation ; that is to say, 

 He cuts not man's thread of life till he be at the 

 same side of the line he should be were he to live 

 myriads of years. Every man is made up of a 

 mixture of good and evil : these two principles 

 never become soluble together, but ever tend 

 each to eliminate the other. They hurry on in 

 circles, alternately intersecting and gaining the 

 ascendancy, till one is at last precipitated to the 

 bottom, and pure good or evil remains. In the 

 nature of things there are critical moments and 

 tides of circumstances which become ^turning- 

 points when time merges into eternity and muta- 

 bility into permanence : and such a crisis may 

 occur in the course of a short life as well as in 

 many lives lived over again. Eirionnach. 



Life and Death (Vol. ix., p. 481.). — The follow- 

 ing is on a monument at Lowestoft, co. Suffolk, to 

 the memory of John, son of John and Anne Wilde, 

 who died February 9, 1714, aged five years and 

 six months : 



" Quem Dii amant moritur Juvenis." 



Sigma. 



The following may be added to the parallel pas- 

 sages collected by Eirionnach. Chateaubriand 



* See a recent novel by Frederick Souillet, entitled 

 Si Jeuiiesse savait, Si Vieillesse pouvait. 



says, in his Memoirs, that the greatest misfortune 

 which can happen to a man is to be born, and the 

 next greatest is to have a child. As Chateaubriand 

 had no children, the most natural comment on the 

 last branch of his remark is " sour grapes." 



Uneda. 

 Philadelphia. 



INSCRIPTIONS ON BELLS. 



(Vol. ix., p. 109.) 



St. Nicholas Church, Sidmouth. — Having, on 

 October 21, 1850, taken intaglios in pressing-wax 

 of the inscription forwarded by Mr. Gordon, from 

 which plaster casts were made, the writer is able 

 to speak of it with some degree of confidence. 

 The inscription, however, is not peculiar to Sid- 

 mouth : it is found at other places in the county 

 of Devon, and perhaps elsewhere. In Harvey's 

 Sidmouth Directory for March, 1851, there is an 

 article descriptive of all the six bells at this place, 

 in which there is a fac-simile, engraved on wood, of 

 the inscription in question. The words run all 

 round the bell ; and each word is placed on a car- 

 touche. The Rev. Dr. Oliver of Exeter, in his 

 communication to the writer on this subject, calls 

 the bell the "Jesus Bell." The Directory ob- 

 serves : 



" It was formerly the practice to christen bells with 

 ceremonies similar to, but even more solemn than, 

 those attending the naming of children ; and they were 

 frequently dedicated to Christ (as this is), to the Virgin, 

 or some saint." 



Dr. Oliver to the writer says : 



" I have met with it at Whitstone, near this city 

 [Exeter], at East Teignmouth, &c. ; michi for mihi ; 

 the, the abbreviation for Jesus. Very often the word 

 veneratum occurs instead of amatum, and illud instead 

 of istud." 



The the stands thus : ihc. The Directory, on this 

 abbreviated word, remarks, — 



" The ihs, as an abbreviation for Jesus, is a blunder. 

 Casley, in his Catalogue of the King's MSS., observes, 

 p. 23., that ' in Latin MSS. the Greek letters of the 

 word Christus, as also Jesus, are always retained, 

 except that the terminations are changed according to 

 the Latin language. Jesus is written ihs, or in small 

 characters ihs, which is the Greek ihs or irjs, an abbre- 

 viation for irjo-ous. However, the scribes knew nothing 

 of this for a thousand years before the invention of 

 printing, for if they had they would not have written 

 ihs for it](Tovs ; but they ignorantly copied after one 

 another such letters as they found put for these words. 

 Nay, at length they pretended to find Jesus Hominum 

 Salvator comprehended in the word ihs, which is an- 

 other proof that they took the middle letter for h, not 

 7], The dash also over the word, which is a sign of 

 abbreviation, some have changed to the sign of the 

 cross ' [Hone's Mysteries, p. 282.]. The old way of 



