SCISSORS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 166, 19 February 1878, Page 3

SCISSORS.

An original plan of physicking is carried on by a native doctor in charge of one of the civil stations on the Irrawaddy. When called upon to attend a patient he begins to prescribe by giving a list of the medicines he has in his dispensary, and then asks the patient which he would prefer. A more courteous mode of doctoring could scarcely be imagined.

The Old Hundredth tune was known in England as early as 1561, when it appeared in the addition of Sternhold and Hopkins's Psalms of that year; and from this time forth it was included in every edition of that work. The name of the tune as the Old Hundreth is peculiar to England. In foreign psalters, especially in the French and Dutch, the tune is set to the 134 th Psalm. From the days of the Reformation to the end of the seventeenth century, it was commonly called in England the hundredth Psalm-tune; but upon the publication of Tate and Brady's new version, its present title came into use. It has been shown that most of the strains in the tune are taken from ancient hymn-tunes of the early church, and had been sung by Christian voices not only a thousand years before Luther was born, but for centuries before the Papal system was developed. "To the devout Christian," says Mr Havergal, " such a tune cannot be otherwise than deeply interesting. The thought of its having been sang, for many an age, ' m the great congregation,' must always add a hallowed pleasure to its use. The consideration, too, that Protestant martyrs and exiled confessors have listened to its strains or joined in them may well give an exalted and even an effecting energy to our modulation of them." The Old Hundredth tune has long ago reached the other side of the globe, and it is not the least interesting

fact of any that may be told respecting it, that it Was the first tune ever sung at divine service, conducted by a clergyman, in New Zealand. The fact is detailed in the Missionary visits of the Rev. S. Marsden to that country. When chaplain at Botany Bay, that eminently devoted man sailed to New Zealand as the pioneer of missionary exertions. His landing on the island, for the purpose of meeting some English residents and certain native chiefs at divine worship, is thus described by himself: "On the morning of Christmas Day, 1814, about ten o'clock, we prepared to go ashore, to publish for the first time the glad tidings of the Gospel. When we landed at Wangarva, we found Koro-Koro, Duaterra, and Shunghee dressed in regimentals, which the governor had given them, and ready, with their men drawn up, to be marched into the enclosure to attend divine service. The inhabitants of the town, with some women and children and a number of chiefs, formed a

circle round the whole. A very solemn silence prevailed. The sight was trulyimpressive. I rose up and began the service with singing the Old Hundredth Psalm, and felt my very soul melt within me when I viewed my congregation."— Leisure Hour,