| 1064 since it is represented to be quite simple, requiring only a tub, some few chemical substances, and an immersion from ten to twelve days
The inventor calls it the petrifactive process-but the articles he has prepared in the new way, have not the weight of stone, although they are heavier than wood.-Medical Journal.
(->) Truly man was created upright, but his posterity has sought many inventions; neither of which tends to eternal lives! O foolish man! O vain world! why not seek for perpetual existence and become as Gods?
TIMES AND SEASONS,
CITY OF NAUVOO,
DEC. 15, 1845.
PUBLIC OPINION.
Never since we can recollect, was public opinion so fluctuating as at the present time. Sensation, wild, and frantic, the passions of men seem to be bloated with ever breeze that skims over the surface of the "great deep" of religious, political, civil and uncivil freedom; and in the midst of all this wind, we occasionally witness a flash of lightning, and hear the sound of distant thunder, which indicate the approach of a storm. The minds and feelings of neighborhoods are uneasy; the honor and virtue of States, are in jeopardy; and the confidence and glory of the Republic droops at the awful signs of the times.
Nor is America the only quarter of the globe that is agitated, or that manifests symptoms of the "great day"-the dissolution of things spiritual and temporal. The other three quarters of what is termed the old world, like a moth eaten garment, appears on the eve of falling to pieces.
The weather is cold and bracing to health, and every thing moves with its accustomed precision and prophetic appearance, that the Lord blesses the saints in Nauvoo. We feel grateful to our Father in heaven for his kindness and mercy continued to us, from day to day, and sincerely hope and pray that he will still favor his people; beseeching them to pray for the prosperity of Zion: and that her ministers may be clothed with salvation, and preserved to do good and carry the gospel to all Israel. Brethren be wise.
THE TIMES.
It is an old saying, that the times change, and we change with them, but whether this is exactly the case, in point of fact, men of reflection can judge. The promise made to Noah: "while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease," continues with all its variety, grace, glory, wonders, and seed-seeding seed. But man, from one family has multiplied to millions: one language or tongue, has branched out into thousands of significant, insignificant, and melodious modes of conveying ideas to the understanding, and patriarchal, fatherly, or family government, has swelled from simplicity for ordinary purposes and conveniences, to states, kingdoms, empires, and despotisms, for conquest, for slaughter, for safety, for wealth, for greatness, or grandeur, for ambition, that the voice of the people might supercede [supersede] the voice of God. The early simplicity of living, of thoughts, of government, and etiquette, have grown into luxury, cunning cruelty, and impropriety. We view these innovations upon the comfort, society, & friendship of man, as inventions that have degraded him from the "image" of God to (almost) passions and likeness of a beast. There is now extant a very erroneous idea of the knowledge of the first families of the earth, from Adam to Abraham. They possessed intelligence derived from God himself:-and they lived to the age of nearly one thousand years, in good health and vigor.-There were men of renown and giants in those days. Now we see dwarfs, mean men, consumption, short lived hypocrites and learned speculators upon all the vicissitudes, calamities and phenomena of nature, without the power to change one hair white or black. Surely we live in peculiar times, which if time permits, we shall speak further upon hereafter.
HEATHEN TEMPLE.
We present the following as a specimen of Heathen wisdom and art, somewhat ahead of christian improvement and light on the score of a place of worship.
"HEATHEN TEMPLE.-The Rev. Eugene Kincaid, for many years a missionary in the Burman Empire, has recently returned to this country, and is now lecturing on the condition of the heathen, to crowded auditoriums. In one of his recent discourses, he described a heathen temple, which we have never seen paralleled. It stands in the city of Arva, or the golden city, which, for six hundred years, has been the capitol of the Burmese Empire. The foundations of this temple are of solid masonry, composed of bricks of the best materials. It is two thousand feet square, the walls being eight feet thick and seventy feet high. On the top of the walls rest two rows of massive pillars. At each corner of the walls rises a beautiful spire.
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