did not flow, when he used his lancet on Mr. U. "Reason enough," said he ; "his veins were all ossified!"

Now, I have no doubt he was ossified at every point where arteries and other vessels ever do ossify; but it is rather difficult for me to believe that the veins of the arm were ossified. However, I believed it then, and the statement may have been true! But if so, what a loud call on us to betake ourselves to plain living, active and industrious habits, and the cultivation of all the Christian graces and affections!

So common, and troublesome, and fatal are these diseases of the heart, that it should be made the duty of every parent and teacher to give full and free instruction on this subject at the earliest possible period. Or, rather, children should be formed to correct habits before they are old enough to have any physiological knowledge of their own. But as this training has been omitted with most of us, either for want of knowledge ourselves, or for want of conscience, it only remains to us, of the present generation, to reform and correct what has thus far been either wholly neglected or performed

amiss.

A teacher, whom I knew, was accustomed to give, on the blackboard, a profile view of the body in two positions. One of these was the healthy sitting position; the other the dangerous one. When he found his pupils sitting in a bad position, he would direct their attention to the drawing.

An ingenious parent or teacher might be ever and anon devising methods for meeting and obviating this tendency in the young to sit in a crouching position. The great thing, I grant, is to remove the temptation as far as possible. In a world like this, however, it cannot, I fear, be removed entirely. One who has but the slightest knowledge of the human frame may use the device already alluded to. We may have

blackboards in the family as well as in the school. And few parents can justly complain of want of time to perform such indispensable little offices for their children as these.

It is greatly useful, in many instances, to draw on the blackboard, both in family and school, an outline like that at page 106. It requires no special training; you need not, therefore, hesitate. The diagram may be sketched in a moment, as it were, and yet it is one of great importance, and may be made a source of much instruction. The situation of the heart, of the lungs, of the stomach, and the liver, might be thus shown at a single glance, and a brief account given of their various movements. Children are forgetful. I know; but there is not one child in a hundred so stupid as not to be interested in these subjects, for the time. And when they forget, the instruction must be repeated and reiterated. The old rule is "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little."

With the aid of such a mere outline, any child may be shown, in five minutes, why and how he endangers his heart, his lungs, his stomach, or his liver, by sitting in a position which compresses the organ. A further illustration of the manner in which injury is done to the heart may be given with the aid of the diagram seen at page 117.

The great arch or curve of the aorta, with its upward branches, may be shown, and the natural and certain consequences may be pointed out, of compressing the aorta and thus compelling the struggling heart to force the blood through a passage rendered too narrow. And if the parent or teacher feels himself competent to the task, he may go still further, and teach his child or pupil something of the delicate internal construction of the heart itself, and show him how it may be injured by being crowded out of its place or

compelled to a constant struggle by the pressure of a constrained and unnatural posture.

It should be distinctly understood by all, that it is not by compressing the heart, for a moment, during a natural and necessary bend of the body, either in exercise or amusement, that mischief is done, but by a constraint or force which is long continued. And so of the compression of any other internal organ or part.

But this reminds me of a frequent parental error. It is that of confining young children of both sexes, but particularly boys, for ten, twelve, or fourteen hours a day, in a position which must inevitably injure their hearts, as well as their lungs, stomachs, &c.

This error is more common in the old world than in the new, but is becoming quite too common even among us. A father in Massachusetts, who has a son ten years old, I believe an only son, confines him, from morning to evening, at pegging the heels of boots; and consoles himself with the thought that he gives him his evenings! Yet his evenings are worth very little, after such a day of toil. I have seen him sit, at evening, as stupid almost as the mere machine or automaton, preferring the chimney corner to the bat and ball, the skating, or the coasting; and finally, "tired nature overcome, sink. ing into rest, only to rise next morning and renew the same mill-horse round of toil.

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The father had an apology, as well as a consolation. This was his poverty. Alas for the causes of his poverty! logians, statesmen, and politicians should see to this. will not digress. Did he not know that, by sowing the seeds of heart or pulmonary disease, he might be preparing the way for years of future suffering? Perhaps not. Thrice blessed then the day that, by its flood of light, shall compel parents

to think of such things! The deed of destruction may be done, even then; but it will be a deed which should consign to infamy eternal even a demon himself. A father might defraud himself, and be comparatively guiltless; but there is no name for a crime so black as that of robbing a son of half a life for the sake of indulgence in mere luxuries!

Shoe and boot makers, and perhaps tailors are more liable to heart diseases than any other class of mechanics or manufacturers with which I am acquainted. I have sometimes, when travelling as a lecturer, found from fifty to a hundred of them, in a single boot and shoe making village. I have prescribed for dozens, if not scores of them, in a day.

Of those who die of heart complaints outright, a large proportion are from those persons in society who are subjected not only to a bad position of body, but to much wear and tear of mind, much depressed feeling, and much deep anguish of the soul.

Fewer persons die of these complaints in plain than in high life, fewer in agricultural districts than among manufacturers, and fewer in town than in city. There are fewer, also, in despotic governments than in those which give the people more freedom of action. This, however, need not be an objection to freedom, in itself considered; but only to freedom without intelligence.

I must say, once more, in closing, that no one thing promises so much for heart complaints as the religion of Christ. This not only binds up the broken-hearted morally, but physically. It is more than any other medicine, I may say, more than all. Yet even this cannot wholly cure. It will only prevent, and soothe, and allay. In the most glorious days of earth, when obedience, in the race, is universal, heart diseases will be unknown.

LECTURE V.

THE LAWS OF THE SKIN, AND OF BATHING.

GENERAL REMARKS.

MANY persons regard the skin as a mere wrapper or covering. They have very little idea-perhaps the thought never entered their heads that it is a highly important organ, fearfully and wonderfully made, like the rest of the organism it covers, and that it has highly important functions or offices to perform. A few among us have, indeed, risen a little higher, and have imbibed some general ideas of its usefulness; though their notions are very inadequate and unworthy. They may suppose it to be a sort of sieve or strainer, through which the fluid of perspiration oozes, as water out of a sponge, when pressed. Hence the common idea of pores in the skin, and of these being shut or opened. Hence, too, the common but erroneous idea that, in order to cure a cold, we must force open the pores.

Now, the skin is certainly a wrapper, a strainer, too, if you choose to regard it as such,—but it is much more. It is a depurating or purifying apparatus. The lungs are, indeed, the more special depurating organs; but both the skin and kidneys greatly aid the lungs in their work of depuration. Whatever the lungs do, in other words, the skin aids in doing. We may, therefore, be said to respire or breathe all over. But this will be better understood presently.

The skin, both as an aid to the lungs and as an independent organ, may be regarded as having the same relation to