among the indispensable obligations of man; and, as they constitute a science quite distinct from medicine, they should form a part of public instruction in which every individual should be initiated, let his other studies be what they might.

"Would you to wisdom make pretence,
Proud to be thought a man of sense,
Let temperance (always friend to fame)
With steady hand direct your aim;

For they who slight health's golden rules,
In wisdom's volume stand for fools."

Every man should be so far acquainted with the structure of his own frame, as to judge of its order and disorder, and to correct any slight derangement without professional aid. The public do not discriminate between the cure of disease and the preservation of health. Most persons are so that the faculty in

ill-informed as to suppose general make health their study, when, in fact, the greater portion of them attend only to disease, in its actual manifestations, that being the source whence they derive their profits. The prevention of it, which would afford them no emolument, they do not consider as coming within their province. The mode of living most conducive to health, and an extended existence, is, therefore, a question for our own consideration.

All persons who will give themselves a little

trouble, may easily acquire as much knowledge of the human frame as will suffice to form an adequate judgment of the quality of food, in relation to their own bodies; and thus, by the aid of a little resolution, they might, with ease, obviate and resist many of those evils to which they are now defencelessly exposed, and avoid the necessity of calling in the doctor at every twinge of pain.

CONSEQUENCES

OF

CONTINUED IRREGULARITIES.

"For, prodigal of life, in one rash night

You lavished more than might support three days."

IMMEDIATE gratification is of paramount consideration in the mind of the weak and shortsighted sensualist who, though he knows that suffering on the morrow* is sure to succeed a night's excess, pays no heed to the admonitory prospect. No excuse can be made for such deliberate depravity. Brutality is too soft a word with which to characterise such utter subjection of the reason to the senses. Were not the ear of reason hopelessly deafened in such persons, I would appeal to them, whether they did not invariably find the pain greatly predominate over the pleasure? It may be laid down as an axiom

* 66 They do well who care for the morrow."

Maxim of Nicholas Clenard.

indisputably true, that every gratification which is followed by painful and uneasy feelings, is proportionately injurious; and to an indefinite series of such indulgences, the strongest constitution must in time give way.

Intemperance cannot be indulged in with impunity. The punishment may sometimes be delayed; but in general it follows close upon the offence: but, whether inflicted immediately or after some delay, the penalty is certain, and there are no cases of exemption. I cannot pretend to describe the treacherous arts by which the vice of intemperance betrays its victims into one excess after another, till it has accomplished their final ruin. Let it suffice to say, they are so insidious, that destruction is frequently complete even before danger has been apprehended.

There is but one course by which firm health, long life, and a death without pain, can be insured; and that is, an unvarying career of temperate living. "But how," it will by many be demanded, "can we be expected to sacrifice all friendly and convivial intercourse?" I answer, that, rationally interpreted, the sacrifice of those enjoyments is not required. It is only, indeed, when rationally practised, that such pleasures yield a real delight. There are no feasts to be

compared in real satisfaction with those at which temperance presides: they are never followed by regret.

The secret of that combination of animal and mental enjoyment, in which the proper happiness of man on earth consists, lies altogether (it cannot be too frequently repeated) in obeying, to the very letter, the unerring laws of nature. Obedience to them as infallibly insures pleasure, as a deviation from them inevitably causes pain. How many there are, however, who are perpetually sacrificing all considerations of personal wellbeing to the absurd customs * of society ! Some men proudly imagine, that, so long as there is a single point of excess beyond that which they have reached, they may safely calculate on all the immunities of health. This is a gross delusion. A course of sensual indulgences, however trivial individually, will, if systematically persevered in, prove destructive of health; surely though gradually and radically though imperceptibly, the constitution will be undermined, and the stealthy

* A countryman went to consult an oculist, and found him eating and drinking heartily. “What must I do for my eyes?" said the peasant. "You must abstain from wine;" replied the oculist. "But it seems to

me,” returned the peasant, walking up nearer to the doctor,

، that your

eyes are not much better than mine, and yet you drink freely." "True," replied the oculist; "that is because I am fonder of drinking than of being cured."