person, whom man's law cannot reach, has done more to deserve the doom of a MURDERER than some who have hung in chains. We may well be horrorstruck when we read of the father of a family, in a sudden paroxysm of madness, seizing a knife and murdering his family; but have we not more reason to stand aghast at the conduct of the wretch who systematically feeds his depraved appetite at the expense of the health and lives of the little ones of whom God made him the guardian, but of whom strong drink has made him the destroyer?

It is a great pleasure to see "the cup that cheers but not inebriates" displacing "the star wormwood." But it were well too that the peculiar function of tea and coffee in the nourishment of our frame were borne in mind. In some slight degree they may contribute to the support of the body in general, but their peculiar office is to revive the nerves and brain. Taken in small quantities, their effect is most beneficial, especially to those whose nerves and brain are exposed to a severe strain. But taken in large quantities, and especially when taken as the principal part of the nourishment, they can only tend to stimulate the nervous system unduly, and ultimately, perhaps, undermine it. The practice cannot be recommended, said to be somewhat common among females who take little exercise, of living chiefly

Broken sleep and trembling

upon bread and tea. limbs are likely to result.

Of damp, exposure to excessive cold, and insufficient clothing as causes of disease, we have not left ourselves space to say anything. We must hasten to a close by calling attention to the great goodness of God in providing, on the most liberal scale, nearly all the principal elements that contribute to the preservation of health.

Three of these are air, water, and light. Of the influence of pure air and clean water we have already spoken. The influence of light has not yet been brought to the test of equally definite facts, but the principle is fully established, that the absence of light is a cause of disease, and the presence of light a means of cure. We once had occasion to visit a young person reduced to the last stage of feebleness, and apparently at the very brink of death. So weak was she that she could scarcely articulate a whisper, and she was incapable of the slightest motion. Termday came, and the family had to remove to another house. We laid it down as a thing undoubted that the fatigue and exposure would kill her. With fear and trembling we called, a few days after, to see if she were still alive. To our amazement, she herself met us at the door. She had begun to recover from the first hour of her occupying her new apartment.

No other explanation could be given, but that she had exchanged a very dark and dismal apartment for a light and cheerful one. God's own littlethought-of medicine had worked the cure.

While the luxuries of life are produced in but small quantities, and at far distant spots, the essentials of life are almost everywhere abundant. Abundant certainly in this country are air, water, and light. No one has to go far for any of them. But it would seem as if the indolence and folly of men had formed a league against them. If an army of jailors besieged certain houses, employing all their vigilance and energy to prevent the entrance of fresh air, and compel the inmates to breathe over and over again the impure stuff that had already done its work, they could hardly be more efficient than the ignorance and prejudices of the inmates often are now. If fresh water were as costly as champagne, and if a tax were imposed each time it were used to cleanse the person, the house, or the clothing, its use could hardly be more rare than it is in some families now. If pure light were compounded of precious stones instead of the seven colours of the rainbow, it could hardly be more a stranger in certain chambers than it is now. This ignorant and thoughtless rejection of some of the best physical gifts of heaven, is not merely a blunder against the interests of man,

it is a crime against God. No man who cherishes an enlightened gratitude to the Giver of all good can fail to be impressed with the sinfulness of tossing aside, as utterly valueless, gifts which He designs for purposes most beneficial. The supreme respect which is due to God, as well as the regard which is due to the welfare of man, alike call for penitence for the past, and amendment for the future.

It is common, among a certain class of writers, to represent physical law as all-in-all in the matter of health, and to represent any direct recognition of God in it as mere superstition and folly. Cholera, for example, it is often said, is no dispensation of Divine Providence; it is a dispensation of human filth and negligence and disorder. Observe the laws of nature, and such a visitation will never come. This way of putting the case is all the more dangerous that it contains a half-truth. It is true that in former times, men disregarded the laws of nature, and suffered for this, and that the duty of respecting these laws is one of the great lessons which the advanced science of the present day is teaching us. But it is not less true, that in the visitations of epidemic disease, there is an exercise of God's sovereignty. The time when such scourges are sent the selection of many of the places to which they come-the manner in which individuals are brought into con

tact with them-the physical laws which regulate such points as these are often so much out of sight, and so completely beyond our control, that practically the diseases appear to come to us simply at the bidding of God's sovereign will. In these respects, at all events, we are bound to honour that will, and entreat God of his mercy to spare us. Our Lord, in repelling the temptation to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, taught us that to set at defiance the great laws of nature is just to tempt the Lord our God. To set at defiance the natural laws of health, and pray God to make us strong, is to do that very thing which He deprecated so earnestly. To observe the laws of health, as far as our circumstances and regard to even higher duties permit, and at the same time avow our dependence for life and health on the will and pleasure of our Maker, and humbly implore Him to guard us and ours from the arrow that flieth by day, and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and from the destruction that wasteth at noon-day, is to combine the two great means of preserving health, and that in the very spirit of our Lord and Master.