Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

ber, would be found busy in collecting the material to be expended during the summer months, in clothing the tree, shrub, plant, grass, and flower, with their beautiful adorning of green. We should find Nature's artists at work, gathering the delicate hues and the soft shades of coloring with which to paint the flowers of spring and summer, giving to them touches of beauty which man in vain strives to imitate.

Action is always healthful. Says Cowper:

"By ceaseless action, all that is, subsists.
Constant rotation of the unwearied wheel
That Nature rides upon, maintains her health,

Her beauty, her fertility. She dreads

An instant's pause, and lives but while she moves."

In the culture of the child, one of the first lessons he should be taught is, that his body is given to him by his Creator as a casket in which to keep that priceless jewel, his immortal mind. While in it is that mind to be developed and polished and made fit to sparkle in his Master's crown in Heaven. He should be taught, that if he neglects the proper care of the casket, the jewel is in danger of becoming tarnished and irreparably injured.

The connection of the body and mind is so intimate that the latter must suffer with the former. The saying of the ancients, mens sana in corpore sano, is not an emptŷ· · plrrase, but is fraught with meaning that should cause us to pause and ponder well our goings. Has not our Creator placed within our reach a knowledge of those laws which, if observed, will secure to each of us a sound mind in a sound body?

What, then, is one of the chief means by which this result may be secured? It is exercise, daily, regular and moderate. The necessity of this is imperative.

"The law by which all creatures else are bound,
Binds man, the lord of all. Himself derives
No mean advantage from a kindred cause;
From strenuous toil his hours of sweetest ease."

A second and equally imperative means, is the forma

tion of correct habits. These have very much to do with the health of our bodies. It is a lamentable fact that the American people have greatly deteriorated in physical vigor, during the last half century. On every side of us we see evidence of the alarming physical degeneracy to which our people are hastening. And next to a growing distaste for business that requires work, nothing is doing more to produce this state, than the many injurious hab its that have crept in upon us as a nation. If we were rightly trained from infancy, sickness and effeminacy would be rare. Our youth must be early taught to feel that the use of tobacco, intoxicating liquors, or confectionery, is shortening their lives; that even the irregular or immoderate use of wholesome food is injurious, and that health is ever prior to fashion. Then would the temptations to disregard the laws that govern the healthy development of the body, have little influence upon them. There is little temptation to any of us to take a knife and cut his throat because some one else has done this foolish thing. Why should it be any more a temptation to indulge in these habits because others do, did we know and feel that the day of reckoning will surely come for every infringement of the laws of health, and that the longer it is delayed the more fearful it may be?

Intemperance consists not merely in indulgence in the use of the cup that intoxicates. Noah Webster defines it to be," in a general sense, want of moderation or due restraint; excess in any kind of action or indulgence; any exertion of body or mind, or any indulgence of appetites or passions, which is injurious to the person or contrary to morality; as, intemperance in study or in labor, in eating or drinking, or in any other gratification." If this definition is correct, the two means of promoting physical culture, which have been set forth in this article, namely, exercise and correct habits, may be appropriately and forci bly expressed by one word, Temperance.

L.

STUDY PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

No one of the physical sciences has greater claims upon our attention, or can have a more beneficial influence upon practical life.

Physical Geography contemplates the "life of the globe" and regards its structure as designedly adapted to the wants of human society, and the various changes which are constantly going on in and around it, as means conducive to human convenience and welfare. This science charms us with its wonders, and delights us with the utility of all its revealed facts. We may contemplate the light and heat of the sun not only as forces to guide the planets in their orbits and light comets in their flight, but may recognize in the coal fire or burning gas, the identical light and heat which came from the sun centuries ago, and have been stored with watchful care, in the bowels of the earth, for the use of man. Physical Geography teaches us that the most common things with which we are familiar, are the important agents in the physical economy of our planet. Take for instance, a glass of cold water from the gushing spring; we may recognize in it a few drops of the very same which watered the garden of Eden when our first parents were there. Escaping from thence through the veins of the earth, into the rill that feeds the rivulet and river, they were borne off to the sea; passing along in its channels of circulation, they were conveyed far away by its currents, and ere long, rise to the surface to feed the winds with vapors, and supply the hill side and the valley with dew and rain. All these little vesicles have taken up heat from the Southern clime, where it would have become excessive, and, like invisible couriers of the air, have borne it through the upper sky to regions more frigid. The mountains have drawn this latent heat from the vapory cloud; it becomes condensed into rain which falls in tiny drops to the earth.

Now what have these rain drops accomplished? They

brought heat from the sea in the Southern hemis

phere, to be set free in a more rigorous climate, that the air may be tempered to the tender blade of grass and the "shorn lamb ;" they minister to the growing vegetable, and provide meat and drink for man and beast. Now they eat away our mountains and fill up the valleys, and then, loading themselves with the lime and salts of various minerals, they go bounding back to the sea, and on their way, turn mills, drive machinery, and transport merchandise, in the service and for the convenience of man.

In the ocean, they join the currents to be conveyed to their appropriate place, bearing food to the inhabitants of the deep, and materials to be elaborated into pearls, corals, and islands, in the workshops of the sea.

This is the mission and utility of water. And how interesting and useful the science that reveals and explains these facts. The student of Physical Geography may regard air, earth, sea and water, as the organs of the Globe, each having its own office, and performing its own part, in the terrestrial economy.

Viewed in this light, fire and heat, frost and cold, light and darkness, deserts, winds, and water, all have their influence in producing the life and loveliness which adorn the earth, and all join in one universal harmony in the grand concert of nature.

Why then, should not Physical Geography become a prominent study in our schools? It is a branch (and one of the most important) of Geography which is defined "a description of the earth;" its facts are in the highest sense useful and important, and its influence as a study, is eminently christianizing.

0.

"William," said a teacher to one of his pupils, "can you tell me why the sun rises in the east?" "Don't know, sir," replied William, "'cept it be that the yeast makes everything rise." Teacher fainted.

Between passion and lying there is not a finger's breadth.

[blocks in formation]

THE SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS.-An amusing error of the press occurred in the Springfield Republican recently, when an article about a sermon by an eminent divine got mixed up with a dog story in this funny way :-"Rev. James Thompson, rector of St. Andrew's church, preached to a large concourse of people on Sunday last. This was his last sermon. In a few weeks he will bid farewell to his congregation, as his physicians advise him to cross the Atlantic. He exhorted his brethren and sisters, and after the expiration of a devout prayer, took a whim to cut up some frantic freaks. He ran up Timothy street to John, and down Berefit street to College. At this stage of the proceedings, a couple of boys seized him, tied a tin kettle to his tail, and he again started. A great crowd collected, and for a time there was a grand scene of noise, running, and confusion. After some trouble he was shot by a Jersey policeman.

« AnteriorContinuar »