God is good, though all else fail, and we, like insects, creep and complain; God is good. It is not religion that makes the old man gloomy—it is not that the Word of God shall not stand forever; but He who has bid us care for the soul, bids us also care for the body. “If one member suffer, all the other members suffer with it.” If we neglect the laws of health, and abuse our bodies, even in His service, he does not guaranty to the delinquent, a strong mind, an unperverted spiritual vision—clouds and darkness will come between us and the Sun of Righteousness, and though we shall feel after Him, we shall grope like children in the dark. It is an earthly physician which such as that old man needs; a tonic for the body, not a sermon from the pulpit. Let him lean upon your arm; lead him forth to the green fields, where every little bird sings God is good; where waving trees and blossoming flowers pass the whisper round with myriad voices; take away the old man’s psalm-book, and let him listen to that anthem, and as the soft breath of spring lifts his white locks from his troubled brow, the film of disease will fall from his eyes, and he, too, shall sing that God is good.
Never lay upon the back of Religion what Dyspepsia should shoulder. The Christian warrior, no more than any other, can afford to neglect or gorge his “rations” when preparing for battle; nor if either faint by the way, in consequence, is it to be laid to the commander.
AWE-FUL THOUGHTS.
“This had, from the very beginning of their acquaintance, induced in her that awe, which is the most delicious feeling a wife can have toward her husband.”
“Awe!”—awe of a man whose whiskers you have trimmed, whose hair you have cut, whose cravats you have tied, whose shirts you have “put into the wash,” whose boots and shoes you have kicked into the closet, whose dressing-gown you have worn while combing your hair; who has been down cellar with you at eleven o’clock at night, to hunt for a chicken-bone; who has hooked your dresses, unlaced your boots, fastened your bracelets, and tied on your bonnet; who has stood before your looking-glass, with thumb and finger on his proboscis, scraping his chin; whom you have buttered, and sugared, and toasted, and tea-ed; whom have seen asleep with his mouth wide open! Ri—diculous!
A WORD TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS.
Why will New York women be eternally munching cake and confectionery? What is more disgusting than to see a lady devouring at a sitting, ounces of burnt almonds, and sugared wine and brandy-drops, or packing away, in her rosy mouth, uncounted platesful of jelly-cake or maccaroons? “But shopping is hungry business;” that is true, and many a shopper comes hungry distances to perform it; but are cake and confectionery wholesome diet between meals? and is not ice-cream at such a time rank poison? Call for a sandwich or a roll, and you may not be considered suicidal.
Every body knows that young girls are foreordained to go through a regular experience in eating slate-pencils, burnt quills, pickles, and chalk; but this green age passed, one looks for a little common sense. I have often seen New York women, not content with ruining their own constitution in this way (and consequently periling their prospective offspring), buy, before leaving the confectioner’s shop, five or six pounds of candy for nursery distribution, and ask Betty, the next day (the sapient mother!), “what can ail those children to fret so?” It were more merciful to purchase a dose of strychnine, and put an immediate end to their misery, than thus murder them by inches. Are the rosy, robust, beautiful English children, candy-fed? Are they suffered to gorge themselves on hot bread, preserves, cake and pastry, ad libitum? Do they have any thing but the plainest puddings, the stalest bread, and the most unmitigated roast and boiled meat, unpoisoned by those dyspepsia-breeding gravies of ours?