transaction, as the softer and weaker sex, he shaved off the full growth from the throat and rendered it as smooth as the nature of the case would admit. This act of tonsure was performed on Saturday, and the reader may judge of its effect and of his disquietude and mortification, when he is told, as was the fact, that on Sunday he was unable to speak in consequence of a sore throat and severe hoarseness.

He has tried this experiment so many times, and the result has proved so similar, that he fully agrees with the writer above quoted, and has deliberately settled the question in favor of wearing beard on the throat, how strongly soever the tide may set in favor of men's transforming themselves into women (so far as appearance is concerned), or depriving themselves of that natural criterion by which the Creator has marked the distinction between the sexes in legible characters upon the countenance. Every one knows it is of no avail to be out of fashion, and, therefore, he can expect no quarter when talking on this subject.

We should have full confidence in being able to defend this position against shaving off the beard, from scripture and from profane history, from the example of prophets and patriarchs, Christ and his Apostles, from Greeks and Romans, Turks, Persians, and almost all others, formerly; but, against an unnatural and inhuman custom, sanctioned by the Tyrant Fashion, first introduced by a beardless boy on a throne to make him look as manly as his courtiers, and them as effeminate as himself-we cannot expect to prevail, and shall therefore, probably, have to let as many of the men as please to do make themselves look as much like the softer sex as they can.

SANGUINARIA CANADENSIS.

ROOT.

COMMON BLOOD

THIS plant is indigenous to this country, grows in low grounds, in meadows and woods. The root is fleshy and throws out a few fibres. The outside is red, and when fresh and newly broken, emits a bright red ju'ce. The leaves are large and shaped somewhat like a heart. They are few and only one on a stalk. Very early in the spring, before the leaves are grown, it puts' forth white flowers.

This root possesses various medical properties. It is used as an emetic, sudorific, emmenagogue, expectorant, detergent, &c.'

considered, presents a breast-work of protection for the lungs and throat; and is useful for the healthy performance of the functions of these parts. It is nature's own respirator; and none made by art can meet the indication so well. Pains of the teeth and other neuralgic ailments, are greatly prevented by the growth of the beard; and, by high authority, relapses in fever have been ascribed to the shaving of this appendage, to say nothing of its other relationships to health and disease."

The question has often been asked why clergymen are more often subject to diseases of the throat and lungs, than lawyers or others who lecture on popular subjects, or public speakers of any kind? It certainly is a question of considerable importance. Our belief is that one prominent reason will be found in the fact that clergymen are much more accustomed to the practice of shaving their throats than any other class of public speakers. A majority of lawyers, and other public speakers, except preachers, wear the natural beard upon their throats. We knew a clergyman who was so much afflicted with hoarseness, as to be unable to speak audibly in public. A chronic weakness of the laryngeal and bronchial vessels, when slightly affected with a cold, utterly took away the power of speech. Nature provided him with a thick, and somewhat shaggy beard, which he was in the habit of shaving, as closely as an apparatus, contrived for the purpose, would admit, which, by the way, was not always very smooth, and that often not without partaking a little of the feeling which the purchaser of " Peter Pindar's razors" had, when he came to try them. A friend, one day, suggested that, if the hair were allowed to grow, as nature designed, upon the throat, it would afford protection to those vessels which were so sensitive and easily affected by atmospherical vicissitudes. He tried the experiment, and found, after considerable time, that he was less afflicted with hoarseness than formerly.

But it was the custom for men of his profession to be closely shaven, and for one to be out of this fashion was considered as unministerial, as it once was for one of the profession to be seen in public without his gown and bands, well powdered wig, and black gloves with a hole for the thumb and forefinger; or, as unmedical as it would now be for the Doctor to write a prescription in plain English instead of mongrel Latin. So, once, when he was expecting to appear, the next day, before a more fashionable and élite congregation than usual; where the ladies wished the gentlemen to be well trimmed, and the gentlemen themselves were so afraid of "goat's hair," that they appeared as beardless as a youth of fifteen, or as emasculated by an unnatural

in meacan

few bre

ken.

AADENSIS.

COMMON BLOOD

gors to this country, grows ir low groundz, The root is flesh and throws out #

outside is red, and when test and newly bro MEL, reg Ju ce. The leaves are targ and shiped neart. They are few an on's or on a stalk. the spring, before the leaves are grown, it puts forth vie nowers.

somewhat in

Very ear

This TOC possesses various mecies properties. It is used as an emeric sudorific, emmenago, explorant detergent, &

means of instruction,-and what good it did to task the memory with such mysteries? I answer, that we early learnt habits of discipline, we committed painfully to memory what was deemed sacred, and not the less so because it was not understood. The principle of faith was called into action, and if the child did not say with Sir Thomas Browne that he regretted that he was not called on to believe still more that he could not understand; he felt that he was not allowed to neglect the lesson, because he could not comprehend it. Authority had its place then in the important social institutions and relations which I have dwelt on, and submission to it, was an element in, or an occasion of that reverence, deference, or respect, which in so many forms characterized that age. I have spoken of the observance, you may call it the forced observance, of the Sabbath. This began early. The infant was carried to "meeting" for baptism the Sunday following its birth, however near its birth day might be to that sacred time, and this without regard to season. It was held as a truth, and was a saying, that nobody ever got cold by going to meeting, and the new-born infant was regarded as no exception to the current belief. The following anecdote is in illustration of the practice. Rev. Mr. went to meeting one Sunday morning, at an early hour, as usual, and while waiting for the hour of service to arrive, he saw the sexton bringing in the Christening Basin. After the short prayer, the singing, the reading of the scriptures, he walked down from the pulpit to christen the child who had been brought into the house. He asked what the name was to be. The person who presented the infant said he did not know. The minister then asked whose child it was. He was told that his own wife had given it birth since he left home, and that according to custom it had been brought out for the rite of infant baptism.

Do you suppose that all this strictness in discipline begat solemnity of manner, or that it repressed the youthful spirit? It did no such thing. The children then were as full of play as are the children of this liberal, and as some would call it lax age. They might not have been as wise; and they certainly were not more conscious of their wisdom.

IV. POLITICS. No account of my times would approach even to any thing like an accurate, or comprehensive view of them, which omitted politics in its recitals. In America, the questions of government, and of its administration,-what shall be its form, and who shall give it life,-these questions have ever had paramount interest. Such as these, it was, which drove

men, women, and children,-" gentlemen and scholars," the priest and his people, to these savage lands, and set them at last ashore, on a wintry, unknown coast. Such too were the questions which moved the people to a rebellion, which success made a revolution, and such have been the "exciting topics" of every day's history, down to this evening on which I speak. There have been discreet men, who have thought that the intellect and the heart of this wide spread, and thickly peopled nation, might now at least be somewhat better employed.

Let me, however, ask your attention to politics as I remember the subject in my early days,-what it then was, and to what has continued, in some important points, to be its history, since.

This history begins about ten years after the declaration of independence, about three after the close of the war of the revolution. Men were living in the vigor and freshness of manhood, who had taken vital part in that declaration, and in that war. Such men were frequent. They were from every town, village, and hamlet of the country. They did not all return! Enough did, however, to tell the story,-enough to form wide and important associations with what was attempted, and with what was done, for the political settlement of the nation. Washington was living. He came unharmed from a contest, in which death was in every moment, and in every act. He came from that war with the great, the immortal trophy of a nation's freedom, the earnest and the prophecy of universal liberty. Jay then lived, and a purer statesman, or a greater man, "has never lived in the tide of times.” The Adamses were all living,-and the names of Franklin, of Otis, of Quincy, and of Lowell,-of Madison, of Jefferson, of the Randolphs, and of a host, were familiar, as are household words, in the hearts, and in the mouths of the people. The nation was in peace with all other nations. There was wide spread poverty. There was universal debt. The country owed every body, and almost every body owed his neighbor. And now what was the current sentiment in the nation? Looking at things as they were, at the loose bond of union which the existing form of government, a simple confederation of States only as it was, gave rise to-looking at this state of things and their wide and diverse relations, it might have been expected that political harmony would have been every where regarded, as the only possible condition of a true national action. But examine for yourselves, and you will easily learn how unlike this, was the actual fact. It was seen that some basis of government must be discovered and settled. Some great principle was demanded, which in its application would secure a wise and a