condensed from the smoke in the mouth and lungs contains ammonia, nicotine, fats, resins, and coloring matter. One drop of this speedily produces paralysis and death in young animals; sixth, in men, small doses of tobacco smoke excite the intellectual faculties; repeated doses produce palpitations, disordered vision, and decrease of memory.

Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, says of tobacco: "It impairs appetite, produces dyspepsia, tremors, vertigo, headache, and epilepsy. It injures the voice, destroys the teeth, and imparts to the complexion a disagreeable dusky brown."

A French physician investigated the effects of tobacco smoking upon thirty-eight boys between the ages of nine and fifteen, who had formed this habit. The result was: twenty-seven presented marked symptoms of nicotine poisoning; twenty-three serious derangement of the intellectual faculties, and a strong appetite for alcoholic drinks; three had heart disease; eight decided deterioration of the blood; twelve had frequent nose bleed; ten disturbed sleep; and four ulceration of the mouth in its mucous membrane.

A Brooklyn lad of fifteen died of nicotine poisoning within nine months after smoking his first cigarette. Nicotine has often been detected in the tissues of the lungs and liver after death. It is a poison not easily expelled from the system, often remaining for years after persons have ceased to use the weed.

The best way is to let tobacco alone. Taste not, touch not, handle not. The intense nausea and sickness felt by beginners are ample proof that tobacco is nature's enemy. When once this strong natural repugnance is overcome, the bodily powers appear to give up completely, as if conquered and crushed by a terrible invader. The habit, meanwhile, grows stronger, the will weaker, and the unsuspecting man becomes an abject slave.

For all the evil effects of tobacco there is no counterbalance of good. You cannot name a single benefit arising from its use. It is, in its tendency upon the body, mind and purse, evil, only evil, and that continually. One cannot wonder that King James, in his famous counterblast, should call it a "precious stinke," and condense the matter as a "custome loathsome to the eye, dangerous to

the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof neerest resembling the horrible stigian smoake of the pit that is bottomless."

John Quincy Adams, a President of the United States, after giving up the tobacco habit, which he had formed in early life, remarked: "I have often wished that every individual of the human race, affected with this artificial passion, would prevail upon himself to try, but for three months, the experiment which I have made, and am sure it would turn every acre of tobacco land into a wheat field, and add five years to the average of human life."

Bad habits are better never formed, but once formed, the sooner they are broken the easier. It is chiefly a question whether a man will allow his acquired appetites and passions to domineer over his soul. Once he says "No!" the contest assumes a moral phase which ought not to leave the victory for manhood and honor in the slightest degree of uncertainty.

HEALTH AND DISEASE.

We cannot enter into a survey of the diseases which afflict mankind, nor designate remedies for even the most common ailments. If more attention were given to health, less would be necessary in relation to disease. It is here that the old adage especially applies, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." As a rule, it may be said that people take too much medicine. They have too many imaginary ills. They want to be better than well. They want a fund of surplus vigor to draw on, in order that they may be self-indulgent, careless, and reckless. They eat too much, and at too irregular hours. They consume too rich food. They have too many varieties of food at the same meal. They tempt their own appetites, and gorge their own stomachs. They overtax, in a hundred ways, their vital powers. On the other hand, they take too little open air, too little exercise, too little rest from business rush and care. There are thousands of men in our cities-merchants and professional men-who are puny, spindling, pale and sickly, simply because they are too constantly confined and overloaded with anxiety and care. Yet they are wedded to their own ways. They would not change their habits of life for anything.

They would rather die in the cities than to live in the country, where, under sunny skies and in a pure atmosphere, they might regain their lost health and rebuild their jaded and fallen energies.

Persons of sedentary habits walk too little-less than they might. They ride to and from their offices when they ought to walk. Walking is a splendid exercise, calling into play, as it does, nearly the whole muscular system. It stirs the blood; sends it out towards the extremities, and thus relieves the brain and the heart. The sidewalk should be the gymnasium of every man or woman who has neither time nor place for a better one.

People use too many stimulants-too much coffee, too strong tea, and other drinks. They have too small appreciation of pure water. They use it too seldom for bathing purposes, and drink too little of it when thirsty. They drink liquors which are fit only to be spilled upon the ground. They resort to all sorts of artificial preparations, forgetting that health and hope, acquirement and possession, love and duty, are sufficient stimulants for every true life. George D. Prentice uttered a word upon this subject fit to be placed among the golden sayings of Pythagoras:

"There are times when the pulse 'lies low' in the bosom, and beats slow in the veins; when the spirit sleeps the sleep, apparently, that knows no waking, in its house of clay, and the windowshutters are closed, and the door is hung with the invisible crape of melancholy; when we wish the golden sunshine pitchy darkness, and very willing to 'fancy clouds where no clouds be.' This is a state of sickness when physic may be thrown to the dogs, for we will have none of it. What shall raise the sleepless Lazarus ? What shall make the heart beat music again, and the pulses dance to it through all the myriad-thronged halls in our house of life? What shall make the sun kiss the Eastern hills again for us, with all his old awakening gladness, and the night overflow with 'moonlight music, love and flowers?' Love itself is the great stimulant-the most intoxicating of all—and performs all these miracles; but it is a miracle itself, and is not at the drug-store, whatever they say. The counterfeit is in the market, but the winged-god is not a money-changer, we assure you.

"Men have tried many things, but still they ask for stimulants.