God's mercy, may be made strong to wrestle with and cast down his mortal foes-God speed him. Or the greatest sinner may repent and turn from the error of his ways, and surely be meet for a woman's pitying, sustaining, assoiling love again, as for God's grace. But a man who is leading a sinful, shameful life, unrepented, unresisted, glorying in it, is not worthy that a good woman should touch him with the tips of her finger, or brush him with her skirts; and a good woman, unless she is a fool, will be the first to penetrate the fact, and to recoil from him with great shuddering, even though it should also be (which I very much doubt) in an agony of wasted tenderness, and misplaced affection.

Beyond this, I suppose for you, Mary, that no dutiful, honourable girl, even though she is not so meek-tempered as she should be, will fail to allow her friends' views and desires fit consideration; that she will try at least to understand and comply with them; and if she cannot comply-if she must love a virtuous man who they fear is not so wise, or amiable, or strong, or well off as they would have him; or that she cannot love, as well as honour and obey, another virtuous man who is all that they could wish, but not what she can fancy, I suppose she will not act in defiance of them-she will be patient, and induce her lover, if there is a lover, to forbear; she will

not forfeit her friends' regard, her own respect, the esteem of the very man for whom she is sacrificing so much, the obligation of that morality which says so broadly, yet so clearly, "Honour thy father and thy mother," by an act of flagrant defiance and disobedience.

And now, Mary, I will suppose no more, for I cannot bring myself to suppose that, from ambition, restlessness, vanity, from the mere wilful, petulant inclination to avoid a reproach and secure a dignity, from weak, cowardly pliability, in the hands of socalled friends, you would sell yourself body and soul to any man. I admit, with sad surprise and sorrow, that thousands and tens of thousands of women do it, and defend the deed. But you, Mary, the sensitive, delicate-minded, high-spirited daughter of him who revolted at a man's abasement at the shrine of expediency, who, with his father before him, spurned at the word interest where marriage was concerned, as other men spurn at the word dishonour-I cannot even you to such littleness, coarseness, degradation. But remember, if you are ever tempted to it, it is to the debasement of your own nature, to the enthralment of your free spirit-not to the mating it with another spirit, and thus making a happy and perfect twin soulbut to the linking it in galling shackles with what may be a hostile, and is beyond mistake, an alien being;

it is to the trampling down of your own God-given instincts, it is to the falsifying of a solemn contract, that you are tempted; and no rich, full, all-encompassing, everlasting blessing of God can rest on the poor mockery of His institution-human and divine. In conclusion, I take the liberty of quoting again from John Ruskin the lines which he quoted from Coventry Putmore, the lines he wished were learned by all the youthful ladies of England:

"Ah, wasteful woman! she who may

On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing he cannot choose but pay;

How has she cheapen'd Paradise;
How given for nought her priceless gift;

How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,

Had made brutes men, and men divine."

CHAPTER XIII.

HEALTH AND SICKNESS.

Importance of Health, Intellectually as well as PhysicallyGirlish Mistakes as to risking Health-Absurdity of Neglecting the Natural Laws of Health-Exercise, and its Abuse-Food, &c.

IT

T is said that a finger pressed on a particular part of his spine, could render, for the moment, Robert Hall, the great English divine, with his colossal intellect and vast stores of knowledge, a raving madman. Of such vital consequence was health and sickness to him. And they are of the greatest importance (with one exception) to every man and woman in the body.

I want to exert an influence over you, Mary, that you may not, in skittish, girlish fashion, disregard and even dispute this question-trifle with the inestimable boon of health till it is lost, when, like Esau's birthright, it will not be found again, though you seek it even with tears. I have not advanced beyond middle life, yet it would take me long, and in some instances it would half break my heart, to record the warnings I

have received, that youth, in the pride of its strength, tries and spends its powers until they are gone never to return; and early graves, empty homes, hopes blasted, hearts broken, mourners going about the streets for the rest of their lives, are the bitter fruit of the improvidence.

Be wise in time, if not for your own sake, for the sake of those to whom life will never be what it has been, if you are taken from them.

No doubt, health is one of those intangible blessings which we can never measure until we miss it, and measure it by the blank it has left. The difference between

and

"I sleep so sound all night, mother,
That I shall never wake."

"All night I lie awake, mother,
But I fall asleep at morn,"

is only to be appreciated in its meek, mournful depths, by one who was, it may be, "the picture of health" last summer, but who is now a hopeless sufferer for this world-a fast dying man or woman. But you must take the assertion on credit-you must allow yourself to be inter-penetrated, and so benefited by the experience of others.

I conclude there is sound foundation for the strong statement, that the amount of the bill of mortality all over the world is quadrupled, at least, by ignorance and