months, that the deposits were to be forfeited and placed in the charity box belonging to the class.

The scholar brought his tobacco-sixpence very regularly. He lived at Hockley, and was several times prevented from going to Severn Street at such an early hour-for the school there opens at half-past seven on Sunday mornings; whenever he did miss, he always brought his tobacco-money the next week. He soon reported that he felt a great deal more comfortable; that he could enjoy reading at home and learning at school much better than formerly. December came round, and he was desirous of procuring some comforts for Christmas. He told his teacher that he should like to settle up. An evening was appointed, and he came to receive the money. He had paid 6d. a week for fifty weeks; there was interest ls. 3d., and a bonus besides of 1s. 3d., making £1 7s. 6d; this was handed to him over the table, when he promptly returned 2s., saying, "Teacher, I have already felt a benefit from leaving off tobacco, far beyond receiving this money. I feel very thankful to the Almighty that He has enabled me to resist the temptation so often before me. I feel also very grateful to you, for encouraging me to leave off smoking; I shall be glad if you will take these two shillings, and buy Testaments, and give them to those who have none."

His offer was accepted, and a request was made that he would furnish a list of the goods he purchased with the £1 5s. 6d., so that a comparison might be made between the profit of saving and the loss by smoking. In a few days he called with this memorandun:

Reader, if you are in the habit of smoking, reflect upon the loss you suffer by the expenditure of your money on a uselessgratification; reflect on the loss of mental power it involves, Your pipe or cigar may, soothe the brain; but it prevents the full exercise of those faculties God has given to mankind alone; it promotes, unclean habits in the workshop and at home; it teaches an injurious habit to those who are younger, and who, if they begin the habit earlier in life, will be still more its slaves in riper years. Leave off, then, your pipe or cigar;

you will feel a satisfaction in the result, and may, like the man referred to in this narrative, enjoy the pleasure of doing good to others.

MAN'S PROPER DRINK.

By J. BRADFORD SAX.

Man is so constituted that he requires daily liquid supplies, as well as solid aliment. No substance in the world but water can possibly answer or supply the natural demands of the system for drink. Water taken into the stomach is absorbed into the general circulation, but it is never assimilated. It serves to give fluidity to the blood, to supply the aqueous portion of the secretions, excretions, &c. No other fluid will answer this purpose; consequently no substances, except such as contain water, can answer the purposes of drink. As a general thing, foreign substances artificially mixed with water make pernicious drinks.

Notwithstanding man requires daily supplies of water, yet the quantity, in a perfectly normal condition of the body, and under correct diet and regimen, is very small; not more than can be abundantly supplied, under ordinary circumstances, by the juices of those fruits and succulent vegetables which he ought to eat as a part of his daily meals. Nor need or ought the quantity of these to be large. If our habits are correct, we shall feel thirst only when the system really needs water. A small quantity of ripe fruit, taken with our meals, will then keep the system abundantly supplied with moisture, and, except under extraordinary circumstances, prevent our ever being thirsty.

In his lectures, Mr. Graham says:-"If the dietetic and all other habits and circumstances of man were truly natural and in strict accordance with the laws of his nature, he would very seldom require drink, and therefore very rarely experience thirst. The fruits and succulent vegetables which entered into his diet would afford all the aqueous matter that his vital economy requires; and this would always be of the purest and most salutary kind. Besides, being introduced in such a form, the stomach would never be inundated by a flood of water at once, but would receive it more gradually, and in a manner better adapted to the action of its absorbent and receiving vessels. So that, by this means, the system would be secured from improper quantities and qualities of fluid, and the sense of

thirst would never be depraved, nor its integrity impaired. Many individuals in the United States have so regulated their dietetic habits, as to be able to live without taking any kind of drink or feeling thirst for the space of three, four, and six months; and these have invariably found that their health was, in every respect more perfect at such times, than when they frequently experienced thirst, and drank even pure water. By deviations from the strict line of physiological rectitude, however, in the quantity and quality of food and drink, and other errors of voluntary habits, the actual demands of the vital economy for pure water are increased, and the integrity of thirst as a natural instinct is always more or less impaired."

The experience of the author perfectly corresponds with that of those mentioned in the above extract. While be followed the common dietetic and other habits of the Americans, before he adopted a true physiological diet and regimen, he was in the practice, and had been for years, of drinking immense quantities of water. He was constantly, winter and summer, night and day, afflicted with a tormenting thirst, which he had not moral power sufficient to resist. It was a species of insanity, and drinking water became a real mania, which must be gratified at whatever hazard. He thought, and still thinks, that abstinence from water for a single day would have produced madness. In the summer it was the worst, and when labouring in the harvest field, he has often drunk several gallons in a day. The stomach would be filled and kept so full during the day, that it would not be emptied by absorption until near morning. A quart at once was a common draught.

After he adopted a correct system of living, and without any other means being used, this thirst entirely left him. He could now work through the hottest day in July without being thirsty hardly at all, and without drinking more than a very little if any fluid, of any kind whatever. When he could have ripe fruit, fresh, to eat with his meals, he did not want any other drink. He has been for eight months together without even once tasting of any kind of fluid whatever during the whole time, or ever once being thirsty. During all this time his health has been perfect, and not the least lack of water in the system for all the purposes of life; not even excepting perspiration and renal secretion.

These experiments, as well as everything else, go to prove that, under ordinary circumstances, man need not, if his habits are correct, drink fluid. All the water which the real wants of

the system demand, is abundantly supplied by the fruits which he ought daily to eat, and in the purest and most proper condition possible. This is as nature designed.

Now if man was designed and constitutionally adapted to receive the fluid necessary to sustain his body in health, in the form of fruits and succulent vegetables, as he beyond question was, then the reception of it in any other form, even the drinking of pure water, is to some extent a violation of Nature's laws, and therefore injurious: that is, it would be better to receive it as Nature intended. But if we cannot procure fruit, or if for any other cause the wants of the system cannot be fully supplied by its use, then pure water is the next best drink which it is possible to procure, and the only one which ever ought to be used by man. It should be pure and unadulterated.

One strong objection to the use of water rather than fruit to supply the demands of the system for aqueous matter, is the fact, that it is extremely difficult to procure water perfectly pure, or free from deleterious substances; while the juices of fruits are entirely free from all injurious substances, and just as Nature prepared them for our drink. The beverages which Nature has prepared for us are the best possible-are precisely right-and those differing from them in any respect are, of course, not as good. In Nature's beverages-the juices of fruits there are no injurious substances mixed; while everything is present which makes, or is necessary to make them perfect.

Concerning water, most of that which is used for drink, or at least much of it, is too impure even for the purpose of washing our clothes; what do you say to its fitness for drinking? A large proportion of our wells furnish water so thoroughly impregnated with mineral substances, that it is unfit for washing; it is called hard water, and rain-water is used in its stead; but it is drank without any hesitation. Can it be possible that the mineral matter contained in several quarts of this water can be taken into the general circulation of the human system daily for years, without doing any injury? It is irritating and offensive to the delicate tissues with which it comes in contact, and must of necessity be constantly doing injury.

"It is well known that if hard water be habitually used for washing the hands, even for a short time, the skin on which it acts soon loses its natural softness and smoothness, and becomes dry and rough, and often cracks and becomes painfully diseased. And can any one believe that a fluid which produces such an

effect on the external skin, that is protected by a horny epider mis or cuticle, can continually come in contact with the most delicate nervous and other tissues of the vital domain, and not injure them ?" If we use fruit for drink in the room of water, and so regulate our habits as to avoid the necessity of drinking, we shall of course escape the evils of drinking hard water-the evil of introducing daily into the system a large amount of poisonous mineral matter.

Again, the deleterious influence of unhealthy climates and situations is known to depend in a great measure upon the badness of the water found in them. It is a kind of proverb among people, that if the water is good, the situation is healthy; if it is bad, it is unhealthy. If we are in a situation where the water is bad, and are under the necessity of drinking several quarts of it daily, how are we going to escape this deleterious influence? But if we make fruit supply the necessary moisture to the system, and so regulate our habits that we shall not be under the necessity of drinking water, we can live in an unhealthy climate or situation with comparative impunity, and escape most or all of the deleterious influences which it is supposed to exert.

We have before remarked that if the habits are truly natural, the quantity of drink required by man will be small. All that he takes more than the legitimate wants of the system require, is evil, and necessarily injurious. If more be taken than is necessary, the absorbents which take it from the stomach, and the organs which excrete it from the system, are overtasked. Vitality is wasted thereby, and the organs debilitated and prostrated, and finally diseased. The action of the stomach is also interrupted and deranged, and digestion therefore impaired. Dyspepsia with its train of evils follow. If, when we are at work, for instance on a summer day, we drink large quantities of water, and perspire profusely, the vital energy necessary to absorb and excrete it will be withdrawn in a measure from the muscles, and therefore make them less able to perform a given amount of labour; while the additional task thus put upon the vital machine will make it much more-perhaps painfullyfatigued at night, than it otherwise would be. So far from being less able to endure the heat, we shall be better qualified to endure it, as experience abundantly proves.

Whatever produces irritation in the stomach or alimentary canal, causes morbid thirst; remove the cause, and the effect will cease. The appetite may also demand large quantities of