dah, it shook the ark. Uzzah put forth his hand, to keep it from falling, whereby the anger of God was kindled, that he "smote him there for his error." What need has God of man's feeble hand to keep His ark from falling? Least of all, has He need of a deception. Do evil that good may come. The end sanctifies the means. You may lie, rob, steal, deceive, if thereby you can serve the cause of Christ. This is Jesuitism, found in the Protestant no less than in the Catholic Church. Get up a church-lottery to pay a church debt; a church-fair, with games of chance, and tricks to deceive, which in principle are gambling; overreach in your business, and palm off on your customers inferior goods for superior prices, with the intention of giving largely of your profits to Christ's needy cause-away with your lying and defrauding for God's sake. Rachel, too, hath her sorrows. Not without a pang does she witness the injustice which Jacob receives at the hand of Laban, and how sadly she leaves the house of her childhood by stealth, as a fugitive. Deeply must she have sympathized with the terror of Jacob, on the dreadful night at Mahanaim. Had not Jacob wronged Esau, and he still knows and remembers the wrong, and is tormented by a sense of guilt? Surely much godly sorrow must he have mingled with the night-long wrestling with God's angel. In his greatest danger, as he sees Esau, with his four hundred men approaching, his tender heart goes out toward Rachel and her lovely boy. For the safety of his wives and children, he put them in the rear of his long train-" Rachel and Joseph hindermost," the farthest from danger. Through what an agony must she have passed during these days of terror.

PATRIARCHAL HOMES.

Of

Think not that these ancient dames lived like barbarians. course the roving habits of the pastoral lords deprived them of much that we would deem desirable. They lived not in princely palaces. Black tents, covered with skins, were their abodes. A large number of tents were needed for the whole family, and the servants. The wife had her own separate dwelling, which she arranges according to her taste. Isaac brought his bride into Sarah's tent (Gen. xxiv. 57). Rachel and Leah each had her own tent (Gen. xxxi. 33). All that belonged to the wife was kept in her tent, even the saddle and baggage of her camel, when traveling (Gen. xxxi. 34). These curtained-dwellings could be ornamented and furnished according to the means and taste of the owner. Usually, the number and quality of tents were an index of a man's wealth (Gen. xiii. 5). Their style of living required but little furniture, and less work at sweeping and house-cleaning. The latter seems to be a modern invention, and peculiarly American.

Although socially ranking among the highest classes, having many servants at their command, these women knew how to "bake a loaf of bread," and were not ashamed to bake it. With her own hands Sarah bakes the cakes upon the hearth, for her angel-guests. The wiyes of the most powerful Sheikhs of Arabia, bake the bread, make the coffee, and superintend the preparation of their meals. Their daughters wash the clothes, spin flax and wool, and with veiled faces bear pitchers of water on their heads, from the limpid fountain. With her own hands the intriguing Rebekah prepared the savory venison which Jacob brought to his father.

Are these worthy matrons of old behind or ahead of the times? We need scarcely wonder, with habits of life that gave them an abundance of fresh air and healthful exercise, that they were seldom sick, and retained the bloom and blessing of vigorous health to a great age. The mothers and daughters of the nineteenth century might learn useful lessons about the laws of health from these sisters of old.

Lest I might be charged with affirming that whereof I know nothing, I will let Harriet Beecher Stowe speak on this subject: "The universal cry now about the ill health of young American girls is the fruit of some three generations of neglect of physical exercise and undue stimulus of brain and nerves. Young girls are now universally born delicate. The woman who enfeebles her muscular system by sedentary occupation, and overstimulates her brain and nervous system, when she becomes a mother, perpetuates these evils to her offspring. They cannot study without their eyes fail, or they have the headache-they cannot get up their muslins, or sweep a room, or pack a trunk, without bringing on a backache. They go to a concert or lecture, and must lie by all the next day from exertion. If they skate, they are sure to strain some muscle; or if they fall and strike the knee or hit an ankle a blow, that a healthy girl would forget in five minutes, terminates in some mysterious lameness which confines our poor sybils for months.

The young American girl of our times is a creature who has not a particle of vitality to spare,-no reserved stock of force to draw upon in cases of family exigency. She is exquisitely strung, she is cultivated, she is refined; but she is too nervous, too wiry, too sensitive, she burns away too fast; only the easiest of circumstances, the most watchful of care and nursing can keep her within the limits of comfortable health. And yet this is the creature who must undertake family life in a country where it is next to an absolute impossibility to have permanent domestics.

In fact we in America have so far got out of the way of a womanhood that has any vigor of outline or opulence of physical proportions, that, when we see a woman, made as a woman ought to be,

she strikes us as a monster. Our willowy girls are afraid of nothing so much as growing stout, and if a young lady begins to round into proportions like the women in Titian's and Giorgione's pictures, she is distressed above measure, and begins to make secret inquiries into reducing diet, and to cling desperately to the strongest corset-lacing as her only hope.

From the time she is seven years old, the first thought of the school-girl, when she rises in the morning, is to eat her breakfast and be off to school. She has barely time to complete her toilet and take her morning meal before her school begins. She returns at noon with just time to eat her dinner, and the afternoon session begins. She comes home at night with books, slate and lessons enough to occupy her evening. What time is there for teaching her any household work, for teaching her to cut, or fit, or sew, or to inspire her with any taste for domestic duties? Her arms have no exercise, her chest, and lungs, and all the complex system of muscles, which are to be perfected by quick and active movement, are compressed while she bends over book, and slate, and drawingboard; while the ever-active brain is kept all the while going at the top of its speed. She grows up spare, thin and delicate, and while the Irish girl, who sweeps the parlors, rubs the silver and irons the muslins is developing a finely-rounded arm and bust, the American girl has a pair of bones at her sides, and a bust composed of cotton padding, the work of a skillful dress-maker."

Possibly Mrs. Stowe's picture is somewhat over-colored. Her "American girl" may be mainly a New England growth. Withal there is much truth in what she says, and the truth we commend to the earnest attention of all whom it may concern.

OUR HANDS.-The human hand is so beautifully formed, it has so fine a sensibility, that sensibility governs its motions so correctly, every effort of the will is answered so instantly, as if the hand itself were the seat of the will, its actions are so free, so powerful, and yet so delicate, that it seems to possess a quality instinct in itself, and we use it as we draw our breath, unconsciously, and have lost all recollection of the feeble and ill-directed efforts of its first exercise, by which it has been perfected. In the hands are twenty-nine bones, in the mechanism of which result strength, mobility, and elasticity. On the length, strength, free lateral motion, and perfect mobility of the thumb, depends the whole power of the hand, its strength being equal to that of all the fingers. Without the fleshy ball of the thumb, the power of the fingers would avail nothing; and, accordingly, the large ball formed by the muscles of the thumb is the distinguishing character of the human hand.

ANNO DOMINI.

BY PERKIOMEN.

"Anno Domini" is a 'confession of Christian faith' in short-hand. Any expert stenographer would most likely decipher and interpret it to mean: "I believe in Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son Our Lord." As the narrow cell of a grain of mustard seed compresses within its walls a future tree, of infinitely larger proportionsthe trunk and branches, leaves, blossoms, fruit and all-so does our 'Anno Domini' condense, as in a nutshell, our individual and National faith. It is a Christian people's way of saying, what the Apostles express in the more measured language of Dogma. It looks on the escutcheon of Christendom, very much like the 'E Pluribus Unum,' on the aegis of the Union. We regard the 'Anno Domini' as an œcumenical intuition of Christian nations, bearing upon itself all the marks, and fulfilling all the conditions of a genuine Creed 'everywhere-always, and by all.' It is Christianity photographed in a focus, and worn near the heart of the multitude. 'Anno Domini' is a body of circumstantial evidence in favor of the incarnation of the Son of God. The advent of Jesus Christ is presented in an epigram as it were. Without design and unconsciously, a chain of testimony is forged from age to age, year after year, daily, and at every turn in life; by friends, indifferent ones, and foes; in matters of weighty and trivial import-all of which proves far more satisfactorily than any series of direct and positive facts can establish, the birth of Jesus Christ-because there is not the least room left for a cabal of conspiracy to form. Letters of friendship, business and commerce; legal instruments of writing; the public sheets that drop from the printing-press, like leaves from the trees in a forest, all the transactions among civilized people, that are in any wise deserving of a dating, are made to come under a familiar Anno Domini.' We need not look far abroad, then, for the "evidences of Christianity," since all things 'crown Him Lord of all,' right by us. It is for us a faint revealing of that great day of universal homage, still coming nearer, when 'every knee shall bow and every tongue confess' before Him. A very loud testimony is uttered in behalf of the advent of Jesus in our 'Anno Domini.' ‘Anno Domini' is the name of a volume which the skeptic is constantly stereotyping against himself.

We are wont to charge men with teaching and believing in theory, what they ignore and confute in practice. There is room for such an accusation, doubtless, in numberless instances. But may not its converse, likewise, be said to hold? Do not infidels and skeptics deny Christianity as a Creed, whereas they admit it as a controlling factor both in their own lives and in that of the civilized world? Why do they not sometimes adopt the chronology of the Chinese, or that of the Israelites, just to show the solidity of their doubt? An occasional protest, expressing itself in this way, we would regard as somewhat consistent. But, no! They write 'Anno Domini' as smoothly and as invariably as Christian hands do. Over and under their own hands and signatures they bear witness to the great epochmaking fact of the birth of the Son of God. How readily their 'fine gold becomes dim,' we may all see, so long as the mere shadow of our 'Anno Domini' can tarnish the brilliancy of their argument. 'Anno Domini' is a symbol of the 'new creation in Christ Jesus.' The 'year of the world' was at once supplanted by the 'acceptable year of the Lord.' The ancient cycle of time, before Christ, had been consummated and shelved, as a superannuated order, and the door opened for a new era to dawn upon us. From this period onward, all ages shall be gauged by the Christian standard. The 'year of our Lord' becomes the measure of time now. Behold, all things become new! History falls under our 'Anno Domini.' The birth of our children; the demise of mortals; the dates of factseverything that is noted at all, is so noted. The numerals change as if by magic, from year to year, but the starting point is never lost sight of. The familiar number-1870-changes into 1871; as water blushed to wine once, under the hands of Christ, so is He virtually Lord of time as He is Lord of eternity, and is approximating the actual, according to the power whereof He is subduing all things unto Himself the new heavens and the new earth.' Not outside, but ‘Anno Domini' is history moving already-and the road's end will be the consummation of Christ's kingdom. As long as we behold the finger-board and follow in the way of its pointing, we are marching nearer to the city of the great King.

'Anno Domini' illustrates the fixidity of Christ, amid a sea of changes. Since the advent of the Son of God, this phrase is made to stand as sponsor to the doings of men. It is ever the one and same phrase, no matter when, what, or how human actions transpire. Days, weeks, months and years succeed each other; even centuries close their long open doors, but all time, with its greater or lesser divisions,is ever yet Anno Domini.' 'Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.' The rock in the sea stands undisturbed amid the endless race of waves. They dash upon it and fall back to be seen no more. So peers the 'Rock of Ages' above the panorama of the