he rose,
it is nevertheless gifted with extraordinary strength and power of
resisting external injury, and is not only capable of repairing, but
of actually renewing itself. Though unprotected with hair, wool or
fur, or with feathers or scales, as with the brute creation, the human
skin is furnished with innumerable nerves, which endow it with extreme
susceptibility to all the various changes of climate and of weather,
and prompt the mind to provide suitable materials, in the shape of
clothing, to shield it under all the circumstances in which it can be
placed.

The importance of the due exposure of the body to daylight or sunlight
cannot be too strongly insisted on. Light and warmth are powerful
agents in the economy of our being. The former especially is an
operative agent on which health, vigor, and even beauty itself,
depend. Withdraw the light of the sun from the organic world, and all
its various beings and objects would languish and gradually lose those
charms which are now their characteristics. In its absence, the
carnation tint leaves the cheek of beauty, the cherry hue of the lips
changes to a leaden-purple, the eyes become glassy and expressionless,
and the complexion assumes an unnatural, cadaverous appearance that
speaks of sickness, night and death. So powerful is daylight, so
necessary to our well-being, that even its partial exclusion, or its
insufficient admission to our apartments, soon tells its tale in the
feeble health, the liability to the attacks of disease, and the pallid
features (vacant and sunken, or flabby, pendent and uninviting) of
their inmates. Even the aspect of the rooms in which we pass most of
our time, and the number and extent of their windows, is perceptible,
by the trained eye, in the complexion and features of those that
occupy them. So in the vegetable world--the bright and endlessly
varied hues of flowers, and their sweet perfumes--even their very
production--depend on sunlight. In obscure light plants grow lanky and
become pale and feeble. They seldom produce flowers, and uniformly
fail to ripen their seeds. In even partial darkness the green hue of
their foliage gradually pales and disappears, and new growths, when
they appear, are blanched or colorless.

The best method of keeping the skin clean and healthy, by ablution and
baths, may here be alluded to. The use of these, and the washing of
the skin that forms part of the daily duties of the toilet, appear to
be very sim