, indeed, certain signs and marks which such diseases leave
with which physicians are conversant. As if nature intended them as
warnings, they are imprinted on the most visible and public parts of the
body. The skin, the hair, the nose, the voice, the lines on the face,
often divulge to the trained observer, more indubitably than the
confessional, a lewd and sensual life.

Such signs, however, can only be properly estimated by the medical
counselor, and it would be useless to rehearse them here. Those women
who would have a sure guide in choosing a man to be their husband, have
they not Moses and the prophets? What is more, have they not Christ and
the apostles? Rest assured that the man who scoffs at Christianity, who
neglects its precepts and violates its laws, runs a terrible risk of
bringing upon himself, his wife, and his children, the vengeance of
nature, which knows justice but not mercy. Rest assured that the man who
respects the maxims of that religion, and abstains from all uncleanness,
is the only man who is worthy the full and confiding love of an
honorable woman.

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE HUMAN BODY.

Philosophers say that every idle word which is spoken continues to
vibrate in the air through all infinity. So it is with the passions and
the thoughts. Each impresses on the body some indelible mark, and a long
continuance of similar thoughts leaves a visible imprint.

Under the names of phrenology, physiognomy, palmistry, and others,
attempts have been made at divers times to lay down fixed principles by
which we could judge of men by their outsides; but only vague results
have been obtained. A learned German author, of high repute in exact
science, has gone a different way to work. He has studied the body as a
whole, and sought with the eye of an anatomist how different avocations,
passions, temperaments, habits, mould and fashion the external parts of
man. His results are embraced in a curious volume which he entitles _The
Symbolism of the Human Body_. We shall borrow some hints from it,
germane to our present theme.

As to size, large-bodied and large-boned men possess greater energy, a
more masculine character, but often less persistence, and are usually
devoid of the more delicate emotions. Fat people are good-tempered, but
indolent; thin people, full of life, but irascible.

The neck is a significant part of the body. View it from in front, and
it discloses the physical constitution. There are the