Dr. Bell, of Philadelphia, whose reputation as a medical man and an
author is deservedly high, has written a volume, as the reader may
already know, entitled, "Health and Beauty"--in which he endeavors to
show that "a pleasing contour, symmetry of form, and a graceful
carriage of the body," may be acquired, and "the common deformities of
the spine and chest be prevented," by a due obedience to the "laws of
growth and exercise." These laws he has endeavored--and with
considerable success--to present in a popular and intelligible manner.

Nor was the task unworthy the efforts and pen of the gifted individual
by whom it was executed. Young women, of course, are inclined to set a
high value on beauty of form and feature, as well as to dread, more
than most other persons, what they regard as deformity. Surely they
ought to be glad of a work like that I have described.

I have no wish to disparage beauty; it is almost a virtue. There can
hardly be a doubt that Adam and Eve were exceedingly beautiful; nor
that so far as the world can be restored to its primitive state--which
we hope may be the case in its future glorious ages--the pristine
beauty of our race will be restored. It is sin, in the largest sense of
the term, which has distorted the human "face divine," disrobed it of
half its charms; and deprived the whole frame of its symmetry.

Does any one ask, of what possible service it can be to know these
facts, when it is too late to make use of them? The truth is, it can
never be too late. There is no person so old that she cannot improve
her appearance, more or less, if she will but take the appropriate
steps. I do not, of course, mean to say, that at twenty or thirty years
of age a person can greatly alter the contour of the face, or the