perfection forever, without the possibility of ever attaining to it;--
to any perfection, I mean, which is absolute and unqualified.

Nor do I believe that all mankind will ever become perfectly beautiful,
according to any particular standard of beauty. This were neither
useful nor desirable. There will probably be as great a variety of
features, and possibly, too, of size and symmetry, in the day of
millennial glory, as there is now.

What I believe, is this. That in falling, with our first parents, we
fall physically as well as morally; and that our physical departure
from truth is almost as wide as our moral. I suppose all the ugliness
of the young--not, of course, all their variety of feature or
complexion, but all which constitutes real ugliness of appearance--
comes directly or indirectly from the transgression of God's laws,
natural or moral; and can only be restored by obedience to those laws
by the transgression of which it came.

It is not tight dressing alone which spoils the shape; but improper
exercise, neglect of exercise, over exercise--and a thousand other
things also. Nor is it the application of _rouge_ alone, which
spoils the beauty. There are a thousand physical transgressions that
dim the lustre of the eye, or sink it too deep in the socket, or
flatten it, or paint a circle round it. So of the face in general.
There are a thousand forms of transgression that take away the
carnation of the lip and cheek, and leave unnatural hues, not to say
pimples and furrows, in its stead.

I might be much more particular. I might show how every physical
trangression--every breach of that part of the natural law which