A child takes into its mouth a bit of tobacco. It is followed by a pale face, cold sweat, alarming palpitations, and violent vomiting. And yet, after a little practice, the human system may be deluged with this powerful, narcotic poison,--a man's mouth may be kept swimming, month after month, with the strongest juice of the strongest tobacco,--his very perspiration may be so filled with this intense poison, that, falling on the battle-field, the most loathsome beast of prey will not touch his body. Yet so complete is his facility of adaptation, so immense his power of resistance, that, for a life-time, his bodily, mental and moral machinery will struggle on in the midst of this sea of poison. And so it is with this almost universal vice of improper and excessive eating. The stomach and liver are clogged and deranged, the blood is filled with crudities and impurities, the brain is crowded with this vicious blood, and yet the Good Father has given us such an immense reserve, that we can bear all this, and still have force enough left to move about, to think, to feel, and sometimes to have hours of real enjoyment. Our Father gives us "signs;" he hangs out "flags of distress,"-- pimples, and blotches, and sores, a red nose, inflamed eyelids, etc.; besides, he gives us rheumatism, gout, and numerous other aches, but he lets us live on for years, apparently in the hope that we may learn something. Our American system of diet is altogether bad. There is too great variety, the food is too rich, the cooking is often very bad, we eat too frequently, and we eat at the wrong times. I confess to a deep personal interest in this subject. It is my sad, but most deliberate conviction, that I have wasted a large part of my life-force by taking too much food. I have not made this mistake for some years; but the gray hairs began to make their appearance before I learned about it. Ah, my dear young friends, how deeply do I yearn to help you in this vital department of your life! Will you permit me a little of my own experience? I believe that, in this way, I can speak more acceptably and more effectively, than by giving the deductions of physiology. For nearly thirty years I have been in the habit of visiting one dear woman, in the State of New York, once or twice a year. (She does not seem any older to me now, than she did when, from the front window, she watched me on my way to Sunday-school, on a beautiful Sabbath morning, forty years ago.