The beard has had an eventful career, and has always been the bone of contention between nations, churches, politicians, kings, gods, and barbers. As to the last, suffice it to say that beards existed before barbers, and that barbers are now as favorable to beards as they are unfavorable to safety razors. As for the churches, they have been alternately pro and con: Israel brought the beard safely out of Egyptian bondage; the Orientals cherished it as a sacred thing; the Scriptures abound with examples of how it was used to interpret pride, joy, sorrow, despondency, etc., the Greek church was for beards, and the Roman church against; the Popes of Naples wore beards at various periods; and now, most of our popes, priests and preachers keep their "chins new reaped." In Asia, wars have been declared on alleged grievances concerning shaving, and Nero offered some of the hairs of his beard to Jupiter Capitolinus who could well have bearded a dozen emperors from his own. Herodotus has more to say of beards than of belles, bibles and Belzebub, and the other poets and historians have found inspiration in like theme. In some times, beards denoted noble birth and in others they were tokens of depravity or of ostracism. The Roskolniki, a sect of schismatics, maintained that the divine image resided in the beard, and for ages the beard was the outward sign of a true man. In brief, the beard has had a Titanic struggle for existence, first up, then down, first on and then off. Just as it would attain the zenith of its glory, some beardless king would come along and dethrone it, as was the case in Spain, for example, when Philip V's tender chin refused to bear fruit, which calamity soon changed the fashion among the Spanish nobility. And, no sooner would the bald chin be established in favor, than some ugly-faced prince would come forward with an edict that the elect must again display the manly beard, as in France, when the young king's face was so disfigured with scars that he found a beard necessary to give him an appearance of respectability, whereupon all his faithful subjects found that they also had scars to conceal, much to the dismay of the barbers.