During the time that the sleeper has been at rest, the stomach has been at work digesting the food which was last eaten. Then the stomach has passed the macerated food into the alimentary canal, the liver has poured out its secretion, and produced certain changes in the condition of the dissolved food: and the lacteals, of which there may be many thousands, perhaps millions, have been busy sucking up those portions of the food which they knew to be useful to the system, whilst they have rejected all those useless and noxious matters upon which the liver, like an officer of health, had set his mark, as unfitting for the public use. This busy life has gone on uninterruptedly; every member of that body, every worker in that wonderful factory, has been unremitting in his duty, and yet the owner, the master, has been asleep, and wakes up finding every bodily want supplied! Notwithstanding that much has already been said of the wonders that pertain to the eye, it has not yet been considered as the seat of _tears_, those mute but eloquent utterers of the sorrows of the heart. Beautiful Tear! whether lingering upon the brink of the eyelid, or darting down the furrows of the care-worn cheek--thou art sublime in thy simplicity--great, because of thy modesty--strong, from thy very weakness. Offspring of sorrow! who will not own thy claim to sympathy? who can resist thy eloquence? who can deny mercy when thou pleadest? Every tear represents some in-dwelling sorrow preying upon the mind and destroying its peace. The tear comes forth to declare the inward struggle, and to plead a truce against further strife. How meet that the eye should be the seat of tears--where they cannot occur unobserved, but, blending with the beauty of the eye itself, must command attention and sympathy!