PROLEGOMENON. 49 



walks upon carpets and pavements, consumes disease in 

 the shape of poisonous and luxurious food, lifted into the 

 air by the savage force of the giant Vice, a terrible Her- 

 cules. 



Bruised and mangled, his only hope is to touch the bosom 

 of his Mother and receive again his life and strength. Let 

 him seek the regeneration and salvation of the country 

 life; let him leave those seething caldrons of vice and 

 death, towns and cities ; let him ignore that fatal gregarious 

 instinct, old bond of veriest animality, ancient despotism of 

 his brutehood, and return to the woods and fields still fresh 

 with the fragrance and dews of the dawn of the world, re- 

 touched with the sweetness of immortal youth each morn- 

 ing of time; let him rush to the hills and mountains, 



" Where health -with health agrees, 

 And the wise soul expels disease;" 



let him return to the wisdom, the reason, and the faith of 

 Nature ; let him inhale the odor of the soil; let him walk 

 the field and see how his blood grows in apple and potato, 

 in wheat and Indian corn ; let him wash his feet in the 

 running brook from the sordes and pollution, the sensuality 

 and disease, of the pathway of the transgressor, and walk 

 upon the sod with bared soles, a humiliated and mournful, 

 but beloved and forgiven prodigal, knowing that his Mother 

 the Earth is kind to her rebellious children, and always 

 receives the penitent who returns from the swine-husks of 

 sin, within the sphere of her benign influence, with fat things 

 and bountiful benedictions. 



Thus it seemed that the chapter Antaeus might embrace 

 the promises of the gospel of physical regeneration, and 

 serve as a pivotal centre around which to rally some of the 

 overtures of healing and bodily perfection held out by in- 

 spired souls and Nature to her erring creatures. Symbol- 

 izing all earthly influences, then, the Giant invincible, the 

 terrible wrestler of Libya who slew all men who contended 

 with him, stands the incarnation of the perpetually restora- 

 tive power of the world, the genial, saving forces, which 



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