132 VENTILATION. 



scribing, could only know as much, they would be in almost 

 similar danger. 



Bad air, one would think, issbad enough : but when it is 

 heated and dried to an excessive degree, all its original 

 vileness is stimulated to grealer activity, and thus made 

 doubly injurious by this new element of evil. Not only our 

 private houses, but our churches and school-rooms, our rail- 

 road cars, and ail our places of public assemblage, are, to a 

 most lamentable degree, either unprovided with any means 

 of ventilation, or, to a great extent, supplied with those which 

 are so deficient that they 



" Keep the word of promise to our ear, 

 And break it to our hope." 



That ultimate degeneracy must surely follow such entire 

 disregard of the laws of health, cannot be doubted ; and 

 those who imagine that the physical stamina of a people can 

 be undermined, and yet that their intellectual, moral and 

 religious health will suffer no eclipse or decay, know very 

 little of the intimate connection between body and mind, 

 which the Creator has seen fit to establish. 



The men may, to a certain extent, resist the injurious in- 

 fluences of foul air ; as their employments usually compel 

 them to live much more out of doors : but alas, alas ! for 

 the poor women ! In the very land where women are treated 

 with more universal deference and respect than in any other, 

 and where they so well deserve it, there often, no provision 

 is made to furnish them with that great element of health, 

 cheerfulness and beauty, heaven's pure, fresh air. 



In Southern climes, where doors and windows may be 

 safely kept open for a large part of the year, pure air is 

 cheap enough, and can be obtained without any special 

 effort : but in Northern latitudes, where heated air must be 



