beard was and is. This is reason enough; but there are many others. The
misery of shaving, its expense, its consumption of time,--a very
corporation existing for no other purpose but to shave mankind. Campbell
the poet, who had always a bad razor, I suppose, and was late of rising,
said he believed the man of civilization who lived to be sixty had
suffered more pain in littles every day in shaving than a woman with a
large family had from her lyings-in. This would be hard to prove; but
it is a process that never gets pleasanter by practice; and then the
waste of time and temper,--the ugliness of being ill or unshaven. Now,
we can easily see advantages in it; the masculine gender is intended to
be more out of doors, and more in all weathers than the smooth-chinned
ones, and this protects him and his Adam's apple from harm. It acts as
the best of all respirators to the mason and the east-wind. Besides, it
is a glory; and it must be delightful to have and to stroke a natural
beard, not one like bean-stalks or a bottle-brush, but such a beard as
Abraham's or Abd-el-Kader's. It is the beginning ever to cut, that makes
all the difference. I hazard a theory, that no hair of the head or beard
should ever be cut, or needs it, any more than the eyebrows or
eyelashes. The finest head of hair I know is one which was never cut. It
is not too long; it is soft and thick. The secret where to stop growing
is in the end of the native untouched hair. If you cut it off, the poor
hair does not know when to stop; and if our eyebrows were so cut, they
might be made to hang over our eyes, and be wrought into a veil.
Besides, think of the waste of substance of the body in hewing away so
much hair every morning, and encouraging an endless rotation of crops!
Well, then, I go in for the beards of the next generation, the unshorn
beings whose beards will be wagging when we are away; but of course they
must be clean. But how are we to sup our porridge and kail? Try it when
young, when there is just a shadowy down on the upper lip, and no fears
but they will do all this "elegantly" even. Nature is slow and gentle in
her teaching even the accomplishment of the spoon. And as for women's
hair, don't plaster it with scented and sour grease, or with any grease;
it has an oil of its own. And don't tie up your hair tight, and make it
like a cap of iron over your skull. And why are your ears covered? You
hear all the worse, and they are not the cleaner. Besides, the ear is
beautiful in itself, and plays its own part in the concert of the
features. Go back to the curls, some of you, and try in everything to
dress as it becomes you, and as you become; not as that fine lady, or
even your own Tibbie or Grizzy chooses to dress, it may be becomingly to
her. Why shouldn't we even in dress be more ourselves than somebody or
everybody else?
I had a word about _Teeth_. Don't get young children's teeth drawn. At
least, let this be the rule. Bad teeth come of bad health and bad and
hot food, and much sugar. I can't say I am a great advocate for the
common people going in for tooth-brushes. No, they are not necessary in
full health. The healthy man's teeth clean themselves, and so does his
skin. A good dose of Gregory often puts away the toothache. It is a
great thing, however, to get them early stuffed, if they need it; that
really keeps them and your temper whole. For appearance' sake merely, I
hate false teeth, as I hate a wig. But this is not a matter to dogmatize
about. I never was, I think, deceived by either false hair, or false
teeth, or false eyes, or false cheeks, for there are in the high--I
don't call it the great--world, plumpers for making the cheeks round, as
well as a certain dust for making them bloom. But you and I don't enjoy
such advantages.
_Rheumatism_ is peculiarly a disease of the workingman. One old
physician said its only cure was patience and flannel. Another said six
weeks. But I think good flannel and no drunkenness (observe, I don't say
no drinking, though very nearly so) are its best preventives. It is a
curious thing, the way in which cold gives rheumatism. Suppose a man is
heated and gets cooled, and being very well at any rate, and is sitting
or sleeping in a draught; the exposed part is chilled; the pores of its
skin, which are always exuding and exhaling waste from the body,
contract and shut in this bad stuff; it--this is my theory--not getting
out is taken up by a blunder of the deluded absorbents, who are always
prowling about for something, and it is returned back to the centre, and
finds its way into the blood, and poisons it, affecting the heart, and
carrying bad money, bad change, bad fat, bad capital all over the body,
making nerves, lungs, everything unhappy and angry. This vitiated blood
arrives by and by at the origin of its mischief, the chilled shoulder,
and here it wreaks its vengeance, and in doing so, does some general
good at local expense. It gives pain; it produces a certain inflammation
of its own, and if it is not got rid of by the skin and other ways, it
may possibly kill by the rage the body gets in, and the heat; or it may
inflame the ill-used heart itself, and then either kill, or give the
patient a life of suffering and peril. The medicines we give act not
only by detecting this poison of blood, which, like yeast, leavens all
in its neighborhood, but by sending it out of the body like a culprit.
_Vaccination._--One word for this. Never neglect it; get it done within
two months after birth, and see that it is well done; and get all your
neighbors to do it.
_Infectious Diseases._--Keep out of their way; kill them by fresh air
and cleanliness; defy them by cheerfulness, good food (_better_ food
than usual, in such epidemics as cholera), good sleep, and a good
conscience.
When in the midst of and waiting on those who are under the scourge of
an epidemic, be as little very close to the patient as you can, and
don't inhale his or her breath or exhalations when you can help it; be
rather in the current to, than from him. Be very cleanly in putting away
all excretions at once, and quite away; go frequently into the fresh
air; and don't sleep in your day clothes. Do what the Doctor bids you;
don't crowd round your dying friend; you are stealing his life in taking
his air, and you are quietly killing yourself. This is one of the worst
and most unmanageable of our Scottish habits, and many a time have I
cleared the room of all but one, and dared them to enter it.
Then you should, in such things as small-pox, as indeed in everything,
carry out the Divine injunction, "_Whatsoever_ ye would that men should
do unto you, do ye even so to them." Don't send for the minister to pray
with and over the body of a patient in fever or delirium, or a child
dying of small-pox or malignant scarlet fever; tell him, by all means,
and let him pray with you, and for your child. Prayers, you know, are
like gravitation, or the light of heaven; they will go from whatever
place they are uttered; and if they are real prayers, they go straight
and home to the centre, the focus of all things; and you know that poor
fellow with the crust of typhus on his lips, and its nonsense on his
tongue,--that child tossing in misery, not knowing even its own
mother,--what can they know, what heed can they give to the prayer of
the minister? He may do all the good he can,--the most good maybe when,
like Moses on the hillside, in the battle with Amalek, he uplifts his
hands apart. No! a word spoken by your minister to himself and his God,
a single sigh for mercy to him who is mercy, a cry of hope, of despair
of self, opening into trust in him, may save that child's life, when an
angel might pour forth in vain his burning, imploring words into the
dull or wild ears of the sufferer, in the vain hope of getting _him_ to
pray. I never would allow my father to go to typhus cases; and I don't
think they lost anything by it. I have seen him rising in the dark of
his room from his knees, and I knew whose case he had been laying at the
footstool.
And now, my dear friends, I find I have exhausted our time, and never
yet got to the sermon, and its text--"_That the way of God_"--what is
it? It is his design in setting you here; it is the road he wishes you
to walk in; it is his providence in your minutest as in the world's
mightiest things; it is his will expressed in his works and word, and in
your own soul it is his salvation. That it "_may be known_," that the
understandings of his intelligent, responsible, mortal and immortal
creatures should be directed to it, to study and (as far as we ever can
or need) to understand that which, in its fulness, passes all
understanding; that it may be known "_on the earth_," here, in this very
room, this very minute; not, as too many preachers and performers do, to
be known only in the next world,--men who, looking at the stars, stumble
at their own door, and it may be _smoor_ their own child, besides
despising, upsetting, and extinguishing their own lantern. No! the next
world is only to be reached through this; and our road through this our
wilderness is not safe unless on the far beyond there is shining the
lighthouse on the other side of the dark river that has no bridge. Then
"_His saving health_"; His health--whose?--God's--his soundness, the
wholeness, the perfectness, that is alone in and from him,--health of
body, of heart, and brain, health to the finger-ends, health for
eternity as well as time. "_Saving_"; we need to be saved, and we are
salvable, this is much; and God's health can save us, that is more. When
a man or woman is fainting from loss of blood, we sometimes try to save
them, when all but gone, by transfusing the warm rich blood of another
into their veins. Now this is what God, through his Son, desires to do;
to transfuse his blood, himself, through his Son, who is himself, into
us, diseased and weak. "_And_" refers to his health being "_known_,"
recognized, accepted, used, "_among all nations_"; not among the U.P.s,
or the Frees, or the Residuaries, or the Baptists, or the New Jerusalem
people,--nor among us in the Canongate, or in Biggar, or even in old
Scotland, but "among all nations"; then, and only then, will the people
praise thee, O God; will all the people praise thee. Then, and then
only, will the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, will
bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear
him.
And now, my dear and patient friends, we must say good night. You have
been very attentive, and it has been a great pleasure to me as we went
on to preach to you. We came to understand one another. You saw through
my jokes, and that they were not always nothing but jokes. You bore with
my solemnities, because I am not altogether solemn; and so good night,
and God bless you, and may you, as Don Quixote, on his death-bed, says
to Sancho, May you have your eyes closed by the soft fingers of your
great-grandchildren. But no, I must shake hands with you, and kiss the
bairns,--why shouldn't I? if their mouths are clean and their breath
sweet? As for you, _Ailie_, you are wearying for the child; and he is
tumbling and fretting in his cradle, and wearying for you; good by, and
away you go on your milky way. I wish I could (unseen) see you two
enjoying each other. And good night, my bonnie _wee wifie_; you are
sleepy, and you must be up to make your father's porridge; and _Master
William Winkie_, will you be still for one moment while I address you?
Well, Master William, _wamble_ not off your mother's lap, neither rattle
in your excruciating way in an airn jug wi' an airn spoon; no more
crowing like a cock, or skirlin' like a kenna-what. I had much more to
say to you, sir, but you will not bide still; off with you, and a
blessing with you.
Good night, _Hugh Cleland_, the best smith of any smiddy; with your
bowly back, your huge arms, your big heavy brows and eyebrows, your
clear eye, and warm unforgetting heart. And you, _John Noble_, let me
grip your horny hand, and count the queer knobs made by the perpetual
mell. I used, when I was a Willie Winkie, and wee, to think that you
were born with them. Never mind, you were born for them, and of old you
handled the trowel well, and built to the plumb. _Thomas Bertram_, your
loom is at a discount, but many's the happy day I have watched you and
your shuttle, and the interweaving treadles, and all the mysteries of
setting the "wab." You are looking well, and though not the least of an
ass, you might play Bottom must substantially yet. _Andrew Wilson_,
across the waste of forty years and more I snuff the fragrance of your
shop; have you forgiven me yet for stealing your paint-pot (awful joy!)
for ten minutes to adorn my rabbit-house, and for blunting your pet
_furmer_? Wise you were always, and in the saw-pit you spoke little, and
wore your crape. Yourself wears well, but take heed of swallowing your
shavings unawares, as is the trick of you "wrights"; they confound the
interior and perplex the Doctor.
_Rob Rough_, you smell of rosin, and your look is stern, nevertheless,
or all the rather, give me your hand. What a grip! You have been the
most sceptical of all my hearers; you like to try everything, and you
hold fast only what you consider good; and then on your _crepida_ or
stool, you have your own think about everything human and divine, as you
smite down errors on the lapstane, and "yerk" your arguments with a
well-rosined lingle; throw your window open for yourself as well as for
your blackbird; and make your shoes not to pinch. I present you, sir,
with a copy of the book of the wise Switzer.
And nimble _Pillans_, the clothier of the race, and quick as your
needle, strong as your corduroys, I bid you good night. May you and the
cooper be like him of Fogo, each a better man than his father; and you,
_Mungo_ the mole-catcher, and _Tod Laurie_, and _Sir Robert_ the cadger,
and all the other odd people, I shake your fists twice, for I like your
line. I often wish I had been a mole-catcher, with a brown velveteen, or
(fine touch of tailoric fancy!) a moleskin coat; not that I dislike
moles,--I once ate the fore-quarter of one, having stewed it in a
Florence flask, some forty years ago, and liked it,--but I like the
killing of them, and the country by-ways, and the regularly irregular
life, and the importance of my trade.
And good night to you all, you women-folks. _Marion Graham_ the
milkwoman; _Tibbie Meek_ the single servant; _Jenny Muir_ the
sempstress; _Mother Johnston_ the howdie, thou consequential Mrs. Gamp,
presiding at the gates of life; and you in the corner there, _Nancy
Cairns_, gray-haired, meek and old, with your crimped mutch as white as
snow; the shepherd's widow, the now childless mother, you are stepping
home to your _bein_ and lonely room, where your cat is now ravelling a'
her thrums, wondering where "she" is.
Good night to you all, big and little, young and old; and go home to
your bedside, there is Some One waiting there for you, and his Son is
here ready to take you to him. Yes, he is waiting for every one of you,
and you have only to say, "Father, I have sinned,--take me"--and he sees
you a great way off. But to reverse the parable; it is the first-born,
your elder brother, who is at your side, and leads you to your Father,
and says, "I have paid his debt"; that Son who is ever with him, whose
is all that he hath.
I need not say more. You know what I mean. You know who is waiting, and
you know who it is who stands beside you, having the likeness of the Son
of Man. Good night! The night cometh in which neither you nor I can
work,--may we work while it is day; whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do,
do it with thy might, for there is no work or device in the grave,
whither we are all of us hastening; and when the night is spent, may we
all enter on a healthful, a happy, an everlasting to-morrow!
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