East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1863-10-21


rning. suoh men and women as we find
the human race, in their physical con
dition, now to be. Examine the book
of Genesis, which confirms the earliest
annals Of the human family. As is
commonly supposed, il comprises the
first ,, 800 years of human history
With child like simplicity, this book
describes the infancy of mankind. =
Unlike modern histories, il details the
minutest circumstances Of social and
individual life. Indeed il is rather a
series of biographies than a history.
The false delicacy of modern times
did not.forhid the mention of whatever
was done or suffered. And yet over
all that expnnse of time-for moro
than one-third part Of the duration OF
the human race--not a single instance
is recorded Of child born blind, OF
deaf or dumb, or idiotic, or malformed
in any way During the whole pc
Rod, not single case of natural death
in infancy, or childhood, or early man
hood, or even of middle manhood, is
10 be found. Not one man or woman
died of disease. The simple record
is "and he died" or, he died 4" in a
good old age, and full of years." or,
lac was "old and full of days" Nc
epidemic, nor even endemic disease
prevailed, showing that they died the
natural death Of healthy men, and not
the unnatural death of distempcred
ones Through all this time Except
in the case Of job, in his age, and
then only for a day or two before his
death) it does not appcr that any man
was ill, or that any old lady or young
lady ever tainted. Bodily pain from
/ disease is nowhere mentioned. Nc
/ cholera infantum. scarlatina, measles,
/ small poX--nor even a toothache =
SO extraordinary a thing was it for a
son to die before his father, that an
instance Of it is deemed worthy OF
special notice; and this first case OF
. the reversal Of natures law was 1900
years after the creation of Adam -
See how this reversal of natures law
has become for us the law for how
rare is it now for all the children OF
family to survive the parents. Ra-
chel died at the birth of benjamin,
but this is the onl Y case Of puerperal
death mentioned in the first 2,400
years Of the sacred history, and even
this happened during the fatigues OF
patriarchal journey, when passen-
gers were not waited along in the sa-
looms Of rail-cars and steamboats,
Had Adam tubarculous lungs? Was
Eve llat-chested, or did she cultivate
the serpentine line of grace in curv-
cd spine ? Did Nimrod get up in the
morning with furred tongue, or was
he tormented with dyspepsia ? Had
Esau the govt or hepatitis ? Imagine
how the tough old patriarchs would
have looked at being asked to sub
scribe for q lying-in hospital, or an
asylum for lunatics, or an eye or ear
iniirmary, or a school for idiots OF
deaf mutes. What would their eagle
vision and swift-footcdness have SAID
to the project Of blind asylum or an
orthopedic establishment. Did they
suffer any Of those revenges against
civilization? No man came from the
hands Of God so perfect in his bodily
organs, so defiant of cold and heat, OF
drought and humidity, so surcharged
with vital force, that ittook more than
two thousand years of the combined
denominations appetite and ignorancei
il took successive ages of Outrageous
excess and bauchery, to drain off cleo
tic energies and make him even access
sible to disease: and then it took ages
more TO breed all these vile distempere
which now nestle, like vermin, in ev-
CRY organ, and fibre of our bodies
During all this time. however, the IA
tai causes were at work, which wore
away and finally exhausted the glori-
Gus and abouuding vigor of the pris-
tine race. AT least as early as the
third generation from Adam, polyga-
my began. Intcrmarraiges were all
along the order OF the day Even
Abraham married hishalf-sister. The
basest harlotry was not beneath one
Of the Patriarchs. Whole people like
the Moabites and Amorites-were the
direct fruit of combined drunkenness,
and incest between fathers and daught-
ers. The highest pleasures and forces
of the race gradually narrowed down
to appetite and confluence. Atlength
its history became almost too shocking
to be referred to. lifts greatest men,
its wisest men, its God favored men,
like David, could be guilty of murder
for the sake of adultry, or like Solo
mon, could keep a seragilo of thous-
and wives and concubines, what black
ness can be black enough to paint the
portraits of the people they ruled, and
the children they begat.
After the Exodus, excuses rapidly
developed into diseases. First came
cutancous distempers--leprocy, boils,
elepliantiasis, &c. - the common effort
of nature to throw viceral impurities
to the surface. As early as King Asa,
that royal malady, the govt, had been
invented. Then came consumptions
and the burning ague, and disorders
of the viceral organs, and pestilences,
or as the Bible expresses it, "great
plaques and of long continuancc;" un-
til, in the time of Christ, we see how
diseases Of all kinds had become the
common lot of mankind, by the
crowds that flocked to him to be heal
ed. And so frightlully, so disgrace
fully numerous have diseases now b.
came, that if we were to write down
their names, in the smallest legible
hand, on the smallest bit of paper,
there would not be room enough on
the human body to paste the labels
Horace Mann.