Connecticut western news., 1894-03-01

disadvantages of physiognomy was in this country nightly illustrated by one whose life recently closed after having served in the presidential cabinet at Washington. By accident of fire in childhood his face had been more pite- ously scared than any human visage that I ever saw. By hard study he arose from being poor boy to the very height of the legal profession, and when an attorney general for the United States was needed he entered the presi- dential cabinet. What triumph over destroyed human countenancel
 I do not wonder that when an oppos- ing attorney in a Philadelphia court room cruelty referred to this personal disagreement Benjamin F. Brewster re- piled in these words: "When I was a babe, was beautiful blue eyed child. know this because my dear dead moth CT told me so, but I was one day play ing with my sister when her clothes took fire. and I ran to her relief and saved her, but in doing so my clothes took fire, and the fire was not put out until my free was as black as the heart of the scoundrel who has just now re- ferred to my disagreement. Heroism conquering physical disabilitiesl That scholarly regular features are not neces- sary for making powerful impression witness Paul, who photographs himself as in s'bodily presence weak" and George Whitefeld, whose eyes were struck with strabismus, and Alexander u 10 c, IL face in invahd's chair while he thrilled the American congress with his elo- quence, and thousands of invalid preach CTS and Sabbath school teachers and Christian workers. Aye, the most glori- ous being the world ever saw was fore seen by Isaiah, who described his face bruised and gashed and scarified and said of him, His visage was SO marred, more than any man." So you see that the loveliest face in the universe was a scared face.
 THE BRIGHT SIDE AND THE DARK.
 And now am going to tell you of some of the chisels that work for the disfguration or irradiation of the hu- man countenance. One of the sharpest and most destructive of those chisels of the countenance is cynicism. That sours the disposition and then sours the face. It gives contemptuous curl to the lip. It draws down the corners of the mouth and inflates the nostril as with malodor. What David said in haste they say in their deliberation, "All men are liars" everything is going to ruin. All men and women are bad or going to be. Society and the church are on the down grade. Tell them of an act of benevolence, and they say he gave that to advertise himself. They do not like the present fashion of hats for wo- men or of coats for men. They are op- posed to the administration, municipal and state and national. Somehow food does not taste as it used to, and they wonder why there are no poets or ora tors or preachers as when they were boys. Even Solomon, one of the wisest and at one time one of the worst of men, falls into the pessimistic mood and cries out in thetwenty- chapter of Proverbs, "Who can find virtuous woman?" If he had behaved himself better and kept in good associations, he would not have written that interroga- ton point implying the scarcity of good womanhood. Cynicism, if a habit, as it is with tens of thousands of people. writes itself all over the features; hence SO many sour visages all up and down the street, all up and down the church and the world. One good way to make the world worse is to say it is worse. Let depressed and foreboding opinion of everything take possession of you for 20 years, and you will be a sight to be- hold. It is the chastisement of God that when a man allows his heart to be cursed with cynicism his face becomes gloomed and scowled and lachrymosed and blasted with the same midnight.
 ANGELo's RUsE.
 But let Christian cheerfulness try its chisel upon mans countenance. Feel ing that all things are for his good, and that God rules, and that the Bible being true the worlds foralization is rapidly approaching, and the day when beer mug and demijohn and distillery and bombshell and rife pit and "A pound CTS and roulette tables and corrupt book and satanic printing press will have quit work, the brightness that comes from such anticipation not only gives zest to his work, but shines in his eyes and glows In his cheek and kindles morning in his entire countenance. Those are the faces look for in an au- dience. Those countenances are sections of millennial glory. They are heaven impersonated. They are the sculptur- ing of God g right hand. They are -ho- sannas in human flesh. They are halle luiahs alighted. They are Christ rein lures are or whether you look like your father or your mother or look like no one under the heavens, to God and man you are beautiful.
 Michael Angelo, the sculptor, visiting Florence, some one showed him in a back yard piece of marble that was so shapeless it seemed of no use, and An gelo was asked if he could make any thing out of it, and if so was told he could own it. The artist took the mar ble, and for nine months shut himself up to work, first trying to make of it a statue of David with his foot on Go Hath, but the marble was not quite long enough at the base to make the pros trate form of the giant, and so the art ist fashioned the marble into another figure that is Do famous for all time be- cause of its expressiveness. A critic
 came in and was asked by Angelo for
 his criticism, and he said it was beauti- ful, but the nose of the statue was not
 of right shape. Angelo picked up from the floor some sand and tossed it about the face of the statue, pretending he
 was using his chisel to make the i'm
 provement suggested by the critic.
 What do you think of it now?" said the artist. Wonderfully improved. :"
 said the critic. We'll" said the artist,
 1T have not changed it at all." My friends, the grace of God comes to the
 heart of man or woman and then at
 tempts to change forbidding and pre- 1 judicial face into attractiveness. Per- haps the face is most unpromising for