to pass till it has accumulated in sufficient force to push them before it, and so escape. In consequence which it is always being checked in its advance; and during these stoppages a most important work goes on upon it at leisure.

You must understand first, that the substances of which our food is composed, and which are afterwards decomposed in the stomach, are not all invited to enter the blood. Our aliments are something like the stones which the gold-seekers of California reduce to powder in order to extract therefrom the hidden particles of gold they contain. The gold of our food is that portion of it which the blood is able to appropriate to his own advantage; the rest he rejects as refuse. And this explains why a small slice of meat nourishes you more than a whole plateful of salad. Meat is a stone absolutely full of gold, while the salad has only a few veins of it here and there, and by far the greater part of the material it sends to the intestines, has, in consequence, to be thrown away.

Now it is in the first portion of the small intestine, the part known by the Latin name duodenum, which signifies twelve (because it is about the length of twelve finger-breadths), that the division takes place between the parts which go to nourish the blood, and those which are useless refuse. It is an important operation as you may suppose, and were the chyme to pass rapidly through the small intestine the gold would run the risk of being carried off with the refuse.

After the delay in the stomach, the food-substances make another halt in the duodenum, which, being very thin and slender, would have great difficulty in contain ing them at the time of their grand entry, an hour or two after a meal, were it not that it possesses the

property of expanding itself to such an extent, that it swells out on grand occasions to the usual size of the stomach itself, so that it has sometimes been considered as a second stomach. And no doubt the operation which takes place in it gives it a claim to the appellation, for thereby the finishing stroke is put to the work previously begun in the stomach, and one may fairly say that, but for this last touch, very little would be accomplished at all.

Above the duodenum, and hid behind the stomach, is a kind of sponge, simil in nature to those we have already observed in the mouth. To this has been given the somewhat ridiculous name of pancreas; I call it ridiculous because it is derived from two Greek words which signify all flesh; whereas the pancreas, which is a sponge of the same description as the salivary glands, presents the appearance of a grayish granulous mass which is not fleshy at all. Whatever be its name, however, our sponge communicates with the duodenum through a small tube, by means of which it pours into the chyme, as it accumulates, a copious supply of a fluid exactly like the saliva of the mouth.

Just by the place where the tube from the pancreas empties itself into the duodenum, another tube arrives bringing also a fluid, but of a different sort. This last comes from the liver, where there is a manufactory of bile-an unpleasant yellowish-green liquid, the name of which you have no doubt heard before, and which plays a very important part in the transformation of the ali

ments.

These new agents, the bile and the liver, are far too important to be passed over in a few words; I reserve them, therefore, for my next letter. Meantime, not to leave you longer in suspense, I may say that the separa tion between the gold and the refuse in the chyme takes

place as soon as the latter has received the two liquids furnished by the liver and the pancreas. If you ask in what manner the division is accomplished, I confess, to my shame, that I am not able to explain it! What takes place there is a chemical process, and hereafter I shal have occasion to explain the meaning of that phrase. But the Great Chemist has not in this instance seen fit to divulge to man the secret of the work.

Indeed, you must prepare yourself beforehand, my dear child, to meet with many other mysteries besides this, if we pursue to the end our study of this flesh and bone which constitute the body of man. And here I recall what Camille Desmoulins is reported to have said about St. Just, viz., that he carried his head as high as if it were a consecrated Host.* You will read about

*The young Protestant reader who has never lived in a Catholic country, will perhaps need to be told, that what is here called Consecrated Host, is the sacramental wafer, or communion bread of the church. In French called hostie, in Italian, ostia.

In all their religious processions, which are very frequent, the host is carried by the priest highest in authority, in a glass box placed on a staff about four feet long, which he holds before him and so far elevated that he has to look up to it. Over his head a richly embroidered canopy of satin is always carried by several men; and while these are passing, all good Catholics uncover the head and bend the knee, wherever they may be.

It is the custom also for the priest to be called to administer the sacrament to any one about to die, on which occasion he always walks under this canopy, dressed in his priestly robes, carrying the host and preceded by some boys, ringing a bell, when the same ceremony is observed. In passing a regiment or company of sol diers, the column is halted, wheeled into line, and with arms presented, the whole line, officers and men, kneel before it, and the priest usually turns and offers a benediction. When he goes in the evening to the house of the dying, it is customary for the people to go out upon the balconies with lighted lamps and kneel while the host is being carried by.

these two men by-and-by in history. Meantime I will not bid you do exactly the same as St. Just, because you would be laughed at; but in one point of view he was not altogether wrong. The human body is, in very truth, a temple in which the Deity may be said to reside, not inactively, not veiling his presence, but living and moving unceasingly, watching on our behalf over the mysterious accomplishment of the everlasting laws which equally guide the chyme in its workings through our frames, and direct the sun in its course through the heavens. We mortals eat, but it is God who brings nourishment out of our food.

LETTER XI.

THE LIVER.

I FEAR you will be getting a little weary, my dear, of dwelling so long on this intestinal tube, where things which looked so well on one's plate become so transformed that they cannot be recognized, and where there is nothing to talk about but chyme, and bile, and the pancreas, and all sorts of things neither pleasant to the eye nor agrecable to the ear.

But what is to be done? It is always the same story with useful things. The people by whose labor you live in this world, are by no means the handsomest to look at, and so it is in the little world we carry about in our bodies.

Never mind! Keep up your heart. We are getting to the end. We shall very soon be following the nour ishing portion of our food, on its journey to the blood, and you will find yourself in new scenes.

First, though, let us say a few words about the liver— the bile-manufacturer; and to begin with, I will describe the place he occupies in our interior.

The interior of the human body is divided into two large compartments, placed one above the other; the chest and the abdomen. These are two distinct apart ments, each containing its own particular class of tenants the upper one being occupied by the heart and the lungs (the respective offices of which I will presently