he Church Militant. No doubt, a
laudable aversion prevails, in this country, to the English practices of
pugilism; yet it must be remembered that sparring is, by its very name,
a "science of self-defence"; and if a gentleman wishes to know how to
hold a rude antagonist at bay, in any emergency, and keep out of an
undignified scuffle, the means are most easily afforded him by the art,
which Pythagoras founded. Apart from this, boxing exercises every muscle
in the body, and gives a wonderful quickness to eye and hand. These same
remarks apply, though in a minor degree, to fencing also.

Billiards is a graceful game, and affords, in some respects, admirable
training, but is hardly to be classed among athletic exercises. Tenpins
afford, perhaps, the most popular form of exercise among us, and have
become almost a national game, and a good one, too, so far as it goes.
The English game of bowls is less entertaining, and is, indeed, rather a
sluggish sport, though it has the merit of being played in the open air.
The severer British sports, as tennis and rackets, are scarcely more
than names, to us Americans.

Passing now to outdoor exercises, (and no one should confine himself to
in-door ones,) we hold with the Thalesian school, and rank water first.
Vishnu Sarma gives, in his apologues, the characteristics of the fit
place for a wise man to live in, and enumerates among its necessities
first "a Rajah" and then "a river." Democrats as we are, we can dispense
with the first, but not with the second. A square mile even of pond
water is worth a year's schooling to any intelligent boy. A boat is a
kingdom. We personally own one,--a mere flat-bottomed "float," with a
centre-board. It has seen service,--it is eight years old,--has spent
two winters under the ice, and been fished in by boys every day for as
many summers. It grew at last so hopelessly leaky, that even the boys
disdained it. It cost seven dollars originally, and we would not sell it
to-day for seventeen. To own the poorest boat is better than hiring the
best. It is a link to Nature; without a boat, one is so much the less a
man.

Sailing is of course delicious; it is as good as flying to steer
anything with wings of canvas, whether one stand by the wheel of a
clipper-ship, or by the clumsy stern-oar of a "gundalow." But rowing has
also its charms; and the Indian noiselessness of the paddle, beneath the
fringing branches of the Assabeth or Artichoke, puts one into Fa