It is claimed by the physiognomies that a man's whole physique,--his nerves, ganglia and brain and lobes,--enter his every act. He is the mere pantomimist of a plan and plot sketched in his constitution. You can tell the length of his nose from his sentences; the relative hardness of his backbone from his speech. On this principle we should not, perhaps, have expected a graceful and broad proclamation from the President, but a narrow and wiry affair; for the President is an awkward brother, without any comeliness that we should desire him. But whatever we looked for, we certainly have got a very awkward and wiry proclamation. It must have required considerable ingenuity to give two and a half millions of human beings the priceless boon of Liberty in such a cold ungraceful way. The heart of the Country was anticipating something warm and earnest. One could scarcely imagine that the herald of so blessed a dawn should have caught none of its glow. Was it not a time when some word of welcome, of sympathy, of hospitality for these long-enslaved men and women, might have been naturally uttered. Was it not a time for congratulating the liberated millions that the President of the Universe had opened the portals on which had been hitherto the padlock of the Constitution, which no terrestrial President could touch? But instead of an embrace we hade a gruff, "Stay where you are!" Mr. Lincoln does indeed call it an "act of justice," but if he had been in a dentist's chair he could not have made a worse face as it was extracted from him. Instead of an utterance of thankful joy at the opportunity vouchsafed him of benefiting the human race, we have a homily to the negroes on good behavior!

But this is not the most serious defect of the Proclamation. It is confused and almost contradictory. In one breath he intimates a desire that the negroes should stay where they are and work for wages; in the next, he invites them to become our soldiers. What in the name of common sense can the President mean by advising these negroes to continue working for wages? Does their labor help the rebels less when it is paid for in confederate shipplasters? How ambiguously this will work is already seen in the two proclamations of Banks and Saxton. We fear that General Banks, whose recent course shows his willingness to raise himself by servility to slavers if that could accomplish it, will find no difficulty in getting from the New Years' Proclamation the endorsement of his own wretched proclamation ordering the slaves to remain upon their plantations; whilst we acknowledge that a man with a noble heart, attuned to liberty, will be able to get from the President's Proclamation the right to open his heart wide to the liberated and utter a great welcome like that of Gen. Saxton's, which should be regarded as a Poem worthy to go beside Schiller's, "Be embraced, millions!" We fear that this vagueness will play into the hands of many a shoulder-strapped defender of slavery in our ranks.

But there is a yet sadder fault in this paper. The President promised emancipation wherever the rebellion existed. Yet he does not touch Tennessee; and he excepts regions of Louisiana and Virginia where our armies cannot advance. That half of Tennessee was not included, is a direct breaking of faith.

By his exceptions, the President consigns to slavery a million of slaves, whose emancipation might have given the Union three solid States on which we now have barely enough foothold to put a ballot-box on a drumhead, and elect a member of Congress.

But we have reason for great courage, nevertheless. For there is another Being issuing a Proclamation in this land, who will not do it grudgingly or narrowly. This Proclamation liberating two and a half millions of human beings, is only one brief clause of Almighty God's edict. We may rest assured that He is not so merciless as to allow us to have peace for this or any other half-way measure. He will overturn, overturn, overturn until every manacle in this land is under foot.

We believe that God's Edict has not been half telegraphed yet. We believe that this of Mr. Lincoln's will have an effect he little dreams of. For when June has been shining on the mountain of snow, a man cannot dislodge a handful of that snow without accelerating or perhaps bringing down the avalanche. Even a huntsman's horn sometimes brings the avalanche when the snow has lingered beyond winter. The thawing process has been going on for a long time in this land; the snowbank of slavery has lingered farther than any could have imagined into this century; we believe that, whether he wills it or not, the President has given a shock sufficient to bring on the crash.

May God hasten it!