Crossword-Solution: HARDENER 8 letters, 4 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 12

Confessedly a God of Armies and Lord of Hosts; confessedly, too, a hardener of men's, hearts that he might destroy them, he authorised acts at which human nature shudders, and of which it is ashamed: yet to _reverence_ Him we are commanded by the self-styled 'stewards of his mysteries,' on peril of our 'immortal souls.' Verily, these pious anathematisers task our credulity a little too much.

The hardener is then able to become accustomed to the characteristics of that particular material, and after determining the most suitable treatment for it no further experimenting beyond the usual check-test pieces is necessary.

But the usual feeling is that a tool must be hurried as soon as the hardener gets it, and if a burst die is the result from either uneven or overheated steel and quenching same without judgment, the steel gets the blame.

The hardener lays a few files in a fire of cinders; blows the bellows till a cherry-red heat is produced; then he thrusts the file into a stratum of charcoal, and from that plunges it into a large bath of cold water, the cleaner and colder the better.

For the first few moments, however, the opposite effect takes place; the skin is braced and tightened, and thus we find that many of the Japanese, for instance, and some athletes in America, use a short hot bath as we naturally use a cold bath, for an invigorator and hardener, and to close the pores of the skin.