RE-CREATION

Idleness contrary to natural law

The small boy who described work as "anything you don't want to do," and play as "anything you do want to do," had in his mind the fragment of a great truth. True re-creation should afford Diversion, Entertainment, and Work. The average business man who is threatened with a breakdown, and who goes away for a rest, should in reality go to work, but it should be a different kind of work from his routine duties. No one was ever benefited by idleness; it is contrary to nature—contrary to the universal laws of construction which govern all forms of life. If digestion and assimilation have been impaired, if, from errors in eating, or from sedative habits, congestion has taken place in the alimentaryExercise necessary for assimilation and elimination tract, then muscular work becomes absolutely necessary in order to use more nutrition, to eliminate more poison and waste, and to increase and normalize the peristaltic activity of the intestinal tract.

Hunting and fishing

The business man who likes to hunt and to kill innocent animals; who runs, walks, and thinks, and perspires in the effort, is taking a good kind of re-creation—perhaps the best he knows; but the fat man who sits in a boat all day and catches fish that he cannot use, or slays a cart-load of ducks that he has deceived with a decoy, has received neither benefit nor re-creation; he has only yielded to his primeval instincts to secure his food by slaughter and has been merely entertained—probably debased.

True re-creation

True re-creation for the mental worker is manual work—labor in the open air that requires but little thought. Every business man who values the sacred heritage of health, should provide himself with a place where he can go one day out of each week and chop wood, prepare soil, plant or harvest something, get close to Mother Nature, and receive the blessings of her life-giving sun by day, and rest in her open arms at night. MenWorthless objects for which men struggle are but big children, and, like the child who cries and reaches for the bubble because it reflects the prismatic colors of the sun, most of the things for which they struggle are equally as worthless and deceptive.

The triad of all that is best in life

Mental supremacy, which means the keenest sense of love, justice, and mercy, that great triad of all that is best in man, is all that really pays. If, at the close of every life, the question, "What has brought most happiness?" could be answered, it would be, "The Gratitude of my Fellow Men." The average business pursuit is not conducive to this end. It is unfortunate that commercial and financial success are too often secured by methods that produce just the opposite results, therefore the whole life-work of the average man is really reduced to no higher object than that of securing food and shelter, which is the primitive occupation of the lowest forms of life.

Rest in solitude

One day in the week spent close to the soil with gentle cows and horses, affectionate cats and admiring dogs that have no "axe to grind," and one night every week spent in thought and reflection under the wilderness of worlds that whirl through the abyss of space, will sharpen the senses of love, justice, and mercy, give true diversion, true entertainment, true work, and true rest.

INDEX

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

V

W

Transcriber's notes:

Added 'D' to index heading of D words.

'shall fish' in index need be 'shell-fish', changed.

Added 'G' to index heading of G words.

Added 'H' to index heading of H words, misplaced.

Index HUMAN ILLA 'orginating' need be 'originating' in the stomach.

Taken out hyphen in 'Re-creation' from index.

Put in hypen in 'diseases' in index as in main text.

Both 'Re-creation' and 'Recreation' present, leaving.

Taken out hyphen in 'stand-point'.

Taken out hyphen in 'tea-pot'.

[P.1145.] Removed duplicate chapter heading in html file.

Index, O - Old Age: From 70-100 years of age V '1181' need be '1182', changed.