A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
Whether this astounding statement of the learned doctor has any basis of truth or not I do not know, but that the lesson he sought to impress by it is true, my own experience can attest. During a period of several years, with another young enthusiast, I subsisted on a diet of bread and apples except when these could not be had, when we repaired the waste of our bodies by eating whole wheat, a bag of which we constantly carried with us for "emergencies." Often we have subsisted on whole wheat and clear water alone for several days, and even a week at a time. During these periods we did not notice that we lost flesh. Of course we had very little to lose, but our vigor and the intensity of our enthusiasm and faith in our powers, all of which depend largely upon the amount of nutriment carried from the stomach to the brain, and various nerve centers, were not in the least diminished. Later on we found that when convenient, we could obtain more nourishment from the wheat with less chewing by having it boiled, but when boiled, we could not carry with us a week's rations without fatigue, and boiled wheat will become sour in the summer time while whole dry wheat will keep for years, and, like feminine beauty, remain ever fresh. It is the most condensed form of digestible food known to man.
Of course where men have dissipated and their powers of digestion have been undermined by intoxicating liquor, tobacco, or the habitual use of highly spiced and over-prepared foods, any coming down to a natural diet like this is a severe hardship. But for a young man with firm faith and good health, NOT TO BE IMPEDED IN HIS DESIRE TO BECOME AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR IN THE GREATEST MOVEMENT OF HISTORY BY THE MERE FACT THAT HE HAS NO MONEY WITH WHICH TO PAY CAR FARE AND BUY GOOD FOOD AND CLOTHES, the suggestions here given will be found helpful. I would not advise others to do, what I have not done or am not willing to do myself. The fact is, however, that any young man, in good health, and formed of the right kind of "dust," can travel, without any money from one end of the country to the other speaking daily, and accomplish much for our cause, even if he does not meet more than one true friend in a thousand miles. But the comforts and vices and follies of civilization he must be able to do without.
This austere and ascetic mode of life is not commended for its own sake. The suggestion is merely thrown out as one possible way of beginning work, so that no young man in good health can claim that he would have done wonders for the cause had he not been prohibited by poverty. No such excuse exists. Healthy single men can live and thrive if buoyed up by hope and faith and manly purpose, and travel the world over on a quarter of the wages of a day laborer.