“THIS IS FOR YOUR HEALTH.”
| “Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise; So generations in their course decay, So flourish these when those have passed away.” |
THE INESTIMABLE VALUE OF HEALTH.—NO BLESSING IN COMPARISON.—MEN AND SWINE.—BEGIN WITH THE INFANT.—“BABY ON THE PORCH.”—IN A STRAIT JACKET.—“TWO LITTLE SHOES.”—YOUTH.—IMPURE LITERATURE AND PASSIONS.—“OUR GIRLS.”—BARE ARMS AND BUSTS.—HOW AND WHAT WE BREATHE.—“THE FREEDOM OF THE STREET.”—KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND MOUTH CLOSED.—THE LUNGS AND BREATHING.—A MAN FULL OF HOLES.—SEVEN MILLION MOUTHS TO FEED.—PURE WATER.—CLEANLINESS.—SOAP VS. WRINKLES.—GOD’S SUNSHINE.
Health is above all Things.
Health is that which makes our meat and drink both savory and pleasant, else Nature’s injunction of eating and drinking were a hard task and a slavish custom. It makes our beds lie easy and our sleep sweet and refreshing. It renews our strength with the morning’s sun, and makes us cheerful at the light of another day. It makes the soul take delight in her mansion and pleasures, a pleasure indeed, without which we solace ourselves in nothing of terrene felicity or enjoyment.—Mainwaring.
Without health there is no earthly blessing. In comparison with health all other blessings dwindle into insignificance. Life is a burden to the perpetual invalid, for whom the only solace is in the silent grave. Nor can such always look forward with perfect confidence to rest even beyond the dark portals of the tomb; for the infirm body is not unusually attended by an enfeebled mind which often jeopardizes Hope:—
“And Hope, like the rainbow of summer,
Gives a promise of Lethe at last.”
If, then, health is so essential to our earthly happiness, and to our hope of peace in immortality, O, let us who possess the boon strive to retain it, and we who have it not seek diligently to regain that which is lost.
The farmer does not consider it a compromise of his dignity to search out the best modes and means for increasing the quality as well as the quantity of his stock—his horses, his oxen, his sheep, and his swine,—and is man, the most noble work of his Maker,—man, created but a little below the angels,—is man an exception to this rule, that he should cease to be the study of mankind? Is humanity below the animals?
Mankind deteriorates while domesticated live stock improves.