Sure Cures for Heart Dis-Ease
By Benjamin Keech
So many persons are suffering of that popular complaint, heart dis-ease, that I think it is time I offered some of my remedies. No matter whether you are afflicted with one ailment or five, I can cure them all. The most common form of heart dis-ease is, perhaps, the broken heart. Almost every one imagines he has one; and if you are really suffering with such a bother, the salve of love for “all persons in general” instead of “one person in particular” will mend and heal the battered organ. That's an old remedy, but it's very efficacious. However, you must keep your mind off your heart while it is “knitting.” Otherwise, it may break again. Remain busy at work, even at times when you feel like “crying your heart out.” Still, the right kind of tears, properly shed, are really a good remedy. Healthy lachrymal fluid will help wash your troubles away, but morbid tears only make one more irritable. If, at first, you can’t be cheerful all the time, endeavor to weep while you are doing nice, beautiful things for humanity—not while you are pitying yourself. The crushed heart is, in most ways, like the broken heart. Its owner, however, was a “soft” person; and his heart, instead of being sharply broken, was flatly crushed. The pain becomes dull, aching, intense; and if allowed to harden, these hearts become very serious. They should be treated with consideration and poultices of forgetfulness-of-self. Cease to remember that you have a pain, dear sufferer, and begin to attend to the aches in other people’s chests. There are plenty that require attention, you will find. And the little, individual woes in our own hearts amount to nothing compared with the wo of the world. Therefore, why not try to relieve some of the really big troubles you’ve heard about, thus losing your own small one? Hard-heartedness, painfully common, is generally the result of being disappointed in having one’s own foolish way. Indeed, selfish people are very liable to suffer of this affliction. Then, again, the person whose broken heart was healed too quickly, or by improper methods, is likely to be left hard-hearted. For this trouble endeavor to experience a change of heart. Instead of rehearsing your woes, cultivate a happy disposition—preferably in a garden, or out-of-doors. Also spend three hundred and sixty-five days each year doing nice things for people near you—preferably folk you do not love. This is a bitter dose, but the cure is excellent. The above prescription can be taken with fine results by persons afflicted with heartburn. How often we discover our poor, foolish hearts burning with hatred, envy, and other bad emotions! And how charmingly we might calm the pain if we’d only sprinkle heartsease on some one else’s injuries! Most of my remedies, when analyzed, contain about the same antidotes and soothing properties. But strange to say, the place to get the prescriptions filled is right in our own deranged hearts. I know the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” but it is the seat of good desires, too. When first you discover things going wrong, take the Bible in one hand, and give the organ in question a thoro examination, taking note of all the good and bad qualities therein. Then faithfully cultivate the former, using the prayer, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me;” and in time you’ll be able to crowd out everything objectionable. Thus you’ll be relieved of many distressing afflictions. Heart paralysis is caused by shocks of misfortune. Gently lay the sufferer on the softest bed in the house, elevate his mind, loosen the tension of his nerves, and inform him that it might have been worse. Kindly administer good cheer at regular intervals, also irregular, and don’t allow him to turn blue. Weak hearts should be encouraged to grow strong. Sometimes they can’t develop unless some one besides their owners furnishes the strength. If you know of any one whose worst failing is a weak heart, for pity’s sake go to the rescue. Sensitive children and young persons are perhaps the leading sufferers. Fatty degeneration of the heart is a peculiar dis-ease. It is acquired by living off the fat of the land to such an extent that one becomes selfish and his heart degenerates. The cure is the same as for hard-heartedness, etc. Improper circulation, or repression of good impulses, is another distressing affliction, the symptoms of which are pains in the conscience, cold thoughts, and absence of the right kind of mind. The arteries and veins (of good) become so clogged with forms of selfishness that love, kindness, and goodness can find no chance to circulate. So they often die. Bad blood is the cause of many bad hearts; and bad hearts, lungs, and stomachs are the cause of more bad blood. When that wonderful, life-giving fluid gets tainted with hate, impure air, greed, improper food, spiritual indifference, and other kinds of laziness, it isn’t any wonder that a person suffers all the different varieties of heart dis-ease at the same time. And it isn’t any wonder that one’s mind becomes deranged, when laden with such germs. Therefore, here’s a nice, practical, up-to-date recipe for a good, clean heart. Provide your stomach with pure but not too much food, your lungs with even more pure air than they can use, and your mind with unlimited, good, healthy thoughts, acquired by diligently studying the greatest of all health books, the Bible. Plenty of exercise should also be taken. Go to work at once, and do some beautiful deeds, praying over them before and afterward. This will develop your weak heart, and make it strong. Heart failure is the result of all the other troubles combined. Sometimes, however, it precedes heart paralysis. It is certainly very annoying to try to go to work at any task, and find that your heart fails you. When this happens, search your chest for all the grit, sand, pluck, and courage therein, and faithfully cultivate. Energetically water your good resolutions with determination, and “don’t allow a single weed of fear, doubt, or laziness to choke the growing plants.” Some folks afflicted with heart failure—foolish as they are—have cured themselves by plunging right into the dreaded task, even when feeling as “weak as a rag.” It certainly shows strength upon which to build; and if others fail, I advise you to try that remedy. However, a less strenuous route is generally taken by most persons. They get on good terms with their troubles, and peacefully glide into the harbor of whole-heartedness. There are many other comforting things in our Guide-Book about hearts.