PROSPECTS BEFORE THE CHRONIC INVALID.
By David Paulson
Different Ways of Getting Well.
THERE are many who are so despondent and depressed that they are virtually carrying funerals around in their brains; yet there is no reason for it other than that their nerve-centers are overcharged with poisons. Many of these would have new windows broken into their souls, as it were, letting in rays of sunlight, if they could be induced to take out-door exercise and such tonic applications of water as have been mentioned in a previous article. Others will never be translated into the realm of physical health until they have reformed their methods of cooking. Others have plenty of reserve force left within them; and they only require to have the stirring inspiration resulting from a disposition and experience in doing good for others, and their languid physical forces will be aroused, and their “health will spring forth speedily.” Still others need to brace up their wills, and deliberately rise above their little ills and pains and aches and the ghosts of imaginary diseases that are roosting in their brains, and they will soon find that they can actually stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of humanity. There are others whose spiritual condition casts such a shadow over their entire physical mechanism, that they will never regain their health until the sweet message is borne to them by some tender and sympathetic tongue, “Thy sins be forgiven thee;” and then they will speedily arise, take up their bed, and walk. We may always be sure that the blessings that God can consistently bestow upon us to-morrow, will, to a certain extent, be measured by the use we make of our God-given opportunities to-day. No one can measure the heights to which the adoption of right principles in our lives may elevate us; but we may be certain that if we have the truth it will make us free, and then we “shall be free indeed.” John 8: 32, 36. If we use our hands to the very utmost to-day in carrying out right principles, no one can measure what God may entrust our hands to accomplish to-morrow. There is an apparently arbitrary law of heredity, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” Num. 14: 18. Likewise there is a law which says to every leaf on a tree that it shall fall to the earth; yet the tree proudly raises its head a little higher day by day in apparent defiance of the law of gravitation, because it is dominated by a force that is greater than the force which is pulling it down. So every chronic invalid who is carrying an inherited load of disease upon his shoulders may still look up with hope; for the same God that declared that the sins of the fathers were to be visited upon the children, declared also that when He should have an opportunity to write His law fully in the heart of humanity, physically and spiritually, then this proverb would no longer apply: “The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Jer. 31: 33, 29. There is a divine power implanted in every human being that can assist Him in unloading the curse of a miserable heredity, provided he will become sufficiently inspired to cultivate health vigorously. When We Shall be Satisfied.
There will probably never be a time here on earth when a human being will feel able to declare that he is perfect either spiritually or physically. There will never be a time here below when it will fully appear what we shall be. 1 John 3: 2. We shall never be fully satisfied with our own attainments, either physical or spiritual, until we awake in His likeness. Ps. 17: 15. We are never to become proud or boastful of the degree of physical or spiritual righteousness that God may impart to us. We should ever remember that we have this “treasure in earthen vessels,” and bear in mind that it is God that makes us to differ. 2 Cor. 4: 7; 1 Cor. 4: 7. At the same time we may be satisfied that God is doing that which is for our best good, and so learn the precious lesson in whatsoever state we are, therewith to be content; for “godliness with contentment is great gain.” Phil. 4: 11; 1 Tim. 6: 6. If the vision of health seems to tarry, it is well for us to know that if we are doing our part, there is some reason for the delay. When God makes our bed in sickness (Ps. 41: 3), it is not the worst thing that can happen to be ill. There is many a boy or girl who to-day is breaking a mother’s heart by a life of sin and dissipation, who would certainly have found a great blessing in being compelled to spend several months at the critical point of his or her experience at home, nursing a broken limb or some other affliction, with only the Bible for a close companion. God instructs us that if we are afflicted, we are to pray. James 5: 13. There are some who are never driven to prayer until they are afflicted, and there are some whom God, in His infinite wisdom, undoubtedly knows would cease praying as soon as their afflictions were removed; so He allows the affliction to remain long enough for the habit of praying to become thoroughly established. David learned some of his best lessons in his deepest experiences; for he declares, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes.” Ps. 119: 71. The sweetest part of the orange lies just beneath the bitterness in its rind, so some of the grandest inspirations of our lives may be born in the darkest hour of bitterness and adversity. When the tottering infant falls, God puts an instinct in it to rise; and so He is continually bidding the sick man to arise, to look up, to have faith, courage, and hope. It may be that in eternity many who have wandered far away into by and forbidden paths will still, as a result of thorough-going repentance, stand nearest to the throne, and breathe in throughout all eternity the air of health in that place that is to be all health, even tho Infinite Wisdom allowed so many scars to remain that it was impossible to enjoy much of the comfort of life here below. Let every storm-tossed soul remember that God “hath His way in the whirlwind” (Nahum 1: 3), and so they may calmly rest upon Him in the darkest hour, knowing that darkness and light are both alike to Him. Ps. 139: 12. DAVID PAULSON, M. D.