p. 327 | Pure Air

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 19, 1875

Pure Air.

IF I were asked to state the sin to which, before all others, our weak humanity was prone, I should say, most positively,—bad air. For, not only in a physical, but a moral sense, do I find this true. All about me, I see men and women closing the windows of their lives and souls to God's clean atmosphere, and breathing over and over again that which is fouled by contact with unclean thought and deed, just as they will persist in closing their bedroom windows, and inhaling and exhaling a few cubic feet of oxygen gas, until it is absolutely thick with poison.

Well, I do not mean here to give a discourse on moral delinquencies, but simply to note a hint or two with regard to the care of our physical well being, on which, indeed, our moral health depends, far more than we generally understand, and the hint in this case, put into words, is—breathe pure air, always and everywhere, as far as you can.

I say, as you can, yet mindful as I say it, that there are few times and places when a little care will not secure a clean atmosphere. To be sure, there are districts in every great city, where smoke and dust and foul odors load the air continually, and yet, even in these, nine-tenths of the evil might be removed if people were but mindful of the importance of a pure atmosphere.

God has given this most priceless blessing in such abundance, "without money and without price," that the sin must lie on our own heads if we persist in poisoning ourselves in close, unventilated rooms. And here I must record a fact that amazes me. To wit: that, generally speaking, I have found more indifference on the subject of ventilation, and more ignorance, apparently, of its necessity, in country homes where no possible excuse could exist for its lack, than in homes of a crowded city.

Ventilate your rooms, then, mothers and house-keepers, wherever you are, ventilate them by day and by night. True, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand of our houses, are built with a disregard of the need of ventilation that would disgrace a tribe of Hottentots, but we cannot help that now, my dear madam; the houses are built, and we must accept them as they are, and make the best of them. We must let our windows down from the top, air out our bed-rooms with good fresh breezes, during a part of every day—making the best that we can of our illy-planned domiciles.

It is often said, that the first thing to be done in the morning, is to open your bed-room window. Good enough advice so far as it goes, but I think that it might be improved by adding to it—and the last thing at night. The process of taking in oxygen through the respiratory organs, and throwing it off again, laden with poisonous carbon, goes on during the sleeping as well as waking hours, and if you need proof of how thoroughly the air becomes fouled by this process, leave your bed-room in the morning, closed as it has been during the night, and return to it after a ten minute walk in the fresh air. You will be shocked at its offensiveness.

A mother once said to me, that she could not understand the reason why her little boy always woke up cross and peevish every morning. I ventured an inquiry about the ventilation of the child's sleeping room, and finding that it had been wholly neglected, suggested a change in that respect. The change was carried out, and the immediate improvement of the little lad's moral and physical condition at "getting-up time" was most marvelous. And I would say to the thousands of persons who complain of pain in the head, of aching limbs, of feverish mouths, and general languor in their early morning hours, to try the plan of plenty of air in the room during the night, and I will guarantee a speedy improvement, both in their health and their tempers.—Sel.