THIS IMPATIENT, NERVOUS GENERATION.
THE drug stores have numerous remedies for nervousness, both in the way of patent mixtures and medicines that are to be mixed according to the prescription of the practising physician. Among doctors there are specialists who devote their whole time to the study of nervous diseases. The papers are full of advertisements that recommend this and that medicine as a sure cure for the various nervous ailments, and it is very common to hear of persons who have been stricken down with nervous prostration. All of which serves to show that this generation is very rapidly breaking down its nerve force. And when the nerves are broken down, a person is a general wreck. He is totally unfit for any of the practical and necessary duties of life. If one asks for the causes of all this nervousness, they are not hard to find. Drunkenness is increasing every succeeding year. The city of Chicago alone during 1897 drank $80,000,000 worth of beer. It is estimated that the same city drank $20,000,000 worth of other kinds of alcoholic drinks in the same year. And there is no evidence that Chicago is materially worse than any other large city. The wine, beer, and spirits consumed in the United States have more than doubled in the last twenty years. The amount of strong drink used in this country averages about thirteen and one-half gallons for each person. Any honest physician will affirm that strong drink is a great destroyer of the nerves. Any one who habitually uses it must of necessity become nervous, and therefore irritable. Nearly every man or boy that you meet uses tobacco, and in many localities it has become very popular for the women to use the "filthy weed" also. The physicians tell us that tobacco is as bad if not worse than strong drink in destroying the nerves. Tea and coffee are almost universally used. And the facts as presented by physiologists show that the poisons in these beverages are also nerve irritants. For, altho they seem to soothe the nerves, in reality they simply stimulate the nervous system, while they are actively at work breaking it down. The foods that the majority eat are highly seasoned and stimulating rather than strength giving. Pickles, mustard, pepper, ginger, horseradish, and all kinds of hot stuffs that irritate, and abnormally and unnaturally stimulate, the delicate tissues of the stomach are freely mixed with the foods. The excitement that prevails in the world in driving business and running after pleasures and follies has the tendency in itself to break down and wear out the nervous energies most rapidly. But the use of liquors, tobacco, tea, coffee, and the like, precipitate the ruin. And with all these agencies working so intensely it is a necessary result that men are becoming more and more irritable, excitable, and impatient. It could not be otherwise. If the hand is placed in the fire it is bound to be burned. There is no possible escape from this result. It is true that some remedial agents may be employed and the burn healed, but burning must surely follow contact with the fire. And even if the burn is healed, there usually remains a scar. If you have any doubts as to the impatience and irritableness of the people of this generation, just watch them as they are jostled in a crowd, accidentally brushed against in the street, or unexpectedly required to wait a few moments for the car, and see how they will act. Notice them as their path is crossed in any way and see how instantly they manifest their impatient, irritable, and ugly dispositions. And by the sure and unmistakable workings of physiological law we know that this condition of things must keep getting worse and worse. For the habits and manner of life of the people of this age can not produce anything else but greater and ever still greater havoc in the nervous system. And with the nerves all broken and unstrung any one knows the results that invariably follow. The Lord can and will deliver every one who will let Him. But there are so few comparatively who yield themselves to God except as a matter of form, that the prospect at best is not the brightest. Now did you ever think that it is just such inflammable material as comprises the people of this generation that men would try to have us believe are getting better and better, and that this excitable and impatient age is to bring about a universal peace? You might as well talk of peace and calm in a nursery, where nothing but fretful and irritable children were caged, as to talk of a reign of peace among a people so devoid of the elements that combine to make peace. The outlook from every standpoint is war and not peace. Not only do the gigantic preparations for war among all the nations show this, but the very condition of the people shows that it could not be otherwise. The only way of escape is for the people to be changed. But there is no prospect on which to base such a hope. The elements that combine to make things worse are strengthening their hold upon men day by day. And all of this is in harmony with the Bible prediction that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." 2 Tim. 3:13.