Name: Health: or How to Live Number Six
Author: Ellen G. White

Health: or How to Live Number Six

Ellen G. White

Steam Press of the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · 1865

HOW TO LIVE.

Obligations to Law.

PHYSICAL OBLIGATIONS.

He who would enjoy perfect health, is obliged to obey organic law; and from this absolute obligation he cannot free himself; for if he transgress physical law, he must endure the infliction of a physical penalty. While the violator of human law may escape the punishment due to his crimes, by keeping them out of sight, or by fleeing from the reach of justice, he who is guilty of transgressing the laws of his own animal economy, cannot escape with impunity—his sin is sure to find him out. Though he may pass on for awhile without arrest, yet, sooner or later, he will find himself overtaken, tried before Nature’s court, and condemned.

If we stand in the range of the tornado as it sweeps along its course, can we resist its power? When the engine has accumulated a fierce velocity, can we cast ourselves before it with impunity? Can we stand beneath the weight of the spile-driver as it is loosed from its fastenings, and escape the fatal power of the law of gravitation? Can we cast ourselves from the towering precipice, and not be dashed in pieces? Yes, we may do all this, when nature has so changed that we can violate a single law of our physical being and not suffer damage. Yes, we may, when the God of nature shall repeal the laws which he has set to physical life; or when material things shall cease to be governed by Deity, and be let loose upon the mere contingencies of chance.

The man who, by gradual steps, deviates from the pathway of physical law, may seem to pass on uninjured.

for a length of time, yet, by and by, he will be sure to feel the rod of punishment. He who disregards dietetic law, may not at first discover any injury, or, should he experience suffering, he may not discover the relation of the cause and the effect, yet the consequences of his unlawful course will, sooner or later, follow, and he cannot escape. The man who habitually steeps himself in alcoholic liquor, or the more deadly essence of tobacco, may possibly live to threescore years and ten, and seem to be tolerably well; yet he has made himself liable to fall suddenly dead, in consequence of the unseen fires that have for years been consuming his internal organs. The man who disobeys law in any other way, may not now see that his system is injured; yet when some outward cause of disease shall approach him, he is overcome by it, simply because his previous habits have weakened the power of resistance in his constitution.

The standard of general health is probably lower in the United States than in any other civilized portion of the world. The average age is probably less than half what it ought to be. And the standard of health and longevity is constantly degenerating. The physical habits of Americans, are more in conflict with natural law, than those of any other civilized nation. The greater part of those who are uncivilized—savage and heathen—are living in less rebellion against their own physical being, than are Americans. Very few die a natural death. The vast majority die of gradual suicide. If the tomb-stones of our grave-yards could bear witness, what would be their testimony? Upon a tomb-stone in New Jersey, there is written under the name of a young lady—“Died of thin shoes;” a declaration which might be truthfully written upon many others. Could they generally speak out as plainly, we should find here, “Died of stimulants,” “Died of narcotics,”—and there, “Died of an abused stomach,”—and almost everywhere, “Died of gradual suicide.”

The Author of our being has given to the human constitution, a natural period of existence. But when we commit violence on our own vitality, we shorten

its duration. We bring on premature old age, or create, by gradual steps, fatal disease. To die of disease is not, as a general rule, the way to die. We should die of age, and not of sickness. We should die as the much-venerated John Quincy Adams died,—at his post, in the service of God and humanity,—not of disease, but of age—not because the vital powers had been violated, but because vitality had worn itself out. The men of this generation, die by the violence of their own hands. Their lamp of life goes out, not because the oil is exhausted, but because it has become so adulterated by the admixture of foreign and incongruous elements, that it can no longer burn.

If the term of threescore years and ten, ought to be considered the proper average of healthy human life, we have greatly fallen from the standard. At all events, our average of American life is evidently not one-half what it ought to be. It is said—though we have no very definite data on this point—to be a fraction less than twenty-seven years. And it is evidently growing shorter. The dietetic habits of Americans, in some respects, are growing worse and worse. Notwithstanding all temperance light and labors, there is at present an increase of liquor-drinking throughout the land; and tobacco-using is a vice which is becoming more and more deep-rooted and devastating, especially among the young men, and even the boys, of this generation. And unless there shall come a revolution in our American habits, which are forming the basis of physical and moral character, our race will soon come to a physical and moral ruin.

MORAL OBLIGATIONS.

Next to our obligations to God, are our obligations to ourselves. If we are in duty bound to treat our Creator right, we are also, next to him, in duty bound to treat ourselves right. This becomes a matter of moral obligation toward him who made us, “whose we are, and whom we ought to serve.”

The second table of the moral law, comprehended.

in this, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” implies the pre-existence of the law of self-love; and the law of self-love involves the obligation of self-protection. What right have we to abuse, or even to neglect ourselves? To do that which will injure our constitution or health, is sinful in the sight of Heaven. To transgress physical law is transgressing God’s law; for he is as truly the Author of physical law, as he is the Author of the moral law. Whoever, therefore, violates the laws of life and health, sins against God as truly as though he break the ten commandments. Every man is under obligation to obey those laws; and whoever dares violate them, will find “the way of transgressors is hard.”

The moral sense of community is exceedingly obtuse on this subject. With the great majority, appetite is the only law which governs; and in spite of all that can be said, it will probably, in a great degree, continue to be so; and those who choose to have it so, must bear the consequences. But some may possibly be induced to examine their obligations and responsibilities in the case. Where is the consistency of being governed by principle instead of appetite, in regard to the demands of the moral law, and yet let appetite rule instead of principle, in regard to physical law? for, as before stated, when we violate physical law, we do truly violate moral obligation. Whoever will let appetite govern in one thing, is in a fair way to let it govern in all things. Whoever, through appetite, will allow himself to eat too much or too often, is very likely to give license to all other appetites and passions in proportion to their strength and activity.

When men will let moral principle govern their eating and drinking, they will greatly advance their physical and moral welfare. Every effort made for the physical salvation of community, should be based on moral principle. If the advocates of temperance had always stood on this platform, they would have accomplished vastly more than they now have done. They have made the cause too much a matter of individual and public expediency. Instead of laboring sufficiently to show that every drop of liquor, taken

as a luxury, is so much direct and tangible sin against God, their efforts have been to show, more particularly, that, inasmuch as by the general and extensive use made of it, vast damage was done, we were bound, as a matter of expediency, or of moral obligation based upon general expediency, to entirely abandon its use; that although the evils growing out of its use were very great, and, therefore, for the sake of example, we were bound to abandon it, yet it was not so much an evil per se; that if there were no danger of an increased appetite, or of injury by example, a little might not be wrong.

When the advocates of reform will plant their feet firmly upon the principle, that drinking a drop of that burning poison, is a violation of physical law which God has instituted in our physical being, and therefore a violation of moral obligation to him—laying the axe first at the root of the tree—they will stand where Heaven will give them moral power to move the world. They will then have the lever of Archimedes, with its fulcrum, and the place to stand which he desired, by which to lift the earth from its base. When men will stand on this foundation, in advocating temperance, they will be likely to maintain consistency in their own habits. They will not bring upon themselves the too just charge of hypocrisy in pleading temperance over a plug of tobacco; of drawing their eloquence from the sensual inspiration of the smoking weed; of pleading abstinence from the weaker bane, and indulging lusts for the stronger poison. No man can preach the Gospel or plead its moral reforms with eloquence, while sinning against God with this idol in his mouth. If he would utter his words with moral force, they must proceed from a PURE BREATH, AND FROM CLEAN LIPS.

PERSONAL OBLIGATIONS.

When conversing with men on the consequences of want of intelligence and practical interest in the laws of physical life, and the importance of waking up to our responsibility in the matter, they will often apologize

for their neglect and disregard for the subject during the past, and their indifference and apathy toward any future improvement, by a wholesale, unmeaning condemnation of the conduct of the world on this subject. They say, “We”—meaning all the world—“we know a great deal better than we do—if we were more enlightened, we would not regard it.” This subterfuge, miserable as it is, sums up their excuse for a further neglect of the subject. Because the mass of the people are destroying the true basis of their highest earthly interests, they feel justified in letting themselves and children suffer on, under the penalties of ignorance and neglect of organic law.

If the majority of men were steeping themselves in alcoholic liquors, would this afford a valid reason why my feet should tread the same beaten path? The main question is not, what will the world do in this matter? but, what is our duty and our interest, as single individuals—what will we ourselves do in this case? Will we act in accordance with our highest temporal good, and receive the reward, which is as sure as the promise of salvation to the righteous, or will we recklessly pass on and be punished? These are questions for every man and woman and child to settle according to the law of self-love and self-protection, written upon the tablet of every human soul. If we are suffering the ills of violated law, we suffer for ourselves,—a suffering world cannot relieve a single pain; and if we die, we die for ourselves, and the death of others cannot save us. Will we also, as individuals, attend on the duty of taking care of those whom Heaven has committed to our charge? Or will we say, because the rest of the world take no interest in the welfare of their children, we will also let our own go on in the way of suffering and ruin?

Obedience to the laws of health, should be made a matter of individual and personal duty. It is every individual’s duty to study the laws of his being and to conform to them. Ignorance or inattention on this subject is sin; and the injurious consequences of such a course, make it a case of gradual suicide. The idea that we may do what we please with ourselves, is not

only bad policy, and bad economy, but to do so is positively wrong; it is sin against the Author of our being. And when persons knowingly or wantonly expose themselves to disease and death, by violating the laws of life and health, instead of calling the result a visitation of Providence, it should be called an act of suicide.

If a man chew or smoke tobacco till the electric forces of his nervous system are undermined, or the vital properties of his blood are corrupted, or the secreting energies of his liver and kidneys are destroyed, and he consequently be laid upon a premature dying couch, would his sickness and death be properly considered visitations of Providence? To send a note to church in such a case, as it is the custom to do, if the nature of the case were understood, would be insulting to Heaven. And there are thousands of similar notes offered at church, where the disease that has become the burden of prayer, is no more a matter of Providence than is the State-prison for highway robbery, or the hangman’s rope for murder.

If a man has gormandized on meats for a series of years, till his blood and flesh are filled with cancerous or scrofulous humor, shall this infliction of penalty be called a Providence? As well might we call delirium tremens a dispensation of Heaven for the sanctification of the soul. If men will sin against themselves, they must meet the punishment made due by the laws of their own organization. If they will rebel against nature, they must abide the righteous decisions of nature’s court; and from these decisions there is no appeal. The Almighty himself, without a miracle cannot save a man from burning his flesh when it comes in contact with living fire. If he would trust in Providence to save him from suffering, he must himself keep within the limits of divine law, written on the human constitution.

If the path of duty pass through a region of danger, we may trust in Providence; but when we recklessly throw ourselves under the car of Juggernaut, we must be crushed. An American gentleman was suffering severely from ill health. He had consulted the

most skillful of American physicians, some of whom told him his sufferings were occasioned by tobacco, and he became himself satisfied that this opinion was correct; but, unwilling to relinquish this enslaving habit, he went to Paris, France, to take the advice of Dr. Broussais, to see if he could not institute some method of recovery which would allow him to continue his habit. Oh, what folly! Why did he not get up a petition,—for a long list of signers could have been obtained,—and send it to the court of Heaven, praying that law, touching this indulgence, might be repealed? Such a step was the only one which could possibly have afforded the slightest hope; for, while law remains as it is, the transgressor must suffer.

The laboring man who eats quick and works immediately after, is not only pursuing a course of bad economy, but is doing wrong to himself and to his Creator. He is diminishing his power and durability for doing good. When a man of intellectual habits neglects to live in accordance with the laws of mind and body, he pursues not only a bad policy, but secures for himself the punishment due to his criminal conduct. The man who lives unnaturally instead of naturally, who allows his system to come under the influence of stimulating drinks, or narcotic and poisonous drugs, does a material and important wrong to himself, and must expect to give account for his criminal conduct on the day of final judgment.

The strange abandonment of principle which characterizes this generation in their treatment of themselves, is almost enough to dishearten the most sanguine hopes of reform. Instead of seeking after a true knowledge of themselves,—the laws which sustain and govern their own animal existence,—and what course of living they ought to adopt, to secure for themselves a sound state of health and long life, they foolishly and wickedly inquire, “What shall I eat, and wherewithal shall I enjoy the present hour?”

If we tell the devotee to the alcoholic draught, or the more poisonous and filthy narcotic, tobacco, that his daily potations, or the essences of the deadly weed, are secretly gnawing the tender cords that bind his soul

and body together, he heeds us not. He will probably acknowledge the facts in the case, and, at the same time, with most perfect indifference to consequences, and insensibility to personal obligations, will answer, that he chooses rather to enjoy life while he does live, than to prolong life by curtailing present gratification.

But what is duty—what is right—in the case? Have we a right to prefer present gratification to permanent good? Have we any right to open an artery, and let the blood gradually run away, because we are delighted with the crimson stream? We have just as much right to do this, as we have to use rum, tobacco, tea, coffee, or any other hurtful agent, for mere gratification, against the highest earthly interests of our own life. If we would reach a high attainment in morals or in piety, we must live for it. So, too, if we would have firm and enduring health, we must live for it.

SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS.

In addition to our own personal obligations to physical law, we are under high accountability in consequence of our relations to society. We are under obligations to law for the sake of posterity. Parents, and those who may expect to be parents, are called upon to take care of their health and constitution for the sake of generations to come. If parents are of weakly or diseased constitution, the children must suffer, to more or less extent, the consequences. By the unlawful course of parents in regard to themselves, the children suffer disease and premature death.

Parents are also under obligation to teach and oblige their children to conform to physical law for their own sakes. The mother who suffers her children to eat irregularly, or to violate the laws of their systems in any other way, commits a crime against her offspring, against humanity, and against Heaven, for which God will hold her responsible. She commits a crime against the dearest objects of her affections, the evil consequences of which, time may never be able wholly to remove, and eternity alone reveal to her understanding.

How strange and unaccountable, that mothers should love their children so tenderly as to indulge them in what they have occasion to know may injure their constitutions, and impair their happiness for life! May many children be delivered from such mothers, and from such cruel kindnesses!

The managers and teachers of schools and literary institutions are under obligations to secure such facilities for exercise and regulations in regard to the observance of dietetic law, as are adapted to preserve the health, and promote the literary progress, and secure to the world the usefulness of their pupils. And students owe it to the world that they so walk in obedience to law, as to render their existence and advantages a blessing to society.

Professional men cannot disregard the laws of their own health, without infringing upon their obligations to community whom they serve. If their services are required, they are bound to make the most of their ability to meet the demand. The labors of any professional man, engaged in the active business of his calling, whether he be a clergyman, a physician or a lawyer, make a severe draft upon the nervous system, which will require all the strength that it can possibly command.

Working men have a responsibility in this matter. Those who employ laborers are in duty bound, not only for their own interests, but for the interests of those who serve them, so to regulate the hours of each day’s labor, as to give their men a chance to live, enjoy the blessings of life, and sustain those who may fall into their charge. Those who are employed to labor, are under obligation to live in such a manner as to make themselves of service to their employers, and meet the demands of society at large.

All who desire the welfare and improvement of society, are under obligation to exert an influence over others on this subject, by example and precept. No man can live entirely isolated from his fellow-beings; his influence by word or deed, is constantly telling pro or con the well-being of the world. Let him see to it that it be such, touching this matter, as shall

make mankind the better and the happier for his having lived in it. Let him be at least a drop in the bucket of that great wheel which moves the vast machinery of human improvement in its onward course. —Philosophy of Health.

Physical Degeneracy.

We copy the following from the Maine Farmer. When editors, physicians and ministers, begin to see the physical degeneracy of our world, and to speak out as they ought on the subject, the people will awake. Too many, we say it in sorrow, do not undertake the business of thinking for themselves. They trust it to their minister, their doctor, or their editor. Hence, the importance that these should be right. But woe to them, if the people get right first.

We would call attention to the following communication upon physical degeneracy. It is a subject of the first importance to the community. There can be no doubt, that the rising generation are not so robust—and not so healthy, as those that have preceded them. The cause, to our mind, is obvious. We have departed from the simple habits, and laid aside too much the athletic exercises of our ancestors. And in proportion as we have so departed, are we visited with debilities and disorders, which weaken and derange the system. Simple diet, and plenty of exercise in the open air, is what nature requires. Deprive her of this, and she deprives you of the energy, elasticity and activity of frame and of mind, for the mind is more or less influenced by the health of the body. We highly appreciate the efforts which some physiologists are making to bring back society to those simple and frugal habits, which can alone insure that vigor and capability to endure hardships, which as a people we ought to possess. The evil is not confined to one sex—both alike, are guilty of the errors which are bringing about the degeneracy of which we speak, and perhaps the ladies carry things to greater extremes than the gentlemen. At any rate, they are more addicted to tea and coffee intemperance.

“What is to become of this world?” exclaimed a worthy woman to us not long since. “There is not a young girl of my acquaintance,” continued she, “that is learning to spin or weave, and a great many of them think it a disgrace to be seen at the wash-tub. For my part, I think,” said she, “the rising generation will be more idle and effeminate than the present, and if they are, the Lord have mercy upon them.” We could not help smiling at the good woman’s earnest exclamations—but there is too much truth in her remarks.

MR. HOLMES: In the 19th number of the current volume, there is an original article, entitled “Physical Degeneracy” in which the writer lays down the fact incontestably that there is a manifest degeneracy, in regard to the physical powers of the people of the present age. No man can open his eyes and look about him and examine the bills of mortality, without acknowledging this fact.

The writer asks a number of questions, and calls loudly on you to answer them. I have not seen your answer. As a medical man, I think it was your duty to have answered them. But as you have neglected to do it, I have thought it my duty to say something by way of answer. I do not propose, or expect to give all the causes, and perhaps not a hundredth part of them. It is a subject that concerns all classes of the community and should engage the attention of the whole people, for it is a melancholy fact, that the bills of mortality, show that too many have died that belonged to the middle-aged.

Is not one cause, a neglect of that coarse, plain, but substantial diet and clothing, and the industrious habits used and practiced before the American Revolution?

The present system of high living, which is now becoming fashionable, is not such as is dictated by nature, nor is it such as you would prescribe for your horse or for your hog. Why do you not provoke their appetites by all the niceties of cookery, with mixtures of sweet, and salt, and sour, and pepper, and spice, &c., &c. You dare not risk your horse under such treatment. Yet you do risk yourselves, and are anxious

to risk yourselves and families under such a regimen. You encourage cooks to vie with each other, in making mixtures of food to please the palate and lure to destruction.

The tyrant fashion prompts to the practice of these follies. There is not moral courage enough to stand against the pressure of public opinion in this respect, although it is bringing misery upon us. One does it, another must, and such has been the blind deference paid to the dictates of this spirit, and so guilty is every one in regard to it, that the stage, the press and the pulpit have refrained from attacking it as they ought. But very few have dared to lift up their voices against it, and they have been hissed at, and stigmatized by the names of Grahamites, cold-waterites, &c., &c.

We are not the first nation, Mr. Editor, that has gone the same path to destruction.

The sins, says the prophet, of the cities of the plain were fulness of bread and idleness. Effeminacy and luxury destroyed Rome, when all the arms of the surrounding nations could not do it in their primitive days, and when they did not number a quarter so many as when they bowed to the yoke after the days of the Emperors.

Alexander the Great, while practicing the plain and simple rules of temperance, was invincible to all the toils of war, but was finally conquered by giving way to his own appetite.

A vitiated public opinion, backed by intemperance and gluttony, must be stronger and more invincible than Goliah with all his armor. In vain may the gospel be preached—in vain may we remonstrate with a man besotted by gluttony and other species of intemperance. The man is gone, irretrievably gone, there is, there can be no hope, unless we first make a rational man, as it regards diet and regimen—and sound in the principles of temperance in all things.

Are not our temperance societies and papers very much to blame for not occupying the whole ground.—Some give themselves up to appetites. They say that they have but one life to live, and I am determined to

enjoy that. What sort of enjoyment can a glutton or a drunkard have? What sort of enjoyment does an idle spendthrift have? If they will not be reclaimed—if they will hurry on to death, let them die, for the world loses nothing by their death, but when a rational, sane, and good man, drops off prematurely, the world sustains a loss indeed.

There might be many other causes mentioned which aid in producing the degeneracy of which we complain. But we have named the principal and chief cause. It is time to pause and look around for the remedy. Look back to our forefathers and practice the simple habits which they did.

Study well written books on dietetics—make the preservation of your health a religious study. Learn to conquer your passions as you go through this world. All good people have made it a duty so to do. I would recommend a total shift of habits from those practiced at the present day, as the only remedy. It is a subject of the first earthly importance, for if health be lost, what of a worldly nature can be enjoyed, and even the mind will suffer, when burdened with an enfeebled body. Woman! thou arbiter of Fashion, I call upon you to assist in this reform. Do you wish to be widows? But widows, a greater or less number of you must be, unless there shall be a change of habits of life. This will appear abundantly evident, if you examine the cause and see how many middle aged men have died, who have left families either destitute, or without a guide and protector. And this mortality, I contend, is brought about by foolish and unpardonable indulgence in the fashions of the day. —Health Journal.

PORES OF THE SKIN.—Besides the mouths of these little oil glands, many anatomists have considered the skin—and the cuticle of course—as pierced with little openings called pores, almost innumerable. Some have reckoned them at 1,000,000 to every square inch.—Others, however, deny all this. But one thing is

very certain, which is, that what we call sweat, or the accumulated perspiration of the body, when it becomes abundant, is constantly escaping through the skin and its cuticle, in the form of a thick mist or fog, as we may see by holding a bright mirror close to it, which will immediately become tarnished. Or, if we sit where the sun shines across us, upon a wall, we can see the shadow of the mist which ascends from us, rising like a sheet of thin smoke upon the wall.

Sunshine.

Seclusion from sunshine is one of the misfortunes of our civilized life. The same cause which makes potatoe vines white and sickly, when grown in dark cellars, operates to produce the pale, sickly girls that are reared in our parlors. Expose either to the direct rays of the sun, and they begin to show color, health, and strength.

One of the ablest lawyers in our country,—a victim of long and hard brain-labor, came to me a year ago, suffering with partial paralysis. The right leg and hip were reduced in size, with constant pain in the loins. He was obliged, in coming up stairs, to raise the left foot first, on every stair, dragging the right one after it. Pale, feeble, miserable, he told me he had been failing several years, and closed with, “My work is done. At sixty, I find myself worn out.”

I directed him to lie down under a large window, and allow the sun to fall upon every part of his body; at first, ten minutes a day, increasing the time until he could expose himself to the direct rays of the sun a full hour. His habits were not essentially altered in any other particular. In six months, he came running up stairs like a vigorous man of forty, and declared, with sparkling eyes, “I have twenty years more of work in me.”

I have assisted many dyspeptic, neuralgic, rheumatic, and hypochondriacal people into health, by the SUN-CURE. I have so many facts illustrating the wonderful power of the sun’s direct rays in curing certain

classes of invalids, that I have seriously thought of publishing a work, to be denominated the “SUN-CURE”

I take the liberty of introducing another case, which greatly impressed my mind at the time.

Many years ago, a clergyman who had for years been a victim of dyspepsia, and who had prayed for death, as the only door of escape, came, through the advice of a mutual friend, to consult me. I advised the disuse of all medicines, the generous use of cracked wheat, good beef, and much exposure to sunshine. To secure the last-mentioned influence, I directed him to enclose twenty feet square in his garden with a close fence, and plant the ground within with something, the cultivation of which would occupy his mind. Then, when the weather was warm, shutting himself in, he was to busy himself, quite nude, with the cultivation of his vegetables, from ten to sixty minutes a day, always indulging in a thorough bath and friction before leaving. He was radically cured.

I was practicing my profession in Buffalo, New York, during ’49 and ’51, those memorial cholera seasons. I saw at least five cases of cholera on the shady side of the street and houses, to one on the sunny side. One eminent physician in New Orleans reports from his own practice, eight cases of yellow fever on the shady side of the street, to one on the sunny side.

Who has not read Florence Nightingale’s observations in Crimea, showing the difference between the shady and the sunny sides of the hospitals? In St. Petersburg the shady side of the hospitals was so notoriously unfavorable to the sick soldier that the Czar decreed them into disuse.

The shade-trees about our dwellings have done much to make our wives and daughters pale, feeble, and neuralgic. Trees ought never to stand near enough to a dwelling to cast their shade upon it: and if the blinds were removed, and nothing but a curtain within, with which to lessen, on the hottest days, the intensity of the heat, it would add greatly to the tone of our nerves and to our general vigor. The piazzas which project over the lower story, always make that less healthy than the upper story, especially for sleeping

purposes. I am sure I have cured a great many cases of rheumatism by advising patients to leave bed-rooms shaded by trees or piazzas, and sleep in a room and bed which were constantly dried and purified by the direct rays of the sun.—Dio Lewis.

The Best Bed.

Of the seven pounds which a man eats and drinks in a day, it is thought that not less than two pounds leave his body through the skin. And of these two pounds a considerable percentage escapes during the night, while he is in bed. The larger part of this is water, but in addition there is much effete and poisonous matter. This being in great part gaseous in form, permeates every part of the bed. Thus, all parts of the bed, mattress, blankets, as well as sheets, soon become foul and need purification.

The mattress needs this renovation quite as much as the sheets. To allow the sheets to be used without washing or changing, three or six months, would be regarded as bad house-keeping; but I insist, if a thin sheet can absorb enough of the poisonous excretions of the body to make it unfit for use in a few days, a thick mattress, which can absorb and retain a thousand times as much of these poisonous excretions, needs to be purified as often, certainly, as once in three months.

A sheet can be washed. A mattress cannot be renovated in this way. Indeed, there is no other way of cleansing a mattress but by steaming it, or picking it to pieces, and thus, in fragments, exposing it to the direct rays of the sun. As these processes are scarcely practicable with any of the ordinary mattresses, I am decidedly of the opinion, that the good old-fashioned straw bed, which can, every three months, be changed for fresh straw, and the tick washed, is the sweetest and healthiest of beds.

If, in the winter season, the porousness of the straw bed makes it a little uncomfortable, spread over it a comforter, or two woolen blankets, which should be

washed as often as every two weeks. With this arrangement, if you wash all the bed covering as often as once in two or three weeks, you will have a pleasant, healthy bed.

Now if you leave the bed to air, with open windows, during the day, and not make it up for the night before evening, you will have added greatly to the sweetness of your rest, and, in consequence, to the tone of your health.

I heartily wish this good change could be everywhere introduced. Only those who have thus attended to this important matter, can judge of its influence on the general health and spirits.—Dio Lewis.

Damp Beds.

SLEEP is essential. However moderate the work, the best constitution will soon break down under a loss of sleep. It is especially necessary for preachers. If they are engaged in their work, as they should be, their labors are exciting and wearing, more than those of most other men, and after the exhausting services of a meeting, they need quiet and refreshing rest at night. This is far more essential than food or drink. Friends who invite them home show no want of hospitality in the supplies which they furnish to tempt the appetite. But in the provision which they make for their obtaining needful rest, there is often a culpable negligence which is sometimes attended with the most serious results. The late Wm. Dawson, an eminent and useful Methodist minister in England, was killed by a damp bed. Prince Albert was said to have shown the first symptom of his fatal illness as the consequence of a damp bed at Madingly Hall. We have had some painful experiences in this matter. At one time, after preaching three sermons on the Sabbath, to a crowded house, we were invited home by a brother to stay all night. We were very kindly received. After an interesting season of prayer, we were sent to sleep in a room—the third one away from any fire—in a bed that was

seldom occupied, and which had accumulated all the damp and cold that a winter’s frost could give it. The night was the coldest of the season. In vain did we try to sleep. We were so thoroughly chilled that rest was impossible. In the morning we arose languid and depressed, feeling as if we had suffered a long fit of sickness. The good people had none but the kindest intentions, but if God had not blessed us with a strong constitution, and watched over us for good, our labors might have suddenly closed.

We have heard some of our old preachers say that they did not suffer in the early days of their ministry when they slept in the chambers of log cabins, through the roofs of which they could see the stars, as much as they often do now when put to sleep in some cold room of the large house of some wealthy brother. In those days the big fire below warmed the chambers; but the spare chamber of the large house is generally removed far from the influence of fire.

Will not our sisters think of these things? Make it a matter of conscience, never to put an ambassador of Christ, weary with toils, nor indeed any one else, to sleep in a bed that is cold, damp and uncomfortable. There is never any necessity for it. If you cannot take a fire to the bed to dry it thoroughly, you can always, with a little trouble, take the bed to the fire. This is a great deal better than to kill one off prematurely, or to give him the rheumatism, or some other painful disease for life.

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