The art of life is delightful if properly developed.

Worry is such a detriment that its victims can neither live nor work as they should. It is necessary to overcome this bad habit. Most of the worry is due to narrow selfishness. Much of it is caused by the fact that others will not do as we do. To try to make others accept our standards and then worry and fret because they will not is folly. When force is employed to convert anyone the conversion is but superficial and lasts only so long as the converted individual's hypocrisy holds out. To get the best out of life we have to be broad, forbearing, patient and forgiving.

A normal old age is beautiful. It is the privilege, nay more, the duty of every intelligent being to attain it. When we adjust ourselves we shall live longer.

It is with old age as it is with health. We can have it if we wish it. Accidents alone can deprive us of either. Let us hope that the day will come when men and women will not be satisfied to die as life is but beginning, but that they will live as they should and could live, thus proving a blessing to the race.



CHAPTER XXIX.

EVOLVING INTO HEALTH.

By the time most people are twenty years old they have some kind of disease. It may be only a slight catarrh, a touch of indigestion, trouble with the eyes, defective hearing, or some other ill. Very seldom do we meet a person of this age who is perfectly well.

Most people are taught to believe that health is something mysterious which may come to them or may pass them by, but that they have little or nothing to do with it. If they are well, they are fortunate, but if they are ill they are not to blame.

Most of them go to conventional physicians when they are ill, expecting to be cured. They take medicine or injections of serums or they are operated upon. When they are through with the doctors they are no wiser than they were before.

A few have friends who tell them that they must change their mode of living if they would have health. They are interested enough to go to a healer who believes in nature. He tells them that they are well or ill according to their desserts, that they can be well at all times, if they wish, for if they live as they should health is a natural consequence.

This sounds like nonsense at first. It is different from anything else they have heard. The sufferer often makes up his mind that the healer is a fool or a faker. He remembers that when he went to the conventional physicians they sounded and thumped him and examined all his excretions. They were very thorough and scientific. The natural healer does not generally go into so many details. He asks enough and examines enough to find the trouble and then he stops. This the patient charges against him, for he takes for granted that the healer is brief from lack of knowledge.

So he goes back to his old physician. As his trouble is due to deranged nutrition, he does not get well. He thinks over what the natural healer said, and the more he thinks about it the more reasonable it sounds, and he returns again. This time he gets instructions, and he follows them enough to get benefit, but not faithfully enough to get well. He is convinced that the conventional physicians are wrong, but still believes that the natural healer can hardly be right.

After a while he makes up his mind to get down to business and he goes to the healer for instructions and follows them. The results are surprising. The trouble he has had for years may disappear within a month or two, or it may become less and less apparent, but take considerable time before it leaves entirely.

The healer gives instructions. The most important ones are those concerning the diet. A plan is given that brings good results. The healer fails to explain that this is but one correct method of feeding, that there are other good ones. The patient is enthused over the benefits derived, he makes up his mind that he is living the only correct life, and he too often becomes a food crank, trying to force his ideas upon all about him. Here the healer is at fault, for he should explain that some method is necessary, but that there is no one and only method of feeding.

If the patient is fairly intelligent, in time he realizes that it is not so much what he eats as his manner of eating and moderation that are helpful, and that any plan in which moderation and simplicity are followed is better than the ordinary way of eating.

As the patient evolves into health and gets a broader view of the art of living, he gets a better perspective of life. He learns that under like conditions like causes always produce like effects, that the law of compensation is always operative, and we therefore get what we deserve. He loses his fear of many things that caused him grave concern previously. He sees in sickness and death the working of natural law, not of chance.

Some patients realize that healers who work in accordance with nature are right, at the very start, but most people are not so logically constructed. It often takes from one to three years before people make up their mind to order their lives so that they can have health at their command.

In the old way, the doctor was supposed to cure, which was impossible. In the new way, the healer educates people and then if they live their knowledge they get health.

The healer must instruct in the care of all parts of the body, weeding out bad habits and trying to instill good ones in their place.

Eating according to correct principles is the most helpful and powerful aid in regaining health. The patient finds that as the years pass his tastes change, becoming more simple and more moderate. He is well nourished on one-half to one-third of what he used to consume and consider necessary.

The following is the last half of a month's record of food intake for a man in the thirties. Some years ago he changed his manner of living in order to regain health, in which he succeeded. Now he takes only one or two meals a day, according to his desires, not that he has any objection to three meals a day, but he finds it best to eat more seldom. He is in good physical condition, as heavy as he ought to be, and he has not had any real physical trouble for a number of years. His work is mental, but he walks considerably and swims from three to six times a week, besides taking a few set exercises.

It was taken in spring, the weather averaging cool. This is a little lighter than usual, because the record was taken during a period of exceptionally hard mental work. In cold weather heavier foods are taken.

Lunch: Nothing.

Dinner: Three slices of rye toast, very thin, celery, three slices broiled onion, dish of peas, glass of beer.

Dinner at noon: Roast lamb, dish of spinach, one and one-half dishes summer squash, lettuce and tomato salad.

Supper: Nothing.

Lunch: Dish of baked lentils, vegetable soup, lettuce.

Dinner: Two small oranges, cottage cheese.

Lunch: Piece of gingerbread, cup of cocoa, two lumps of sugar.

Dinner: Two small oranges, cottage cheese.

Lunch: Dish of stewed prunes, tablespoonful cottage cheese.

Dinner: Two eggs, two slices buttered toast.

Lunch: Small grapefruit.

Dinner: Vegetable soup, dish of stewed turnips, dish of peas.

Lunch: Nothing.

Dinner: Half a grapefruit, three stewed figs, glass of milk.

Lunch: Dish of strawberries, large dish of rhubarb with grapefruit juice in it and cream on the side; half serving cream cheese.

Dinner: Two small baked apples.

Lunch: Small grapefruit.

Dinner: Two eggs, dish of turnips, dish of spinach, sliced tomatoes.

Lunch: One raw apple.

Dinner: Two shredded wheat biscuits, glass of milk.

Lunch: Dish of rhubarb.

Dinner: Vegetable soup, one egg, a boiled potato.

Lunch: Dish of rhubarb.

Dinner: Sweet potato, dish of parsnips, stewed peas.

Lunch: Dish of ice cream, piece of white cake. Dinner: Cheese cake, dish of fruit salad.

Lunch: One hard boiled egg, about one and one-half slices white bread, two big radishes, one young onion, butter.

Dinner: Nothing.

The servings are the ordinary restaurant servings. No dressings were used except the ones mentioned. This man used to be very fond of sweets and employed salt freely. Now he finds his foods more agreeable when taken plain, for they have a better flavor. He rarely uses salt or pepper. He has simplified his food intake because he finds he feels better and stronger and is able to think to better advantage than he did when he partook of a greater variety and amount of food at each meal.

Food scientists say that from two thousand, seven hundred to three thousand, three hundred calories are needed daily, but you will note that this man generally keeps below one-half of this, if you are able to figure food values.

People who are trying to get well are often called fools and cranks when they treat themselves properly, but this does not matter, for such fools generally live to see their wise critics prematurely consigned to the earth.

When taking health advice, try to keep your balance. Get thoroughly well before you try to guide others.



CHAPTER XXX.

RETROSPECT.

Several hundred pages have been devoted to those matters which must receive attention in order to have good physical and mental health, so as to be able to get the most out of life and give the most, that is, in order to live fully. The basis of health is internal cleanliness, and to attain this it is necessary to exercise self-control and moderation, as well as to cultivate good will and kindliness towards others. Kindness and love lubricate life and make the running smooth. Envy, spite, hatred and the other negative emotions act like sand in the bearings, producing friction in the vital machinery, which they destroy in the end.

Success in life means balance, poise, adjustment. We must adjust ourselves so as to be in harmony with others, and we must be in harmony with nature. Our minds will at times be in opposition to the laws of nature. Then we must exercise enough self-control to bring them into harmony again, for natural laws are no respecters of persons. It is said that we break these laws, but that is not true. If we disregard them often enough they break us. We must realize our unity with nature, our at-one-ment. We must realize that we are a part of nature, not above it, and hence that we are governed by the same fixed laws that govern the rest of nature. These laws are for our good. Attempts to escape from their workings indicate a lack of understanding.

Discord produces disease and death. Harmony leads to health and long life.

The adjustment must be both physical and mental.

The physical part means to live or adjust ourselves so that all the functions of the body are carried on normally. The body is self-regulating and if we do nothing harmful health will be our portion. However, life under our present civilization is so complex that the demands upon our nervous systems are excessive. It is easy to live so that we can have health, but to do so is not conventional, and hence not very popular.

In order to have good physical health under present conditions, it is necessary to make some effort. The effort is not great enough to be onerous and does not require much time. It is important to get health knowledge, which the majority lacks today. This knowledge is most excellent, but it does not benefit the individual unless it is applied. We all wish to have health, but this is not enough. We must will to have it. When we say that we cannot, it should generally be interpreted to mean that we will not.

Some important subjects regarding which special knowledge should be secured are: Food, drink, exercise, care of the skin, sleep, work and play, breathing, clothing, and mental attitude.

These subjects, as well as others, have been quite extensively discussed. It is impossible to give full information in tabloid form. It is also impossible to read a book of this character once and get all the information it contains. Those who are in earnest will study the subject, instead of merely reading it.

Allow me to remind you that nearly all of our diseases are due to faulty dietary habits. So it was in the time of Hippocrates, according to that sage, and so it is today. It is a common statement that about 90 per cent. of our physical ills come from improper diet, and this is the truth. It follows from this that it is most important to know about correct feeding habits, and put them in practice. Improper diet results in faulty nutrition, after which physical and mental ills make their appearance.

There are many systems of feeding, and nearly all of them will bring good results if the most important prescription is followed, namely, moderation. Simplicity leads to moderation.

Those who are reasonable about their food intake often serve as targets for the shafts of ridicule launched at them by those who are ignorant of the subject or too self-indulgent to exercise a little self-control. Ridicule is one of the most deadly of weapons, but it never harms those who have the hardihood of getting down to basic facts and classifying things and ideas according to their true value. Why should we be guided by the wit and sarcasm of indolent voluptuaries who daily desecrate their bodies through ruinous indulgences?

There is no need of becoming harsh and austere, nor is it necessary to fall into deadly habits of self-indulgence. Sometimes we can go with the current with benefit, but at times it is also necessary to paddle up-stream. Life demands a certain amount of hardihood from those who would live in health, and this comes not from self-indulgence, but from self-denial. It is necessary to do almost daily something that we are not inclined to do.

It is well to remember that if the eating is correct, it is difficult to become physically deranged, and consequently to become mentally deranged. Allow me to repeat four short sentences which are helpful and most important guides, sentences which ought to form a part of every child's education:

If ill, eat nothing, but live on water.

Eat only when there is a desire for food.

Masticate all foods thoroughly.

Always be moderate in your food intake.

These are the four golden rules regarding eating, and if they were adhered to, they would save us from an incalculable amount of sin and suffering. They would increase the duration of life and the joy of living. They would add to our physical and mental prosperity. Hence they are worthy of the emphasis given them.

In brief: Physical health is based on internal cleanliness, which can be attained only through moderation, that is, by not habitually overburdening the system, especially with food. Our bodies thrive when used, but not when abused. It is necessary for our physical well-being to get air, sunshine, water, food, sleep, rest, exercise, work and play in proper proportion, and in addition cultivate a kindly, balanced spirit. Drugs, such as alcohol, coffee, morphine, bromine, and hundreds of others which could be named, are not only unnecessary, but harmful.

The mental side is as important as the physical side. With a healthy body it is easy to have a happy outlook. Indigestion and biliousness can make a dreary waste out of the most beautiful landscape. The body and mind react and interact, one upon the other. When one is poised it is easy to get the other into balance. It requires a poised body to produce the best fruitage—a fine spirit.

It is necessary to be honest with one's self. Face life courageously and honestly. If you do, you will soon realize that the physical and mental ills from which you suffer are mostly of your own making. Then you can choose whether to let them continue or to end them, but if you choose to remain ill, bear your cross uncomplainingly, for you have no right to afflict others with your self-imposed sufferings.

On the other hand, try to see life from the view point of others, and you will often find that what you think is the highest good and most desirable in life does not seem worthy of great effort to them. Variety adds spice to life. To impose one's own views and ways on others has always seemed desirable to the majority of people, but it is the height of folly and stupidity. So long as the race exists there will be many men of many minds, and it is best so. We can not force any benefit, such as health or goodness, upon others. Instead of attracting, the process of forcing repels.

What we can do mentally to benefit ourselves and others is to get adjusted, to cultivate kindness and charity, to be broad-minded and forgiving, to be slow to take and give offense, to accept the little buffetings that fate has in store for us all with good grace, and through it all to possess our souls in patience.

Physically, be moderate.

Mentally, cultivate equanimity.

THE END