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Chapter 19

There are two classes that are specially liable to disease,--those who live grossly, and whose lives are spent in scenes of excitement, and those who are finely organized, so delicately constituted, that their nerves vibrate to every jar, not only of the physical but of the moral atmosphere.

There are persons whose routine of daily life is seldom if ever disturbed; whose minds are at ease on material questions. Having enough, and to spare, they seek their pleasure from day to day, with scarcely an interruption of their established course. Such may well be free from the ills of the flesh, and being so, they complacently attack the less fortunate, those whose lives are tumultuous and heavily-laden with their own and other's needs; applying to them such remarks as, "They might live more regular." "They work too much." "They do not work enough." "They go about too much." "They do do not go about enough;" and having delivered their opinions, these self-satisfied mortals settle themselves down in their comforts, thanking God they are not as other men.

There are lives that are shaken with convulsions; circumstances over which no mortal has control, surge their wild, tempest-waves over them, and all their wishes are of no avail; they must take what is borne to them. Raying out life every moment; pressed on every side, with every faculty strained to its greatest tension, is it a matter of wonder that they become weak, that they sicken and suffer?

Sickness is not a sin, neither is its presence derogatory to our nature. It implies a susceptibility to the inharmonies of life, and is complimentary than otherwise to our organization. They are not to be envied who have never known an hour of pain and languor, for they come not under the discipline and instruction of one of life's great teachers. They are apt to be harsh, and cold, and unfeeling towards their fellows; apt to be boastful of their own strength, and regardless of the delicate sensibilities of others. While we should studiously endeavor to live in harmony with the laws of our being, it is nevertheless true that with all the caution we may exercise, we cannot avoid, if we are spiritually true, the jarring of the inharmonies of this world, and from this as much if not more than from any other cause, come the ills and pains of our earthly life.

These disturbances of the spirit produce to those of fine natures a similar disturbance of their physical condition; then disease follows and makes sad havoc with the temple of the soul.

On a subject so intricate as the cause of disease, only a few hints can here be given.

People become sickly from living too long together; from pursuing continuously one branch of study or labor; from meeting too often with one class of minds; from living on one kind of food, or on food cooked by one person; besides, there are countless other causes; agitations of mind, overtasked and irregular lives are constantly generating impure magnetisms, with which the whole atmosphere is tainted, and which those who are susceptible are forced to absorb.

As there are many causes of disease, there must be many ways of cure. No one system can regulate the disturbances of the complex machinery of the human frame.

Dr. Franklin subjected himself to what was denominated the air bath, as a remedial agent. Others believed in the direct action of the sun, placing themselves beneath glass cupolas to receive it; while still later we have the water-cure, which is thought by many to heal all diseases. These are right in combination, but no one will cure alone.

Does the strong man, with steady nerves, compact muscle, and perfect arterial circulation, need the same remedy when ill, as a less vigorous person, one whose hourly suffering is from a diseased nervous organization?

One member of a family argues that because he can bathe in ice water, another, with more feeble circulation, can do the same, and realize the same results. One man will take no medicine, another swallow scarcely anything else, and thus we find extremes following each other.

One ideaism in this direction is as much to be avoided as in any other. The man of good sense says, "I will take whatever is required to restore the balance of my system."

Of mental disorders we know little. Asylums for their treatment have multiplied in our midst, but few of the thousands of educated physicians are qualified to minister to a mind diseased. Past modes will not do for to-day. Our conditions are not the same. Our lives are faster, our needs greater. Our grand-parents lived in the age of muscle; we exist in the nerve period, and have new demands, both in our mental and physical structure.

And new light will come in answer to the demand. The eye of clairvoyance is already penetrating beyond science, and traversing the world of causes.

Eagerly Florence broke the seal of her first letter from Hugh. He had arrived safely, and wafted over the sea his own and Dawn's love and remembrance.

"Dawn desires to go to Germany, first," he wrote, "and as I have business with parties in Berlin, I shall gratify her wish. I thought, all along, how much I wished you were with us, but since writing I feel different. I need you at home to express myself to, when I am overflowing with thought. If you were at my side, when I am seeing all these things, we should both have the feast together, and be done. Now, in rehearsing it to you, I enjoy it over again. Very much we shall have to talk about, when we meet again. How I would like to transmit to your mind the vivid impressions of my own, when I first put my foot on the soil of England; but such things are not possible, and sometime I hope you will be here yourself, and feel the thrill of the old world under your feet."

This portion of the long and interesting letter so refreshed her, that Miss Evans, when she came in after tea, guessed at once the cause of the sparkling eye that greeted her.

"Letters are wonderful tonics," said Mr. Temple, laughingly, as he glanced toward Florence.

"That depends from whom they come," she answered, and repented of it as soon as said. She looked up after a while, but there was no shadow on his face. She saw that he was sharing her joy, and then she knew that not a ripple of doubt would ever disturb their smoothly flowing life.

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