With respect to the physical, intellectual and moral man, work is the essential factor in procuring health and happiness.  Idleness is the bane of both.  Man and woman were born to work either by hand or brain.  Man in the outer world, woman in the home.  The man who lives without an object in life is not only not doing his duty to God, but he is a curse to himself and others.  But work, like everything else, should be limited.  Many cannot do this, and overtax both their physical and intellectual energies.  The employment of labour should be regulated by the capabilities of the working-classes, not by the economy or profits to be obtained by extra labour; and legislation, if paternal, as it should be, ought to protect the toiler in all instances—­not in the few in which it attempts to ameliorate his condition.  So with every pursuit or avocation, the leisure essential to health and happiness is too often sacrificed to cupidity, and when this is the case there can be no longevity.

Exercise is beneficial to man; but it should not be taken in excess, or in too trying a form.  It is very questionable if what are called “Athletic Sports” are not too often as hurtful as they are beneficial.  It is quite certain that they cannot be indulged in with impunity after a certain time of life.

Sustenance is essential alike to life and longevity, but it is trite to say it must be in moderation, and as far as possible select.  So in the case of temperance, moderation is beneficial, excess hurtful.  Total abstainers defeat the very object they propose to advocate when they propose to do away with all because excess is hurtful.  Extremes are always baneful, and the monks of old were wise in their generation when they denounced gluttony and intemperance as cardinal vices.  The physical powers are as a rule subject to the will, which is the exponent of our passions and propensities and of our moral and intellectual impulses.  Were it not so we could not curb our actions, restrain our appetites, or keep within that moderation which is essential to health, happiness and longevity.

Our passions and propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use.  It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful.  A French author has pertinently put it thus:  “The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she would be lost.”

Even our affections, so pure and beautiful in themselves, may, by abuse, be made sources of mischief, evil and disease.  The abuses are too well known to require repetition here.  The powers of energy and resistance, beneficial in themselves, in their abuse bring about the spirit of contradiction, violence and combat.