CHAPTER XIX.

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.