r sick headache. Whatever effort in our day is made to make the men
and women more robust should have the favor of every good citizen as
well as of every Christian. Gymnastics may be positively religious.

Good people sometimes ascribe to a wicked heart what they ought to
ascribe to a slow liver. The body and the soul are such near neighbors
that they often catch each other's diseases. Those who never saw a
sick day, and who, like Hercules, show the giant in the cradle, have
more to answer for than those who are the subjects of life-long
infirmities. He who can lift twice as much as you can, and walk twice
as far, and work twice as long, will have a double account to meet in
the judgment.

How often it is that you do not find physical energy indicative of
spiritual power! If a clear head is worth more than one dizzy with
perpetual vertigo--if muscles with the play of health in them are
worth more than those drawn up in chronic "rheumatics"--if an eye
quick to catch passing objects is better than one with vision dim and
uncertain--then God will require of us efficiency just in proportion
to what he has given us. Physical energy ought to be a type of moral
power. We ought to have as good digestion of truth as we have capacity
to assimilate food. Our spiritual hearing ought to be as good as our
physical hearing. Our spiritual taste ought to be as clear as our
tongue. Samsons in body, we ought to be giants in moral power.

But while you find a great many men who realize that they ought to use
their money aright, and use their intelligence aright, how few men you
find aware of the fact that they ought to use their physical organism
aright! With every thump of the heart there is something saying,
"Work! work!" and, lest we should complain that we have no tools to
work with, God gives us our hands and feet, with every knuckle, and
with every joint, and with every muscle saying to us, "Lay hold and do
something."

But how often it is that men with physical strength do not serve
Christ! They are like a ship full manned and full rigged, capable of
vast tonnage, able to endure all stress of weather, yet swinging idly
at the docks, when these men ought to be crossing and recrossing the
great ocean of human suffering and sin with God's supplies of mercy.
How often it is that physical strength is used in doing positive
damage, or in luxurious ease, when, with sleeves rolled up and bronzed
bosom, fearless of the shafts of oppositi