h for and need them; and he actually died because he
forced his diseased stomach to receive at each meal a certain amount of
aliment, neither more nor less, whatever might be his appetite at the
time, or his utter want of appetite. He wore a girdle armed with iron
spikes, which he was accustomed to drive in upon his body (his fleshless
ribs) as often as he thought himself in need of such admonition. He was
annoyed and offended if any in his hearing might chance to say that they
had just seen a beautiful woman. He rebuked a mother who permitted her
own children to give her their kisses. Toward a loving sister, who
devoted herself to his comfort, he assumed an artificial harshness of
manner for the _express purpose_, as he acknowledged, of revolting her
sisterly affection."

And all this sprung from the simple principle that earthly enjoyment was
inconsistent with religion.

We should fight against every influence which tends to depress the mind,
as we would against a temptation to crime. A depressed mind prevents the
free action of the diaphragm and the expansion of the chest. It stops
the secretions of the body, interferes with the circulation of the blood
in the brain, and deranges the entire functions of the body. Scrofula
and consumption often follow protracted depressions of mind. That "fatal
murmur" which is heard in the upper lobes of the lungs in the first
stages of consumption, often follows depressed spirits after some great
misfortune or sorrow. Victims of suicide are almost always in a
depressed state from exhausted vitality, loss of nervous energy,
dyspepsia, worry, anxiety, trouble, or grief.

"Mirth is God's medicine," says a wise writer; "everybody ought to bathe
in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety--all the rust of life, ought to be
scoured off by the oil of mirth." It is better than emery. Every man
ought to rub himself with it. A man without mirth is like a wagon
without springs, in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every
pebble over which it runs. A man with mirth is like a chariot with
springs, in which one can ride over the roughest roads and scarcely feel
anything but a pleasant rocking motion.

"I have told you," said Southey, "of the Spaniard who always put on
spectacles when about to eat cherries, in order that the fruit might
look larger and more tempting. In like manner I make the most of my
enjoyments; and though I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles, I
pack them in as sm