ulgence.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SOLID COMFORT AND GOOD HEALTH.]

Health a Duty.

Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both
be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation
of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as
physical morality.

Men's habitual words and acts imply that they are at liberty to treat their
bodies as they please. Disorder entailed by disobedience to nature's
dictates they regard as grievances, not as the effects of a conduct more or
less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their
descendents and on future generations are often as great as those caused by
crime, they do not think themselves in any degree criminal.

It is true that in the case of drunkenness the viciousness of a bodily
transgression is recognized; but none appear to infer that if this bodily
transgression is vicious, so, too, is {8} every bodily transgression. The
fact is, all breaches of the law of health are physical sins.

When this is generally seen, then, and perhaps not till then, will the
physical training of the young receive all the attention it deserves.

Purity of life and thought should be taught in the home. It is the only
safeguard of the young. Let parents wake up on this important subject.

* * * * *

{9}

Value of Reputation.

1. WHO SHALL ESTIMATE THE COST.--Who shall estimate the cost of a priceless
reputation--that impress which gives this human dross its currency--without
which we stand despised, debased, depreciated? Who shall repair it injured?
Who can redeem it lost? Oh, well and truly does the great philosopher of
poetry esteem the world's wealth as "trash" in the comparison. Without it
gold has no value; birth, no distinction; station, no dignity; beauty, no
charm; age, no reverence; without it every treasure impoverishes, every
grace deforms, every dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations
and accomplishments of life stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock,
warning the world that its approach is dangerous; that its contact is
death.

2. THE WRETCH WITHOUT IT.--The wretch without it is under eternal
quarantine; no friend to greet; no home to harbor him, the voyage of his
life becomes a joyless peril; and in the midst of all ambition can achieve,
or avarice amass, or rapacity plunder, he tosses on the surge, a buoyan