ngth, weaken the nerves, and
leave a person wholly unfit for any home duty, he would also be saying
what very few people would deny; and then his case would be made out. If
he should say that it is wrong to breathe bad air and fill the stomach
with unwholesome dainties, so as to make one restless, ill-natured, and
irritable for days after, he would also say what few would deny, and his
preaching might have some hope of success.

The true manner of judging of the worth of amusements is to try them by
their effects on the nerves and spirits the day after. True amusement
ought to be, as the word indicates, recreation,--something that
refreshes, turns us out anew, rests the mind and body by change, and
gives cheerfulness and alacrity to our return to duty.

The true objection to all stimulants, alcoholic and narcotic, consists
simply in this,--that they are a form of overdraft on the nervous
energy, which helps us to use up in one hour the strength of whole days.

A man uses up all the fair, legal interest of nervous power by too much
business, too much care, or too much amusement. He has now a demand to
meet. He has a complicate account to make up, an essay or a sermon to
write, and he primes himself by a cup of coffee, a cigar, a glass of
spirits. This is exactly the procedure of a man who, having used the
interest of his money, begins to dip into the principal. The strength a
man gets in this way is just so much taken out of his life-blood; it is
borrowing of a merciless creditor, who will exact, in time, the pound of
flesh nearest his heart.

Much of the irritability which spoils home happiness is the letting-down
from the over-excitement of stimulus. Some will drink coffee, when they
own every day that it makes them nervous; some will drug themselves with
tobacco, and some with alcohol, and, for a few hours of extra
brightness, give themselves and their friends many hours when amiability
or agreeableness is quite out of the question. There are people calling
themselves Christians who live in miserable thraldom, forever in debt to
Nature, forever overdrawing on their just resources, and using up their
patrimony, because they have not the moral courage to break away from a
miserable appetite.

The same may be said of numberless indulgences of the palate, which tax
the stomach beyond its power, and bring on all the horrors of
indigestion. It is almost impossible for a confirmed dyspeptic to act
like a good Christian;