o make our clothes. Some of us have to stand all day behind a
counter. Some of us have to sit all day and sew for others, and all
night to sew for ourselves and our children. Most of us have to do work
that is necessary or work that is self-imposed. Many of us feel busy
without really being busy at all. But how many of us realize that while
we are doing work outside, our bodies themselves have good, steady work
to do inside.

Our lungs have to take oxygen from the air and give it to our blood;
our blood has to carry it all through our bodies and take away the
waste by means of the steady pumping of our hearts. Our stomachs must
digest the food put into them, give the nourishment in it to the blood,
and see that the waste is cast off.

All this work is wholesome and good, and goes on steadily, giving us
health and strength and new power; but if we, through mismanagement,
make heart or lungs or stomach work harder than they should, then they
must rob us of power to accomplish what we give them to do, and we
blame them, instead of blaming ourselves for being hard and unjust
taskmasters.

The strain in a stomach necessary to the digesting of too much food, or
the wrong kind of food, makes itself felt in strain all through the
whole system.

I knew a woman whose conscience was troubling her very greatly. She was
sure she had done many very selfish things for which there was no
excuse, and that she herself was greatly to blame for other people's
troubles. This was a very acute attack of conscience, accompanied by a
very severe stomach ache. The doctor was called in and gave her an
emetic. She threw a large amount of undigested food from her stomach,
and after that relief the weight on her conscience was lifted entirely
and she had nothing more to blame herself with than any ordinary,
wholesome woman must have to look out for every day of her life.

This is a true story and should be practically useful to readers who
need it. This woman's stomach had been given too much to do. It worked
hard to do its work well, and had to rob the brain and nervous system
in the effort. This effort brought strain to the whole brain, which was
made evident in the region of the conscience. It might have come out in
some other form. It might have appeared in irritability. It might even
have shown itself in downright ugliness.

Whatever the effects are, whether exaggerated conscience, exaggerated
anxiety, or irritability, the immediate caus