mental
pleasures--time for bodily exercise.

There is a profound meaning in the word Amusement; much more than most
people are disposed to admit. In fact, amusement is an important part of
education. It is a mistake to suppose that the boy or the man who plays
at some outdoor game is wasting his time. Amusement of any kind is not
wasting time, but economizing life.

Relax and exercise frequently, if you would enjoy good health. If you do
not relax, and take no exercise, the results will soon appear in bodily
ailments, which always accompany sedentary occupations. "The students,"
says Lord Derby, "who think they have not time for bodily exercise, will
sooner or later find time for illness."

There are people in the world who would, if they had the power, hang the
heavens about with crape; throw a shroud over the beautiful and
life-giving bosom of the planet; pick the bright stars from the sky;
veil the sun with clouds; pluck the silver moon from her place in the
firmament; shut up our gardens and fields, and all the flowers with
which they are bedecked; and doom the world to an atmosphere of gloom
and cheerlessness. There is no reason nor morality in this, and there is
still less religion.

A benevolent Creator has endowed man with an eminent capacity for
enjoyment,--has set him in a fair and lovely world, surrounded him with
things good and beautiful,--and given him the disposition to love, to
sympathize, to help, to produce, to enjoy; and thus to become an
honourable and a happy being, bringing God's work to perfection, and
enjoying the divine creation in the midst of which he lives.

Make a man happy, and his actions will be happy too; doom him to dismal
thoughts and miserable circumstances, and you will make him gloomy,
discontented, morose, and probably vicious. Hence coarseness and crime
are almost invariably found amongst those who have never been accustomed
to be cheerful, whose hearts have been shut against the purifying
influences of a happy communion with nature, or an enlightened and
cheerful intercourse with man.

Man has a strong natural appetite for relaxation and amusement, and,
like all other natural appetites, it has been implanted for a wise
purpose. It cannot be repressed, but will break out in one form or
another. Any well-directed attempt to promote an innocent amusement, is
worth a dozen sermons against pernicious ones. If we do not provide the
opportunity for enjoying wholesome pleasures, m