and maintain the utmost
possible cheer of soul, but it is also a necessity to have cheer in
other souls with whom relations are intimate.

As a matter of extraneous _digestive aid_, a cheerful soul in a family
is an abiding source of digestive energy to all in social contact. It
affects the digestive energy of all, as the breeze the fire, as the
clearing sky the low spirits from the gloom of chill and fogs. The eyes
that do not glisten with higher life, the lines upon the face that are
not alive with cheerful, kindly emotions, the frowning look, the word
that cuts deeply, have their repressive effects upon digestive energy
within their remorseless reach.

The _moral science_ of digestive energy is a new study; it is not known
as a factor in the process of digestion; but the time is coming when
cheer of soul will become a study as of one of the finer arts, and then
human homes will not be so much like lesser lunatic asylums without the
restraining hands of a wise superintendent.

Life will be different in homes when all within the age of reason shall
realize that their words without kindness, their looks without cheer,
are forces that tend to physical and moral degradation, really nothing
less than death-dealing energies upon all lives within their reach. The
power of human kindness has ever been a favorite theme with the
moralist, but it has not been considered with reference to its power
upon digestion.

_Anger_ is mental and moral chaos; it is insanity; it is revenge in the
fury of a hurricane; and sensitive natures have the greatest need for
the largest measure of health in order that these human tempests shall
be under larger restraint.

The gloomy, the irritable, the dyspeptic Christian is a dispenser of
death and not of the higher life, and his religious faith does not
spread by the contagiousness of example: and because of the solemnity,
of the exceeding importance of his sense of the possibilities of the
life beyond death he has all the more need to have that physical and
moral strength that his daily walk, conversation, and mien may be
consistent, forceful, and uplifting.

To this great end study, study to see _cheer_ everywhere, and above all
things to possess it. Good health is also contagious, and, no less than
disease, has a reflex impression. Only above the chill dampness, the
fogs, and clouds is the clear sky with the blazing sun. There are
undreamed-of possibilities of getting above the worriment