and lucrative employments
to serve their country as soldiers.

As, then, the army excludes, or intends to exclude, from its ranks all
the defective, weak, and sick, it begins with a much higher average of
health and vigor, a greater power of action, of endurance, and of
resisting the causes of disease, than the mass of men of the same ages
in civil life. It is composed of men in the fulness of strength and
efficiency. This is the vital machinery with which Governments propose
to do their martial work; and the amount of vital force which belongs to
these living machines, severally and collectively, is the capital with
which they intend to accomplish their purposes. Every wise Government
begins the business of war with a good capital of life, a large quantity
of vital force in its army. So far they do well; but more is necessary.
This complete and fitting preparation alone is not sufficient to carry
on the martial process through weeks and months of labor and privation.
Not only must the living machinery of bone and flesh be well selected,
but its force must be sustained, it must be kept in the most effective
condition and in the best and most available working order. For this
there are two established conditions, that admit of no variation nor
neglect: first, a sufficient supply of suitable nutriment, and faithful
regard to all the laws of health; and, second, the due appropriation of
the vital force that is thus from day to day created.

A due supply of appropriate food and of pure air, sufficient protection
and cleansing of the surface, moderate labor and refreshing rest, are
the necessary conditions of health, and cannot be disregarded, in the
least degree, without a loss of force. The privation of even a single
meal, or the use of food that is hard of digestion or innutritious, and
the loss of any of the needful sleep, are followed by a corresponding
loss of effective power, as surely as the slackened fire in the furnace
is followed by lessened steam and power in the engine.

Whosoever, then, wishes to sustain his own forces or those of his
laborers with the least cost, and use them with the greatest effect,
must take Nature on her own terms. It is vain to try to evade or alter
her conditions. The Kingdom of Heaven is not divided against itself. It
makes no compromises, not even for the necessities of nations. It will
not consent that any one, even the least, of its laws shall be set
aside, to advance any other, h