Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/167

Rh of the sky day after day for two months and seeing no indication of a change, all of a sudden became reckless, sold his horses, harness and farming tools at throw-away prices, got drunk, and wound up with an escapade that obliged him to enlist in the army to have a tent, if not a roof, over his head. A week after that cataclysm of his hopes the long-prayed for rain-clouds did rise from the gulf, and a series of abundant showers enabled the purchaser of his farm to double his stake the first year. "Blast such a climate," growled his predecessor in self-defence, "if there had been the least sign of a change a little sooner, I might have pulled through."

And in that respect remedial gymnastics offer an inestimable advantage, both over drug-mongery and all sorts of faith-cures. There are ebbs and tides in the vicissitudes of vital vigor, and the self-regulating faculties of the organism may rally in a manner to overcome both the disease and the drug; abiding faith may at last reward the patron of a prayer agent. But in either case the hoped-for symptoms of recovery are sadly apt to reveal themselves too late—the normal tendency of the experiment being,