Page:The American improved family physician, or home doctor.djvu/10

4 compare the mouth to the devil, and the good organ or stomach to the God which is within him. This good organ tells men often that they should not eat such or such diet; but, because it tastes so good to that temper which is the mouth, he will still eat of the diet, which the good organ or stomach, has often made known to him, that he felt bad when he eat.

I suppose you all understand what I mean. I mean that all men ought to learn daily more and more how to keep in good health. For what makes every generation in futurity weaker, and of more delicate health? Nothing, but the way of living too rich, &c, &c. All persons, young and old, ought to learn to control their appetites in eating and drinking, for if they do not they will surely be sufferers their life time, and haste their footsteps toward the grave. It is not the Almighty's wish that we shall be sufferers, neither in this, nor the world to come; but we are free men, we can build upon the sand or rock, but if we do not know how to build, what then? Why! we must learn how to build; and now is the time (to-day) to learn, for to-morrow it may be too late. A child when born gets its nourishment from the milk of its mother's breast; why does it not eat pork, and drink coffee and whiskey, &c; why, because it is pure of sin, but as it passes on to maturity, it will eat and drink of all forbidden fruit and things, and become a sinner. Now to all parents who must raise these little innocent ones, your duty is to raise them in a righteous, and Godlike manner, both naturally and spiritually. A child taught from its youth up to maturity how to live will never forget it. So much on the subject of eating and drinking.

Further I will draw your attention to good pure air, cleanliness, exercise, &c. Man is told to keep clean, and pure of heart. A man with his stomach full of rich and indigestible food, a in his mouth, his body covered over with a crust of filth, sitting in a room heated with a red hot stove, his legs stretched over a chair, and his head on the floor, is a fit subject for disease. But a man with his head full of wisdom, his body covered with clean cloth, and the filth washed off of his skin, and his head out doors in good pure air, with a plentiful of digestible food and pure water, makes an active mind, cheerful, and of good health. Some people when they get sick keep themselves in a close room, with a roasted hot stove, so as to destroy all the good pure air, for fear they might take fever; they allow no water to come near them for fear of inflammation. They now send for the doctor; the doctor comes and feels the pulse, looks at the tongue, and says — Ah! you have a very high fever indeed, you must be bled about two quarts, you have too much blood, (he ought to say too much life) I must take it out to break the fever, (he means break nature down, and give the fever a fair chance,) also, I must give you a small dose of