Your neighbor, John Stedman, is set fast with aches and pains, and is
very ill. You have just been to see him, you say, and you can not think
why it is that people are every now and then attacked in this way with
sickness. You have been told that God sends disease; but for your own
part you can not understand why it is that some of your neighbors,
who, like John Stedman, seem to be the most honest and deserving, get
the largest share of it. I think, my industrious friend, I can perhaps
help you to the explanation of the riddle. At any rate, there are many
things touching upon this very subject, which as an old acquaintance,
and one who has learned through long intimacy to take great interest
in all that concerns you, I have for some time desired to say. I shall
now seize this opportunity to make a beginning, and shall seat myself
comfortably that I may chat with you more at my ease. Pray do not
trouble yourself to move anything. This empty chair near the door will
do excellently well for me. I know you will listen to me with attention
and patience, first for old friendship’s sake, and then because you
will very soon feel that what I do say is intended frankly and solely
for your good.
You have a fine, smart-looking clock, I see, ticking away there
opposite. But the old fellow can hardly be so correct as he seems; his
hands point to eight, although the day wants but a couple of hours of
noon. I fear there must be something wrong about him, notwithstanding
his looking so vastly well in the face.
You say you can not make the clock keep time. You wind it up carefully
every Saturday, and set it correctly, and yet before the next Saturday
comes round, it has either lagged hours behind, or it has galloped on
hours too fast. It goes as if it were moved by the uncertain wind,
instead of being driven by regular machinery, and it was a shame for
the man to sell you such a bad-going thing. If the clock never did
behave itself any better, you are right in this: but perhaps you are
too hasty in finding fault with the maker; he may not altogether
deserve the blame. Let us just open the door of the case, and peep at
the inner workmanship, and see whether we can not discover some cause
for the irregular performance.
What is this? As soon as I open this little door I stumble upon
something that looks rather suspicious; it is a quantity of light flue,
and hair, and dust, mingled together. The clockmaker never put that
into the case. Then, observe how every wheel and pinion is soiled with
dirt, and every crevice and corner is choked up with filth. It really
would be a very wonderful thing if the wheels did move regularly. The
secret of the bad working of your clock is, simply, that you have not
known how to take care of it, and use it fairly. I dare say it went
very well when it was turned out of its maker’s hands, but he never
meant it to be in the state in which it now is. You must send it back
to him, and get him to clean the works and oil the wheels, and then
you must try whether you can not prevent it from getting into such sad
disorder again.
Now, your neighbor yonder with his aches and pains and his sickness,
are you sure that he is not in very much the same predicament as this
clock? If we could look into the works of his body, are you confident
that we should not find them choked up and uncared for, instead of
being in the condition in which they were intended to be? His aches and
pains, are they not the grating and complaining of deranged and clogged
machinery? I am quite aware that sick people generally are not sensible
of having allowed anything to come near to their bodies which they
ought to have kept away. But neither did you know that dirt was getting
to the works of your clock, although we discovered it there in such
plenty. The dust and dirt which collected there, first flew about in
the air, scattered so thinly and lightly that you could not see them.
So, too, other things which you can not see may have been floating in
great abundance around you, some of them being to the living frame what
dirt and dust are to clockwork. That there are such invisible things
floating around living creatures, and that some of these clog and
derange the working of their frames, I think I shall have no difficulty
in showing you. I hope I shall also be able to point out to you, that
many of them may be discovered, although they can not be seen, and may
be driven away or avoided.
That wonderful object which you call your _body_, is actually a machine
like the clock, contrived and put together for a certain service. It
has for its works, muscles and bones, and blood vessels and nerves.
These works have been most beautifully fitted and adjusted: indeed,
they are the workmanship of a skill which can not fail. The maker of
your body is the great and unerring Power, who has also made all the
rest of creation. It is God.
God made your body with supple joints and free limbs; with strong
muscles and ready nerves. The machine was perfect when it came from
his hands. It was then capable of going better than the best clock
that was ever constructed by human ingenuity. It was able even to
cleanse, and oil, and repair itself, and it was prepared to continue
its orderly movements, without suffering the slightest derangement, for
sixty or seventy long years. But when God placed this perfected piece
of delicate workmanship at your disposal, he, like the clockmaker with
his clock, required that you should at least take care of it, and use
it fairly. If, however, you do not do this, then as with the clock, so
will it be with your body. If you keep it amid dust and dirt, no other
result can come but the clogging of its works, and the derangement of
their movements. Out of that dusty old clock-case it is my purpose to
draw this very surprising and important lesson in your behoof. Whenever
men get out of happiness and ease into wretchedness and disease, it is
almost sure to be their own fault, and the consequence of their own
doings. Either they perversely and wilfully do something which they
know very well they ought not to do, or they do something which they
ought not to do, in ignorance.
Comfort and ease are to body and mind, what steady and even movements
are to clock-work—signs that the machinery is in perfect order.
Discomfort and _dis-ease_ (_absence of ease_) are to body and mind
what fitful and irregular movements are to clock-work;—signs that
the machinery is clogged and in disorder. You are always inclined to
rebel against discomfort and pain. Never give way to this inclination.
Discomfort and pain are friendly monitors, that come to you to perform
a kind service. They come to warn you that there is something wrong in
and around your own body, which requires to be set right.
You will observe that I have said men _nearly_ always have themselves
to blame when they get out of health and into disease. I have said
nearly always, because it occasionally does happen that the suffering
is not immediately caused by the sufferer’s own wrong doing. This, for
instance, is the case when a child has a constitutional disease, which
has been communicated to it by a parent. It is, however, even in these
instances none the less true, that _human blindness or wilfulness_
leads to the mischief, and this is really the practical point that I am
desirous you should see. These are the cases in which, in accordance
with God’s law, “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the
children.” The parents have done wrong, and the offspring have to pay
the penalty. The line of obvious duty, however, is in no way altered
here. If a man suffers because his parents did what was wrong, this
really is an additional reason why he ought never to do that which may
cause his own children to suffer, in like manner, with himself.
There is this further proof, that even in these cases it really is
_man’s wrong doing which leads to human suffering_. When the children
of parents who have done what was wrong, go on doing only what is right
through several generations, their offspring at last cease to suffer,
and become altogether healthy and sound. The burden of the fathers’
sins is then, at length, mercifully taken off from their shoulders.
Having listened patiently to this little sermon, you would now like
me to come to the point, and show you some of the dust and dirt which
are scattered around the living body, and which at times get into the
machinery to the damage of its working. First of all, in my endeavor to
do this, I should like to make you quite comprehend the possibility of
there being very weighty matters pressing close round you, which you
nevertheless are entirely unable to see, even in bright daylight. Just
come out with me, here, upon the road. How pleasant and fresh the day
is! Do you not feel the gentle breeze fanning your cheek as you turn up
the lane? Yet you can not see the breeze! What is it, then? Certainly
it is _something_, for it touches and even presses against your skin.
But it is something, too, which has weight and power of its own.
Observe how it shakes the leaves of the trees as it sweeps past them.
It is, as you know, the same unseen breeze which also drives round
those great mill-sails yonder with such violence, and which grinds as
much corn in that mill, as could be ground by the efforts of a dozen
horses, kept up to their work by the whip. We have not had to move far,
then, before we have come upon something which we cannot see;—before we
have proved to ourselves that we must not altogether depend upon our
eye-sight for information, even concerning the existence of surrounding
things.
But what is this? The breeze is not so fresh here as it was just now at
the end of the lane. There is some very disagreeable smell now floating
upon it. Here again we can see nothing, any more than we could when we
had only the fresh breeze blowing around us. But there must be some
cause for the unpleasant odor. The smell gets stronger and stronger
as we approach this bank. We climb over the bank, and we find on the
other side, in the corner of a field, a manure-heap, from which the
smell is evidently poured out. Now that smell is really a vapor, bred
of decay in the manure, and then steaming up from it into the air. If
our eyes were as sharp as our noses, we should be able to see a host
of little bodies rushing up from the manure, and scattering themselves
through the air. It is because some of those little bodies strike upon
the lining of our noses, as they are drawn in by our breathing, that we
smell the unpleasant odor. The nose feels the touch of those bodies as
a smell.
Wherever substances which have been alive, are dead and undergoing
decay, vapors of this kind are bred and steamed forth. This is the way
in which dead things are got rid of; they turn to vapor and crumble to
dust. If we could see all the vapors that are being bred of decay, we
should be sensible of a thick mist covering the entire face of the land
and sea, and rising up from it continually. Some of these vapors have
strong smells, like those which issue from the manure-heap; but some of
them can not even be smelt, any more than they can be seen.
But these invisible vapors, bred of decay, were not intended to be
breathed by living creatures; and indeed, can not be breathed by
them without mischief. We are able to stand near the manure-heap for
some time without taking any particular harm, because the vapors
are scattered as fast as they are formed, and are mingled in small
quantities with large quantities of pure air. We thus breathe air
tainted with these vapors, rather than the vapors themselves. But
suppose all the air were taken away, and you were left standing with
nothing around you but these vapors, what do you think would happen
to you? You would be dead in less than three minutes, killed by their
poisonous power. The vapors which are bred in decaying substances are
poison vapors.
You would like to know why it is, as these poison vapors are poured out
in such quantities from all decaying substances, that you do not see
people dying all around from breathing them. Did I not tell you, in the
case of the poison vapors of the manure-heap, that you could breathe
them because they were freely scattered into the fresh air? Now just
come a few yards this way. You observe the smell of the manure grows
less and less. Here you can not any longer perceive it, although the
wind is actually blowing over the manure-heap toward us. The fact is,
these poison vapors can not bear the presence of pure air. Pure air
is the natural _antidote_ or remedy for their poison. The instant it
mingles with them it begins to destroy their hurtfulness, and in a few
moments it has so thoroughly accomplished this good work that no single
trace of mischievous power remains.
Has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself why the pleasant wind blows
over hills and fields, and through lanes and streets? You know very
well that the wind always is blowing, more or less. Go out when you
will, you find it, if you turn the right way. It is the most uncommon
thing in the world for the air to be altogether still. The fresh wind
blows so constantly over hill and plain, because God sends it to
sweep away and destroy the poison vapors that steam out from decaying
substances. The breeze is God’s invisible antidote to the invisible
poison. The pleasant wind blows in order that the air may be kept fresh
and pure.
In the open air the fresh wind very soon scatters and destroys all
poison vapors. But civilized men do not dwell always in the open air.
The wind sometimes makes them feel cold, so they build themselves
houses to shut out the wind. To-night, before you go to bed in your
small sleeping room, you will close the windows and the door; and you
will think, when you have done so, that you have shut out everything
which could harm you, with the cold. But what will you say to me if I
show you that after you have closed the windows and the door, poison
vapors are bred in great quantities in the room where you are lying?
and that so long as you remain in it, they keep gathering more and more
strength, and becoming more and more dangerous. Just come back with me
to the cottage, and let us look at the room in which you were sleeping
last night. The beds, you believe, are not yet made. Never mind that.
I often go into rooms under such circumstances, and perhaps upon this
occasion it may be even better for the purpose I have in view, if I
find the chamber in disorder. At any rate let us go upstairs and take
our chance.
Sure enough you have been at great pains here to keep the cold from
getting in. There is only one casement in this low small room, and
that casement has not been unbarred since yesterday. I do not need
to be told this. I make the discovery myself; for you have also kept
something from getting out, which had better have been away. I feel
at once this is not the same kind of air which we were breathing just
now in the open garden. Indeed, I can not remain in the room without
opening the window. There; I throw open the casement, and in a few
minutes the air will be as fresh here as it is outside of the house.
Now what do you think it was that made the air of this room so
unpleasant? It was the poison-vapor with which it was laden, and which
had steamed out of your body mixed with your breath during the night.
Poison-vapors are bred in the bodies and in the blood of all living
animals, just as they are in manure-heaps. All the working organs of
your frame being exhausted by use, undergo decay and are turned into
vapor, and that vapor, being _bred_ of decay, is _poison-vapor_, which
must be got rid of out of the body as quickly as it is formed. Living
bodies are worn away into vapor by working just as mill-stones are worn
away into dust by grinding. You would see them waste under work, if
it were not that they are repaired by food. You wonder, then, that as
this vapor is poisonous, living creatures do not destroy themselves by
the poison they form in their blood? Occasionally human creatures do
so destroy themselves, as I shall presently show you. But the merciful
Designer of the animal frame has furnished a means by which, in a
general way, the poison is removed as fast as it is formed. Can you not
guess what this means is?
God employs the same plan for driving away poison vapors from the
inside of living animal bodies, that he uses for the purification of
the air in the open country. He causes a current of air to circulate
through them. Notice how, while we are talking together, our chests
heave up and down. You know this is what we term breathing. Now, when
we breathe, we first make the insides of our chests larger by drawing
their walls and floors further asunder. Then we make them smaller
by drawing their walls and floors once more nearer together. When
the chest is made larger, fresh air rushes in through the mouth and
wind-pipe, and through the twig-like branches of this pipe, until
it fills a quantity of little round chambers which form the ends of
those branches. The wind-pipe branches out into several millions of
fine twig-like tubes, and then each tube ends in a blind extremity, or
chamber exactly like this.
The air-chamber in the body is covered by a sort of net-work, stretched
tightly over it. That net-work is formed of blood-vessels, through
which the blood is constantly streaming, driven on by the action of
the heart. This blood sucks air from the air-chambers into itself,
and carries that air onward to all parts of the living frame. But
the blood-streams in the net-work of vessels also steam out into the
air-chambers poison-vapors, which are then driven out through the
windpipe and the mouth. Thus the breath which goes into the mouth is
_fresh_ air; but the breath which comes out of the mouth is _foul_
air. Air is spoiled, and, as it were, converted to poison, by being
breathed; but the body is purified by the breathing, because it is its
poison-vapors that are carried away, mingled with the spoiled air.
This, then, is why men breathe. Breathing is the blowing of a fresh
wind through the living body for the cleansing away of its impurities.
The purifying part of the air which is breathed actually circulates
with the blood through all parts of the frame.
Exercise quickens and exalts the cleansing powers of the breathing—and
this is why it is of such great importance to the health. When you
go and take a brisk walk in the open air, you increase the force of
the internal breeze. The exertion makes your chest expand to a larger
size, so that it can admit more fresh air, and it also causes your
blood-streams to course along more rapidly, so that a greater abundance
of the air is carried on through your frame.
[To be concluded.]
* * * * *
I could never find out more than three ways to become happier (not
happy). The first, rather a high one, is this: to soar so far above
the clouds of life that one sees the whole external world, with its
wolf-dens, charnel-houses, and thunder-rods, down far beneath us,
shrunk into a child’s little garden. The second is—merely to sink
down into this little garden, and there to nestle yourself so snugly
in some little furrow, that when you look out of your warm lark-nest
you likewise can perceive no wolf-dens, charnel-houses, and poles,
but only blades, every one of which, for the nest-bird, is a tree,
and sun-screen, and rain-screen. The third, finally, which I regard
as the hardest and cunningest, is that of alternating with the other
two.—_Jean Paul F. Richter._