Next to air and water in importance to health and happiness is sunlight.
O, "let there be light" in your houses, that there may be light in your
hearts also!
Our houses should be so constructed and located that the sun may shine
into every room some time during the day. Too many build houses and live
in the rear. The hall and large parlors are usually situated in front, to
the south or west, throwing the sitting, dining, and
working-room--kitchen--in the shade. Let the cheering, life-giving
influences of God's dear blessed sunshine flood the working, sitting, and,
particularly, the sleeping rooms. He or she who sleeps in a room from
which the sunshine is totally excluded will be pale, weak, tired, and die
prematurely of consumption. Try a plant in such a room. It soon turns pale
and sickly. Just so your children and yourself. I have such patients
daily. Medicine cannot substitute sunshine.
Throw open the blinds, dash aside the curtains, and let in the light and
sunshine to your homes and hearts. Never mind the carpets; they may be
replaced, but you and your children, never! Save your health, if _you ruin
an old carpet in so doing_!
Cholera, dysentery, scrofula, nervous diseases, and consumption prevail
more extensively in narrow and darkened, as also in the shady side of
streets; also in darkened prisons and hospitals.
A heavy heart walks in dark and cheerless apartments. The cheerful, happy
man, the joyous, contented wife, the beautiful, healthy children, dwell
and rejoice in homes where flows full and free the pure air and the
life-keeping, health-giving sunshine.
Christianity is more likely to take up its abode with the latter. There
only green leaves and beautiful flowers can gladden the sight and
exhilarate the senses.
Air, water, sunlight! "These three." Don't neglect them. So shall you live
long, live healthy, and at last die happily!