extremely conducive to good health and good spirits. There is now
living in South Kingston, R. I., an old man, named Ebenezer Adams,
who is past ninety, and has never called upon a physician, or taken
a single prescription, in his whole life. He has mowed every season
for the last seventy-five years. The past summer he has raised
with his own hands one hundred and thirty bushels of potatoes, and
harvested them himself; conveying them about three quarters of a
mile, in a wheelbarrow, to his house. He has raised and harvested
forty bushels of corn himself. He has mowed and put up, without the
help of man or beast, six tons of hay. He hauled it on hay-poles of
his own manufacture, and put it in the barn himself. He carries his
corn two miles and a half, two bushels at a time, in a wheelbarrow,
to the mill, himself. Rainy weather, and in winter, he is at work
at his trade as a cooper. His uninterrupted health is doubtless
mainly owing to constant exercise in the open air.
The Rev. John Wesley, speaking of his remarkable freedom from
fatigue amid the incessant labors of his old age, says: “I owe it
to the goodness of God. But one natural cause undoubtedly is my
continual exercise, and change of air. How the latter contributes
to health, I know not; but it undoubtedly does.”
The Duke of Wellington, who retained his mental and physical
faculties, in a remarkable degree, to an advanced age, lived with
so much simplicity, that a celebrated cook left his service on the
plea that he had no opportunity to display his skill. He was in the
habit of applying vigorous friction to all his body daily. He slept
on his narrow, iron camp bedstead, and walked briskly, or rode on
horseback, while other gentlemen were sleeping. He made no use of
tobacco in any form. For many years he refrained from the use of
wine, saying he found no advantage from it, and relinquished it for
the sake of his health.
The Hon. Josiah Quincy is a memorable example of vigorous old age.
He has always been an early riser, and very active in his habits,
both intellectual and physical. For many years, he has practised
gymnastics fifteen minutes every morning, before dressing; throwing
his limbs about with an agility which few young men could surpass.
Believing the healthy state of the skin to be of great importance,
he daily applies friction to his whole body, by means of horse-hair
gloves. He is temperate in his diet, and rarely tastes of wine. He
is careful not to let his mind rust for want of use. He is always
adding to his stock of knowledge, and he takes a lively interest
in public affairs. He is now past ninety; yet few have spoken so
wisely and boldly as he has concerning the national emergencies
which have been occurring during the last ten years. He profits by
a hint he received from the venerable John Adams, in answer to the
question how he had managed to preserve the vigor of his mind to
such an advanced age. “Simply by exercising it,” replied Mr. Adams.
“Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish
to keep them in working order.”
A few years since, the Rev. Daniel Waldo addressed the graduates at
Yale College, on Commencement Day. In the course of his remarks, he
said: “I am now an old man. I have seen nearly a century. Do you
want to know how to grow old slowly and happily? Let me tell you.
Always eat slowly; masticate well. Go to your food, to your rest,
to your occupations, smiling. Keep a good nature and a soft temper
everywhere. Never give way to anger. A violent tempest of passion
tears down the constitution more than a typhus fever.”
Leigh Hunt says: “Do not imagine that mind alone is concerned
in your bad spirits. The body has a great deal to do with these
matters. The mind may undoubtedly affect the body; but the body
also affects the mind. There is a reaction between them; and by
lessening it on either side you diminish the pain of both. If you
are melancholy, and know not why, be assured it must arise entirely
from some physical weakness, and do your best to strengthen
yourself. The blood of a melancholy man is thick and slow. The
blood of a lively man is clear and quick. Endeavor, therefore, to
put your blood in motion. Exercise is the best way to do it.”
The homely old maxim,--
“After breakfast, work a while;
After dinner, sit and smile;
After supper, walk a mile,”--
contains a good deal of practical wisdom. Manual labor in the
forenoon; cheerful conversation, or music, after dinner; a light
supper, at five or six o’clock, and a pleasant walk afterward,
will preserve health, and do much to restore it, if undermined. A
walk at any period of the day does the body twice as much good if
connected with some object that interests the mind or heart. To
walk out languidly into infinite space, merely to aid digestion, as
rich epicures are wont to do, takes half the virtue out of exercise.
An aged clergyman, who had never known a day’s illness, was asked
how he accounted for it. He replied, “Dry feet and early rising
have been my only precautions.” In “Hall’s Journal of Health” I
find the following advice, of which I know the value by experience:
“If you are well, let yourself alone. This is our favorite motto.
But to you whose feet are inclined to be cold, we suggest that as
soon as you get up in the morning, put your feet at once in a basin
of cold water, so as to come half-way to the ankles; keep them in
half a minute in winter, or two minutes in summer, rubbing them
both vigorously; wipe dry, and hold to the fire, if convenient,
in cold weather, until every part of the foot feels as dry as your
hand, then put on your socks or stockings. On going to bed at
night, draw off your stockings, and hold the foot to the fire for
ten or fifteen minutes, until perfectly dry, and get right into
bed. This is a most pleasant operation, and fully repays for the
trouble of it. No one can sleep well or refreshingly with cold
feet. Never step from your bed with the naked feet on an uncarpeted
floor. I have known it to be the exciting cause of months of
illness. Wear woollen, cotton, or silk stockings, whichever keep
your feet most comfortable; do not let the experience of another be
your guide, for different persons require different articles; what
is good for a person whose feet are naturally damp, cannot be good
for one whose feet are always dry.”
In Italy, and all the other grape-growing countries of Europe,
people have the habit of drinking wine with breakfast. Cornaro
followed the general custom, and he recommends a moderate use of
wine as essential to old people. But at that remote period there
was less knowledge of the physical laws than there now is. He
confesses that he always found old wine very deleterious to him,
and that for many years he never tasted any but new wine. Sir
Walter Raleigh, who was born only ninety years later than Cornaro,
gives the following sensible advice: “Except thou desire to hasten
thy end, take this for a general rule: that thou never add any
artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice, until thou find that
time hath decayed thy natural heat; and the sooner thou dost begin
to help Nature, the sooner she will forsake thee, and leave thee to
trust altogether to art.”
The late Dr. Warren, in his excellent little book on the
“Preservation of Health,” bears the following testimony: “Habitual
temperance in regard to the quantity of food, regular exercise,
and abstinence from all stimulants except for medicinal purposes,
would greatly diminish or obviate the evils of age. It is idle to
say that men can and do live sometimes even to great age under
the practice of various excesses, particularly under the use of
stimulants. The natural and sufficient stimulus of the stomach
is healthy food. Any stimulus more active produces an unnatural
excitement, which will ultimately tell in the great account of
bad habits. The old adage, ‘Wine is the milk of age,’ is not
supported by exact observation of facts. For more than twenty
years I have had occasion to notice a great number of instances
of the sudden disuse of wine without mischievous results. On the
contrary, the disuse has generally been followed by an improvement
of appetite, freedom from habitual headache, and a tranquil state
of body and mind. Those who have been educated to the use of
wine do, indeed, find some inconvenience from the substitution
of a free use of water. If, however, they begin by taking the
pure fluid in moderate quantities only, no such inconvenience
occurs. The preceding remarks may be applied to beer, cider, and
other fermented liquors. After the age of sixty, I myself gave
up the habit of drinking wine; and, so far from experiencing any
inconvenience, I have found my health better without it than with
it.”
Dr. Warren’s exhortations against the use of tobacco are very
forcible. He says: “The habit of smoking impairs the natural taste
and relish for food, lessens the appetite, and weakens the powers
of the stomach. Tobacco, being drawn in with the vital breath,
conveys its poisonous influence into every part of the lungs. The
blood, having imbibed the narcotic principle, circulates it through
the whole system. Eruptions on the skin, weakness of the stomach,
heart, and lungs, dizziness, headache, confusion of thought, and
a low febrile action must be the consequence. Where there is any
tendency to diseases of the lungs, the debility of these organs
consequent on the smoking of tobacco must favor the deposit of
tuberculous matter, and thus sow the seeds of consumption.
“Snuff received into the nostrils enters the cavities opening
from them, and makes a snuff-box of the olfactory apparatus. The
voice is consequently impaired, sometimes to a remarkable degree.
I knew a gentleman of the legal profession who, from the use of
snuff occasionally, lost the power of speaking audibly in court.
Moreover, portions of this powder are conveyed into the lungs and
stomach, and exert on those organs their deleterious effects.
“The worst form in which tobacco is employed is in chewing.
This vegetable is one of the most powerful of narcotics. A very
small portion of it--say a couple of drachms, and perhaps even
less--received into the stomach might prove fatal. When it is
taken into the mouth in smaller portions, and there retained some
time, an absorption of part of it into the system takes place,
which has a most debilitating effect. If we wished to reduce our
physical powers in a slow yet certain way, we could not adopt a
more convenient process. The more limited and local effects are
indigestion, fixed pains about the region of the stomach, debility
of the back, affections of the brain, producing vertigo, and also
affections of the mouth, generating cancer.”
Too much cannot be said in favor of frequently washing the whole
person in cold water, or, if not entirely cold in winter, at least
as nearly so as it can be without producing a chill. It operates
both as a purifier and a tonic. The health in all respects greatly
depends upon keeping the pores of the skin open. Attacks of
rheumatism might often be warded off by this habit. The washing
should be in a warm room, and followed immediately by a smart
rubbing with a coarse towel.
When wounds, bruises, or cracks in the skin become inflamed and
feverish, there is no application better than a linen rag, doubled
six or eight times, wet with cold water, and bound on with a thick,
dry, cotton bandage, which completely covers it. Inveterate sores
will be healed by a repetition of this application. The same is
true of sore throat; but the wet cloth should be carefully and
completely covered with dry woollen, so as to exclude the air. When
removed, it should be done soon after one rises in the morning;
the throat should then be plentifully sponged with cold water, and
wiped thoroughly dry. There is danger of taking cold after the
application of hot or warm water; but it is not so with the use of
cold water.
It is a great preservation to the eyesight to plunge the face into
cold water every morning, and wink the eyes in it while one counts
thirty or forty. In order to do this, one must draw in the breath
when about to plunge the head into the water, and hold the breath
while it remains there. It seems difficult to do this at first,
but it soon becomes easy. It is well to repeat the operation six
or eight times every morning. In cold weather, put in warm water
enough to prevent a painful chill.
Before retiring to rest, great care should be taken to remove
every particle of food from between the teeth with a tooth-pick
of willow, or ivory, and cleanse the mouth very thoroughly by
the use of the brush, and rinsing. It is more important at night
than in the morning; because during sleep an active process of
fermentation goes on, which produces decay. It is an excellent plan
to hold a piece of charcoal in the mouth frequently. It arrests
incipient toothache and decay, and tends to preserve the teeth by
its antiseptic properties. If chewed, it should not be swallowed,
except occasionally, and in small quantities; and it should never
be rubbed on the teeth, as it injures the enamel.
Old people are generally reluctant to admit that the present
generation is wiser than the past; but in one respect all must
allow that there is obvious improvement. Far less medicine is taken
than formerly; and more attention is paid to diet. Still, people by
no means pay sufficient attention to the good old maxim, “An ounce
of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Nature gives us kindly
warnings, which we thoughtlessly neglect. When the head aches and
the skin is hot, we often continue to eat hearty food, merely
because we like the taste of it; and the result of this imprudence
is a fever, which might have been easily and cheaply prevented by
living two or three days on bread and water, or simple gruels.
Fruits are among the best as well as the pleasantest of remedies.
Fresh currants agree with nearly all dyspeptics, and are excellent
for people of feverish tendencies; cranberries also. The abundant
use of apples is extremely conducive to health. The free use
of grapes is said to cure liver-complaints, and to be in other
respects salutary for the system. Linnæus tells us that he was
cured of severe rheumatism by eating strawberries, and that he
afterward habitually resorted to them when he had an attack of
that painful disease. Captain Cook has also recorded, that when he
touched at an island where strawberries were in great profusion,
the crew devoured them eagerly, and were cured of a scorbutic
complaint, which had afflicted them greatly. Lemonade and oranges
are recommended for rheumatism; vegetable acids in general being
salutary for that disease.
Mother Nature is much kinder to us than we are
to ourselves. She loves to lead us gently,
and the violent reactions from which
we suffer we bring upon ourselves
by violating the laws she is
constantly striving to
teach us.
[Illustration]
“How shall I manage to be healthy?” said a wealthy invalid to
the famous Dr. Abernethy. “Live on sixpence a day, and earn
it,” was his laconic reply.
[Illustration]
THE INVALID’S PRAYER
O thou, whose wise, paternal love
Hath cast my active vigor down,
Thy choice I thankfully approve;
And, prostrate at Thy gracious throne,
I offer up my life’s remains;
I choose the state my God ordains.
Cast as a broken vessel by,
Thy will I can no longer do;
But while a daily death I die,
power I can in weakness show;
My patience shall thy glory raise,
My steadfast trust proclaim thy praise.
WESLEY.
* * * * *
Trials make our faith sublime,
Trials give new life to prayer,
Lift us to a holier clime,
Make us strong to do and bear.
COWPER.
[Illustration]
THE OLD PASTOR AND HIS SON.
FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL RICHTER.
In the little village of Heim, Gottreich Hartmann resided with his
old father, who was a curate. The old man had wellnigh outlived
all those whom he had loved, but he was made happy by his son.
Gottreich discharged for him his duties in the parish, not so
much in aid of his parent’s untiring vigor, as to satisfy his own
energy, and to give his father the exquisite gratification of being
edified by his child and companion.
In Gottreich there thrilled a spirit of true poetry; and his
father also had, in his youth, a poet’s ardor, of like intensity,
but it had not been favored by the times. Son and father seemed
to live in one another; and on the site of filial and paternal
love there arose the structure of a rare and peculiar friendship.
Gottreich not only cheered his father by the new birth of his own
lost poet-youth, but by the still more beautiful similarity of
their faith. The father found again his old Christian heart sending
forth new shoots in the bosom of Gottreich, and moreover the best
justification of the convictions of his life and of his love.
If it be pain for us to love and to contradict at the same time,
to refuse with the head what the heart grants, it is all the
sweeter to us to find ourselves and our faith transplanted into a
younger being. Life is then as a beautiful night, in which, as one
star goes down, another rises in its place. Gottreich possessed
a paradise, in which he labored as his father’s gardener. He was
at once the wife, the brother, the friend of his parent; the
all that is to be loved by man. Every Sunday brought him a new
pleasure,--that of preaching a sermon before his father. If the
eyes of the old man became moistened, or if he suddenly folded his
hands in an attitude of prayer, that Sunday became the holiest of
festivals. Many a festival has there been in that quiet little
parsonage, the joyfulness of which no one understood and no one
perceived. The love and approbation of an energetic old man, like
Hartmann, whose spiritual limbs had by no means stiffened on the
chilly ridge of years, could not but exercise a powerful influence
on a young man like Gottreich, who, more tenderly and delicately
formed both in body and mind, was wont to shoot forth in loftier
and more rapid flame.
To these two happy men was added a happy woman also. Justa, an
orphan, sole mistress of her property, had sold the house which had
been her father’s in the city, and had removed into the upper part
of a good peasant’s cottage, to live entirely in the country. Justa
did nothing by halves; she often did things more than completely,
as most would think at least, in all that touched her generosity.
She had not long resided in the village of Heim, and seen the meek
Gottreich, and listened to some of his spring-tide sermons, ere
she discovered that he had won her heart, filled as it was with
the love of virtue. She nevertheless refused to give him her hand
until the conclusion of the great peace, after which they were to
be married. She was ever more fond of doing what is difficult than
what is easy. I wish it were here the place to tell of the May-time
life they led, which seemed to blossom in the low parsonage-house,
near the church-door, under Justa’s hand; how she came from her own
cottage, in the morning, to order matters in the little dwelling
for the day; how the evenings were passed in the garden, ornamented
with a few pretty flower-beds, and commanding a view of many a
well-watered meadow, and distant hill, and stars without number;
how these three hearts played into one another, no one of which,
in this most pure and intimate intercourse, knew or felt anything
which was not of the fairest; and how cheerfulness and good
intention marked the passage of their lives. Every bench was a
church seat, all was peaceful and holy, and the firmament above was
an infinite church-dome.
In many a village and in many a house is hidden a true Eden, which
has neither been named nor marked down; for happiness is fond of
covering over and concealing her tenderest flowers. Gottreich
reposed in such tenderness of love and bliss, of poetry and
religion, of spring-time, of the past and of the future, that, in
the depths of his heart, he feared to speak out his happiness, save
in prayer. In prayer, thought he, man may say all his happiness and
his misery. His father was very happy also. There came over him a
warm old age; no winter night, but a summer evening without chill
or darkness; albeit the sun of his life was sunk pretty deep below
the mound of earth under which his wife was lain down to sleep.
In these sweetest May-hours of youth, when heaven and earth and his
own heart were beating together in triune harmony, Gottreich gave
ardent words to his ardent thoughts, and kept them written down,
under the title of “Reminiscences of the best Hours of Life, for
the Hour of Death.” He meant to cheer himself, in his last hours,
with these views of his happy life; and to look back, through them,
from the glow of his evening to the bright morning of his youth.
Thus lived these three beings, even rejoicing more deeply in one
another, and in their genial happiness, when the chariots of war
began to roll over the land.[N] Gottreich became another man.
The active powers of his nature, which had heretofore been the
quiet audience of his poetical and oratorical powers, now arose.
It seemed as if the spirit of energy, which hitherto had wasted
itself on empty air, like the flames of a bituminous soil, were now
seeking an object to lay hold of. He did not venture to propose
separating from his father, but he alternately refreshed and
tormented himself inwardly with the idea of sharing the labors and
combats of his countrymen. He confided his wishes to Justa only;
but she did not give him encouragement, because she feared the old
man’s solitude would be too great for him to bear. But at last the
old man himself became inspirited for the war, by Gottreich and
his betrothed; and he said to his son that he had better go; that
he knew he had long desired it, and had only been silent through
love for him. He hoped, with God’s aid, to be able to discharge
his pastoral duties for a year, and thus he also would be doing
something to serve his country.
[N] The war of 1813, against Napoleon, to secure the
independence of Germany.
Gottreich departed, trusting to the autumnal strength of his
father’s life. He enlisted as a common soldier, and preached also
wherever he was able. The entrance on a new career awakens new
energies and powers, which rapidly unfold into life and vigor.
Although fortune spared him the wounds which he would willingly
have brought back with him into the peaceful future of his life, in
memory of the focus of his youth, as it were, yet it was happiness
enough to take part in the battles, and, like an old republican, to
fight together with a whole nation, for the common cause.
At length, in the beautiful month of May, the festivals of victory
and peace began in more than one nation; and Gottreich was
unwilling to pass those days of rejoicing so far from the friends
who were dearest to him. He longed for their company, that his joy
might be doubled; so he took the road to Heim. Thousands at that
time journeyed over the liberated land, from a happy past to a
happy future. But there were few who saw, like Gottreich, so pure a
firmament over the mountains of his native valleys, in which not a
star was missing, but every one of them was bright and twinkling.
Justa had, from time to time, sent him the little annals of the
parsonage. She had written how she longed for his return, and how
his father rejoiced; how well the old man stood the labors of his
office; and how she had still better secrets in store for him. To
these belonged, perhaps, her promise, which he had not forgotten,
to give him her hand after the great peace.
With such prospects before him, Gottreich ever enjoyed in thought
that holy evening when he should see the sun go down at Heim,--when
he should arrive unexpectedly, to relieve the old man from all
his cares, and begin to prepare the tranquil festivities of the
village. As he was thinking of that day’s meeting, when he should
clasp those fond hearts to his own, and as the mountains above his
father’s village were seen more and more clearly in relief against
the blue sky, the Reminiscences of the best hours of life, which
he had written for the hour of death, echoed and re-echoed in his
soul; and, as he went along, he dwelt particularly upon one among
them, which commemorated the joy of meeting again here below.
A shower was coming up behind him, of which he seemed to be the
happy messenger; for the parched ground, the drooping flowers, and
the ears of corn had long been thirsting for water from the warm
clouds. A parishioner of Heim, who was laboring in the fields,
saluted him as he passed, and expressed joy that Gottreich and
the rain had both come at last. Soon he caught sight of the low
church-steeple, peeping above the clustered trees; and he entered
upon that tract in the valley where the parsonage lay, all reddened
by the evening sun. At every window he hoped to see his betrothed
one, thinking perchance she might be looking out on the sunset
before the storm came on. As he drew nearer, he hoped to see the
lattice open, and Whitsuntide-brooms in the chief apartment; but
he saw nothing of all this.