digesting, urinary and cutaneous systems must be kept working normally.
To impair the work of any of these is to retard bodily drainage. To
insure that elimination is going on naturally it is necessary to secure
perfect functioning of lungs, bowels, kidneys and the skin.
Any stoppage in the process of elimination means that some fault has
crept into the work of one of these excretory systems. It must be plain
now why a disorder of any one of these organs of elimination means so
much more profound disturbance to the whole organization than merely
disease in one structure; it means that waste products are retained
which ought to be thrown out of the body; so straightway every cell in
the body begins to be more or less affected. Some poisons disturb one
organ more and some another, but in the end the whole body must be
affected.
Lack of exercise, bolting of food, eating soft, starchy things, failure
to chew properly, failure to get enough roughage, insufficient water,
insufficient fruit, these are the general causes of stoppage in the
elimination processes.
Drink one or two glasses of warm, not hot, water first thing in the
morning.
Eat one or two apples, skins and all, every day. Eat toast, especially
the crust, eat cracked wheat or whole wheat bread often.
Exercise plenty. Keep cheerful, eat regularly.
Very likely you eat too much. You don't need three big meals a day
unless you work out doors at hard physical labor.
Your body is an engine. No use to keep the boiler red hot and two
hundred pounds of steam if your work is light.
Good health depends upon proper assimilation and elimination as nature
intended.
Eat less, exercise more, you who work indoors. If you don't use this
caution you are just slowly killing yourself.
CONTINUOUS HAPPINESS
An Impossible State, and It's Well It's So
I am often asked, "Are you happy ALL the time?" My answer is no.
A continuous state of happiness cannot be enjoyed by any human. There
are no plans, no habits, no methods of living that will insure unbroken
happiness.
Happiness means periods or marking posts in our journey along life's
road. These high points of bliss are enjoyed because we have to walk
through the low places between times.
Continuous sunshine, continuous warm weather, continuous rest,
continuous travel, continuous anything spells monotony. We must have
variety.
We need the night to make us enjoy the day, winter to make us enjoy
summer, clouds to make us enjoy sunshine, sorrow to make us enjoy
happiness.
But, dear reader, mark this: we can be philosophical and have content,
serenity and poise between the happiness periods.
When you get blue, or have dread or sorrow, or that undescribable
something that makes you feel badly; when you have worry or trouble,
then's the time to get hold of your thinking machinery, and modify the
shadows that come across you.
Occupation and focusing your thoughts on your blessings, these are the
methods to employ.
As long as you dwell upon your imagined or your real sorrows you will be
miserable and the worries will magnify like gathering clouds in April.
Take the stand of changing your thoughts to confidence, faith, and good
cheer, and busy your hands with work. Think of the happiness periods you
have had and know there is happiness dividends coming to you. Keep this
sort of thought and with it useful occupation, and the sunshine will
dispel the clouds in your thoughts like the sun dispels the April
showers and brings about a more beautiful day because of the clouds and
storms just passed.
When trouble or sorrows come, sweeten your cup with sugar remembrances
of joys you've had and joys you are to have.
Envy no one; envy breeds worry. The person you would envy has his
sorrows and shadows, too; you see him only when the sunlight is on the
face, you don't see him when he is in shadowland.
No, dear ones, I nor you, nor anyone on earth can have complete,
unruffled, continued happiness, but we can brace up and call our reserve
will power, reason, and self-confidence to bear when we come to the
marshy places along the road. We can pick our steps and get through the
mire and sooner than we believe it possible we can get on the good solid
ground; and as we travel, happiness will often come as a reward for our
poise and patience.
My friends say, "you always seem happy," and in that saying they tell a
truth, for I am happy often, very, very often and between times I make
myself seem to be happy. This making myself "seem to be happy" gives me
serenity, contentment, fortitude, and the very "seeming" soon blossoms
into a reality of the condition I seem to be in.
You can be happy often and when you are not happy, just seem to be happy
anyway; it will help you much.
SELF ACCUSATION
If You Do This You Will Always Be Miserable
Many have the habit of keeping their minds on their weaknesses or their
shortcomings.
If they read of some one doing a great thing or making a worth-while
accomplishment they say, "I never could do such a thing."
These persons are always saying, "I never have luck. I can't do this. I
can't do that."
Always knocking, always thinking can't instead of can, will make fear,
irresoluteness, uncertainty and weakness of character.
Saying "I can't, I haven't the ability, I am unlucky" and such like
makes you weak and knocks out all chance for doing things.
Nothing comes out of the brain that wasn't burned in by thought. If you
accuse yourself, belittle your capacity, or drown your good impulses
with doubt and self-accusation, you are putting away a lot of bad
thought in your brain and no wonder you will lack in initiative,
ambition and courage.
To those who claim to be unlucky I want to say you are not unlucky, you
simply lack pluck.
You start at undertakings with a handicap of fear, and a made-up mind
you can't accomplish. No one ever got anywhere with anything with such a
millstone around his neck.
Many a man has been whipped in a fight, defeated in a contest, or beaten
at an undertaking, but he didn't show it or let the other fellow know
it; he just kept on with a brave front and finally the other fellow
quit, mistaking grim determination, pluck and perseverance for strength
and victory.
Ethan Allen with his handful of men was asked to surrender by the
British general with his superior force. By all rights and rules of war
Ethan was licked, but he didn't give in. He replied, "Surrender h--ll;
I've just commenced to fight." If Ethan had accused himself and said, "I
can't whip that big bunch, there's no hope," he would have been whipped
to a finish.
Don't show the enemy, or the world, your weakness. Don't admit anything
impossible that is capable of accomplishment.
It's the "I can" man who wins. No man ever won a fight if he started out
by saying, "I can't whip him, he is too much for me, I am no match for
him, but I'll try."
No person ever made success in business if he started in with
uncertainty, lack of confidence and unbelief in his ability.
Knock yourself and the world will accept you at your own estimate. Show
streaks of yellow cowardice and the mob will pounce on you like a pack
of hungry wolves.
Accuse yourself, curse your luck, belittle your worth, be afraid, and
you will remain a mere bump on a log, unnoticed, uninteresting,
uninvited.
The world welcomes men who do things. The world judges by outward
appearances. If your heart is sick, if your courage is low, don't show
it. Put up a stiff attitude and act with confidence and that attitude
will carry you over many a pitfall and past many an obstacle.
Show strength and the world will help you; show weakness and the world
will shun you.
You are prejudiced when it comes to judging yourself. You compare your
weakness with your friends' strength and this comparison is unfair; it
makes you lose confidence.
Nothing hurts one worse than doubting one's own ability, assets, and
character.
When you find yourself experiencing doubt, or inability, or hard luck,
turn square around and say "Begone, doubt; henceforth I have belief."
Suggest and say "I have ability; I have pluck and pluck means luck."
Always express confidence, faith, courage, and cheer thoughts, whether
you feel them or not. Do this heroically and persistently and soon the
fear shadows and weakness feelings will leave you and you will be in
reality strong, courageous, active, and you will do things you never
thought possible.
"As a man thinketh, so is he;" always remember that.
Get hold of your thoughts; make yourself think up, and have faith and
courage. Hold to your resolve and the whole world will change. You will
prosper, you will have poise, and every once in a while happiness will
come as a reward.
No man will be surprised at your complete change of attitude and
character more than yourself.
Your problems can only be solved by yourself. Friends can advise, I can
suggest, but YOU must act.
Henceforth never accuse yourself, never feel sorry for your condition or
position, cut out fear thoughts,--be strong.
Think faith, courage, cheer, confidence, and strength, and by-and-by the
habit will be fixed, and natural.
This is as certain truth as I have ever experienced. I know it. I've
tried it. I've watched others and the results are always good.
Don't be passive and forget this chapter. Start right this minute to
THINK RIGHT.
And you will never regret and never forget this chapter of
Self-accusation.
WOMAN'S BEAUTY
Every Woman Will Be Interested in These Pointers
Sisters, it's your duty to keep your good looks as long as possible, and
to do it you must spend time each and every day on the care of your face
and hair.
First of all, you must keep your skin clean, and that's a particular
job.
You have nearly thirty miles of pores in your body. These pores are
sewers; they discharge in a healthy person nearly two pounds of waste
material every day.
If these pores are stopped up or clogged, the waste material is secreted
in the skin.
The stopped pores secrete the greasy waste matter. This greasy substance
attracts dirt, dust and germs, and soon blackheads, pimples or blotched
skin will result.
Washing the skin with strong soap is not good.
To keep the skin clear and healthy you should massage it with cold cream
and rub gently but thoroughly. This rubbing or massage quickens
circulation, strengthens the little capillary veins and brings that
beautiful pink glow that is so attractive.
The cold cream softens the dry waste secretion and makes it easier to
come out.
After the cold cream application, rub all the grease off with a rough
towel.
Don't forget the daily massage; it will work wonders in your appearance.
It will help give you that fresh, healthy appearance nature intends the
fair sex to have.
Don't be afraid of the sun. Tan is health to the skin and tan with pink
shades beneath it is a pretty combination.
In washing the hair do not use any compound that has ammonia in it.
Ammonia will bring on the gray hairs.
Occasionally you must wash the hair with soap, but let the soap be mild.
Raw eggs make an excellent shampoo or hair cleaner. The egg does not
take out the natural oil necessary to good hair health.
Glycerine and water and lanoline makes a good wash; after using rinse
the hair with hot soft water to get out all the glycerine and lanoline.
Rub the roots of the hair frequently with the ends of your fingers, move
the scalp in circular motion; this is to stimulate the scalp nerves and
blood vessels and the glands and roots of the hair. Scalp massage is
wonderfully beneficial.
The foregoing are the mechanical things to do for the skin and hair.
They help, but the real benefit to your looks comes from the bodily
health and natural working of the organs, particularly the stomach,
lungs, heart and kidneys and bowels.
The most important organs to watch are the kidneys and stomach; their
ailments quickly show effects on the face.
Drink plenty of water, cool, not cold; get plenty of air and sunshine.
Eat plenty of fruit, especially apples, skins too.
Take exercise in the open air every day. Walking is the best exercise.
Air, water, sunshine and exercise will do more for your looks than a
barrel of beauty preparations.
The only way to get health out of a bottle is to keep out of the bottle.
You can't buy beauty at the druggists.
We love our friends for their character, not their skin beauty. Have
good wholesome health and wholesome character and you will look mighty
good to the world.
DREAMS
Hitch Your Wagon to a Star, and Stay Hitched
The great colleges are just now turning out their thousands of graduates
and the great newspapers have much sport ridiculing them with funny
pictures.
Every great man was once a boy with a dream, and that dream came true
because the boy had pep that made him stick to his ambition and kept him
from being discouraged because of ridicule or obstacles.
Thomas Carlyle, the poor Scotch tutor, dreamed he wanted to be a great
author. His clothes were threadbare, his poverty apparent; friends
taunted and ridiculed him until, goaded to indignation, he cried, "I
have better books in me than you have ever read." The crowd laughed and
said, "poor fellow, he's daffy in the head."
Carlyle stuck to his dream and the world has the "History of Frederick
the Great" and the "French Revolution" and "Sartor Resartus." When he
had finished the manuscript of the "French Revolution" a careless maid
built a fire with it. He wasn't discouraged, but went to work and wrote
it over again and very likely better than he wrote it the first time.
Bonaparte in the garden of his military school dreamed of being a great
general. He stuck to his dream and he realized his hopes.
Joseph Pulitzer, a poor emigrant, crawled in a cellar way to sleep in
New York, and he dreamed of owning a great newspaper. His dream came
true and the newspaper is printed in a building erected on the spot
where he dreamed in the cellar way.
Livingston dreamed of exploring darkest Africa; his dream came true.
Edison dreamed of great electrical discoveries. His monument is Menlo
Park with its great laboratories.
Ford dreamed of making an automobile for the purse-limited masses--he
was jeered; today the world cheers him.
My friend Bert Perrine was chucked off a stage in the middle of Idaho's
great sage brush desert. He said to the driver, "Some day I'll own that
stage and I'll use it for a chicken house."
He dreamed and schemed and today the desert is the famous Twin Falls
country, blossoming like a rose, and on his beautiful ranch at Blue
Lakes that old stage is used for a chicken house.
Rockefeller dreamed, Lincoln dreamed, so did Garfield, Wilson, Grant,
Clay, Webster, Marshall Field, Richard W. Sears and all the other men
who have done things worth while in the world.
The great West is the result of dreams come true.
Dream on, my boy; hitch your wagon to a star and stay hitched. That
dream and that determination are the things that are to carry you over
obstacles, past thorny ways, and through criticism, jeers and ridicule.
Your time will come. Dream and scheme, and make your ideals materialize
into living, pulsating realities.
REAL CHARITY
Let Me Help Where I Am Rather Than Help in Siam
There are many persons who act and advocate ideals merely for
effect--they are hypocrites.
Here's a little true heart story that probably passed unnoticed
excepting to a very few persons.
Little Spencer Nelson, a poor boy, eight years old, recently died in a
hospital with a little bank clasped to his breast. The bank had $3.41 in
pennies the boy had saved to buy presents for poor children.
The little hero had fought manfully through three months' suffering,
enduring the torture of five lacerating operations. The pain failed to
dim his spirit of unselfishness that burned brightly and clearly in his
tired, fever-racked body.
After each operation his mind became more securely fixed on his project
to help bring cheer to poor children.
A little savings bank was his companion and each visitor was asked to
contribute to his fund.
Three hours before he died a smile beautified his thin wasted face as
the nurse dropped a dime in his bank. His last words were to his mother
and the message was in a scarcely audible whisper, asking her to
remember to use the money to make poor children happy.
That was real charity; that boy had no hypocrisy in his heart.
The daily paper chronicles sensational charity, where men vie with each
other to see who can give most and get the most advertising. They
overlook the wonderful love and charity they are capable of, if they
would look into out-of-the-way places and get direct connection with
pain and suffering.
Little Spencer looked from his cot and saw the suffering of other little
children and he wanted to help them, and the very resolve and impulse
made him forget his own pains and misery.
In the Book of Good Deeds the name of Spencer Nelson will be recorded as
a sweeter act of charity than any million-dollar gift to a great
institution.
What one of you who read these lines can read the story of that little
hero and not be touched by the generous love and beautiful conception of
charity he possessed.
He did not need sensational stories in newspapers or solicitors of
charitable organizations to stir him to action.
He found opportunity at his door, close at home, near by, where all of
us can find it if we only look.
I don't believe much in this far-away charity idea so many have.
I believe in helping those near where I am rather than sending money to
Siam.
It may be a pleasurable sensation for you to contribute fifty dollars to
a missionary scheme in Siam, and get the Missionary report of the budget
made up from the foreign missionary fund.
I know that a bucket of coal in an empty stove, a basket of bread and
liberal hunk of round steak to the starving family around the corner
brings the donor a better sensation.
Take a trip to the hospitals, learn about the homes of the suffering
patients in the charity ward, and you will resolve it's a better act to
send flour to the poor than flowers to the rich.
Little Spencer Nelson had the right idea of charity: definite, immediate
help to those he could reach right where he was, rather than sending
money to sufferers far, far away.
Let your gifts be principally flour and beef; they help those who need
help. Flowers are all right in their place, but there are more places
where flour can be used to better purpose.
I'm keener for filling the coffee can of my suffering neighbor than
filling the coffers of the big charity five thousand miles away.
I try to help both ways, but the home help pays the bigger dividends.
What do you think about it?
FRIENDS
A Most Abused, Too Often Used Word
You have found a friend who has been so much help and comfort to you. I
have such a friend. Tonight I am in the mood to think of that friend and
write him a letter like this:
This is to You. It is for You. It is about You. You I have in mind and
the good influence you have had on me. It is a happiness and
satisfaction to know you, and to bask in the atmosphere of you.
The world is better because of you. You have helped to raise the
average.
You and your goodness, you do not appreciate what that means. You are so
modest, so loath to think of yourself, so unselfish in this respect that
I must tell you of you and about you.
You have a warm heart that throbs for others' woes and holds sympathy.
The great world is cold, selfish, and cares little for others. But you
are different; you are a great pillow of rest on which I and others who
love you may lay our tired, weary heads, and you wrap your arms of
friendship and goodness about us and feel our very heartbeats.
You with your great goodness, your quiet, sympathetic understanding, you
soothe our troubled spirits and make us glad of you and glad we have the
precious privilege of knowing you.
Even now as I am telling you how I love you, you are trying to wave me
aside and stop me, but I am in the mood and I want to express myself.
You know that there is a great sin of omission, which is the refraining
of expressing gratitude for goodness extended to us.
I want to express my gratitude. I do not want to be guilty of the sin of
omission.
So here then for you is this little message, to tell you I appreciate
you, I love you, and these words will last after you are gone and after
I am gone, to tell those of tomorrow about you and what those of today
thought about you.
You life, your goodness, is an everlasting plant that will flourish in
many hearts. Your influence will last beyond the calendar of time; it is
indestructible. You have a great credit in the universal bank of good
deeds, where you have deposited worth-while acts, deeds, kindnesses,
cheer, help, friendship, sympathy, courage, gratitude, and all the
precious jewels worth while.
I am happy the very moment I think of you. I try to express myself but
feelings and emotions I would describe have not words or sentences to
express them. You understand, you are so big in heart, so sensitive in
fabric of feeling, so wise in understanding, that I want you to think
and feel all the genuine, noble, lovable, appreciative thoughts you can
gather together about the one you most appreciate.
Think hard, sincerely, deeply, about that one, with all your resources
of beautiful thought. Think hard that way and now you will begin to
understand what I feel about you, and how I appreciate you.
You, my inspiration, you who are so sensitized to feeling, so delicately
adjusted to read heart vibrations, you must feel this within me I am
trying to convey to you. Not the love between sweethearts, not the love
of kin, not the love of friends, but a great universal love I have for
you--a love all who know you have for you.
It is a love you cannot return to me in equal measure, because you have
not the object in me that can merit such love. That you should love me
in the way I love you, even in the most diminished proportions, is
satisfaction supreme.
It is glorious to know you. You water the good impulses I have, you
encourage all that is noble, elevating, and bettering, in me. I shall
try to be like you, that is, so far as I can. You are my model, there is
but one you. Many may copy you, none equal you. You my comfort, you my
joy. A great glorious you, that a little I am trying to paint a picture
of.
How futile my efforts. I might as well try to improve the deep beautiful
colors of the morning glory, or try to retint the lily with more
beautiful white.
And so I bid you good-bye, happy that there is such a you in the world,
more happy that I know you, and most happy that I know how to appreciate
you.
The sum of all good things I can say, is I love you, and the word "love"
I use in its greatest, broadest sense, which covers all the good
adjectives.
This is what I think of YOU.
MAN'S DANGER PERIOD
In the Midday of Your Life, Look Out
There is a time in the business man's life between the age of 48 and 52
when the man undergoes a pronounced change in his life.
More big men are cut off at 50 than at any other age between 45 and 60.
At 48 to 52 most men change vitally in their physical and mental
make-up.
Many men, hitherto straight, moral men, go to the bad at this time, and
per contra many men quit their immoral and health hurting habits and
change to moral men.
This danger period is when the newly-rich find fault with their wives
who have helped them to their success. They grow tired of their wives
and seek the companionship of young women.
The divorce courts give most interesting figures on this point.
At this danger period men who have been high livers, voracious eaters
and heavy drinkers find themselves victims of diabetes, Bright's
disease or other forms of kidney troubles.
Most every man between 48 and 52 who works indoors, eats too much,
exercises too little, sleeps insufficiently.
Here are a few things for the 50-year-old man to do:
Drink two glasses of warm, not hot, water immediately on arising.
Eat an apple before breakfast; positively you must eat the skins too.
The skins have the phosphorus, phosphates, and brain food. The skins
make roughage and keep the alimentary tract active.
Eat for breakfast a little bacon, cooked rare; crisp bacon has all the
good fried out, and you simply have ashes left.
One cup of coffee, an egg or two, some cereal and toast, no red meat, no
potatoes.
Walk to your office if it is less than three miles; if over three miles
ride the extra distance, but walk three miles anyway.
Walk alone. This is most important; it relaxes your brain. Walking with
company makes it a physical exertion and a mental pull as well, for a
man will talk when he has company.