glasses of water, cool but not cold.
Let your hearty meal be supper, eat slowly and don't talk business.
After supper play with the kids or joke with your wife; get a smile on
your face.
Just before you retire read a chapter from a worth-while book. The last
thoughts which you take in at night are the ones which stick.
Leave your business in your business clothes, and get in a good night's
sleep.
Keep a sharp look-out for tendencies to change your habits and morals.
At 50 you are walking on thin ice; look out, danger is near.
After you are 55 your habits are pretty well established. If you have
lived rightly till then you're safe thereafter and likely on your way to
a good ripe old age if you take reasonable care of yourself.
OUR SONS
They Pattern After Us; Be Worth Copying
We love our own the best; maybe that's why we indulge our own too much.
Our duty to our boys: that's a subject old as the hills and it is as
important as it is old.
Today I had the boy problem forcibly presented to me. Today in court
twenty-four boys were brought before the Judge charged with petty
crimes. Three were sent to the penitentiary, seven to reform school and
fourteen let go temporarily on good behavior.
A friend of mine interested in criminology tells me the great bulk of
hold-ups, thefts, burglaries and murders are committed by boys between
16 and 22 years of age.
These twenty-four boys I mention were just ordinary boys, capable of
making good citizens if they had had the right kind of home treatment
and surroundings. Most of them got in trouble through their association
with "gangs" or "the bunch," or the "crowd," and this because daddy
didn't have his hand on the rein.
That boy must have companionship; he must have a confidante to whom he
can share his joys, his sorrows, his hopes, his ambitions. If he doesn't
get this comeraderie at home he gets it "round the corner."
We know where the boy is when he is at school, but how few know the
boy's doings between times.
Pool halls tempt the boys, and these places are breeding places where
filthy stories, criminal slang and evil practices are hatched.
Pool halls and saloons invite and fascinate the boy. He sees the lights.
There is a keen pleasure in watching the pink-shirted dude with
cigarette in his mouth making fancy shots.
There is no one to nag him or bother him; it gets to be his "hang-out,"
and soon he drifts into a crowd that knows the trail to the red light
district.
Painted fairies dazzle the giddy boy. It takes money to go the pace.
Crime is gilded over with slang words. Stealing is called "easy money."
Robbery is "turning a trick," and so on.
A boy becomes what he lives on mentally and physically; that's the net
of it.
If Dad is his chum, if sister shares with him his amusements, if the
family work and live on the "all for one and one for all" plan, if the
boy is kept busy and interested, he can be easily trained.
Neglect him and he will neglect you. Love him and he will love you. Meet
him half way; he's impressionable.
Show him kindness, he will respond. Show him example, he will follow.
You have to be with him or know where he is every minute.
During his period of adolescence, say from twelve or thirteen to sixteen
or seventeen, that boy is a mass of plaster of paris, easily shaped
while plastic, but once set, impossible to recast.
That's the time, Dad, you must be on YOUR job with your boy.
Your counsel, example, love, interest and teaching will MAKE the boy.
Think of these things, Dad, and think hard, and think hard NOW. Tomorrow
may be too late.
RELIGIOUS EXTREMES
Form, Frills, Ceremony vs. Excitement, Ecstacy, Enthusiasm
Many churches today are running to extremes one way or the other.
On the one hand they are conducted along the lines of form, ceremony and
ritualism, while the other extreme is excitement, ecstacy and
enthusiasm.
The church of form, rituals and ceremonies attracts the passive who are
willing to let the priest or pastor or prelate take charge of the
religious work while they, the attendants or worshippers, sit quietly by
and say amen and join in the responses.
Paul said, "Away with those forms." Christ in ministering to humanity
gave no forms or made no set sentences for his followers. The Lord's
Prayer was given with the admonition, "After this manner pray ye," and
certainly not with the command, pray ye with these words.
Form, ceremony and rituals are much like most associated charities, a
sort of convention. Forms can not express the deep emotions, the
natural longings, or the human desires; they are echoes, hollow and
unsatisfying.
For those who do not feel, for those who do not act, for those who
belong to churches because of convention, or for social reasons, form
and frills fill the bill.
Form is an exterior religion, an outward show. Form doesn't touch the
heart or awaken the soul. Form in religion is like a formal dinner. It
is show rather than a plan to satisfy human heart hunger.
Opposite to formal religion is the frenzied "scare-you-to-death"
excitement method, which relies upon mental intoxication to stir the
people, and like other forms of intoxication, the effect soon wears off.
I have little patience or sympathy for the business men who hire
professional evangelists to come to town to start revivals. The
sensational revivalists have too acute appreciation of the dollar to
convince me of their sincerity in their work.
A laborer is worthy of his hire, and a preacher, teacher or benefactor
of any sort should be well paid. But when I see these big guns taking
away ten to twenty thousand dollars in cold cash for three weeks'
campaign converting the poor suffering people, the thought comes to me,
that if the evangelist is sincere he should buy a lot of bread, coal and
underwear and hire a lot of trained nurses with a big part of that
money.
Christ and his Apostles were of the people; they worked with, and among
the people; they had no committees, no guarantees and no business men's
subscription lists.
It's mighty hard to read about these sensational evangelists taking in
thousands of dollars for a couple of weeks' revival meetings, and
harmonize that religion with the religion of Christ, the carpenter, and
his Apostles, who were fishermen and workmen.
The excitement, intoxicating, frenzy revival method is pretty much
always the same in its working. The evangelist starts in with the song
"Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight," then follows the picture of mother,
which is painted with sobs of blood. Then follows mother's death-bed
scene until the audience is in tears. Gesticulation, mimicry, acting,
sensationalism, slang and weepy stories follow, until the ferment of
excitement is developed into a high state and droves flock to the altar
to be made over on the instant into sanctified beings.
The evangelist stays until his engagement is up, and then departs with a
pocket full of nice fat bank drafts.
It is a sad commentary on the established profession of ministry that
sensational professionals are called in and paid fabulous prices to
convert the people in their community.
I do not take much stock in either the frigid form with its frills or
the frenzied fire and brimstone, scare-you-to-it extremes.
Somewhere between these extremes is the rational natural sane road to
travel; the religion of brotherly love; of cheers, not tears; of hope,
not fear; of courage, not weakness; of joy, not sorrow; of help, not
hindrance.
The religion that makes us love one another here, not the kind that says
we shall know each other there. The religion that has to do with human
passions, human trials, human needs, instead of the frigid form or the
fevered frenzy; the religion that avoids the extremes of heat and cold,
that's the kind the world needs most.
Christ taught love, kindness, charity, and not beautiful churches, opera
singing choirs. He spoke not of robes, vestments, forms or rituals.
One of the most beautiful things in the Bible is the story of the good
Samaritan with his simple, unostentatious aid to a wounded man, an enemy
of his people whom the Samaritan knew was none the less a brother. And
you will remember the priest of the temple, the man who taught charity,
and love, drew up his skirts and passed the wounded man by.
LAZINESS
We Are Becoming a Nation of Sitters
Danger is in extremes. Too much of anything is bad for the human being's
health.
There is a comfortable proportion of exercise and rest mixed together
that will give bodily efficiency. Too much exercise is bad, too little
is bad.
Until recent years our vocations and the going to or from our places of
business gave us a well balanced amount of exercise, rest, work and
pleasure, and all went well.
Lately we hear much about worry, neurasthenia, nervous prostration and
the like. There are several contributing causes to the mental and
physical ills which are caused by "nerves."
First of all, we have an epidemic of labor-saving devices. The principal
arguments used by the manufacturer of a labor-saving device is, "It
makes money and saves work." Making money and getting soft snaps seem to
be the objectives of most human beings.
The labor-saving devices take away exercise. The machine does the work.
The artisan simply feeds the hopper, puts in a new roll, or drops in the
material. He sits down and watches the wheels go around, likely smoking
a cigarette the meanwhile, and more than likely reading the sporting
sheet of a yellow newspaper.
Possibly few of my readers have given the matter serious thought, and
they will be astounded at the changed work conditions which have come
into our modern life.
It will be interesting to note just here some of these changes. Men used
to live within walking distance of their work. Now the electric street
railway and the speedy automobile have eliminated the necessity for much
walking.
Men used to climb stairs. The elevator has now so accustomed us to the
conveniences that stairs are taboo.
Machines have replaced muscles. The old printer walked from case to case
and got exercise. Today he sits in an easy backed chair and uses a
linotype.
Telephoning is quicker than traveling. No one "runs for a doctor."
Our houses have electric washers, electric irons and many other
labor-saving devices.
Even the farmer has his telephone, his auto, his riding plow, his
milking machine and his cream separator.
In the stores the cash boy has disappeared, the cash carrier takes the
money to a girl who sits, a machine makes the change, another machine
does her mathematics.
The modern idea of efficiency puts a premium on the sedentary feature of
occupations and employees are frequently automatons that sit.
The business man sits at his desk, sits in a comfortable automobile as
he goes home, sits at the dinner table and sits all evening at the
theater, or at the card table. It is sit, sit, sit until he gets a big
abdomen, a puffy skin and a bad liver.
He tries to counteract this with forced exercise in a gymnasium or a
couple of hours golfing a week. Very likely his golfing is more
interesting because of the side bets, than because of the exercise.
We are losing out on the natural, pleasurable, and practical exercises,
mixed in the right proportions to promote physical poise and health.
Things are too easy, luxury and comfort too teasing, for the ordinary
mortal to resist, and the great mob sits or rides hundreds of times when
they should stand or walk.
When my objective point is five or six blocks I walk and I think on the
way. I probably get in two to four miles of walking every day, which my
friends would save by riding in the street cars or autos.
I walk to my office every morning, a distance of nearly four miles.
I walk alone, so I may relax and not require conscious effort as is the
case when one walks with another.
That morning walk prevents me reading slush and worthless news and
relieves me of the necessity of talking and using up nerve energy.
I get the worth-while news from my paper by the headlines and by the
trained ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I just feel fine all the time and it's because I get to bed early, sleep
plenty, exercise naturally, think properly and get the four great
body-builders in plenty: air, water, sunshine, food; and the other four
great health-makers which are: good thought, good exercise, good rest,
and good cheer.
The great crowd aims at ease and so the business man sits and loses out
on the exercise his body and mind must have, and therefore the great
crowd pays tribute to doctors, sanitariums, rest cures, fake tonics,
worthless medicines, freakish diet fads, and crazy cults, isms, and
discoveries, that claim to bring health by the easy, lazy, sitting,
comfortable route.
Believe me, dear reader, it is not in the cards to play the game of
health that way. There "aint no sich animal" said the ruben as he saw
the giraffe in the circus, and likewise there "aint no sich thing" as
health and happiness for the man who persistently antagonizes nature,
and hunts ease where exercise is demanded.
The law of compensation is inexorable in its demand that you have to pay
for what you get, and that you can't get worth-while things by worthless
plans.
You must exercise enough to balance things, to clear the system, to
preserve your strength; it doesn't take much time.
IN THE BIG WOODS
A Grand, Glorious, Restful Recreation
This afternoon I am sitting on a glacial rock in the forest at the foot
of Mount Shasta. A beautiful spot to rest and a glorious book of nature
to read.
A canopy of deepest blue sky above, with sunshine unstopped by clouds.
The rays of old Sol pulsate themselves into an endless variety of
flowers, plants and vegetable life which Mother Earth has given birth to
in evidence of her gladness and love of the beautiful.
Glorious trees of magnificent size reach up into the blue and give us
shade. Ozone sweeps gently through the forest impregnated with the
perfume of fir, balsam, cedar, pine and flowers.
In this spot, nature has thrown up mountains of volcanic rock, which
hold the winter's snow in everlasting supply to quench the thirst of
plant, of animal and millions of humans in the lower country.
The whole hillside around me is a community of springs of crystal water
laden with iron, and precious salts. It is the breast of Mother Earth
which nurses her offspring.
Here are no noises of the street; the newsboy's cry of "extra" is not
heard. The peddler, the din of trucks, the honk of automobiles, the
clatter of the city--all these are absent.
There is no noise here; just the sweet music of falling water, and the
aeolian lullaby made by the breeze playing on the pine needles.
My eyes take in a panorama of beautiful nature in colors and contrasts
that would give stage fright to any artist who tried to paint the scenes
on canvas.
I am getting pep, this is my treatment for tired nerves; 'tis the
"medcin' of the hills," 'tis nature's cure, and how it brings the pill
box or the bottle of tonic into contempt!
I'm letting down the high tension voltage and getting the calm, natural
pulsation that nature intended the human machine to have.
So quiet, so peaceful, so natural that I drink in inspiration of a
worth-while kind. No war news to read, no records of tragedy, of man's
passions, of man's meanness and man's selfishness.
A little chipmunk sits upright on a rock before me wondering at the
movements of my yellow pencil and the black mark it makes on the paper.
A delicate lace-winged insect lights on my tablet and a saucy "camp
robber" or mutton bird wonders at the unusual sight of me, the big man
animal brother. A big beetle is getting his provisions for the winter. I
recognize his occupation, for I've read about him in Fabre's wonderful
books on insect life.
Here in the sanctum sanctorium of the forest I am made a member of
Nature's lodge, and the ants, and bugs, and beetles, and flowers and
plants and trees are initiating me and telling me the secrets of the
order.
I can only tell you who are in the great busy world outside, the lessons
and morals. The real secrets I must not tell; you will receive them when
you, too, come to the hills and forests, and sit down on a rock alone
and go through the initiation.
You are invited to come in; your application is approved, and you are
eligible to membership.
Come to Nature's lodge meeting and clear away the cobwebs from your
weary brain; get inspiration and be a man again.
Come and soothe and rest and built up those shredded, weakened, tired,
weary nerves. Let the sun put its coat of health and the ozone put the
red blood of strength in your veins.
Come and get perfect brain and body-resting sleep. Come to this
wonderful, happy, helpful lodge and get a store of energy, and an
abundance of vital ammunition with which to make the fight, when you go
back to your factory or office.
The doctor can lance the carbuncle, but Nature's outdoor medicine will
prevent your having a carbuncle.
The doctor can stop a pain with a poison drug, but Nature's outdoor
medicine will prevent you having the disorder which makes the pain.
No, brother, you can't get health out of a bottle or a pill box. You can
get it from the Mother Nature's laboratory where she compounds air,
water, sunshine, beauty, music, thought; where she gives you exercise
and rest, health, happiness, all summed up into cashable assets for the
human in the shape of poise, efficiency, peace and that spells PEP.
MOTHER
The Most Unselfish Person in the World
Mother, you are the one person in all the world whose kindness was never
the preface to a request.
That's the sweetest tribute we can pay you, and the most truthful one.
It covers devotion, love, sentiment, motherhood, and all the noble
attributes that go to make the word, Mother, the most hallowed, most
sacred, most beautiful word in the English language.
There are not words or sentences that can express to you what we think
of you or convey our appreciation of you.
You want our love; you have it. You should be told of our love; we tell
you. Appreciation and gratitude are payments on account, but with all
our appreciation and with our whole life's gratitude, the debt we are
under can never be paid.
"We have careful words for the stranger,
And smiles for the some time guest--
But oft to our own the bitter tone,
Though we love our own the best."
We've hurt you, Mother, many times, by our thoughtlessness and by our
resentment of your plans and your views about the things we did, and you
have had heartaches because of such actions of ours.
Forgive us, Mother, we're sorry; and there you are, dear; the moment we
ask your forgiveness, your great, tender, loving heart has forgiven us
and erased the marks of transgression.
Always thinking of us, always excusing us, always doing for us, always
watching us and always loving us in the most unselfish way.
We love you, Mother; we appreciate you. We are going to show our
appreciation and love so much more from now on. We have just come to our
senses and realized what a wonderful, necessary, helpful being you are.
Your sweetness, your gentleness, your goodness, your love, are parts of
you.
They all go to make up that word, Mother.
Your life, your acts, your example, your Motherhood, have all helped the
world so much more than you will ever know.
In the everlasting record of good deeds your name is in gold.
In the everlasting memory of those who appreciate you, your face, your
life, is the sacred, helpful picture that grows more beautiful as the
days pass.
In tenderness, in appreciation, in love, let us dedicate these thoughts,
and voice these expressions to Mother, who gives her life, by inches,
and who would give it all on the instant for her children, if necessity
called for the sacrifice.
How feeble are words when we try to describe Mother!
OUR BODIES
They Are Made Up of Mineral Substances
We speak of the three kingdoms: the animal, the vegetable and the
mineral kingdoms, and every substance is classified into one of these.
The exact truth is there is but one kingdom, which is the mineral. The
vegetable substances and animal combinations are made of mineral
elements.
In a rough way we distinguish the mineral kingdom as those substances
called elements, such as iron, sulphur, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sodium
and the like.
These elements are unchangeable in themselves; they do not grow. The
animal is made of mineral elements associated in certain proportions,
such as albumin, carbon, lime, water, salt and the like. The vegetable
kingdom consists of these various chemical combinations also.
Seed when planted extracts from the air and the earth the minerals and
combines them into a plant which grows and has for its object the
making of seeds to reproduce and perpetuate itself.
The plant has life but it has no spiritual or mental equipment and
therein vegetable life differs from the animal life. The animal eats
vegetable and animal flesh. Through the vegetable he gets the mineral
necessary for his body building. Through the animal food he gets the
mineral from the flesh he eats, which flesh was first of all built up
through the vegetables the animal ate.
These are definite facts; there is no theory about them.
The human body analyzed and separated into something like a dozen
substances, among which are water, which is three-fourths of the body's
structure; carbon, lime, phosphorus, iron, potassium, salt and so on.
By reading a book on anatomy you can learn just exactly the proportions
of the substances in the human body.
All these chemicals are formed in the shape of little cells, myriads of
which are in the body. These cells are constantly being destroyed and
new ones made to take their place.
Parts of the body are replaced every twenty-four hours, other parts less
often.
Scientists tell us that the whole body is replaced every seven years.
Every move you make destroys cells which nature has to replace. Isn't it
reasonable then to conclude that if a man should fail to eat enough lime
for his body-building, his bones would suffer. If he does not get enough
iron his blood will suffer, and so on.
I am definitely convinced that most of the actual physical ailments are
caused by a deficiency of the mineral elements in the body.
Phosphorus and potash are necessary to the human welfare. These elements
are in the husk of the wheat and the husk is taken off in making flour,
and the flour is mostly starch.
The person who lives mostly on white bread will suffer from lack of
phosphorus and potash.
Phosphorus also is found in the skin of an apple, so if you peel an
apple you do not get the phosphorus.
FOOD
The Food We Eat Is Fuel for the Human Engine
The practice of medicine in the past has been directed towards the
curing of developed disease and physical ailments. The practice of
medicine in the future is to be along the line of preventive practice.
Science is showing us how to prevent infection. Science is fighting the
deadly microbe which comes to us in the air we breathe, the water we
drink, and the food we eat and the infected things we touch.
Nature has supplied the human body with a home guard of necessary
bacteria and in the circulation system are phagocytes which fight the
invading microbes and generally destroy them.
When the system is weakened through disease, through lack of exercise or
through improper food, disease has an easy time.
The important thing to prevent disease is to keep yourself fit, and the
golden prescription which I have given in PEP will serve to keep you in
perfect health.
I want you to remember this golden prescription; it is composed of the
following: Good Air, Good Water, Good Sunshine, Good Food, Good
Exercise, Good Cheer, Good Rest and Good Thought. If you take this
golden prescription you will make of yourself a giant in brain and brawn
strength.
You can't get health out of a bottle. You can't get the system to absorb
iron if you take it in the form of tincture of iron. You can eat a pound
of rust, which is oxide of iron, and none of that iron will be absorbed
in the system.
As I have explained in another chapter you must take the mineral in the
system through the vegetable route. You will get iron, that will be
assimilated, when you eat beefsteak. Beefsteak has blood, the blood has
iron. You will also get iron when you eat spinach.