Searchlights on Health | Page 4

ended," says the proverb: "and a good beginning is half
the battle." Many promising young men have irretrievably injured
themselves by a first false step at the commencement of life; while
others of much less promising talents, have succeeded simply by
beginning well, and going onward. The good, practical beginning is to
a certain extent, a pledge, a promise, and an assurance of the ultimate
prosperous issue. There is many a poor creature, now crawling through
life, miserable himself and the cause of sorrow to others, who might
have lifted up his head and prospered, if, instead of merely satisfying
himself with resolutions of well-doing, he had actually gone to work
and made a good, practical beginning.
8. BEGIN AT THE RIGHT PLACE.--Too many are, however,
impatient of results. They are not satisfied to begin where their fathers
did, but where they left off. They think to enjoy the fruits of industry
without working for them. They cannot wait for the results of labor and
application, but forestall them by too early indulgence.
* * * * *
HEALTH A DUTY.
Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will
both be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the
preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a
thing as physical morality.
Men's habitual words and acts imply that they are at liberty to treat
their bodies as they please. Disorder entailed by disobedience to
nature's dictates they regard as grievances, not as the effects of a
conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted
on their descendents and on future generations are often as great as

those caused by crime, they do not think themselves in any degree
criminal.
It is true that in the case of drunkenness the viciousness of a bodily
transgression is recognized; but none appear to infer that if this bodily
transgression is vicious, so too is every bodily transgression. The fact is,
all breaches of the law of health are physical sins.
When this is generally seen, then, and perhaps not till then, will the
physical training of the young receive all the attention it deserves.
Purity of life and thought should be taught in the home. It is the only
safeguard of the young. Let parents wake up on this important subject.
[Illustration: GLADSTONE.]
* * * * *
VALUE OF REPUTATION.
1. WHO SHALL ESTIMATE THE COST.--Who shall estimate the
cost of a priceless reputation--that impress which gives this human
dross its currency--without which we stand despised, debased,
depreciated? Who shall repair it injured? Who can redeem it lost? Oh,
well and truly does the great philosopher of poetry esteem the world's
wealth as "trash" in the comparison. Without it gold has no value; birth,
no distinction; station, no dignity; beauty, no charm; age, no reverence;
without it every treasure impoverishes, every grace deforms, every
dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations and accomplishments
of life stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock, warning the world that
its approach is dangerous; that its contact is death.
2. THE WRETCH WITHOUT IT.--The wretch without it is under
eternal quarantine; no friend to greet; no home to harbor him, the
voyage of his life becomes a joyless peril, and in the midst of all
ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapacity plunder, he tosses
on the surge, a buoyant pestilence. But let me not degrade into
selfishness of individual safety or individual exposure this individual

principle; it testifies a higher, a more ennobling origin.
3. ITS DIVINITY.--Oh, Divine, oh, delightful legacy of a spotless
reputation: Rich is the inheritance it leaves; pious the example it
testifies; pure, precious and imperishable, the hope which it inspires;
can there be conceived a more atrocious injury than to filch from its
possessor this inestimable benefit to rob society of its charm, and
solitude of its solace; not only to out-law life, but attain death,
converting the very grave, the refuge of the sufferer, into the gate of
infamy and of shame.
4. LOST CHARACTER.--We can conceive few crimes beyond it. He
who plunders my property takes from me that which can be repaired by
time; but what period can repair a ruined reputation? He who maims
my person effects that which medicine may remedy; but what herb has
sovereignty over the wounds of slander? He who ridicules my poverty
or reproaches my profession, upbraids me with that which industry may
retrieve, and integrity may purify; but what riches shall redeem the
bankrupt fame? What power shall blanch the sullied show of character?
There can be no injury more deadly. There can be no crime more cruel.
It is without remedy. It is without antidote. It is without evasion.
[Illustration: GATHERING WILD FLOWERS.]