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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
unemployed, they live at ease, and their usefulness seems at an end;
they become restless, anxious, and unhappy, and their lives soon
close. Those who are always busy, and go cheerfully about the per-
formance of their daily tasks, are the most happy and healthy. The
rest and composure of night brings to their wearied frames unbroken
slumber. The Lord knew what was for man’s happiness when He
gave him work to do. The sentence that man must toil for his bread,
and the promise of future happiness and glory, came from the same
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throne. Both are blessings. Women of fashion are worthless for
all the good ends of human life. They possess but little force of
character, have but little moral will or physical energy. Their highest
aim is to be admired. They die prematurely and are not missed, for
they have blessed no one.
Exercise will aid the work of digestion. To walk out after a meal,
hold the head erect, put back the shoulders, and exercise moderately,
will be a great benefit. The mind will be diverted from self to the
beauties of nature. The less the attention is called to the stomach
after a meal, the better. If you are in constant fear that your food will
hurt you, it most assuredly will. Forget self, and think of something
cheerful.
Many labor under the mistaken idea that if they have taken cold,
they must carefully exclude the outside air and increase the temper-
ature of their room until it is excessively hot. The system may be
deranged, the pores closed by waste matter, and the internal organs
suffering more or less inflammation, because the blood has been
chilled back from the surface and thrown upon them. At this time,
of all others, the lungs should not be deprived of pure, fresh air. If
pure air is ever necessary, it is when any part of the system, as the
lungs or stomach, is diseased. Judicious exercise would induce the
blood to the surface, and thus relieve the internal organs. Brisk, yet
not violent exercise in the open air, with cheerfulness of spirits, will
promote the circulation, giving a healthful glow to the skin, and
sending the blood, vitalized by the pure air, to the extremities. The
diseased stomach will find relief by exercise. Physicians frequently
advise invalids to visit foreign countries, to go to the springs, or to
ride upon the ocean, in order to regain health; when, in nine cases
out of ten, if they would eat temperately and engage in healthful
exercise with a cheerful spirit, they would regain health and save