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Exercise and Air
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flabby and enfeebled. By active exercise in the open air every day,
the liver, kidneys, and lungs also will be strengthened to perform
their work. Bring to your aid the power of the will, which will resist
cold and will give energy to the nervous system. In a short time you
will so realize the benefit of exercise and pure air that you would
not live without these blessings. Your lungs, deprived of air, will be
like a hungry person deprived of food. Indeed, we can live longer
without food than without air, which is the food that God has pro-
vided for the lungs. Therefore do not regard it as an enemy, but as a
precious blessing from God.
If invalids allow themselves to encourage a diseased imagina-
tion, they will not only waste their own energies, but the vitality of
those who have the care of them. I advise invalid sisters who have
accustomed themselves to a great amount of clothing, to lay it off
gradually. Some of you live merely to eat and breathe, and fail to
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answer the purpose for which you were created. You should have
an exalted aim in life and seek to be useful and efficient in your
own families and to become useful members of society. You should
not require the attention of the family to be centered upon you, nor
should you draw largely upon the sympathies of others. Do your
part in giving love and sympathy to the unfortunate, remembering
that they have woes and trials peculiar to themselves. See if you
cannot, by words of sympathy and love, lighten their burdens. In
blessing others, you will realize a blessing yourselves.
Those who, so far as it is possible, engage in the work of doing
good to others by giving practical demonstration of their interest in
them are not only relieving the ills of human life in helping them
bear their burdens, but are at the same time contributing largely
to their own health of soul and body. Doing good is a work that
benefits both giver and receiver. If you forget self in your interest
for others, you gain a victory over your infirmities. The satisfaction
you will realize in doing good will aid you greatly in the recovery
of the healthy tone of the imagination. The pleasure of doing good
animates the mind and vibrates through the whole body. While
the faces of benevolent men are lighted up with cheerfulness, and
their countenances express the moral elevation of the mind, those
of selfish, stingy men are dejected, cast down, and gloomy. Their
moral defects are seen in their countenances. Selfishness and self-