1.H 00. HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING
Chapter 8: HEALTH, AS RELATED TO PREACHING. has been, in recent times, a great deal more information diffused among the common people on the subject of health than formerly, and men live more wholesomely, and all the processes of society are in better accordance with the laws of life. Men have more intelligent ideas of what to avoid and what to seek.
There is one relation, however, to which I shall more particularly confine myself to-day, which has been largely left out of the popular consideration, and that is the relation of health to brain- work.
If you take a full stem of wheat in harvest- time, and shake out all the kernels of wheat, what is left is chaff and straw. So, if you take from a man his brain-power, all that is left of him is chaff and straw; that is, it is nothing but animal. All there is of a man lies in the nerve and brain-power; and while the business of life is to take care of the bone and muscle, the stomach, the liver, the lungs, and the heart, that is only because this is the way to take care of that which is, after all, the sovereign, and for which all these other things are merely servants and messengers and purveyors. It is the brain-power, or the mental power as expressed through the brain, that causes man to surpass the lower creations around him. Now, it is not very difficult for a man to live in the enjoyment of good health who is born with a good constitution, which he has not in youth drained and sapped, and who has come into a noble and virtuous manhood, and into a profession that will keep him within proper bounds of exertion. But you must remember that you are going to be under iire. Let a man be in the midst of a desperate naval engagement, where the shot and shell are filling the air, and the splinters flying thick as hail, he will find it is not so easy to pass unscathed. Let a man be in the midst of an awakened community, where all the members of two hundred families have a right to go to his fire and light their torches; where he is obliged to preach Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and twice on Sunday; where he is visited by all; where he must preside at prayer-meetings and social gatherings; and where he has to be a perpetual fountain, out of which so many different hydrants are drawing their supplies, then to keep one’s health is a very different thing.
There are few men in the ministry who live at one half their competency or power. They do not know how to make their machines work at a high rate of speed, with great executive energy, without damage to themselves. It is an art to be healthy at all; but to be healthy when you are run at the top of your speed all the time is a great art indeed.