SOURCES OF BAD HEALTH. 265 



stances entirely beyond our knowledge and control, 

 and sent by a superintending Providence, not to urge 

 us to more rational care, but to soften our hearts, 

 and warn us from sin ; SECONDLY, As the result of 

 accident alone, or of external influences which we 

 can appreciate, but from which it is impossible to 

 withdraw ourselves ; and, THIRDLY, As, in every in- 

 stance, the result of the direct infringement of one or 

 more of the laws or conditions decreed by the Creator 

 to be essential to the well-being and activity of every 

 bodily organ, and the knowledge and observance of 

 which are to a great extent within our own power. 



According as one or other of those views shall be 

 adopted, the most opposite practical results will 

 follow. If the first be received as the truth, and 

 health and sickness be viewed as dispensed without 

 reference to our bodily conduct, but solely as a 

 means of reclaiming us from sin, attention to our 

 moral and religious improvement alone will be our 

 best protection, and any attempt to avert bad health, 

 by studying and obeying the laws which regulate 

 the bodily functions, will be entirely useless. If, 

 again, the second principle be correct, and disease 

 arise from accident and from influences beyond our 

 control, then neither our moral nor our bodily con- 

 duct will avail us as a protection, and our only re- 

 source will be humble resignation to the will of God. 

 But if the third be true, and the human frame be 

 constructed by the Creator on principles calculated 

 to carry on life for seventy years, and if de facto a 

 large proportion of the race perish before attaining 

 ten years of age, chiefly from infringing the conditions 

 on which the due performance of the various vital 

 functions depends, it then becomes an object of great 

 interest to us to study the structure of our organs, 

 to discover the laws which regulate their functions, 

 and to yield to those laws that implicit obedience 

 from which alone health can spring. 



That the strictest observance of the moral laws* 

 Z 



