HEALTH. 139 



enjoying are proportioned to our health and 

 diminished hj di&ease. If we possessed all the 

 wealth, and all the honors, and all the blessings 

 mortals can possess, we could enjoy them only 

 in proportion as we had health, and their value 

 would be diminished just in proportion to its 

 decline. Suppose we were sick and our appetite 

 thereby destroyed, the richest food and most 

 delicious fruits, instead of rendering us happy 

 would nauseate us. How different if we were 

 healthy. How a good appetite, the produce of 

 health, would enjoy them. Well might the 

 glutted alderman offer a ragged boy a guinea 

 for his appetite for breakfast. The rich invalid 

 is poor, but he who is healthy is rich, because 

 his fund of life and his capacities for enjoyment 

 are proportionally great. Keader, if brought 

 to the brink of the grave, your last hour come, 

 what would you give? What that you possessed 

 would you not give for another year of life and 

 its pleasures? Aster's thirty millions would be 

 cheap. To impair health in obtaining any 

 amount of earthly goods is a dear exchange, 

 since then to preserve or regain health is to pre- 

 serve,,prolong or regain life itself, and to impair 



