134 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



wrong, or defective, materials. Help Alma to repair 

 her castle- walls, and above all aid her in the grand 

 endeavour of her very being, to drive back and keep out 

 all intruders. Then the Mystery of Pain will find in you 

 that solution which, after all, is the only satisfactory 

 solution, viz., that there should be " NO MORE PAIN." 



Bodily pain is simply Alma's voice, rallying her 

 forces, trooping her guard, or calling out for assistance. 

 She keeps up her cry, often full of unspeakable agony 

 when it is disregarded, or, more agonizing still, is mis- 

 understood, until it is silenced in despair, or changed 

 into the strain of victory the voice of joy and health. 



"What is your life? Ye are a vapour that 

 appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away,"* 

 is the demand and answer of a sacred writer, and 

 modern chemistry vouches for the literal truth of the 

 description as regards our bodies, for we are indeed 

 principally water-dust. This is all as it should be, 

 the watery part is, if anything, the most precious part 

 of our atmosphere, and in its myriad manifestation is 

 a power for good, which makes habitable the earth 

 and glorifies the heavens. But a drugged body is like 

 a smoke and poison-laden fog, and where there is an 

 assemblage of them, it makes " a pestilent congrega- 

 tion of vapours." 



How much of that strange restlessness, combined 

 with a still more strange narrowness, and even cramped- 

 ness of mind like the fixed unfixedness of a mono- 

 maniac's ideas, which characterizes so much of what 

 passes for scientific speculation may be very easily 

 explained as due to drugged brains. 



"I cannot give you a wholesome answer," says 



* St. James' Ep., chap. IV., v. 14, Rev. Vers. 



