
198 
KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 

THE GOLDEN RULES OF LIFE. 
If thou well observe 
The rule of ‘‘ not too much,”’ by Temperance taught, 
In what thou eat’st and drink’st, seeking from thence 
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight, 
Till many years over thy head return,— 
Then may’st thou live, till, like ripe fruit, thou drop 
Into thy mother’s lap ; or be with ease 
Gather’d, not harshly pluci’d, in death mature. 
MILTON. 
EXCESS IN ANY SHAPE is bad, but in eating 
and drinking it is dangerous. It exhausts 
the body, and destroys the soul. We would 
speak here more particularly of drinking, a 
practice even yet far too prevalent in this 
country.* 
Of all the illusions by which man has 
allowed himself to be led astray from the path 
of common sense, there is none more absurd 
in its nature and mournful in its effects (says 
a popular writer), than that which induces 
him to believe that ardent spirits are con- 
ducive either to health or.happiness. Engen- 
dering an appetite which grows with what it 
feeds on, they acquire by degrees an un- 
bounded dominion over the individual, whom 
they at last reduce to a melancholy state of 
physical imbecility and moral degradation. 
Peevishness takes the place of equanimity ; 
and he who commenced the habit of drinking, 
that, like ‘a good fellow,” he might minister 
to the happiness of others, ends by destroying 
his own. 
“Living fast”? is a metaphorical phrase 
which, more accurately than ig generally 
imagined, expresses a literal fact! Whatever 
hurries the action of the corporeal functions, 
must tend to abridge the period of their proba- 
ble duration. As the wheel of a carriage per- 
forms a certain number of rotations before it 
arrives at the destined goal, so to the arteries 
of the human frame we may conceive that 
there is allotted only a certain number of 
pulsations before their vital energy is entirely 
exhausted. Extraordinary longevity has 
seldom been know to occur, except in 
persons ofa remarkably tranquil and slow- 
paced circulation. 
If intemperance curtailed merely the num- 
ber of our days, we should have but little 
reason to find fault with its effects. ‘he 
idea of a short life and a merry one is plau- 
sible enough if it could be realised. But 
unfortunately, what shortens existence Is cal- 
culated also to make it melancholy. There 
* The advent of our mortal enemy, Cholera, 
whose gaunt strides amongst us have told fearfully 
of his great power—induce us once more to raise 
a warning voice against an indulgence in ardent 
spirits, We know many who persist in their 
use, despite all remonstrance. Let them beware, 
ere it be toolate. Taken medicinally, spirits 
have their good use ; but indulged in as a ‘‘ plea- 
sure,” they become a curse. 



is no process by which we can distil life, so as 
to separate from it all foul and heterogeneous 
matter, and leave nothing behind but drops 
of pure defecated happiness. If there were, 
we should scarcely blame the vicious extrava- 
gance of the voluptuary, who, provided that 
his sun shine brilliantly, while above his head, 
cares not though that sun should set at an 
earlier hour. 
It is seldom that debauchery breaks at once 
the thread of vitality. There occurs, for the 
most part, a wearisome and painful interval 
between the first loss of a capacity for enjoy- 
ing life and the period of its ultimate and 
entire extinction. This circumstance, it is 
to be presumed, is out of the consideration 
of those persons who, with a prodigality 
more extravagant than that of Cleopatra, 
dissolve the pearl of health in the goblet of 
intemperance. ‘The slope towards the grave 
these victims of indiscretion find to be no 
easy descent. The scene is darkened long 
before the curtain falls, and discloses the hor- 
rors of an hereafter. Having exhausted pre- 
maturely all thatis pure and delicious in the 
cup of life, they are obliged to swallow after- 
wards the bitter dregs. Death is the last, 
but not the worst result of intemperance. 
There is more to follow! 
Punishment, in some instances, treads 
almost instantly upon the heels of transgres- 
sion; at others, with a more tardy, but 
equally certain step, it follows the commission 
of moral irregularity. During the course of 
a long-protracted career of excess, the malig- 
nant power of alcohol, slow and insidious in 
its operation, is gnawing incessantly at the 
root ; and often without spoiling the bloom, 
or seeming to impair the vigor of the frame, 
is clandestinely hastening the period of its 
destruction. ‘There is no imprudence, with 
regard to health, that does not ¢el/; and those 
are not unfrequently found to suffer in the 
event most essentially, who do not appear to 
suffer immediately from every individual act 
of indiscretion. The work of decay is, in such 
instances, constantly guing on, although it 
never loudly indicates its advance, by any 
forcible impression upon the senses. 
A feeble constitution is, in general, more 
flexible than a vigorous oae. [rom yielding 
more readily, it is not so soon broken by the 
assaults of indiscretion. A disorder is for 
the most part violent in proportion to the 
stamina of the subject which it attacks. 
Strong men have energetic diseases. The 
puny valetudinarian seems to suffer less 
injury from indisposition, in consequence of 
being more familiar with its effects. His 
lingering and scarcely more than semi-vital 
existence is often protracted beyond that of 
the more active, vivacious, and robust. 
But it ought to be in the knowledge of the 
debauchee that each attack of casual, or return 
