HEALTHY WORK.

Press, Volume X, Issue 1143, 7 July 1866, Page 3

HEALTHY WORK.

A man is born to expend every particle of strength that God Almighty has given him in doing the work he finds he is fit for—to stand up to it to the last breath of life, and do his best. We are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get— which we are perfectly sure of if we have merited it—is that we have got the work done, or, at least that we have tried to do the work. For that is a great blessing in itself; and I should say there is not very much more reward than that going in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matters it whether he have ten thousand pounds or ten million pounds, could that be, or seventy pounds a-year ? He can get [ meat and clothes for that; and he will find very little real difference intrinsically, if he is a wise man. I warmly second the advice of the wisest of mcn —" Don't be ambitious; don't bo at all too desirous of success ; be loyal and modest." Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see that they be pure as well as high. There' is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of the suffrages that are on the planet just now. Finally, gentlemen, I have one advice to give you, which is practically of very great importance, though a very humble one it is. In the middle of your zeal and ardou*-—for such, I befieve will be sufficient in spite of all the counsels to moderate it that X can give you; I have no doubt you will have among you people ardently bent to consider life cheap, for tho purpose of getting forward in what they are aiming at of high—but you aw to cun-

it eider throughout, much more than is I j done at present, and what it would i- have been a very great thing for mc b if I had been able to consider —that health is a thing to be attended to continually —that you are to regard that as the very highest of all temporal things for you. There is no kind of achievement you could make in the world that is equal to perfect health. What to it are nuggets and millions ? The French financier said—" Alas ! why is there no sleep to be sold ?" Sleep was not in the market at any quotation. It is a curious thing, that I remarked long ago, and have often turned in my head, that the old word for " holy " in the German language— Tieilig —also means "healthy." And so Heilbronn means " holy-well," or "healthy-well." We have in the Scotch hale ; and, I suppose, our English word whole—with a " w " —all of one piece, without any hole in it—is the same word. I find that you could not get any better definition of what " holy " really is than " healthy " —" completely healthy " — metis sana in corpore sano. A man with his intellect a clear plain goemetric mirror, brilliantly sensitive of all objects and impressions around it, and imagining all things in their correct proportions—not twisted up into convex or concave, and distorting everything, so that he cannot see the truth of the matter without endless groping and manipulation—healthy, clear, and free, and seeing all round about him. We never can attain that at all. In fact, the operations we have got into are destructive of it. You cannot if you are going to do any decisive intellectual operation—if you are going to write a book (at least I never could), without getting decidedly made ill by it, and really you must if it is your business and you must follow out what you are at—do it sometimes, but at the expense of health. Only remember at all times to get back as fast as possible out of it into health, and regard the real equilibrium as the centre of things. Tou should always look at the heilig, which means holy, and holy means healthy. Well, that old etymology—what a lesson it is against certain gloomy, austere, aesthetic people, that have gone about as if this world were all a dismal prison-house. It has indeed got all the ugly things in it that I have been alluding to ; but there is an eternal sky over it, and the blessed sunshine, verdure of spring, and rich autumn, and all that, in it too. Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about thing 3, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given. Neither do you find it to have been so with old Knox. If you look into him you will find a beautiful Scotch humour in him, as well as the grimmest and sternest truth when necessary, and a great deal of laughter. We find really some of the sunniest glimpses of things come out of Knox that I have seen in any man ; for instance, in the ' History of the Reformation'—which is a book I tope every one of you will read—a glorious book. On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it—not in sorrows or contradiction to yield, but to push on towards the goal; and don't suppose that people are hostile to you in the world. You will rarely find anybody designedly doing you ill. You may feel often as if the whole world is obstructing you, more or less ; but you will find that to be because the world ia travelling in a different way from you, and rushing on in its own path. Each man has only an extremely good-will to himself—which he lias a right to hay is moving on towards his object. Keep out of literature as a general rule, I should say also. If you find many people who are hard and indifferent to you in a world that you consider to be unhospitable and cruel — as often, indeed, happens, to a tender-hearted, striving young creature —you will also find there are noble hearts who look kindly on you; and their help will be precious to you beyond price. You will get good and evil as you go on, and have the success.that has been appointed to you. I will wind up with a small bit of verse that is from Goethe also, and has often gone through my mind. To mc it has the tone of a modern psalm in it, in some measure. It is" sweet and clear—the clearest of sceptical men had not anything like so clear a mind as that man had, freer from cant and misdirected notion of any kind than any man in these ages has been, This is what the poet says. It is a kind of marching music of mankind : The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow; We press still thorow ; Nought tbat abides in it Daunting ue-sOnward! And solemn before us. Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal:— Stare silent rest o'er us— Graves under us silent. While earnest thou gazest, Comes boding of terror, Comes phantasm and error; Perplexes the bravest With doubt and misgiving. But heard are the voices, Heard are the sages, The worlds and the ages : " Choose well, your choice is Brief, and vet endless. <: Here eyes do regard you In Eternity's stillness: Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you ; Work, and despair not." One last word. Wir Jteissen euch hoffen —We bid you be of hope. Adieu for this time. EITBAOBDINABT CaBBER OF CHUTE. —In the little town of Malmesbury, in Wiltshire, a widow lady named Perring lately resided with one daughter, who is not yet eighteen years old. Last October there came to Malmesbury a young man, who gave the name of Fuller, and was engaged by Dr. Dalter, as assistant in his surgery. Soon after he eloped with Miss Perring, and wag married to her at Cheltenham. A few weeks ago it was discovered that Fuller, as he called himself, had obtained a cum of money at the North Wilts Bank, on a cheque purporting to be signed by Mra Perring. He was prosecuted and committed for trial—a result which brought on Mrs Perring a manifestation of popular indignation ; but a little time sufficed to show Mr Fuller in his true character. It was discovered that he had married in 1859, in India, the daughter of a Sergeant Guise, and had bees

committed to the cells for making a false declaration as to age, etc. He came to England as a witness on the Crawley court-martial, and in June, 1064, he married at Kcnningtou one Sarah Cox, but she having discovered his previous marriage, married again. For the two bigamous marriages he was committed for trial last week; but there yet remains a more serious inquiry to be completed. Mr* Perring died the other day after a «hort illness, which commenced only a few days before the discovery of the forgen. It is proved bj her daughter tliat Fuller gave her a pill, and a post mortem examination revealed that poison had been administered to her.—" Herald." Extbaordixaey Oceax RaCB. —One day early in December, between the hours of 5.44 and 6.15 a.m., four first-class clipper ships, the Roxburgh Castle, the Sarah Grice, the Kosciusko, and the Omar Pasha, laden with wool and gold, left Port Phillip on a race for England. There was heavy betting on the result, the Omar Pasha being the favorite. These vessels have now all reached their destination, and it is interesting to note the respective lengths of their passages. The Omar Pasha arrived in the Downs on the 14th February, seventy-two days ; the Kosciusko on the 23rd, eighty-one days • the Roxburgh Castle on the 9th March, ninety-three days ; and the Sarah Grice on the 25th March, one hundred and eleven days. The first and second vessels are Aberdeen built vessels, and belong to Messrs George Thompson, jun, and Co. — Shipping Gazette. Smoking.—The enemies of the " fragrant weed" still continue their crusade against its use, by telling smokers over and over again that tobacco contains nicotine, a deadly poison ; forgetting to state, however, that the very way in vhich tobacco is consumed, viz , by burning it, is a sufficient guarantee for the decomposition of nearly the whole of the noxious principle. That the weed moreover in its natural state is not poisonous in the proportion in which it is taken is amply proved by the vast number of people, chieuy sailors, who chew it almost without intermission from day to day. However that may be, we are told that the tobacco grown in the department of the Lot contains the maximum of nicotine, viz. 8 per cent., while that of Havannah does not contain more than two per cent. M. Melsens has shown that the smoke produced by 4500 gms. of tobacco contains thirty gms. of nicotine. Now, admitting a pipe to contain the enormous quantity of ten gms., which is at least double the usual dose, such a pipe would generate the 4501h part of thirty gras. of nicotine, that is, one-fiteenth of a gramme. And when we consider that the smoker generally emits the whole of the smoke, only retaining its taste, we do not think that even a thousandth part of a gramme of that deadly poison enters the system. Otherwise how could we explain the notorious fact that inveterate smokers have been known to attain a patriarchal age ? Notwithstanding our conviction that the nicotine so much dreaded is perfectly harmless in so far as smoking is concerned, we will hero give a process by which Count de la Tour dv Pin proposes to stop the poison at the threshold. He advises smokers to introduce into the pipe or cigar-tube a little cotton impregnated with tanic and citric acids. The smoke, in passing through, leaves its nicotine behind, which is converted into a tannate and citrate by its contact with the acids.