Evening journal., 1888-11-20
SOUND MINDS AND BODIES.
Tho Old Maxim Called in ouestion-wliat
''Hcnlthy Invalid" May DO.

Iho OLA MAXIM Called IN IueSt90l--Afti1t
''HcaIthy Invalid" May DO.
1t is a serious question whether, in these
day Of health lifts, rowing machines, chest
weights and bean bags, rather exaggerated
ideas arc not held out to the public as to the
spiritual benefits to be confidently relied on
from tho diligent use of these. The old
maxim, "a sound mind in a sound body is
pretty severely put to its trumps whom it has
to maintain il dignity against practical
illustrations.
OF course, tho old Greeks and Romans, or
whoever invented the saw originally, merely
meant that, if a man only had a sound mind,
he could do great deal more with it if it
tvcro in a sound body. The modern bean
bag professors, however, can never content
themselves with so moderate statement as
this. Tone up your muscular system, they
insist. and forthwith the whole Sermon on
tho Mount will entor in and take possession Of
the soul. Their favorite illustration is taken
from the goings on Of the baby. Who ever
knew baby, they say, that nurses well and
sleeps well, to fret and cryi Well, that is
simply because he is a baby, a little animal,
with few physical wants Once satisfy
these, and the baby does not know enough to
ask for anything more.
But a grown man Is not a baby. He may
be strong enough to digest food that would
distress an ostrich, to sleep like alternating
bear and to tramp forty miles on a stretch,
and still DO a moody, morose, discontinued
and queruous fellow. His mind cannot di-
gest the tough experiences OF life, and his
irritable spirit never gets the mental sleep
and refreshment OF trust and peace in
higher power Ono good healthy invalid
like Robert Louis Stevenson. with sound
mind in crazy rattletrap Of body, has
more brace and inauguration in him than
scores of athletes who have sought their sole
spiritual instruction from dumb bells and
rowing machines. With quarter Of a lung
he breathes in more tonic mountain air than
they with lungs like the bellows Of a forging
shop. No man can abolish his ancestors If
they bequeathed him dyspepsia, consump-
ton or nervous exhaustion he will have to
fight it out on that line. But let him only
say: 81 mean to make a small capital win
big fortune, and ten to one he will get
more genuine satisfaction and profit out Of
life than thousands vino contemptuously dis
miss him as not having body enough to set
up peanut stand on.
The naked fact is that sound men and
horses arc about equally rare How 10 make
the spawned and wind CALLED capable Of
prancing and caracoling to the best advant-
age, is the practical question; and just hero
is where the healthy iuvalids have their
blessed mission in the world A mere physi-
cal thread Of man like Robert Louis
Stevenson, with his admiration for stout, old
English admirals and heroes Of every type,
and who, while perfectly entitled to swathe
himself in aannels and drink catnip tea,
hates this whole race OF winners and self cod
dlers, touches the viking nerve in every
reader Of his books who has sense of shame
enough in him to blush where he ought to
blush. All over the land is the same story
repeated. II half the great, hulking fellows,
who estimate the health of their minds by
the yigor Of their bodies would now and
then desert their rowing machines and put
themselves under tho spell of the sweetness,
cheer and faith OF some frail woman tied up
in hard knot with rheumatism, they would
feel that, with half the same amount Of
spirit to tho square inch Of flesh, they ought
to DO able to shoulder whole Alps of obsta-
cles, instead Of whining over mole hills
Boston Herald.