The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-04-29


to sudden activity and start again in
the chase of some high and noble end,
even though you catch the game, you
will sink back into sluthfulness before
you have roasted that which you took
In hunting lad habits unfit a man for
eyerything bnt politics,
Now, what are the results of indo-
lenceS A marked consequence Of this
vice is physical disease. The healthi-
ness of the whole natural world depends
upon activity. The winds, tossed and
driven in endless circuits, scattering the
mists from the mountains, and seooping
out death damps from the caves, and
blasting the miasma of swamps, and
hurting back the fetid atmosphere Of
great cities, are healthy just because Of
their swiftness and observation-disclosures
of sweep, But after awhile the wind
falls, and the hot sun pours through it,
and when the leaves are still; and the
grain fields bend not once all day long
then pestilence smites its victims and
digs trenches for the dead.
The fountain, born far up in the Wild
wood of the mountain, comes down
bright for every obstacle against which
1t is riven, and singing new song ON
every shelf of rock over which 1t bounds,
till 1t rolls over the water wheels In the
valley, not ashamed to grind corn, and
runs. through the long grass of the
meadow, where tho Willows reach down
to dip their branches and the unyolsed
oxen come at eventide to cool. Healthy
waterl Bright water! Happy water!
While some stream, too lazy any more
torun, gathers itself into wayside pool
where the swine wallow, and filthy i'll
sects hop over the surface, and reptiles
crawl among the ooze, and frogs utter
their hideous croak, and by day and
night there rises from the foul mire and
green scum fever and plague and death.
There is IN endless activity underfoot
and overhead.
Not one four o'clock in the flower bed,
not one fly on the window pane, not one
squirrel gathering food from the cones
of the white pine, not one rabbit feeding
on clover tops, not one drop falling in a
shower, not one minnow glancing i'll the
sea, not one quail whistling from the
grass, not one hawk cawing in the sky,
but is busy now and is basy always, full
filling its mission as certainly as any
monarch on earth on any angelin heaven.
NATURE NEVER IDLE.
You hear the shout of the plowboys
busy IN the field and the rattle of the
whifIletrees on the harrow, but you do
not know that there is more industry in
the earth upturned and in the dumb
vegetation underfoot than in all that
you see, If you put your ear to lump
of riven sod you may hear nothing in
the roots and spicule of grass, but there
are at work spades and cleavers and pile
drivers and battering rams and inter.
necine wars. do not wonder that the
lively fancy of the ancients saw in the
inanimate creation around Floras and
Pomonas and Graces and Fauns and
Fairies and Satyrs and Nymphs, Every.
thing is busy, Nothing is inanirnatei
except the man who cannot see the life
and hear the music.
At the creation the morning stars sang
together, but they were only the choir
which was to lead all the stars, and all
the mountains, and all the seas in Gods
worship All natural objects seem at
one and the same time uniting in work
and joy and worship. In Gods creation
there is no pause in either the worship,
or the work, or the joy. Amid all nat,
ural objects at one and the same time il
Is Halloween and Whitsunday and Ash
Wednesday and All Saints Day. All
the healthy beauty of that which we see
and hear in the natural world is depend
ent upon activity and unrest. Men
will be healthy-intellectua morally
and physieally-only upon the condition
Of an active industry. know men die
every day of overwork. They DROP
dow in coat pits, and among the spindles
of northern factories, and on the cotton
plantations Of the south.
In every city and town and village you
find men groaning under burdens, as il
the east the camels stagger under theil
loads between Aleppo and Damascus
Life is crushed out every day at counters
and workbenches and anvil3. But there
are other multitudes who die from mere
inertia Indulgences every day are con
tracing diseases beyond the catholic6f
of allopathy and homeopathy and by
dropathy and eclecticism Rather thar
work they rush upon lancets and seal
pels. Nature has provided for those whc
violate her laws by inactivity-wha
rheum for the eyes, and what govt 70,
the feet, and what curvature for tn,
spine, and what structures for the chest
and what tubercles for the lungs, an(
what rheumatisms for the muscles, ant
what neuralgias for the nerves. .Natur,
in time arraigns every such culprit a
her bar and presents against him al
Indictment of one hundred counts, ant
convicts him on each one Of them.
The laws of nature will not stop thei
action because men may be ignorant 0
them. Disease, when it comes to do it
work, does not ask whether you under
stand hygiene or pathology or materi
medica. If there were not so many lie
written on tombstones and in obituarie
you would see what multitudes of tn
worlds inhabitants are slain in their Ill
tempts to escape the necessity of toll
Men cross oceans and continents, an
climb the Alps, and sit under the sky @
Italy or the shadow of Egyptian pyra
mid, and go down into ancient ruins
and battle at Baden 'Saden, and com
home with the same shortness of breath
and the same poor digestion, and tn
same twitching of the nerves, when a
home with their own spade they Nigh
have dug health out of the ground c
with their own AK hewn health out of
log, or with their own scythe garnere
health from the grain field. .
FOOLISH PRIDE ABOUT WORK.
There are many who estimate til
responsibility of an occupation by tn
little exertion it demands, and woul
not have their children enter any en-
ployment where their hands may
soiled; forgetting that laborers owe
alls are Just as honorable as a priest
robes and an anvil is just as respectful
as pulpit. Health flies from the be