The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-04

Sickness a Law-Wreoker, A Mouthful Of
Breakfast in the Internal Regions-Turning
BLESSINGS Into Curses-but Illness Some
times Exhibits Grace and Heroism-Ths In
valid Not Genuine Resident of This World.
The Preference of Gods Executive Officer.
The sick man is an innocent or a guilty
w-breaker-a violator of the rules of God
and nature. Health is s'the fulfilling of
the law; it is the law; it is the only law.
Sickness is the great w-wrecker-simply
an obstruction in the sublime machinery
of the universe.
Physically speaking, sickness is mouth
full of breakfast in the internal regions; it
is part of them. Heaven, whether city,
a country, or combination of feeling and
thought, has for its other name order;
and hell is disorder in its dingiest glory
and at its murderous best. Very appro-
priately il sickness called a disorder
The sick man soon feels that he is not
genuine resident of this world; he cannot
feel with his neighbors; he is an eXcep-
tion-an obstruction-a tenderly created
outcast. If he has no friends around him
the world is wringing his heart; if he has
friends he is, in spite of himself, constantly
wringing their hearts. He looks upon the
flashing oars of healthy striving voyagers,
far in advance of him, still forging ahead,
and feels himself in the thorn-upholstered
stern-sheets of tossing, rudderless boat,
drifting he knows not where but sure of
one thing-that he is soon to sink.
With the great majority of its victims
sickness can turn every blessing of God
into loathsome curse-the exhilarating
walk into an agonizing struggle-the life
given food into the hidden thrust of a steel
blade-the friendly visitor into death
laden ghost. 1t creates wall of pain, the
only windows of which exhibit the world
as a country of monsters.
Not but that sickness sometimes draws
out and exhibits heroism-and so do
merciless sieges, unjust wars, fierce perse-
cutions, and murderous holocausts; but
that is no recommendation of the wars, the
prosecutions, and the sicknesses. Those
who, in spite of all they can do, must suf-
fer pain because OF the SIN or carelessness
of others, and still crush through and
strive gloriously and with much success to
make their way in the world, have paid in
advance for a laurel wreath of praise; but
as we hang it upon their aching heads, and
kiss their emaciated cheeks, we cannot
but hear our thoughts whispering together
"How much better work that superb mind
would have done in superb body!"
Mentally and spiritually sickness is at
times a means Of grace; it tears away
farther and farther the veil of flesh and
exhibits more and more plainly the an
gelic nature within-made brighter and
sweeter by the discipline of pain. But it
is very expensive method of becoming
an angel; expensive to the patient, to his
friends, to God. Nature, Gods executive
officer, prefers to develop good souls in
good bodies.
III.
The Microbes Columbus-Colonising Within
Us-Why Has God Created These Lilipu-
tian Reptiles7-Are They as Important as
the Planets7-Should They Board OF Camp
With Us7-Water, Air and Light the Re-
pairers-Lifes Tranquil Exit
II is now asserted by the great majority
of physicians that most, If not all, diseases
are formed by microbes; trillions of tiny
beings, world of themselves. whose Co.
lumbus was the microscope; each indi-
vidual living. conscious and possessing
peculiarities and ambitions of it's own
each capable of obtaining a livelihood
from the universe of prey which our bodies
present to it. We are told that these
lively little weavers of shrouds abound
everywhere; that the earth, the water, the
air, all seem at times packed with the am
munition of human disease and death.
We eat these petty but powerful atoms of
poison-drink them-breathe them. No
odds how healthy we may appear--no mat
ter how vivaciouS we may feei-there are
constantly in our bodies more or less frag-
ments of destruction, ready to devour us
from within.
Some of them are as great prisoners to
the human system as Lucrezia Borgia ever
was reputed to be. The comma" bacillus
of cholera kills mainly by the virus he
creates in the system during his stay