The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-01-04
IS IT GOOD TO BE AFFLICTED.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said,
"One of the necessary requisites for
attaining to a good old age is to be
rejected for life insurance by first
class company"
In studying the life history of men
who have been blessed with long life,
we are led to believe that DR.. Holmes
was not far astray. In many instances
long life may beattributed to physical
illness In early manhood. For in
stance, Louis Carnado, the famous
centenarian, was given up by his doc
tors at the age of forty. This, it is
said, sobered him, and led him to
adopt temperate habits. He became
so abstemious in his diet that his
friends feared and predicted he would
die of starvation, but instead of this
he managed to get rid of all his ills
and live to the advanced age of about
one hundred years, and retained the
full possession of all his mental facul-
ties. His power of enjoying life in
creased with age.
John Wesley, who at eighty-three
wrote "For twelve years I have not
known what it is to be weary" at
the age of forty was given up as a
hopeless invalid. Wesley lived a
a most temperate life. In I747, in
letter to bishop, he said, Thanks
be to God, since l gave up the use of
wine and meat have been delivered
from all physical ills" He wrote a
treatise against the use of tea, and ad-
vised, and. in fact, demanded all his
ministers to live in a simple manner.
Horace Fletcher, who has called the
attention of the world to the need of
thorough mastication of food, owes
his present good health to the fact
that ten years ago he was rejected by
a first class life insurance company.
This led him to study the requirements
of the human body and the laws upon
which its existence and health de-
pend, and induced him to change his
manner of living.
Delicate health in middle life does
not preclude the possibility of a long
and useful life; on the contrary, it
seems to have just the opposite effect,
and offers hope for the invalid who is
determined to search out and remove
the causes of invalidism.
David the psalmist, after his afflic-
ton, could say, ''It is good for me
that l have been afflicted; that I
might learn Thy statutes. tits the
strong and robust, those who imagine
they can endure anything and eat any,
thing, and who affirm, Nothing
hurts me-" that do not live out half
their days. Their vital organs are
overcrowded, stimulated and over
worked, as result they may put on
weight, have flushed faces, and have
all the appearance of health, but
sooner or later the organs which have
been urged on by the use of irritants,
condiments and stimulants can no lon
ger be whipped into activity. The tis-
sues of the body, being filled with i'm.
purities or substances which cannot be
utilized for useful purposes, are de-
generate and lacking in vitality. APP
poplexy, heart failure, or Bright's
disease usually claims such at the age
of fifty or sixty. Should those who
have robust health at thirty or forty
practise the same temperance that
II L. Il
at that age are forced to practise,
there is no reason why they might
not in many instances enjoy life to the
age of one hundred or one hundred
aud twenty. But as it is, those who at
an early age learn obedience through
affliction outlive those whose chances
for a long and useful life are much
better.-D. II. Kress, M. d., in Signs
0f the Times.