The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1913-05-16
1.-THE Three Fold
Strength Of Man

Anu SAINT John wrote: Il have writ
ten unto you young men because
you are strong" An ancient
legend recites that when the au
thority of Johns message as teach
er from God was questioned, he 81
fenced his critics by miraculously
blending again into one the broker
pieces of precious jewel. And i
his words, and those of the wise man
shall help us to discover the insepar
able unity constituting strong Chris
tian character, it will be more con
elusive demonstration of the authors
inspiration than the old-time legend
take it that the real strength Of
every normal man is three-fold
And first of all, young mans
glory is his physical strength. In
dealing with a man, the first thing
that confronts us is his body. The
body is the background of all the
achievements of a mans life. A
diseased body will hamper and hin
der, and even dethrone the most no
BILE and brilliant intellect. Let us
remember that one end of the ladder
of all our hope and faith and achieve
ment, like the ladder in Jacobs
dream at Bethel, which rose from
earth to heaven, has its resting-place
in our physical condition. Hence, a
little reflection will convince us that
other things being equal, a man with
a sound, healthy, robust, well-devel-
oped body has an immense advantage
in undertaking any useful career
The men who have left their impress
upon the nineteenth century were
almost universally men of remark
able physical equipment. Men like
Gladstone, grand old man, and un.
crowned king of England, who could
chop down his tree each day, until
over eighty years of age; men like
Bismarck, tire man of iron, whose re-
markable endurance was made pos
sible by his massive body of tenn
pered steel. Such men as James A.
Garfield, Abraham Lincoln, John Sher-
man, and James G. Blaine, owed very
much to their imposing physical
strength. Who can tell what William
Jennings Bryan owed to his superb
physical machine, which made it pos
sible for him to survive the STRAIN of
the greatest oratorical campaign in
human history? ,il. u i hl
Do not misunderstood me!s Many
a man with weak body has been
intellectually strong The traditional
view of st. Paul is that he had a
weak defective body. Stephen A.
Douglas was man of very small
stature, and was known as 1.-THE lit
tie giant" The greatness of these
men, however, was not because of
their weak physique, but in spite
of it. sa ,s
So then, anything that harms this
body, or prevents it from doing it's
best work, must be regarded as a
most deadly enemy. .......I 1t is not
a question whether a thing is right
or wrong in itself. Many things
that are perfectlylaF right in them
selves, and indeed have no ethical
quantity whatever, come to be moral
and religious questions when they
affect our power for usefulness. You
see how this applies to eating and
drinking gluttony. You see how it
applies to the use of strong drink
drunkenness. 1t also applies to the
use of narcotics. Cigarettes have
been very appropriately called "cof-
fin nails. 49,. And thus you see
that men are not always overthrown
by lions, they are not always broken
by great sins, but they are eaten
by the little moths of self-indul-
gence.
Now just here the Y. NJ C. A.
comes in to minister to mans
condition and give him the
over his animal nature. what
with its gymnasium, and swimming
pool, outdoor sports, the Y. M. c.. A..
stands for the perfect physical man..
And every young man who enjoys
and profits by these things should
thank God for the men of this COM
munity who have made it all posi-
BILE to him by their generous sup
port.
But the glory of young man is
also mis- intellectual strength. A man
NAV have Dhysical form like Tim
Jeffries or Jack Johnson. But if that
is all he has, he is nothing more
than a perfect brute. A strong mind
in strong body is the ideal. The
body is the foundation, the mind is
the superstructure. But what is
mans mind for? To develop and
use. The men who fail here are
criminal We know the dan
ger of ignorance and that the safety
Of the nation depends upon educating
our youth. So we have our magnifi-
cent school system, beginning with
The grades and eliminating in the
The church also recog-
nlZes the value of learning and she
las her secondary schools and
colleges. But the mental strength
speak of is something more
han mere knowledge. So much
science, so much history, so
much language, so much philoso-
)hy, is by no means synonymous
With so much mental strength. Men