STRENGTH.

FROM

INTRODUCTORY.

ROM youth to middle, and often to past middle, age, most men are apt to be too closely engaged in the struggle of life to pay due attention to the strength of the body. They may take daily what they consider a sufficient amount of exercise; but the exercise is not calculated to keep the various limbs and muscles, still less the internal organs, in proper working order. Amid the ordinary concerns of life the man may appear strong, even stalwart. But when occasion arises for some special muscular exertion, or taxing the action of some organ, he finds out his weakness. A sudden alarm may tell him that his heart is weak. A sharp run of two or three hundred yards, or even less, may show him that his lungs are not to be trusted. A walk rather longer than he is accustomed to, and taken at a sharper pace than usual, may leave him so tired during the next day or two as to show that his lower extremities are not in

good working order Or he may learn a similar

lesson from a day's rowing or tricycling. In many more subtle ways, however, which often only an experienced doctor can recognise, the imperfect condition of the bodily mechanism, internal as well as external, may be indicated.

Now, in the present day, the men who are of most value to the community cannot afford time to acquire skill in athletic exercises. A man whose energies are wanted in his profession, be it law, medicine, literature, or preaching, or who has to attend keenly to business matters, either in his own behalf or in trust for others, might gain in some respects by a course of training such as would suit a prize-fighter, a wrestler, a runner, or a long-distance walker; but he would lose a great deal more. The energies cannot be heavily taxed in different ways, each sufficing to employ them fully, without bankruptcy of health. If, then, a man gives his energies in large part to bodily training, he cannot, without ruinous effects, devote his mind sufficiently to the business of his life, which we assume not to be the achievement of great feats of strength and endurance. It should even be, in fact, only with some degree of shame that a man who is not professionally employed in athletic work, should admit special skill in any sport or exercise which cannot be mastered save by devoting more time to it than his duties, properly discharged, would have permitted.

It is useless, then, or worse than useless, to endeavour to show members of the general community

how they can become athletes. They have not time for the necessary exercises, and if they had time they would be most unwise to use it in this way. But men, and women too, though they may have по оссаsion to acquire skill in athletic exercises, have great occasion to possess sound bodies,-unless they are passing absolutely useless lives, when they may do as they please so far as their value to the community is concerned. Even then, they add greatly to their own comfort and happiness by exchanging flabby muscles, too sensitive nerves, imperfect breathing apparatus, and feeble circulation, for a body healthy throughout —the corpus sanum, without which the mens sana is scarce possible.

I propose in this little treatise to show how, by devoting a few hours weekly to well-arranged exercises, this end can be attained. No violent exertions are necessary, no difficult feats need be attempted, no special form of exercise need occupy much of the time and attention; but each day a well-directed plan is to be followed, by which the weak and untrustworthy parts of the body are to be found out, and then steadily improved by exercise, until finally the body becomes like the "one-hoss shay" in Wendell Holmes's ingenious parable:

In building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot,
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel or cross-bar, or floor or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace-lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,-

Above or below, or within or without,-
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,

A chaise breaks down but doesn't wear out.

What is true of chaises is true of animals, man included. What the worthy deacon did for his new "shay" we can do for our bodies, or come near to it. Said the Deacon:

'Tis mighty plain

That the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain,
'n' the way t' fix it, as I maintain,

Is only jest

T' make that place as strong as the rest.

This is what we have to do with the vehicle in which we travel the road of life, if we would avoid premature collapse.

It is by no means necessary, as many imagine, to give much time daily to exercise in order to acquire a strong and hearty body. On the contrary, many who, dissatisfied with the condition of their health and strength, have begun to take more exercise than before, have defeated their purpose by taking too much exercise. To exhaust the frame by long walks and rides, or by undertaking some difficult and arduous system of training, would be unwise, even if the sole object were to acquire strength; but where the ultimate object is to increase the capacity for the work of life (as it must be with every man of sense), and this work is only indirectly dependent on bodily strength, it is utter folly to exhaust the frame. by efforts for which it is unfit.

Let it be noticed, then, that apart from such exer