It is not to keep us from death, it is no superstitious
avoidance of the next life, that should call loudest for the
physician's skill; but the necessity of teaching and remedying the
inferior bodies which have come to us through either our ancestors'
foolishness or our own. So few people know even what true and complete
physical life is, much less anything of the spiritual existence that
is already possible, and so few listen to what the best doctors are
trying their best to teach. While half-alive people think it no wrong
to bring into the world human beings with even less vitality than
themselves, and take no pains to keep the simplest laws of health, or
to teach their children to do so, just so long there will be plenty of
sorrow of an avoidable kind, and thousands of shipwrecked, and
failing, and inadequate, and useless lives in the fullest sense of the
word. How can those who preach to the soul hope to be heard by those
who do not even make the best of their bodies? but alas, the
convenience and easiness, or pleasure, of the present moment is
allowed to become the cause of an endless series of terrible effects,
which go down into the distance of the future, multiplying themselves
a thousandfold.
The doctor told Nan many curious things as they drove about together:
certain traits of certain families, and how the Dyers were of strong
constitution, and lived to a great age in spite of severe illnesses
and accidents and all manner of unfavorable conditions; while the
Dunnells, who looked a great deal stronger, were sensitive, and
deficient in vitality, so that an apparently slight attack of disease
quickly proved fatal.
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