can make them laugh, I do not thank anybody for the next move; I will make them cry. Did you ever see a woman carrying a pan of milk quite full, and it slops over on one side, that it did not immediately slop over on the other also?

Q. If a man "slops over" on some occasions, is he not liable to "slop over" continually?

MR. BEECHER. Not long in one place, if he does it continually. If you take the liberty, however, from what I have said, to quote stale jokes; if you make queer turns because they will make people laugh, and to show you have power over the congregation, you will prove yourselves contemptible fellows. But if, when you are arguing any question, the thing comes upon you so that you see a point in a ludicrous light, you can sometimes flash it at your audience, and accomplish at a stroke what you were seeking to do by a long train of argument, and that is entirely allowable. In such a case do not attempt to suppress laughter. It is a part of the nature that God gave us, and which we can use in his service. When you are fighting the Devil, shoot him with anything.

Q. Would not a man, under such circumstances, be in danger of overturning just what he was trying to accomplish?

MR. BEECHER. No; unless he accompanies it very poorly.

If a minister is earnest and honest, and a man of God, if he bears about him the savor of the heavenly world and the benevolence of this life, his people will know it. If you know the difference between a man who is in earnest and one who is merely playing, do

you suppose the people will respond to the superficial and lower qualities, and not to the greater and nobler ones in a true preacher ?

Q. How long would you advise a young man to preach?

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MR. BEECHER. As long as he can make his people take his sermon. That is very much like asking how long a coat you should have made for people, in general.

HERE has been, in recent times, a great deal more information diffused among the common people on the subject of health than formerly, and men live more whole

somely, and all the processes of society are in better accordance with the laws of life. Men have more intelligent ideas of what to avoid and what to seek.

There is one relation, however, to which I shall more particularly confine myself to-day, which has been largely left out of the popular consideration, and that is the relation of health to brain-work.

If you take a full stem of wheat in harvest-time, and shake out all the kernels of wheat, what is left is chaff and straw. So, if you take from a man his brainpower, all that is left of him is chaff and straw; that is, it is nothing but animal. All there is of a man lies in the nerve and brain power; and while the business of life is to take care of the bone and muscle, the stomach, the liver, the lungs, and the heart, that is only because this is the way to take care of that which is, after all, the sovereign, and for which all these other

things are merely servants and messengers and purveyors. It is the brain-power, or the mental power as expressed through the brain, that causes man to surpass the lower creations around him.

Now, it is not very difficult for a man to live in the enjoyment of good health who is born with a good constitution, which he has not in youth drained and sapped, and who has come into a noble and virtuous manhood, and into a profession that will keep him within proper bounds of exertion. But you must remember that you are going to be under fire. Let a man be in the midst of a desperate naval engagement, where the shot and shell are filling the air, and the splinters flying thick as hail, he will find it is not so easy to pass unscathed. Let a man be in the midst of an awakened community, where all the members of two hundred families have a right to go to his fire and light their torches; where he is obliged to preach Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and twice on Sunday; where he is visited by all; where he must preside at prayermeetings and social gatherings; and where he has to be a perpetual fountain, out of which so many different hydrants are drawing their supplies, then to keep one's health is a very different thing.

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There are few men in the ministry who live at one half their competency or power. They do not know how to make their machines work at a high rate of speed, with great executive energy, without damage to themselves. It is an art to be healthy at all; but to be healthy when you are run at the top of your speed all the time is a great art indeed.

WHAT IS HEALTH?

Let me tell you that when I speak of health, I do not mean merely not being sick. I divide people into, first, the sick folk; secondly, the not-sick folk; thirdly, the almost-healthy folk; and fourthly and they are the elect the folk that are healthy. What I mean. by "health" is such a feeling or tone in every part of a man's body or system that he has the natural language of health. What is the natural language of health? Look at four-months-old puppies, and see. Look at kittens, and see. Look at children, from the time they are three or four or five years old. Look at young men, when they are at school and at the academy. They cannot eat enough, nor holloa enough, nor run enough, nor wrestle enough. They are just full. It is buoyancy. It is the insatiable desire of play and of exertion.

The nature of the human constitution, in a state of health, is to be a creative instrument or agent; and the necessity in a man to be creating outside of himself is one of the noblest tokens of health. When one has been kept at work and under the yoke, he has played off his surplus energy in the various channels of his business activities. We do not expect a man to bound and caper about, for the simple reason that he has other legitimate channels to work off his steam in. But let him get a vacation. He goes to the White Mountains. He has three or four days of uncaring rest and nights of long sleep, and then he awakes to the stimulus of the mountains. "Well," he says, "I feel like a boy again," which is only another way of saying, "I feel my health."