In this life, God has linked together our bodies and our minds, and man cannot with impunity disregard their union or divide their interests; act and react they will, and do, upon one another. Their Creator has made the one the instrument of the other; and as well might we look for harmony from an unstrung harp, be the player ever so skilful, as for perfect working from a mind, however good and powerful, through the means of a sickly body. True, there have been many possessors of sickly bodies, many sufferers from permanent "bad health," who have not only done much active good, but who have worked well and successfully with their minds; yet may we not justly suppose that, had the same minds dwelt in healthy frames, had they not been clogged and clouded by the frequent "infirmities of the flesh," their good deeds would have been still more widely spread, their intellectual exertions still more powerfully manifested? Even in the more ordinary business of life, in the counting-house or in the work-shop, how often is work too slowly or imperfectly executed, because of minds hampered by bodies in bad working order; because the physical training of the body has been, and is, day by day neglected! Few there are whose individual experience cannot revert to hours, days, lost to them, simply from derangements of health which might have been avoided, and which, though not amounting to illness, were yet sufficient to render either duty or amusement a labor or a "bore." How few are there who do not know the difference between the irritability, the nervous fears, the indolence and despondency of illness, and that cheerful activity of good health which laughs at trifles, looks forward with hope, and finds work a pleasure! How strong the reasons, then, for training the health and powers of the body to their highest pitch, seeing that upon their perfection depends the more or less complete fulfilment of our duty to God, our neighbors, and ourselves! We return to the rule No. 1, of Physical Training.--The cultivation and preservation of physical health.