That your _egoism_ may not get the better of you in the start and bias you before reading my talk, I will frankly say that there is hardly a person living to-day who is either regular, cleanly, temperate, moral, or self-controlled. It is a fact that some have made fair efforts in those lines of action, but we shall attempt to prove that not any have perfected themselves in a single attribute above mentioned. With us, regularity, cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control are so interlaced as to become synonymous terms, the perfection of any one of which means the consummation of all, while their master could laugh at sorrow, pain, and even death, for through long years they would pass his door and forget to knock. Just in proportion as we approximate these virtues, correspondingly will our _lives_ be prolonged and our _happiness_ intensified. _Fear_ will not prostrate us because "Death rides on every passing breeze, He lurks in every flower." As modifying the foregoing partially, let us understand, however, that it is possible to have health and longevity to a wonderful degree without cleanliness, temperance, morality, and self-control, on one vital consideration. That is, the _continual_ exercise of _regularity_. Here we have the corner-stone of the whole structure of health, the cardinal first law. But can we be happy without the generous employment of _all_ these virtues? Obviously and fortunately, we cannot. _Health_ is also the chief _desideratum_ to happiness. As disease creeps through the physical frame, as aches and pains increase and torment our bodies, our _doubts_ supplant _faith_ in the _Source_ of all goodness. After a quarter of a century's constant devotion, in sackcloth and ashes, as it were, attempting to free the body from the shackles of pulmonary consumption, and growing gradually worse during the whole period, the majority of devotees, we think, would begin to inquire, "Are our prayers lacking sincerity? or is the Source of goodness at this time otherwise occupied? or may it not be that this for which I ask, I must seek by personal action?" We will try this self-helping method; if success comes, we will return to the same altar with a more exalted idea of a higher Source. Cleansed of our maladies, we will have a clearer perception of who and what is God. CHAPTER II. "There is naught like universal co-operation to promote universal achievement."