We will only say in closing this chapter that its subject is most truly illustrated by the life of our Lord himself. The mediaeval conception of Christ was that He exhibited only the passive virtues of meekness, patience, and submission to wrong. From the gospels we form a different idea. He vanquished the devil in the wilderness; He faced human opposition boldly and without fear; He denounced the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and encountered their rage and violence. He went calmly along His appointed path, neither turning to the right hand nor to the left. Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, could not deter Him from doing His Father's work. Amid a tumultuous tempest of ill-will He moved straight forward, foreseeing His death, "setting His face toward Jerusalem," knowing all that awaited Him there. He went through Gethsemane to Calvary with the step of a conqueror. Never was He more truly a king than on the cross, and the grandest crown ever worn was "the crown of thorns." In Him we have the highest example of courage, as of all other virtues. CHAPTER VIII. HEALTH. Health means soundness of body and of mind; the keeping of our physical system in such a condition that it is able to do its work easily, without disturbance, and without pain; the exercise of the mind so as not to harm the body. There are certain preliminary considerations that we should bear in mind in connection with this subject. I. The close connection between body and mind.--They are both related to each other in some mysterious way. So close is the connection that the one cannot be affected without the other. The well-being of the one depends on the well-being of the other. The power which the mind has over the body and the body over the mind has been well and tersely described by a writer of our time. "Man," he says, "is one, however compound. Fire his conscience, and he blushes; check his circulation, and he thinks tardily or not at all; impair his secretions, and the moral sense is dulled, discolored, or depraved, his aspirations flag, his hope and love both reel; impair them still more, and he becomes a brute. A cup of wine degrades his moral nature below that of the swine. Again, a violent emotion of pity or horror makes him vomit; a lancet will restore him from delirium to clear thought; excessive thought will waste his energy; excess of muscular exercise will deaden thought; an emotion will double the strength of his muscles; and at last, a prick of a needle or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay to rest forever his body and its unity." [1] When we consider the close connection between mind and body, and how the state of the one affects the other, we see how important it is that both should work together in that harmonious action which is health, and how carefully we should guard against anything by which that harmonious action may be interrupted.