HABITS GOOD AND BAD play an important part in making or ruining vitality. One person keeps himself at the point of exhaustion in certain indiscretions, and goes through life an under dog; he never chooses to save his energy, and so blames the world because it owes him a living, and does not give it to him. There are men and women who are careless and defiantly negligent of their health, in the conceit that they are hardy and can endure any exposure. Here is a fine young man being buried who went out the other day in a chilling rain with no protection against outdoor conditions; he plunged from a warm house, without overcoat or rubbers, and in three hours was brought back home suffering from chills which developed into pneumonia. Obstinacy is the exact opposite of mental magnetism. Most of the bad judgment in the world is due to obstinacy; and a large proportion of deaths are the result of this defect of the brain.

Here is a woman who is clad in her indoor clothing standing at the outer door, saying a long and. oft repeated good-bye to a lady friend who is dressed for the chilling blasts and who does not mind standing there indefinitely. She lacks the judgment to leave promptly; and the woman whom she is saying good-bye to does not like to hurt her feelings; so she contracts fatal pneumonia, and hurts the feelings of husband and family. Any exposure that will end in death, will surely waken the energy when it does not kill.

Wet clothing.—Electricity which is the basis of magnetism, is just the same in a human body as it is in a storage battery or along a wire. Dampness is a good conductor, and will lead it away from its centers. When the clothing is wet, the body drops many degrees in vitality, as most persons find out when it is toolate. The same is true of damp or wet shoes. The same is trueif you sit on the ground, or stand in damp places, or in anyway connect the warm skin with the great fund of outer moisture by carelessness.

Thin Shoes.—We had intended to omit this enemy, because there is such opposition everywhere to the wearing of heavy shoes. But the fact may as well be stated that thin shoes bring thevital nerves of the feet so close to the ground that dangers ensue from wearing them. One of the severest critics of George Washington spoke of his shoes and boots as being heavy enough for a giant. Bonaparte made it a point to buy the heaviest shoes for the feet of his soldiers, as he found it saved them the disorders that arise from marching too much in damp places.

His soldiers were less stricken with bowel troubles than any armies ever known. In the Civil War of this country, more than one hundred thousand men died of bowel weakness. Sickness kills twice as many men as the shots of the enemy.

Standing on cold ground, or damp ground, or walking on wet or even damp ground, with thin shoes is one of the surest means of getting the body out of order, to say nothing of the loss of vitality that affects the generation of magnetism. This fact has been verified by a large number of experiments, and cannot be challenged.

Excitants of Appetite.—No greater mistake can be made than that of exciting or tempting the appetite with something that is abnormal. Nature furnishes excitants that are wholly within reason, but man seeks to improve on her efforts by perverted creations, such as spices, rich gravies, condiments, pastry, and almost anything that may be craved by abnormal tastes.

Much that grows in the lap of earth is poison. The products that are safe to take into the system are very few, compared with those that are death-dealing or poisonous. Therefore the fact that nature produces them is not proof that she produces them for the human family. The test of value is found in an analysis of the body itself. A certain number of chemical elements are required and their combinations are known to a certainty. Anything else is foreign and therefore an injury.

In hotels gravy is bought of gravy-makers, who produce it by the hundreds of barrels as a business. Analysis shows that it is not suited to the human body. This is but one of hundreds of things that people are compelled to eat who live away from their own firesides. The art of seasoning, flavoring and enriching worthless foods is now such an exact science that the expert chef, who does not want his employer to look into the kitchen, can take the carcase of a cow that died of tuberculosis, allow it to become badly tainted with decay, as was proved in a recent number of cases, then cook it so as to conceal the taste, dress it with gravies, and pass it before the banquet board as a delicious viand.

Most people eat too much. This being true the safer way is to eat only the foods that are known and recognized, and discard all others. We know that it is unpopular to teach plainness of diet, but we feel warranted in saying that vitality and magnetic energy are weakened by rich foods, and by the tempters of a false relish. The nearer we can come to plain eating, and not much of that, the greater will be the powers of life.

Indigestion.—It is hardly necessary to speak of this fault, after all that has been said. But it is a fault, rather than a malady, just as a headache or toothache is a fault. What can be prevented or removed cannot be termed a malady. Indigestion is either blind or acute. The latter is felt after eating, and may abide for hours or days. Blind indigestion is not felt at the stomach, and leads persons who eat hurtful foods to exclaim that they agree with them, for no unpleasant results are felt at the stomach. They do not take into consideration the rolling of the intestines, the weakness at the heart, the yellow bile in the face, and the bad breath; so they go on eating the things that keep the vitality low.

As all life, both magnetic and physical, comes from the nutrition that makes the body and its parts, the first great battle at this stage of the course, is to fight down and entirely remove all traces of indigestion, both acute and blind.

Carbon that has been turned into a poison by chemical action, is found in all conditions and almost everywhere. Its presence in breath that passes from the lungs is easily detected, for it will extinguish burning carbon, and where carbon will not burn life cannot exist. It is also present in all newly made bread, cake, and most of the eatables that are fresh from the even. It is the essential power in making dough rise. It is found in all soda water; and there is no drink so vicious as that which contains gas of carbon. It is found in all charged waters of every kind. It is the sparkle. Champagne is based almost wholly upon carbon gas for its quality. Wine, beer, cider, soft drinks, and all ferment are filled with this poison.

It is liked because it has the bite, the snap, the sparkle, and much of the scrape that throats long for. One of its great offices in sickness is to cleanse down the stomach after the mucus of anoutraged gastric juice has been collected there, clogging it to excess. The gaseous fluid cleanses it, just as a file will clean the teeth, or sandpaper will remove dirt from the face. Doctors galore recommend plain soda, or other form of carbon gas; and what wonder is it that nearly every person who has taken it, has had appendicitis? The latter malady is so much on the increase today that it may be called the forthcoming epidemic of civilization.. It is due to the loss of the fine surface membrane of the intestines, which opens the way to the vermiform; and this is the first result of too much carbon gas.

Neuritis is also becoming epidemic. It is due to the taking into the stomach of elements that are not assimilated by the system, because they are not food elements. More things that are not foods are eaten today than those that are foods. Yet they pass as foods, and are found on every menu and in most homes. These tax the vitality because they not only do not furnish nutrition to support it, but require a great and wasteful expenditure of power to dispose of them and get them out of the body.

Sickish Diet.—This does not mean sickening diet, but it is intended to include diet that gives mere pleasure and no strength. It costs a large fund of vitality each day to digest, and throw out of the system the excess of food that is generally taken; and when this excess is of the sickish kind, there can be no energy to be added to the storehouse of magnetism. The plainer the food, the greater is the energy and the vitality of the body. It is, however, a hard doctrine to preach, for there is a universal craving for carbon in one form or another. Some like their carbon in the shape of candy, some like it in cake, dessert, puddings, pies, doughnuts, fats, butter, cream or alcohol. The last named is almost pure carbon. When a person likes alcohol, there is less liking for sugars and fats, for the result would be disease. One form of carbon is interchangeable into another. Sugars everywhere make alcohol. Starches everywhere make alcohol. Starches make sugar. Rich gravies, ice creams, butter, cakes, candies, and all the things that please the palate, are carbons, and their own element could have passed easily into alcohol.

The child is born with a craving for carbon, and the mother's milk is therefore much sweeter in sugar than the milk of the cow whose young is destined to eat hay and grain. The human craving increases as years are unfolded, and no parent can ignore the demand of nature. The absence of carbon means the absence of magnetism; while the excess of it means the burning out of the fires. Nothing will burn that is not carbon. This craving allows the palate to pass on to the stomach almost anything that has carbon in it, and the result is the eating of much that is sickish in its nature, such as cakes, pastry, ice cream, new bread, gravies, patties, crisp fried and baked foods and many things that tax the energy of the nervous system in the effort to drive it out of the body.

We were at one time invited to sit upon the platform in a great hall where one of the most magnetic speakers of his times was to make an important address. He was a man who was known to possess what is called natural personal magnetism; having come by it through habits of life that tend to develop it.

Just before he appeared for the introduction, he made the statement that he had eaten an evening meal that contained too many rich foods; his stomach was uneasy, as he put it. A sickish taste was in his mouth. Eructations of gas troubled him. He said, "I generally eat sparingly before speaking to the public, and only the plainest foods. Now, to oblige a very kind hostess, I am not feeling as well as I should."

The speech was a failure; he did not evince any magnetism; and he made the apology to the audience that, he came there in poor health. Magnetism requires a sensible diet.