So surely does a thoughtful ordering of life come in the
train of intelligence. If faith is to be placed in statistics of any
sort, then it holds true in foreign countries that human life is long in
proportion to the degree that knowledge, refinement, and virtue are
diffused. That is, sainthood, so far from destroying the body, preserves
it.
* * * * *
I anticipate the objection which may be made to our last argument.
Abroad, we are told, there is such an element of healthy, out-door life,
that any ill effects which might naturally follow in the train of
general education are neutralized. Abroad, too, education with the
masses is elementary, and advanced also with more moderation than with
us. Abroad, moreover, the whole social being is not pervaded with the
intense intellectual activity and fervor which are so characteristic
especially of New England life.
Come home, then, to our own Massachusetts, which some will have is
school-mad. What do you find? Here, in a climate proverbially changeable
and rigorous,--here, where mental and moral excitements rise to
fever-heat,--here, where churches adorn every landscape, and
school-houses greet us at every corner, and lyceums are established in
every village,--here, where newspapers circulate by the hundred
thousand, and magazines for our old folks, and "Our Young Folks," too,
reach fifty thousand,--here, in Massachusetts, health is at its climax:
greater and more enduring than in bonnie England, or vine-clad France,
or sunny Italy.
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