Читать книгу The House We Live In; or, The Making of the Body онлайн

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Percy: Adam and Eve must have had fine, large houses.

Helen: And they lasted a long time, too. Adam lived in his for over nine hundred years.

Mother: It is said that men keep building better houses all the time, but the first body-house God made was the best ever seen in this world.

Amy: But why are they not made good and lasting now, mother?

Mother: One reason is because we do not use them well. Many persons would do better in caring for themselves if they knew better how to do it. If I gave you a costly watch, Percy, what is the first thing you would want to know about it?

Percy: How to take care of it.

Mother: Yes, you would find out how and when to wind it, and just how to use it so it would keep good time. We should be even more careful to learn all we can about our bodies. We should learn for what each part was made, and how to keep it in good order. Men have taken bodies like ours apart, just as a watchmaker takes out all the wheels of a watch, and they have found out many things about them in this way. We should learn all we can about how to keep well and strong. If we are ill we make much trouble for others, and must suffer ourselves. If we are well we shall be a help and blessing to all around us. Not long ago I read this prayer of a little girl for her body:—