exhaustion. Because
they are avaricious? In many cases no. Because their own personal
expenses are lavish? No; a few hundred dollars would meet all their
wants. The simple fact is, the man is enduring all that fatigue and
exasperation, and wear and tear, to keep his home prosperous. There
is an invisible line reaching from that store, from that bank, from
that shop, from that scaffolding, to a quiet scene a few blocks, a few
miles away, and there is the secret of that business endurance. He is
simply the champion of a homestead, for which he wins bread, and
wardrobe, and education, and prosperity, and in such battle ten
thousand men fall. Of ten business men whom I bury, nine die of
overwork for others. Some sudden disease finds them with no power of
resistance, and they are gone. Life for life. Blood for blood.
Substitution!

At one o'clock to-morrow morning, the hour when slumber is most
uninterrupted and most profound, walk amid the dwelling-houses of the
city. Here and there you will find a dim light, because it is the
household custom to keep a subdued light burning: but most of the
houses from base to top are as dark as though uninhabited. A merciful
God has sent forth the archangel of sleep, and he puts his wings over
the city. But yonder is a clear light burning, and outside on the
window casement a glass or pitcher containing food for a sick child;
the food is set in the fresh air. This is the sixth night that mother
has sat up with that sufferer. She has to the last point obeyed the
physician's prescription, not giving a drop too much or too little, or
a moment too soon or too late. She is very anxious, for she has buried
three children with the same disease, and she prays and weeps, each
prayer and sob ending with a kiss of the pale cheek. By dint of
kindness she gets the little one through the ordeal. After it is all
over, the mother is taken down. Brain or nervous fever sets in, and
one day she leaves the convalescent child with a mother's blessing,
and goes up to join the three in the kingdom of heaven. Life for life.
Substitution! The fact is that there are an uncounted number of
mothers who, after they have navigated a large family of children
through all the diseases of infancy, and got them fairly started up
the flowering slope of boyhood and girlhood, have only strength enough
left to die. They fade away. Some call it consumption; some call it
nervous prostration; some call it intermittent or malaria