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It is doubtless the case that there is a class of intelligent men and women who, recognizing the moral obligation to obey the laws of health, are seeking to lead physiological lives, and are thereby improving physically. But this class is very small compared with the great mass of the whole community.

The same may be said with reference to morals. There are doubtless a considerable number of good people who are growing better. At the same time there is a vast multitude of evil persons who are becoming worse.

It is perfectly true that the world is moving forward in the way of discovery, invention, and various other lines of progress and it would be very delightful indeed to believe that in physical and moral improvement we are keeping pace with intellectual and material advancement; but unfortunately the facts do not conform to this view.

What the world needs is a John the Baptist to proclaim the gospel of health, -- a voice crying in the wilderness of disease, degeneracy, and death, and pointing the way upward and away from the awful fate which threatens the race, to a healthier, nobler life, -- a life based upon a recognition of the fact that the body is a temple of God, a divine gift, which we are under sacred obligations to preserve. The door of salvation stands open for all who will enter it. This door leads into the highway of righteousness, which means not simply church-going, contributions to charity, religious formalism, but a recognition of the claims of the great decalogue which, if followed, leads man to right-doing in all his relations to life, physical, mental, and moral.

The only thing that can stay the downward progress of the race is the practical recognition of our obligation to obey all the precepts of the great decalogue which God has established for the physical, mental, and moral well being of man. The only way in which men and women can be led to do this is by the wide dissemination of the true principles of normal and healthful living. Schools of health ought to be established in every community, to give instruction in healthful cookery, healthful dress, physical training, domestic sanitation, and all that pertains to the physical well-being of the home and the individual, and the principles of right living.