ism is
therefore not a thing to be mourned over, but to be honestly
considered--accepted if it be wholly true, rejected if it be wholly
false, wisely sifted and turned to account if it embrace a mixture of
truth and error. Of late years the study of the nervous system, and
its relation to thought and feeling, have profoundly occupied
enquiring minds. It is our duty not to shirk--it ought rather to be
our privilege to accept--the established results of such enquiries,
for here assuredly our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to the
truth. Instructed as to the control which the nervous system
exercises over man's moral and intellectual nature, we shall be better
prepared, not only to mend their manifold defects, but also to
strengthen and purify both. Is mind degraded by this recognition of
its dependence? Assuredly not. Matter, on the contrary, is raised to
the level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance would
remove it.

But the light is dawning, and it will become stronger as time goes on.
Even the Brighton "Church Congress" affords evidence of this. From
the manifold confusions of that assemblage my memory has rescued two
items, which it would fain preserve: the recognition of a relation
between Health and Religion, and the address of the Rev. Harry Jones.
Out of the conflict of vanities his words emerge wholesome and strong,
because undrugged by dogma, coming directly from the warm brain of one
who knows what practical truth means, and who has faith in its
vitality and inherent power of propagation.

I wonder whether he is less effectual in his ministry than his more
embroidered colleagues? It surely behoves our teachers to come to
some definite understanding as to this question of health; to see how,
by inattention to it, we are defrauded, negatively and positively:
negatively, by the privation of that 'sweetness and light' which is
the natural concomitant of good health; positively, by the insertion
into life of cynicism, ill-temper, and a thousand corroding anxieties
which good health would dissipate. We fear and scorn 'materialism.'
But he who knew all about it, and could apply his knowledge, might
become the preacher of a new gospel. Not, however, through the
ecstatic moments of the individual does such knowledge come, but
through the revelations of science, in connection with the history of
mankind.

Why should the Roman Catholic Church call gluttony a mortal sin? Why
should fas