220 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



I wonder whether he is less effectual in his ministry 

 than his more embroidered colleagues ? It surely be- 

 hoves our teachers to come to some definite under- 

 standing as to this question of health ; to see how, ly 

 inattention to it, we are defrauded, negatively and 

 positively : negatively, by the privation of that ' sweet- 

 ness 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 Eoman Catholic Church call glut- 

 tony a mortal sin ? Why should fasting occupy a place 

 in the disciplines of religion ? What is the meaning of 

 Luther's advice to the young clergyman who came to 

 him, perplexed with the difficulties of predestination 

 and election, if it be not that, in virtue of its action 

 upon the brain, when wisely applied, there is moral and 

 religious virtue even in a hydro-carbon ? To use the 

 old language, food and drink are creatures of God, and 

 have therefore a spiritual value. Through our neglect 

 of the monitions of a reasonable materialism we sin and 

 suffer daily. I might here point to the train of deadly 

 disorders over which science has given modern society 

 such control disclosing the lair of the material enemy, 

 ensuring his destruction, and thus preventing that 

 moral squalor and hopelessness which habitually tread 

 on the heels of epidemics in the case of the poor. 



Rising to higher spheres, the visions of Swedenborg, 

 and the ecstasy of Plotinus and Porphyry, are phases of 



