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Why should ni Catholic Church call 



mortal sin;' Wliy should fasting oeeupv a placr in the 

 :' religion? What is tin- Hi of Luther's 



advice in the VOUIIL: ch-r^v man \\ ho cam-- to him, perplex. -d 

 with the dilliculties : ination and 



not that, in virtue of its action upon the brain, when wisely 

 applied. tin-re is moral and religions \irtueevcnin a hydro- 

 carbon? To use tin? old language, food and drink are 

 i: u res of God, and liavi' re a spiritual value. 



Through our neglect of tin* monitions of a reaonalle 

 matt-rialism we sin anil suffer tlailv. 1 might here point to 



train of deadly disorders over'which 6< 



lorn society sucli control disclosing the lair of the 

 material ennny, insuring his destruction, and t! 

 venting that moral squalor and hopelessness which ha 

 ually tread on the heels of epidemics in the case of tin- 

 poor. 



:ig to higher spheres, the visions of Swedenborg, and 

 the ecstasy of Flotinus and Porphyry, are phases of that 

 psychical condition, obviously connected with the nervons 

 system and utate of health, on which is based the Vedic 



trine of the absorption of the individual into the 

 universal soul. IMotinus taught the de\out how to pass 

 into a condition of ecstasy. Porphyry complains of h:i\ 



i only once united to <iod in eighty-six years, whil- 

 master rlotinus had h'-en so united six times in sixty 

 years.* A friend who know Wordsworth informs me that 

 the poet, in some of his moods, was accustomed to .- 

 hold of an external object to assure himself of his own 

 bodily existence. As states of consciousness such phenom- 

 ena have an undisputed reality, and a substantial idcn 

 but they are connected with the most hetero^en- 

 objective conceptions. The subjective experiences 

 similar, because of the similarity of the underlying org.in- 

 i/.al; 



But for those who wish to look beyond the practical 

 facts, there will always remain ample room for speculation. 

 Take the argument of the Lucretian introduced in 

 Belfast address. As far as I am aware, not one of 



* I recommend to the reader't* particular ir 

 ii!i|...rin! ntlirt between \t<- 



and Science." (Menre. II. > King and * 



