52 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



revealed with such skill to the work-a-day world. It is not unlikely 

 that he would have entered the army as did his son, and have furnished 

 a mark for Napoleon's cannon. 



In a profession where, until recently, its members have preached, 

 even if they have not practised, the neglect and abuse of the body, one 

 would expect to find many examples of the feeble and sickly who have 

 risen to eminence, or who, in the course of an active, strenuous life, 

 from their very attitude toward the body, have brought on ill health and 

 weakness. Yet among the great religious leaders there have been many 

 examples of fine bodily presence and especially of phenomenal energy 

 and endurance. In an age of over-indulgence it is difficult to know just 

 what the asceticism of the medieval monks amounted to, but even where, 

 by their devotion to a mistaken ideal, the bodily machinery was un- 

 doubtedly more or less damaged, they often showed that they pos- 

 sessed a wonderful vitality and fund of nervous energy. 



Among religionists St. Bernard is described as being, in early life, 

 a man of fine presence ; in later years he is pictured as " most delicate," 

 without flesh. Those who knew his labors " felt as if in him a lamb had 

 been harnessed to pull a plow." He was extremely ascetic, suicidally so, 

 it would seem, as his friends had at one time to rescue him from himself 

 and place him in the hands of a shepherd who taught him a few items of 

 common sense. Nevertheless he is reputed to have surpassed robust 

 men in his endurance, a trait readily attributed by his biographers to 

 superior spirituality. Though strong enough for his monastic work, 

 Bernard was undoubtedly physically unfit to lead the crusade which he 

 preached, else he would not have refused the post. On the surface at 

 least he does not appear to lend much support to our present thesis. 



According to his half-legendary history, Francis of Assisi was a 

 dashing young man who was turned from a life of frivolity to the relig- 

 ious life by a severe illness. There is no doubt but that St. Francis 

 abused his body and lived the unsanitary life. His conscience must 

 have smote him, for when he came to die at forty-five he begged pardon 

 of " Brother Ass, the body," for having neglected him so shamefully. 



The fiery Savanarola did nothing by halves, and we are told that, 

 like Bernard, he was so severe in his mortifications of the flesh that 

 " his superiors were frequently obliged to curb his zeal." There is no 

 record of any sickness and notwithstanding his asceticism he must have 

 been anything but weakly to the day of his martyrdom. 



Luther, as a monk, apparently damaged his health by the over- 

 zealous mortification of the flesh. In his post-monkish days he per- 

 haps went to the other extreme. He was apparently a very vigorous, 

 active man until forty, when, doubtless from his too generous living, a 

 troop of ailments settled upon him. 



In Erasmus we have another example of the scholar of the cloister. 



