JOURNAL OF HEALTH. 
262 
' therefore incompetent to their natural uses. It 
is just as harmful for a man or woman to he oyer- 
spiritualized as it is to he too full of blood.— 
Only as the forces of the Holy Ghost can he 
taken in and assimilated to the spirit of man are 
they constructive. Otherwise they are injuri¬ 
ous. HOw-this will be when human beings 
come to have much more etherialized bodies 
than they now possess, I cannot tell. But it is 
scientifically certain that while they are consti¬ 
tuted so as to have Such gross material frames of 
bodies as now belong to them, they cannot stand 
at any given time too much spiritualization 
without physical detriment. If One places him- 
self in such relations as shall call upon him ex- 
• clu^ively to consider spiritual subjects for a 
great lefigth of time, that very process is phys- 
: teally injurious to him. 
If in addition to this he is so placed as to be- 
come the subject Of spiritual in-breathings so 
’ that all his emotional nature is wrought up to 
Its highest activity in addition to the exercise 
of his natural faculties, then this compound 
process is positively destructive to him. If it 
• were continued on and on for any great length. 
• Of tim^JpjlloaaX*"'" n,4 ~~“ 
j ected. How shall this be done ? First, by sep¬ 
arating the duties of the preacher and the pas¬ 
tor. He who preaches should not be a man who 
teaches. Preaching is one thing and teaching 
is quite another and different thing/ The 
preacher is an inspirationist. He comes from 
God. The teacher or the pastor is a spiritual 
assistant. He goes about amongst the people 
to look after, care for, and assist them in any 
direction where he may be valuable by reason 
of his superior knowledge of men and things 
and of the combined forces which are at work 
to make men happy or unhappy in their vari¬ 
ous personal and social relations to earthly ex¬ 
istence. He can find out their wants, become 
acquainted with their trials and their troubles, 
their difficulties and their hindrances, and he 
can summon them up to the great place of as¬ 
semblage on Sunday expressly for the purpose 
of having the preacher come to them not so much 
to reason as to inspire them With love. 
The object of preaching is to communicate 
God’s spiritual presence to the people. The ob¬ 
ject of teaching is to instruct men in'their dai- 
l 1 - - 1 *^— wit ^iaiis and as creatures of earth. 
vj i/nat we see ._.o often ^ 
of religion. There is very great danger of per¬ 
sons of peculiar organizations having their 
bodily functions disturbed and made to lose their 
balance by their possessors being thoroughly 
. absorbed in the contemplation of subjects of a 
spiritual nature, Or by their taking in so, much 
spiritual magnetism as to affect the physical 
system. Whenever this does happen, two ill 
results ensue: one is that the person becomes 
Ill-related to spiritual things and is made to have 
morbid spiritual impressions. No one there¬ 
fore can rely upon any statements which he may 
make of his spiritual experience; the other is 
that such person suffers in physical health, thus 
< often breaking down, the causes thereof being 
beyond the knowledge or skill of the medical 
men employed. 
As about seven-eights of the persons who 
come to Our Home to be treated for their vari¬ 
ous ailments are professing Christians, belong¬ 
ing to the various denominations of Christians 
existing in our country, I have no hesitancy 
in saying that many of these have had their dis- 
- eases either originate in too excessive religious 
* devotion and excitement or have had them in¬ 
tensified thereby. 
If I am right in my views, a reformation in 
matters of public and social worship is greatly 
needed with our people. I suggest therefore 
that the reform be begun by giving to ministers 
* emancipation from the thraldom to whicli they 
«^are at present as in the past they have been sub- 
He may create feelings of revulsion in his con¬ 
gregation. No man can be by any process pre¬ 
pared to stand in a pulpit and reason purely of 
Divine influences to his fellow men. That is 
not what he is ordained for. The gospel min¬ 
istry contemplates the bringing of power from 
Aboye to men and breathing this On to them 
through words, if one pleases; not by purely in¬ 
tellectual presentation, but rather through emo¬ 
tional and affectional expressions* 
Let the pastor be a pious and good man, 
benevolent, disinterested, intelligent and self- 
sacrificing. Let the people assemble on Sunday 
once, for what is called worship, by which I 
mean for taking on new and fresh impressions 
of the worthiness of God and their own especial 
need of obtainment of life and strength and 
health from him. When that session closes let 
them go home, and give to them by public con¬ 
sent the right to go out into the fields, 'ride out 
on the highways, wander in shady nooks, see 
all the beautiful things which God has made, ■ 
take their personal ease and personal comfort,,, 
derive pleasure from social communion, and thus 
fasten on them the feeling that God is infinite- 
ly greater than they and is therefore worthy 
of their love and that His influence and majesty 
are greater than the circumstanceS'Surrounding 
them or the incidents and contingencies of their 
daily existence. They will thus get near to God 
and become self-respectful and entertain true 
ideas of the dignity of human nature. , 
