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 Man, moral and physical: 
 
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 olin,anx 
 
MAN, 
 MORAL. AND PHTSICALj 
 
 OR THE 
 
 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 oir 
 
 EELIGIQUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 BY THE 
 Rev. JOSEPH H.^JONES, D. D. 
 
 PASTOR OF THE SIXTH FSESBTTEItlAN CHUBCH, FHILADELPBIA. 
 
 Non ignara mali miseria sueourrere disco. 
 
 'Adwarov, xaxaii; <l'uyrj<; iyoixrqz, 
 Mij 01) xal awjjLa aurrj auvoiascv. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 WILLIAM S. & ALFEED MARTIEN 
 606 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 1860, 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 
 JOSEPH H. JONES, 
 
 In the Office of the Clerk of the District Court for the Eastern 
 District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 SKR AT A. 
 On page 42, line tentli from top, for Areicetis read Aretrmis. 
 On page 112, line sixth from top, for paisis read posris. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Connection between the Matekial and Spiritual 
 PARTS IN Man — David's language concerning his fear- 
 ful and wonderful make, supported by the researches of 
 physiology — The connection between the body and soul 
 of man as inexplicable as the mystery of the Trinity — 
 "We know nothing of the substance of which either is 
 composed — The attempts of science to explain these ulti- 
 mate facts a failure — Much that is written concerning 
 the soul no more than speculation — Bemark of Dr. Aber- 
 crombie — ^We know only a few facts in relation to either 
 mind or matter — ^Nervous system, the medium of com- 
 munication between them — The subject blends with all 
 that conduces to the enjoyment and usefulness of life — 
 What is proposed in the present treatise — A book of the 
 kind called for by the exigencies of the Church — ^Nu- 
 merous works exhibit the subject in its pathological 
 bearings, or as a department of physiology — ^Intended to 
 be a portable tract for Christians of unequal and fluctua- 
 ting experience — The nerves, how they are the channels 
 of communication between the mind and the body — 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 Their branches or ramifications have a sort of omnipre- 
 sence in the animal fabric — Sympathy and sympathetic 
 nerve — What constitutes the nervous system — Nq per- 
 ceptible change in the size, colour, or shape of the 
 nerves when diseased — Nature of the nervous force — 
 Not identical with electricity — How the communion be- 
 tween the brain, spinal marrow, and nerves is effected, 
 we do not know — Not necessary to our happiness to 
 know the essence of mind and matter — The morbid re- 
 sults of the union of the two, called "nervous," a penalty 
 for this abuse of the blessings of civilized life — Nervous 
 diseases little known among savages — Medicine not ex- 
 tensively cultivated among the ancients — Less occasion 
 for the study and practice — How far was the great age 
 of man, originally, the result of physical causes — Dr. 
 Cheyne's opinion of the effect of luxurious, intemperate, 
 and licentious habits — The records of prisons and alms- 
 houses — ^Idiotic in a Massachusetts' Charity — Juvenile 
 delinquents at Parkhurst, England — Kemark of Mr. 
 Coleridge. Pages 13—23. 
 
 I. The Sacred "Writings — The comparative silence of the 
 Scriptures on the subject easily accounted for — Modern 
 discoveries of physiology not found in the Bible, but exem- 
 plifications of their truth in the experience and exercises 
 of the religious — The case of Saul — of David, as ex- 
 hibited in many of his psalms — Of the disciples in the 
 garden of Grethsemane — The Apostle Paul — Quotations 
 from serious minded heathen by the Fathers — Cicero on 
 human nature — Mixture of Christianity and Persian 
 philosophy in the system of the Manicheans of the third 
 century. Pages 23 — 27. 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 II. The Testimony op Science — Connection between the 
 material and spiritual parts implied in the abuses of 
 science — Made the basis of materialism under the form 
 of craniosoopy, phrenology, &c. — The system of Law- 
 rence — The human frame made a barrel-organ — Such 
 sentiments at variance with sound science — Discoveries 
 concerning the whole internal apparatus of the body. 
 Pages 27—31. 
 The Brain — Soldier at the battle of "Waterloo— Patient of 
 Sir Astley Cooper — of Dr. Caldwell — Size of the human 
 brain — of Lord Byron's — Baron Cuvier's — of Bona^ 
 parte's — Case of Dean Swift — Conceit of some physiolo- 
 • gists — of Descartes — We do not know how the power of 
 ^ thought is originated. Pages 31 — 35. 
 The Stomach — -Its connection with the mind — Appetite 
 affected by the states of the mind — King Lear — Dr. 
 Brigham — Cardinal Woolsey and Henry VIII. — The 
 stomach reacts upon the mind — Dyspepsia supposed to 
 be a disease of the brain — Aristotle and the hypochon- 
 driacs of his day. Pages 35 — 38. 
 The Lungs and Heart — Affected by the brain. Pages 
 
 38, 39. 
 The Liver — The uses of this organ — Its influence on 
 the temperament, mental functions, &o, — The story of 
 Tityus — Version of Lucretius, Hippocrates, Galen, Are- 
 taeus — Their use of the term "melancholy." Pp. 39-42. 
 The Spleen — The use of this spongy viscus — Opinions of 
 Dr. G-ood and Archdeacon Paley — ^Remarks of a lady of 
 genius and accomplishments on the subject of hepatic 
 influence. Pages 42 — 45. 
 Love — ^Power of the passion — Antiochus and Stralxjnice. 
 Page 45. 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 Hope — Its connection with the success of surgical opera- 
 
 • tions and the results of medicine — Battle of Mincio in 
 1859 — The French, Sardinians, and Austrians — Patient 
 of Dr. Rush — Parke, the traveller. Pages 45 — 48. 
 
 Fear — Experiment in Russia on four murderers — Exemp- 
 tion of the inmates of Cherry Hill prison from cholera 
 during its prevalence — Immunity of physicians from 
 attacks of disease — Curative efiScacy of fear — Cases men- 
 tioned hy Drs. Batchelder, Rush, and Boerhaave — Pre- 
 vention of the monomania called by Dr. Moore the 
 "fashionable apology for murder" — Case of a man in 
 New Hampshire — The effect of the teachings of Brous- 
 sais — Case of Dr. Hunter — Corvisart's lectures on the 
 heart, at Paris — Opinion of Testa — Disease of the heart , 
 common in times of political agitation — France at the 
 time of the Revolution — Case recorded in the French 
 Journal of Medicine — Hair on half the head of a patient 
 in Pennsylvania Hospital whitened by fear — Whole head 
 of Marie Antoinette made white by the same cause — 
 Case of a Sepoy of the Bengal army mentioned in the 
 London Medical Times, 1858 — Of the young men at- 
 tempting to rob an eagle's nest — The young gambler at 
 San Francisco. Pages 48 — 55. 
 
 Geief — Description of it by Father Chrysostom — Melanc- 
 thon — Philip V. of Spain — Dr. Zimmermann's opinion 
 of the cause of his death — Dr. Johnson — Metaphorical 
 expression "broken heart," sometimes pathologically cor- 
 rect. Pages 55, 56. 
 
 Jot — A woman in the city of New York — Cases of Sopho- 
 cles, Chilo, Juventius, Talma, and Fouquet. Pages 
 56, 57. 
 
 Chagrin, or Shame — Story told by the Rev. Daniel 
 Baker. Page 57. 
 
CONTENTS. Vii 
 
 Physical effects of a mokbid imitative Sympathy, 
 AND OF Imagination — ^Kev. Dr. Davidson's History of 
 the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky — His account of 
 the "bodily exercises" which attended revivals of reli- 
 gion — The falling, rolling, running, dancing, barking, 
 and jerking exercises — Account of the Jerks — Bodily 
 exercises in Ireland — Account of Kev. Dr. Macnaugh- 
 ton — Power of imagination exemplified in the records of 
 empiricism — "Metallic tractors" — Wooden tractors of 
 Dr. Haygarth — Dr. "Woodhouse and nitrous oxide — Bar- 
 tholini, a physician of Copenhagen, 1616 — Dr. Franciscus 
 Borri, of Milan — Case of a Neapolitan merchant men- 
 tioned by Gregorius Leti in his history of the Duke 
 D'Ossuna — Selden's "Table-Talk" — Case of a gentleman 
 cured by a card wrapped in taffeta — The reflected in- 
 fluences of the mind and the body too little understood — 
 The subject a branch of Moral Therapeutics of great 
 importance to those who are charged with the health 
 of either the body or the soul. Pages 57 — 68. 
 
 III. Christian Experience — Religious frames closely 
 allied to what is called the " constitution" — ^Idiosyncra- 
 sies of nature not merged in grace — Remark of the 
 astrologers concerning Cyrus — Example of Simon Peter — 
 of Paul and John — of Melancthon — of Martin Luther — 
 Rev. Timothy Rogers — Christianity made to suffer from 
 the physical sufferings of its professors — ^Their spiritual 
 fluctuations produced by physical causes — Rev. Dr. J. 
 R. McDuff — Dr. Francia — Case mentioned by Dr. Spen- 
 cer, of Brooklyn — Case of Rev. Mr. Cecil — Rev. Dr. 
 James Hall, of North Carolina — A venerable clergyman 
 lately deceased — Dean Milner — Richard Baxter — Dr. 
 Payson — David Brainerd, and the poet Cowper. Pages 
 68—96. 
 
VUl CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Uses of Knowledge on the subject — Remark of Rev. 
 Dr. A. Alexander concerning young preachers-^Rev. 
 Mr. Greenham's sentiments. Pages 97 — 100. 
 
 DocTiiiNE — Subject profitable for — President Edwards' 
 remarks concerning Brainerd — Case of Dr. Rush — His 
 Essay on the Influence of Physical Causes on the Moral 
 Faculty — Rev. Thomas Boston — His " Crook in the 
 Lot" — Dr. Alexander's opinion of the work — Extract 
 from a preacher's diary — Case of Rev. Dr. Thomas 
 Scottr — of Rev. Andrew Fuller — of Dr. Madan and Cow- 
 per — Censure of physicians by the Secretary of the 
 Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris. Pages 100 — 106. 
 
 Charity — Subject profitable for — The melancholy claim 
 our condolence — Are not to be treated with levity or 
 ridicule — Dr. John Cheyne's description of nervous dis- 
 eases — The sufferings which they cause inconceivable to 
 any who do not know them by experience — Such suf- 
 ferers not to be rebuked with severity — Rev. Mr. Dod — ? 
 Rev.' Timothy Rogers — -The power of kind words. Pages 
 106—112. 
 
 Useful for Reproof and Correction— It explodes the 
 popular error of ascribing certain disordered states of 
 the mind to the influence of religion — Testimony of 
 Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander — Insane monks in France 
 before the Revolution — Mental disorder caused by epi- 
 demical delusions — Dr. G-eorge Moore, member of the 
 Royal College of Physicians in London — His opinion on 
 the alleged influences of religion in producing insanity — 
 Of Rev. Dr. Ashbel Green — Of Doctors Abercrombie, 
 Burrowes, John Cheyne, and Combe — Dr. James John- 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 son's remark on the subject — Patient of Dr. Kirkbride 
 in the Pennsylvania Hospital — Four cases of mental dis- 
 order within the sphere of the author's pastoral expe- 
 rience — The mistake of imputing to Satanic agency what 
 is dependent on bodily disease — Case of the wife of 
 Kev. John Newton — Case of John Bunyan — of Martin 
 Luther — Opinion of Richard Baxter — Injurious influ- 
 ence on the mind ascribed to Calvinism — Opinion of a 
 writer in the Encyclopedia Britannica — of Esquirol — 
 Macaulay — Haley's insinuation in relation to Cowper 
 unwarranted — Judicious remark of Dr. Cheyne — Case of 
 an injured wife in London. Pages 112 — 131. 
 Use for Consolation — Doctrine of physical influences 
 liable to be perverted — It suggests many questions not 
 to be solved by referring them to conscience — Case of a 
 young man preparing for the ministry — Of others who 
 had made' whimsical vows — How far the exercises of 
 Christians in their morbid states are moral, a very per- 
 plexing question — Moral qualities hereditary — -Opinion 
 of Dr. Rush — ^An innate tendency to evil not an apology 
 for yielding to the inclination — How the doctrine is a 
 source of relief — Exclamations of a soul in giving vent 
 to its spiritual anguish — Case of a clergyman in New 
 England — Gloominess consistent with a regenerate state — 
 An opinion from the highest medical authority — Obser- 
 vation of Mr. Pearson in his life of Mr. Hay — The 
 Saviour's declaration — Payson's Biography — Private dia- 
 ries of Christians — Error in publishing Cowper's during 
 the period of his gloomy aberration — The doctrine of 
 physical influences not to be used as an excuse for wilful 
 delinquency — If rightly considered, may minister- relief 
 and make us watchful — Extract from Mason's Spiritual 
 Treasury. Pages 131 — 143. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Temptations or Desponding Christians — Reproof of 
 the Apostle James — Morbid physical influences often 
 erroneously ascribed to Satan. Page 144. 
 
 Christians tempted to believe that they have 
 committed the sin against the Holy Ghost — 
 Opinions of Father Austin, of the fourth century, con- 
 cerning this sin — Of the schoolmen of the Middle 
 Ages — Of Calvin — Arminius — Dr, Chalmers — These 
 fears may be indications only of imperfect bodily health — 
 Mr. Kemper — A young man twelve years under the 
 impression that he had committed this sin — Dr. Ridgley's 
 opinion — Rev. Daniel Baker's case. Pages 145 — 151. 
 
 Tempted to adopt a false standard of Duty, and 
 ambiguous evidences of a regenerate state — 
 Like the Jews, they look for "signs" — Many distressed 
 or misled by the sudden occurrence to their mind of an 
 "alarming text of Scripture" — Case of Mr. Lackington — 
 Others tempted to trust in " dreams" — The character of 
 our dreams depends much on our physical condition — 
 Case of Baron Trenck^ — of Condorcet — Coleridge — ^Presi- 
 dent Edwards — Not denied that God may reveal Himself 
 through supernatural dreams — Case of a young lady in 
 England — Cases mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie— ^Shak- 
 speare's theory — Queen Mab. Pages 151 — 159. 
 
 Christians of a nervous temperament make too 
 much of Religious Frames — Mr. Brownlow North — 
 Case of a female mentioned by him — Example of Mrs. 
 Hawkes — Rev. J. Newton's remark — Letter of Rev. 
 Mr. Cecil. Pages 159—163. 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 Mental Introspection — Remark of Rev. Mr. Spencer — 
 Indulging in melancholy meditation does no good — Dr. 
 Chalmers' letter to Mr. Anderson. Pages 163 — 167. 
 
 Temptation to "make an idol op comfort" — Ohser- 
 vations of Dr. Harris — Many mistake an abatement of 
 comfort for its removal — Christians often make the same 
 mistake as did the sons of Zebedee — Extract from Wil- 
 liam Mason. Pages 167 — 170. 
 
 Temptation to Despair — The climax of morbid spiritual 
 disquiet — in most cases evidently the result of bodily 
 disease — Apt to be promoted and nurtured by perverted 
 views of truth — Some morbid Christians afraid to pray — 
 Others fear that they have eaten and drunk damnaiion 
 to themselves — Case of an interesting female — ^Distress 
 caused by endeavouring to harmonize the decrees of Grod 
 and his foreknowledge with free agency — Such cases 
 closely analogous to the temptations of those who imagine 
 themselves guilty of the unpardonable sin — Persons ex- 
 posed to this temptation are apt to neglect the means of 
 grace — ^Despair never made a human being better — Re- 
 markable case mentioned by Rev. Mr. Spencer. Pages 
 170—177. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Counsels to the Troubled and Desponding — Book 
 not written for medical men — ^Why the subject of this 
 volume not more frequently treated in later times — 
 Prominency given it in the older English writers — Re- 
 mark of Dr. Cheyne on the ignorance of many religious 
 men of the influence of physical causes on their spiritual 
 enjoyment. Pages 178 — 180. 
 
xu contents. 
 
 Desponding Christians should ascertain the cause 
 OF THEIR religious DISQUIETUDE — Baxter's opinion — 
 Should not chide themselves for faults which are charge- 
 ahle to bodily disease — Counsel on this subject attended 
 with more or less danger — Many of our sorrows of soul 
 retributory, and we are only made to possess the iniqwities 
 of oair youth — The subject guarded against perversion — 
 Eemark of Dr. A. Alexander — Some predisposed to think 
 that their gloom proceeds from a culpable cause — In- 
 quiries into our personal state should be pursued dili- 
 gently — Despondency may be produced by false views of 
 religion, or it may cause them — Not always easy to deter- 
 mine which is cause and which effect — A good rule for 
 guiding the judgment — Religious vapours. Pages 180 — 
 186. 
 
 The DESPONDING SHOULD AVAIL THEMSELVES OP JUDI- 
 CIOUS Medical Advice — Case of Dr. Rush — Baxter's 
 counsel — What a well instructed physician can do — 
 Every physician not competent to treat the cases of the 
 desponding — Physicians often betray a culpable igno- 
 rance of the reciprocating relationship between body and 
 mind — Book of the heart — Sentiments of an eminent 
 lecturer in a medical school-^Advice of Mr. Rogers — 
 Change in the character of diseases in later years — 
 Nervous diseases the most numerous — Sydenham's esti- 
 mate of fevers at the close of the seventeenth century; 
 Dr. Cheyne's of nervous disorders; Dr. Trotter's — 
 Deaths in England during 1856 — No opinion expressed 
 as to the accuracy of these computations — They show 
 that the subject of nervous disorders importunately de- 
 mands the attention of physicians — A morbid mental 
 state often removed by a drug — Case of a lady in Phila- 
 
CONTENTS. xm 
 
 delphia — Another mentioned by Rev. M. B. Hope, M. D. 
 — The poet Dryden — Descartes — Plutarch's saying, Not 
 tamper with drugs — Case of Rousseau. Pages 186—200. 
 
 The desponding should seek suitable society — Re- 
 mark of Mr. Locke — Story of Csesar — Proverb of Solo- 
 mon — Often good to compare exercises — Hard to dis- 
 abuse the mind of the desponding of their erroneous 
 opinions concerning their state — Remark of Mr. Rogers — 
 Mr. Robert Bruce, of Edinburgh, relieved after having 
 been twenty years in terror of conscience — Such sufferers 
 do not receive suflScient sympathy — Captain Benjamin 
 Wickes, of Philadelphia, and Rev. Joseph Eastburn — 
 Cowper and the Unwins-^One of four cardinal rules — 
 Company of cheerful Christians recommended to the 
 melancholy — Avoid that of the gloomy — Dr. Hufeland's 
 opinion — Counsel of Dr. Everard Maynwaring in his 
 Tutela Sanitatis — Advice of Seneca — Teachings of St. 
 Paul— Compare our state with that of others in a condi- 
 tion far less desirable— Two cases mentioned by Dr. 
 Hall — A lady helpless by palsy — Archdeacon Paley on 
 the goodness of God — Digestion aided by laughter — 
 Solomon on cheerfulness. Pages 200 — 211. 
 
 Those who would enjoy spiritual comfort should 
 BE Temperate — Dr. Johnson's opinion of water — Hip- 
 pocrates—Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy — Dr. Rush 
 on the effect of diet on the moral faculties — Dr. Paris 
 on animal food— Dr. McNish, of Glasgow— The effect of 
 living solely on beef— Hon. C. A. Murray— Dr. Arbuth- 
 not on vegetable regimen — Payson's excessive absti- 
 nence — Nervous disease caused by excess — Dr. Combe's 
 opinion — An eminent physician of London on the effects 
 of the luxurious habits of the people— Persons subject 
 1 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 to nervous depression should give special attention to 
 the subject of dietetic economy — The spiritual man 
 should keep his body under — How far a healthy appetite 
 may be indulged — Dr. Holland's three rules — Remarks 
 of Dr. Hall— of Dr. J. Johnson — His rule for regulating 
 the appetite— President Edwards — Latin distich. Pages 
 211—222. 
 
 The desponding should be habitually occupied — 
 The mind should be employed — Diseases often caused 
 and increased by habitually thinking of them — The phi- 
 losopher Kant — A man retiring from business — -Quota- 
 tion from Cecil — Persons not made more religious by a 
 constant thinking on religion — The pious man should 
 have but one dominant motive — Another rule for the 
 relief of melancholy Christians — Tendency of ministers 
 in their sine titulo condition — Remark of Dr. Ashbel 
 Green — Brooding over our spiritual maladies — Cowper's 
 translating Homer and Madame Guyon — Johnson's ad- 
 vice to Boswell — His translation of Thuanus — Panacea 
 for the taedium vitse — Case of a fellow student — Of Dr. 
 Lobdell — Activity in promoting the welfare of others — 
 Harlan Page — Self-denial — Difficulty of complying with 
 these counsels — Trying case of clergymen in declining 
 health, especially in advanced life — Casus omissus. 
 Pages 222—232. 
 
 Watch and promote Bodily Health — The special 
 counsel of Dr. J. W. Alexander^^Importance of a scru- 
 pulous attention to this advice — Connection between our 
 emotions of joy and sorrow and our health — Sine animo 
 corpus, &c. — Authors on the subject of promoting health, 
 numerous — Recapitulation of some of the instructions in 
 the preceding pages. Pages 232 — 234. 
 
CONTENTS. xy 
 
 Due discrimination and self-control in relation 
 TO OUR Food — Plutarch and the Boeotians — Richard 
 Cumberland. Pages 2.34, 235. 
 
 SumoiENT REST, AND AT THE PROPER SEASONS — Des- 
 pondency caused by study at unseasonable hours — The 
 effect as stated by Dr. Johnson — Manual for the Ner- 
 vous — Case of a theological student — Eev. Dr. Samuel 
 Miller on night study — M. Guizot, Minister of Louis 
 Philippe — Henry Kirke White — Urquhart — Henry Mar- 
 tyn. Pages 235—238. 
 
 Injurious effects of narcotics — Tobacco — Cowper 
 and Rev. Mr. Bull, of Newport-Pagnell — "Counter-blast 
 to Tobacco of King James the First" — Edict in the time 
 of Elizabeth — Dr. Dunglison — M. Bouisson — Letters on 
 Clerical Habits and Manners — Excessive use of tobacco 
 by theological students — Its manifold injurious effects — 
 Not easily persuaded of their danger — Ought not to be 
 taken at all, or if ever necessary, in small quantities, and 
 as seldom as possible — The practice a trespass against 
 our neighbour — Some who use it a trouble to themselves 
 and to everybody else — A special case — The fact a me- 
 laiipholy one — Its great havoc of life, especially in G-er- 
 many — Its injurious influences on the mind, causing 
 melancholy, and sometimes insanity — Alcoholic drinks, 
 *and stimulating or stupefying drugs — Opinions of Doc- 
 tors Good, Cullin, and Moore. Pages 238 — 247. 
 
 Exercise in Pure Air — Tendency of the depressing pas- 
 sions to render us inert and taciturn — The present trea- 
 tise not an attempt to give all the counsels which are so 
 accessible in standard authors — Opinion of one of the 
 most eminent — A "moral atmosphere" not altogether a 
 figure of speech — Dr. Hall — Utility of exercise under- 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 stood by literary men — "Peter's Letters to his Kins- 
 folk" — Advice of Horace to Virgil — The men whom 
 "Peter" speaks of, and their mode of taking exercise — 
 Counsel of one restored from prolonged melancholy. 
 Pages 247—252. 
 
 Dr. N. L. Eice on Ministerial Depression — Daniel 
 Baker's remark — All ministers cannot apply it to them- 
 selves — Many have seasons of mental depression, pro- 
 duced by various causes — How their depression ope- 
 rates — Suggestions not to attempt mental labour while it 
 continues — ^If necessary to preach, select a subject which 
 demands intellectual effort — How they should commence 
 their discourse— ^Not come to any new conclusions, nor 
 change their plan while under mental depression — We 
 should make no attempt to reason persons out of their 
 gloomy mood — Case of a minister from Virginia — The 
 "blues" — Timely rest and diversion — Dr. Alexander's 
 "Thoughts on Religious Experience" — Importance of 
 special watchfulness and prayer against melancholy in 
 the decline of life — Cases of two persons mentioned by 
 Dr. A. Alexander. Pages 252—260. 
 
 Let the desponding look to Christ — Rev. Mr. Ro- 
 gers — We must distinguish between our justification and 
 our sanetification — ^Between the effects of faith and faith 
 itself — Our sanetification full of imperfection, but tfce 
 righteousness of Christ, on which we rely for justifica- 
 tion, is perfect — Dr. Church, President of a Medical 
 Society — His opinion on the eflScacy of faith in the cure 
 of diseases — Opinion of Dr. Bell — Mr. Shrubsole's ac- 
 count of himself in his Christian Memoirs — Rev. Dr. 
 Ashbel Green on excluding ministers from the chamber 
 of the sick^Concurring sentiments of Doctor Rush 
 
CONTENTS. XVU 
 
 Dr. Rush's view of the moral and religious <i[ualifications 
 necessary for a physician — Cures performed by faith and 
 hope — Rev. Mr. Rogers' restoration in answer to prayer — 
 His book a monument of his deliverance — A prevailing 
 temptation of desponding Christians to look to themselves 
 and their fluctuating frames — Like the Israelite in the 
 wilderness, depending on the strength of his constitution 
 instead of looking to the brazen image — Baxter, for 
 many years, in great perplexity about his own spiritual 
 state— Remark of his biographer, Orme — All hope of 
 the guilty creature is exterior to himself — The gospel is 
 the balm of Grilead, and Christ the only Physician — 
 These sentiments cannot be repeated too often— Grod can 
 as easily forgive a thousand sins as one — Poring upon 
 ourselves increases our troubles — " Apt to think we could 
 go to Christ were we so and so" — ^Not forget the pro- 
 mised help of the Holy Spirit — Watch against a com- 
 mon sin of the desponding — Assurance does not imply 
 that we are free from sin — Remark of Thomas Adam — 
 The despondency and gloom of the pious, a mystery of 
 Providence — Rutherford's remark — No more difficulty 
 in the abandonment of good men to despondency pro- 
 duced by a physical cause, than in their being the victim 
 of any other natural evil — No promise of the Bible that 
 insures them against such a trial-rJob's history moni- 
 tory — Cowper's mental darkness did not militate with 
 the Pivine goodness — Affliction used by God to try and 
 manifest the graces of his people — Instrumental in 
 qualifying religious teachers for greater usefulness — 
 Rods of God sharp, but "dipped in honey"— Remarks 
 of Mr. Rogers on the subject — The new creature raised 
 out of the ruins of the flesh — God's providence will turn 
 1* 
 
COiVTEKTS. 
 
 our water into wine, &c. — Dr. Watts's remarks on the 
 disappointments of heaven — The imperfect sanctification 
 of Christians on the near approach of death, a subject 
 of perplexity to many — An enigma to Dr. Guthrie — His 
 proposed solution. Pages 260 — 279. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A devout physician once told a friend of the 
 writer, that "he never knew a triumphant 
 death when the disease of the pious patient 
 was below the diaphragm." This remark may 
 be taken in a broader sense than its author 
 intended, and from which we should earnestly 
 dissent; but it recognizes a power of our 
 bodily maladies to control and pervert the 
 healthful functions of the mind, which none 
 are more concerned to know than they who 
 have the cure of souls. Within the range of 
 almost every pastor's charge of moderate ex- 
 tent, cases of spiritual distress are occurring 
 to which he can minister no relief; they lie 
 beyond the reach of any remedies to which he 
 can resort. The latent cause is the morbid 
 condition of the physical part, which brings 
 them legitimately within the province of the 
 physician. On the other hand, the instances 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 are scarcely less multiplied, in which all the 
 science and skill of the healing art are impo- 
 tent, till the thorn is extracted from the con- 
 science. The influence of physical agents on 
 moral states, moreover, is too little understood 
 or heeded by the instructors of our children. 
 They do not sufiiciently consider the connec- 
 tion between intellect and morality, or between 
 sensation and thought. "The study and the 
 statistics of mental disease teach a fearful les- 
 son concerning the giant evils resialting from 
 ignorant mismanagement of the body in rela- 
 tion to the mind and the moral nature." 
 
 It has been intimated by judicious friends, 
 that our smaller work on this subject first pub- 
 lished, would have been made more instructive 
 and extensively useful by a considerable ampli- 
 fication. The last two letters that we ever 
 received from our lamented friend and corres- 
 pondent, Dr. James W. Alexander, related 
 mainly to its reproduction and enlargement 
 "on several points," which he thought "should 
 be treated more fully." None of all our friends 
 ever expressed a deeper interest in the subject 
 of this book, nor helped us mor^ by their 
 counsel, than the late Doctors Alexander, both 
 father and son. The removal of the former. 
 
PKEFACE. 9 
 
 like a shock of corn in his season, though caus- 
 ing wide spread sorrow, did not take us by 
 surprise. 
 
 Multis ille bonis flebilis, ocoidit ; 
 Nulli flebilior, quam mihi. 
 
 The death of the latter, in his full strength, 
 and at the time of so great and increasing 
 usefulness, was painfully abrupt, and seemed 
 to be premature. He was taken from a large 
 circle of admirers, whose memory lingers on 
 their irreparable loss, with the mournful reflec- 
 tion expressed in that "exquisite inscription 
 of Shenstone's," whose aroma no translation 
 can preserve, 
 
 Heu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari, quam tui meminisae! 
 
 They almost forget the living in their reminis- 
 cences of the dead. 
 
 We have so far respected the suggestions of 
 our advisers as to add to what was presented in 
 the prior edition many interesting facts, which, 
 however familiar to persons conversant with 
 the standard works on Physiology and Hy- 
 giene, will be new to others. Changes have 
 been made in other Respects by additions and 
 various modifications, especially under the heads 
 of Temptations and Codnsels, which have ma- 
 
10 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 terially increased its size, and made it more 
 conducive to the purpose for which it was 
 written. The author makes no pretension to 
 originality or deep thinking, nor to such an 
 acquaintance with psychology, or physical 
 science, as a more thorough and enlightened 
 discussion of the subject requires. So far as 
 the thoughts of others have been approved, 
 and were adapted to the purpose of the writer, 
 they have been adopted, often in their own 
 language, and are here acknowledged in gene- 
 ral, to supersede the necessity of multiplied 
 marginal references and marks of quotation. 
 The authors of certain well-written papers on 
 subjects kindred to this, in the Literary and 
 Theological Review, the Biblical Repertory, 
 and Christian Spectator, wiU perceive our obli- 
 gations to them. Doctors George and John 
 Cheyne, Combe, Good, Moore, Broussais, Bur- 
 rows, Rush, Dunglison, Brigham, Hall, and Es- 
 quirol, have been consulted, especially Dr. James 
 Johnson, justly called "the ablest and most 
 effective writer of the age on every subject to 
 which his attention was directed." Little is 
 left for a successor to glean in any field of 
 medical research after having been reaped by 
 him. We have also had much assistance from 
 
PREFACE. 11 
 
 "the soundest and ablest medical periodical 
 in the English language" — the Medico-Chirur- 
 gical Review. As reference will be found in 
 the present work to certain writers on subjects 
 akin to that of which it treats, we give the 
 titles of a few for the guidance of any who may 
 have leisure and inclination to read them. In 
 addition to those already named, we would 
 mention Pritchard,Pinel,Prout; Voison on the 
 Moral and Physical Causes of Mental Mala- 
 dies; Tissot on the Health of Men of Letters; 
 Hitchcock's Lectures on Diet, Regimen, and 
 Employment; Shepherd's Sincere Convert; and 
 Robe on Religious Melancholy. Most of these, 
 of course, view the subject of which they treat, 
 as philosophers or men of science; but those 
 who have access to the older English divines 
 will find that questions of casuistry, spiritual 
 troubles, evidences of grace, &c., are discussed 
 with great ability, and are made far more pro- 
 minent and important in them than they are 
 in the theological works of times more modern. 
 The writings of the Rev. Timothy Rogers, 
 several times quoted in the ensuing pages, 
 are peculiarly instructive to persons labouring 
 under spiritual distress, as having been dic- 
 tated by his own experience. Those who can- 
 
12 rREFACE. 
 
 not get this rare book will find a choice 
 sample of its counsels in the fourth chapter of 
 Dr. Archibald Alexander's "Thoughts on Re- 
 ligious Experience." From this interesting 
 work, as well as from the "Discourse of Mr. 
 Rogers on Trouble of Mind and the Disease 
 of Melancholy," we have received important 
 aid. 
 
 The writer has been gratified with the 
 favour shown to his imperfect treatise by the 
 press, both secular and religious; and espe- 
 cially with testimonials, through private chan- 
 nels, that it has proved useful in ministering 
 relief to some of that class for whom it was 
 principally designed. That the same benefi- 
 cent results may follow this enlarged edition 
 is the sincere desire of the author, as it ought 
 to be his paramount motive in preparing it for 
 publication. 
 
MAN, MORAL AND PHYSICAL. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CONNECTION BETWEEN THE MATERIAL AND SPIBITUAIi PABTS IN MAN. 
 
 How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 
 How complicate, how wonderful is man! — Yoitno. 
 
 "I WILL praise Thee," says David, "for I am 
 fearfully and wonderfully made." How far 
 the Psalmist understood the full import of his 
 words, or was acquainted with the wonderful 
 mechanism of man to which he alliides, we do 
 not presume to know. It is enough to say, 
 that the terms which he uses are most appro- 
 priate and descriptive, as has been abundantly 
 proved by the researches of physiology. But 
 curious and fearful as is the structure of the 
 material part, there is displayed far more of the 
 wisdom and greatness of God in the creation 
 and endowments of the soul; and although we 
 are accustomed to speak familiarly of both, as 
 2 
 
14 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 if they were well understood, yet there is 
 scarcely a term which we employ which is not 
 rather a symbol of what we do not know, than 
 an exponent of what we do. The mystery of 
 the Trinity is not more inexplicable than is 
 the connection that subsists between the body 
 and the soul of man. The most that we know 
 of either, is derived from the results which 
 flow from such an union. As we infer the 
 being and co-operation of the three persons in 
 the Godhead, from the nature and the benefits 
 of redemption, by which this triune existence 
 is implied, so we become assured that we have 
 a spirit as well as a body, from their acts or 
 motions, which we feel. We know nothing of 
 the substance of which either is composed, nor 
 of the mode in which the two are linked 
 together. The attempts of science to reach 
 and explain these ultimate facts, have not 
 amounted to even an approximation. What- 
 ever has been written concerning the locality 
 of the soul, the time of its entrance into the 
 body, the mode by which it acts upon or 
 governs it, and the avenue through which it 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 15 
 
 escapes at death, is but little more than specu- 
 lation and conjecture. Dr. Abercrombie says, 
 "we talk about matter, and we talk about 
 mind; we speculate concerning materiality and 
 immateriality, until we argue ourselves into a 
 kind of belief that we understand something of 
 the subject. The truth is, that we understand 
 nothing." We really know but little more 
 than a few facts in relation to both, which are 
 dscoverable by their, respective qualities and 
 attributes; such as that the two are closely 
 united; that what is called the nervous system 
 is the medium of communication between them ; 
 so that they exert a strong reciprocal influence 
 upon each other; that when the one is afflicted, 
 it always has the sympathy of the other. They, 
 therefore, have been employed more wisely, 
 who, leaving the former as among the inscru- 
 table things of God, have endeavoured to make 
 a practical improvement of the latter. It is a 
 subject that so intimately blends with all that 
 conduces to the enjoyment and usefulness of 
 life, as well as its continuance, that it is of the 
 highest importance for all to understand it, and 
 
16 INPLCENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 to none is such knowledge more needful than 
 to the official teachers of religion. 
 
 It is proposed at this time to offer a few 
 thoughts on this interesting topic, more with a 
 view to awaken the attention, and invite the 
 pen of others, than to furnish all that is needed. 
 Indeed, such a work as the exigency of the 
 Church has long demanded, is not likely to be 
 accomplished by "any one who is not furnished 
 with a suitable education, theological and medi- 
 cal, profoundly and experimentally acquainted 
 with the Scriptures, fond of research, and gifted 
 with good powers of generalization and induc- 
 tion." 
 
 JFor those who wish to pursue the subject in 
 its pathological bearings, or as one of the de- 
 partments of physiology, there are numerous 
 medical treatises, both domestic and foreign, 
 which are easily accessible. What we have to 
 offer in the following chapters is little more 
 than the result of some observation, and the 
 few years' experience of a pastor. It is in- 
 tended to furnish, in a portable form and size, 
 a tract for the benefit of Christians of an un- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 17 
 
 equal and fluctuating experience, produced by 
 physical causes, though not suspected perhaps 
 by themselves, nor their spiritual advisers. 
 
 It has already been said, that much that 
 pertains to the nature of the connection be- 
 tween the flesh and the spirit is a mystery 
 which science has tried in vain to explore. It 
 has proceeded so far as to discover in the human 
 fabric, certain delicate white threads, leading 
 from the brain and spinal marrow to every part 
 of the body. It has also been ascertainied that 
 by means of these nerves (as they are called 
 from the Latin term nervus, a string) sensations 
 are conveyed from each of the organs of sense 
 to the brain; moreover, that these are the chan- 
 nels of communication between the mind and 
 the body, as is proved by the well-known fact, 
 that if one of the nerves of the arm or leg 
 be sundered, all power of that limb is lost; if 
 another be cut, sensation is no longer transmit- 
 ted through the arm to the mind. The branches 
 and ramifications of the nerves are so numerous 
 and so generally djfi'used, that they have a vir- 
 tual omnipresence throughout the animal fabric. 
 2* 
 
18 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Though diminishing in size as they approach 
 their places of termination, so that at length 
 they become invisible to the naked eye, yet 
 they lose none of their exquisite sensibility. 
 The point of the finest needle cannot be 
 brought into contact with the skin in any part 
 of the body without detecting the presence of 
 a nerve. The sensation caused by ever so deli- 
 cate a touch upon the most attenuated branch 
 is imparted to a larger, then to a larger still, 
 and with electric rapidity to all; so that the 
 remotest part is instantly conscious of the im- 
 pression. This kind of correlation, by which 
 diiferent organs of the body are affected by 
 impressions made upon one, through the com- 
 merce of the nerves, is called "sympathy." 
 This mysterious intercourse is rendered more 
 complete and effective by the agency of the 
 intercostal or "sympathetic nerve," which, pass- 
 ing through the innumerable branches and 
 plexuses, is the common channel of communi- 
 cating with them all. Such is that fearful and 
 wonderful department of the human economy 
 called the Nervous System — the great organ of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 19 
 
 thought, feeling, and vohmtaiy motion. How 
 much, then, must the enjoyment of life, as well 
 as its usefulness, depend on its healthful condi- 
 tion! Nt)r is it the least wonderful of the 
 whole, when we examine into the various 
 functions of the nerves, and the perpetual irri- 
 tations and violence to which they are ex- 
 posed, that the nervous economy is not more 
 frequently deranged than it is. 
 
 Anatomists teU us, that when these little 
 threads become diseased, there is lio percep- 
 tible change in their size, shape, colour, nor 
 appearance. Even when the power of trans- 
 mitting sensation is lost, nutrition. still goes on, 
 and the nerves remain as large in a paralyzed as 
 in a healthy limb. Before a patient dies, they 
 resist mortification longer than most parts of 
 the body, and, after death, decay more sloAvly. 
 This explains, in part, how it is that nervous 
 diseases, which are often so prolonged, do not 
 more impair the physical strength, nor seem to 
 abridge the life of the sufferer. 
 
 With respect to the actual nature of the 
 nervous force, we offer no opinion, nor quote 
 
20 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the conjectures of others. The notion that 
 obtained for a while among some physiologists, 
 that it was identical with the electric power, 
 has been generally abandoned in the present 
 day. In what way, therefore, this communica- 
 tion between the brain, the spinal marrow, and 
 the nerves is effected; how the volitions and 
 conceptions of the mind are conveyed on these 
 delicate material conductors — whether by tre- 
 mors or vibrations, like the cords of a musical 
 instrument, or, as Hippocrates and Galen sup- 
 posed, by a fine ethereal fluid, elaborated in the 
 organ of the brain, or by neither — what is their 
 specific substance or construction, by which 
 they are made not only vehicles of thought, 
 but instruments of exquisite pleasure or pain, 
 are among the questions that have been a con- 
 stant source of hypothesis in past ages, but 
 which neither reason nor revelation has an- 
 swered. It is quite probable that neither our 
 happiness nor our usefulness would be in- 
 creased by a knowledge of the essence of mind 
 and matter, and that enough is known from 
 their various phenomena to answer every prac- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXRERIENCE. 21 
 
 tical purpose. With that class of them which 
 we are about to consider, the world of course 
 have been more or less familiar ever since the 
 faU subjected man to disease, and made the 
 earthly part a clog, while it gave it such 
 ascendency over the heavenly. But in regard 
 to those morbid results of this connection, 
 which are technically called "nervous," it has 
 frequently been said, that, to a great extent, 
 they are a penalty for an abuse of the multi- 
 plied blessings of civilized life. Among savage 
 tribes, such affections are scarcely known, and 
 they are very rare among those whose pursuits 
 ar& active, and connected with habitual expo- 
 sure. But they seem to have increased just in 
 proportion as nations have advanced in out- 
 ward prosperity and in intellectual refinement. 
 Hence it is easily understood why medicine was 
 no more diligently cultivated among the an- 
 cients, and how it happened that the first phy- 
 sician of eminence, who has been called the 
 "father of medicine," should have lived within 
 less than five hundred years before Christ. In 
 the early ages of the world, there was compara- 
 tively little occasion for a profession that is 
 
22 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 now so highly honoured, and which is so indis- 
 pensable to the health and happiness of society. 
 The simplicity of manners which prevailed, 
 plainness of diet, temperance, and activity in 
 rural occupations, were productive of a degree 
 of health and vigour which are hardly known 
 at present. How far the great age of man, 
 until shortened by a divine decree, was the 
 result of natural causes, we do not presume to 
 say J but the progress of the healing art has 
 marked, with a good degree of accuracy, in 
 successive ages, the increase of luxury and ex- 
 cessive sensual indulgence. 
 
 "Had it not been," Dr. Cheyne says, "for 
 the lewdness, luxury, and intemperate gratifi- 
 cation of the passions and appetites which first 
 ruined and spoiled the constitution of the 
 fathers, whereby they could communicate only 
 a diseased, crazy, and untunable carcass to 
 their sons, there had never happened so much 
 sickness, pain, and misery, so unhappy lives, 
 and such wretched ends, as we now behold 
 among men." The records of prisons and 
 almshouses prove that physical vices are not 
 only perpetuated in the offspring of the guilty 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 23 
 
 parent, but they originate mental deformities. 
 Three-fourths of the idiotic in a Massachusetts' 
 Charity were found to be of parents, one or 
 both of whom were drunken. From an exami- 
 tion of juvenile delinquents at Parkhurst, by 
 Mr. Kay Shuttleworth, it appeared that the 
 majority were found deficient in physical or- 
 ganization. Mr. Coleridge says, that the history 
 of a man for the months that precede his birth, 
 would probably be far more interesting, and 
 contain events of greater moment than all that 
 follow it. 
 
 I. THE SACRED WRITINGS. 
 
 That these should furnish but little instruc- 
 tion on the subject of the present discussion, 
 however important to so large a proportion 
 of modern believers, is easily accounted for. 
 This has fallen rather within the province of 
 that science which has grown out of the 
 changed circumstances of man, especially the 
 great degeneracy in his habits of living. But 
 while we discover in the Bible comparatively 
 few of the elements of many modern theories 
 
24 INPLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 concerning this union of the soul and body, 
 and the moral results, yet they contain records 
 of the experience and exercises of the reli- 
 gious, and of others, which afford many exem- 
 plifications of the fact. Such is supposed by 
 some to have been the distressing affection 
 of Saul, ascribed to an evil spirit from God, 
 the successive paroxysms of which were allayed 
 by the music of the son of Jesse. Stackhouse 
 thinks, that it proceeded from deep depression 
 of spirits, or black bile inflamed, and that 
 he was rather hypochondriac than possessed. 
 Agreeable to this bad complexion of body, was 
 the natural temper of his mind. 
 
 Another example is quoted in the case of 
 the Psalmist himself, when, in one of his saJbred 
 songs, his harp is tuned to strains of the deepest 
 melancholy, and he mournfully sings: Mi/ soul 
 refused to he comforted. I remembered God, 
 and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit 
 was overwhelmed: I am so troubled that I cannot 
 speak. Will the Lord cast off for ever? and 
 will he he favourable no more? Is his mercy 
 clean gone for ever? Hath God forgotten to he 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 25 
 
 gracious ? And then he adds, I said this is my 
 infirmity; an expression which means, as under- 
 stood by some, that he suspects the cause of his 
 great depression to be physical, or to proceed 
 from the state of the body. 
 
 Another illustration of this connection, and 
 the influence of the material part over the 
 spiritual, has been drawn from the language of 
 the Saviour in his gentle rebuke of the lethargy 
 of the disciples in the garden of Gethsemane. 
 That they should have fallen asleep under such 
 circumstances, appeared to themselves to admit 
 of no apology, and they did not attempt it. 
 But on being awaked by their Master, he 
 kindly remarked, the spirit is loilling, hut the 
 flesh is weak. The delinquency was to be 
 ascribed, not so much to the state of their 
 heart, as to bodily fatigue; implying, as is com- 
 monly understood, a mild reproof, at the same 
 time that it evinces the disposition of Christ 
 to regard it as evidence more of natural in- 
 firmity than of guilt. The same injurious 
 influence of the earthly part is recognized by 
 the apostle Paul, in those numerous passages 
 3 
 
26 INPLXIENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 of his writings in which he so graphically 
 describes the conflict between the flesh and the 
 spirit: I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, 
 there dwelleth no good thing. I delight in the 
 law of God, after the inner man, hut I see another 
 law in my members warring against the law of 
 my mind, bringing me, &c. In another place, he 
 ascribes the inability of the law to justify, not 
 to itself, but to a weakness through the flesh. 
 We are aware that the term flesh here is used 
 in a figurative sense, to signify the remainder 
 of natural corruption which still adheres to the 
 man, even after his moral state has become 
 changed by regenerating grace. But the pas- 
 sages are none the less suited to our purpose, 
 inasmuch as they imply that the organs of sense 
 are made the instruments through which the 
 corruption of our nature is developed, and its 
 operation felt upon the spiritual man. In this 
 connection, it may be observed, that the 
 writings of the Fathers contain numerous quo- 
 tations from the serious minded heathen, that 
 show a striking coincidence with the opinions 
 of Paul on the subject of depravity, and espe- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 27 
 
 cially the prejudicial influence of the body. 
 Cicero's remark is familiar to many — that men 
 are brought into life by nature, as a step- 
 mother, with a frail and infirm body, with a 
 soul prone to divers lusts. And what but this 
 doctrine of physical influence is perverted and 
 caricatured in that motley mixture of Chris- 
 tianity and Persian philosophy contained in the 
 system of the Manicheans of the third century of 
 the Christian era, concerning the two principles 
 of good and evil — the former of which is repre- 
 sented as the creator of the soul of man, and 
 the latter of his body. 
 
 II. THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE. 
 
 If what the Scriptures contain on this sub- 
 ject amounts only to hints or implications, 
 rather than positive declarations, our light is 
 abundant when we come to the testimony of 
 science. The connection and influence of 
 which we speak, have been proved and illus- 
 trated with great clearness by those who have 
 examined the structure of the human system, 
 its capacities and functions, organic, intellect- 
 ual, and moral. They have not failed to see 
 
28 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 how much the state of the mind and moral 
 feelings has to do with the induction, the per- 
 sistence, and final issue of many maladies. 
 This connection is as fully implied in the 
 abuses of this truth, as it is taught in its legi- 
 timate uses. * Thus it has been made to furnish 
 the basis of materialism under the milder, and, 
 as understood and taught by many, the inno- 
 cent forms of cranioscopy, craniology, phreno- 
 logy, &c., as well as of that grosser system of 
 Lawrence, which makes the soul of man a mere 
 chymical combination, which contends that it 
 is not a spiritual substance, distinct from his 
 body, but that the principle Avithin him which 
 thinks, is material; and that reasoning and re- 
 flection are functions of organized matter; 
 which gravely tells him that he grows like a 
 vegetable, or accretes like a crystal; or is at- 
 tracted and repulsed like a particle of iron 
 exposed to magnetic influence: That his brain 
 secretes thought, as his liver secretes bile; that 
 believing and disbelieving are acts of the soul, 
 as is tasting of the body, and one is as destitute 
 of any moral character as the other; and there- 
 fore, that it is as absurd to suppose a man 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 29 
 
 blamable for being an atheist, as for being 
 afflicted with an attack of the gout. That or- 
 ganized differs from inorganized matter, merely 
 by the addition of certain properties, such as 
 sensibiUty and irritability, which are called vital. 
 The masses of matter which constitute the 
 several parts of the animal frame are endowed 
 according to the respective functions or pur- 
 poses which they are to execute, and life is the 
 general result of their exercise. Upon this 
 hypothesis, the human frame is nothing more 
 than "a barrel-organ, possessing a systematic 
 arrangement of parts, played upon by peculiar 
 powers, and executing particular pieces or pur- 
 poses. Life is the music produced by the 
 general assemblage, or result of the harmonious 
 action. As long as either the vital or mechani- 
 cal instrument is wound up by a regular supply 
 of food, or of the winch, so long the music will 
 continue; but both are worn out by their own 
 action; and when the machine will no longer 
 work, the life has the same close as the music; 
 
 redit in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil. 
 
 That, back to nothing goes, which nothing was before. 
 
 3* 
 
30 INPLtJENCE OJ HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 That such sentiments as these are as directly 
 at variance with sound science as they are with 
 revealed religion, it is gratuitous to assert. In 
 admitting, as we have done, that this inexplica- 
 ble union of the body and soul may involve 
 many truths which have not yet been discover- 
 ed, we do not concede that it warrants any such 
 atheistic corollaries as this. It would be easy 
 to show, that although commended by names 
 of some notoriety, yet such a m'aterialism is 
 "a logical absurdity, and a total misconception 
 of the first principles of philosophical inquiry." 
 But as it is our purpose in this disquisition to 
 keep within the province of Christian casuistry, 
 we think it better, in passing, rather to hint at 
 than quote, as freely as we might, the illustra- 
 tions of the present head, which are furnished 
 by physiology. Yet all may safely be granted 
 to the influence of the flesh upon the spirit, 
 which truth requires, - without affording the 
 smallest ground for those shocking conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 The great vital organs of the human system, 
 such as the brain, stomach, liver, &c., may 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 31 
 
 seem to act as mechanically as the hand, the 
 ear, or the tongue, yet the health of the mind 
 is much affected by the healthful state of this 
 apparatus of the body. Notice, first. 
 
 The Beain. We know and admit, that the 
 operations of the intellect are closely allied to 
 that soft whitish mass, or viscus, lodged be- 
 neath the arched bone of the head, which is 
 called the brain. Thus a blow which depresses 
 a portion of the skull upon the brain, will cause 
 a derangement or suspension of the mind's ope- 
 rations until such pressure is removed. A man 
 at the battle of Waterloo had a small portion 
 of his skull-bone beat in upon the brain, to the 
 depth of half an inch. This caused volition 
 and sensation to cease, and he was nearly in a 
 lifeless state. So soon as the depressed portion 
 of bone was raised from the brain, the man 
 immediately arose, dressed himself, became per- 
 fectly rational, and recovered rapidly. 
 
 It has been discovered that whatever pro- 
 duces mental excitement, increases the flow of 
 blood to the head, and thus augments the size 
 and power of the brain ; just as exertion of the 
 
32 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 limbs enlarges and strengthens their muscles. 
 Sir Astley Cooper had a patient whose skull 
 was so imperfect as to enable him to examine 
 the movements of the brain, " I distinctly 
 saw," Sir Astley says, " that the pulsation of 
 the brain was regular and slow; but at this 
 time he was agitated by some opposition to his 
 wishes, and directly the blood was sent with 
 increased force to his brain, and the pulsations 
 became frequent and violent." 
 
 A case more interesting stiU, mentioned by 
 Dr. Caldwell, was a female who had lost a 
 large portion of the skull and dura mater by 
 disease. When she was in a dreamless sleep^ 
 her brain was motionless; when her sleep was 
 imperfect, and disturbed by dreams, her brain 
 protruded from the cranium. In vivid dreams, 
 reported as such by herself, the protrusion was 
 considerable; and when perfectly awake, espe- 
 cially if engaged in active thought, or sprightly 
 conversation, it was much greater. 
 
 Jt is known that the brain of an adult of 
 ordinary intellect is comparatively large, weigh- 
 ing about three and a half pounds, often a little 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. S3 
 
 less. In some persons of uncommon mind, it 
 has been known to be much greater. The 
 brain of Byron, for instance, is said to have 
 weighed four and a half pounds, and that of 
 Baron Cuvier four pounds thirteen ounces and 
 a half. On the other hand, the brain of an 
 idiot does not exceed in size that of a child a 
 year old, or between one and two pounds in 
 weight. It has been proved by measurement, 
 that the heads of great thinkers frequently con- 
 tinue to increase until the subjects are fifty 
 years of age, and long after the other portions 
 of the system have ceased to enlarge. This 
 was true of Bonaparte, whose head, though 
 small in youth, in after life became enormous. 
 The reverse is known to occur in cases of pro- 
 tracted insanity; not only the brain diminishes, 
 but the skull itself has often sensibly contract- 
 ed, as is mentioned of Dean Swift, who, in the 
 latter part of Ms life, sunk into a state of men- 
 tal imbecility, a distressing calamity, of which 
 he appears to have had a presentiment, having 
 predicted " that he would first die at top." 
 It is vain then to deny that this wonder- 
 
34 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 ful part of the body has much to do with the 
 manifestations of mind, though we know of no 
 warrant for the strange conceit of the older 
 physiologists, that there is some central spot in 
 that organ where all the messages of the nerves 
 are ultimately reported, and whence all the 
 orders of the will are issued ; or for the figment 
 of Descartes, that the peculiar seat of the mind 
 is the pineal gland. Nor is it incredible, that 
 a diflferent combination of the physical ele- 
 ments of the man may occasion a corresponding 
 difference in the character and qualities of the 
 mind; that a genius for poetry or mathematics, 
 for painting or music, may be connected with 
 a peculiar arrangement or disposition of some 
 particles in the animal economy; in other words, 
 that the earthen vessel is so constructed in some 
 particulars, which escape the eye of the anato- 
 mist, as to form a difierent mould, or give a 
 peculiar shape to the mind, according to the 
 sphere of usefulness for which it is designed by 
 its Creator. All this may be true, and not con- 
 flict with the teachings of revelation. Indeed, 
 for aught we know to the contrary, it is com- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 35 
 
 preheiided in what the Psalmist calls the " fear- 
 ful and wonderful" construction of man. But 
 in what way the power of thought is originated, 
 or how it is affected by the matter in which it 
 seems to be lodged, is perhaps as profound a 
 secret to Gabriel as it is to us; while the facts 
 by which the truth itself is demonstrated, are, 
 many of them, as affecting as they are familiar. 
 Is the body attacked and prostrated by disease, 
 it is sure of the sympathy of its spiritual part- 
 ner, which is often reduced to the feebleness of 
 infancy by the debility of the former. Its per- 
 ceptions become obtuse, the memory fails, the 
 power of attention is gone, as we are often 
 painfully admonished by discovering that the 
 conversation and counsels which were given to 
 the sick, their confessions, and promises, and 
 prayers, are all forgotten on their recovery. 
 Perhaps it is not recollected even, that we 
 were once at their bedside and addressed them. 
 But the connection is not less intimate be- 
 tween the mind and 
 
 The Stomach. Whether this sympathy takes 
 place through the medium of the blood-vessels. 
 
36 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the nerves, or both, we do not know. Nothing 
 is made more familiar by experience than the 
 fact, that the vigorous action of the former 
 depends, in a great degree, upon the sound 
 condition of the latter. Some assert that the 
 brain, as the common sensorium to which all 
 sensations are ultimately referred, is the first 
 to become sensible to the disorder of the sto- 
 mach. That, " like two friends in harmonious 
 co-operation, they mutually support each other 
 in health; but, in disease, like sworn enemies, 
 they act and react upon each other with the 
 most destructive malignity." Who has not ob- 
 served, without the aid of books or physicians 
 to suggest it, that whatever painfully afi"ects 
 his mind, and disturbs its equanimity, takes 
 away his appetite for food, or the power to 
 digest it, and causes more or less disquietude 
 in the stomach. For this reason, a strong ex- 
 citement of the mind is often one of the surest 
 remedies for this uneasiness. No man, per- 
 haps, ever had an appetite for food under the 
 full influence of the depressing passions, such 
 as fear or grief He may eat from persuasion. 
 
ON EELiaiOUS EXPERIENCE. 37 
 
 or from a sense of duty, but he eats without 
 desire or a craving sense of hunger. Hence, 
 those who are suddenly deprived of their senses 
 by an overwhelming and unexpected evil, pass 
 days and nights without food of any kind, each 
 sufferer feeling with Bang Lear, 
 
 When the mind's free 
 The body 's delicate ; the tempest in my mind 
 Doth from my senses take all feeling else 
 Save what beats there. 
 
 Dr. Brigham says: "One day, when about 
 to sit down to dinner, with an appetite whetted 
 by five or six hours' exercise, a letter was put 
 into my hands announcing the death of a friend 
 to whom I felt strongly attached. The conse- 
 quence was an instantaneous loss of appetite, 
 which continued for two or three days." A 
 stern look, and a very few reproachful words 
 from Henry VIII. gave the ambitious Woolsey 
 a fit of indigestion which destroyed the Cardi- 
 nal's life. 
 
 The stomach, in its turn, reacts upon the 
 mind, causing confusion of thought, defect of 
 memory, and of the power of abstraction — not 
 4 
 
38 INFLUENCE OE HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 to mention despondency, irascibility, and other 
 kinds of morbid mental disturbance, by which 
 the sufferer is made ineffably wretched. Hence 
 dyspepsia, that malady so Protean in its forms, 
 once generally thought to be a disease origi- 
 nating always in the stomach, is now considered 
 by many of the most intelligent of the faculty 
 as primarily a disease of the brain and nervous 
 system, perpetuated by mental excitement, espe- 
 cially in the case of students. Thus it has been 
 observed, that persons who are in the habit 
 of strongly employing their mental faculties 
 shortly after taking food, are more or less sub- 
 ject to this affection. In such a case, the nerv- 
 ous energy required for the process of digestion, 
 instead of being expended upon the stomach, is 
 wasted upon the intellectual organs. Aristotle 
 informs us that all the great men of his time 
 were hypochondriacs; that " they had cultiva- 
 ted their mind at the expense of their body." 
 
 Nor is the force of the morbid impulse pro- 
 ceeding from the brain wholly exhausted upon 
 the stomach, but often reaches to 
 
 The Lungs and Heart — causing diseased 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 39 
 
 action in both. The acute pain sometimes felt 
 in the region of the heart, a tremulous or flut- 
 tering sensation there, interruptions of the pulse, 
 and palpitations, which the alarmed sufferer is 
 ready to ascribe to organic disease, are very 
 often symptoms only of "gastric derangement, 
 which has been generated by the morbific in- 
 fluence of the mind." 
 
 But none of the viscera of the body better 
 show its alliance to the mind, or illustrate and 
 establish this mysterious influence of the body 
 on the mind, than the 
 
 LiVKR. What are all the uses of this organ 
 in the human economy, is still a subject of in- 
 quiry. The main service which it performs, so 
 far as is generally understood, is merely the 
 secretion daily of a few ounces of bile. But 
 when we consider its dimensions — the largest 
 gland of any kind in the human system — the 
 number and size of its parts, and its peculiar 
 structurej we cannot resist the impression that 
 this great constituent of the vital mechanism 
 is used for a higher purpose than this. And 
 hence the opinion has obtained, both among 
 
40 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the ancients and moderns, that the liver has a 
 powerful influence on the temperament, the 
 mental functions, and the passions of the man, 
 and thus affecting his moral and religious feel- 
 ings. We presume to offer no solution of the 
 fact, nor even a conjecture, why a certain 
 class of mental phenomena should be developed 
 by the condition of this particular gland; why 
 the liver should exhibit its affinities for that 
 which is gloomy and sad, rather than the lungs 
 or heart '? But the fact is witnessed every 
 day, that such is the power of many of the 
 depressing passions when suddenly excited, that 
 they cause a gush of bile into the system at 
 large, which gives a yellow tinge to the eye, 
 and overcasts the mind with the most rueful 
 forebodings and ineffable despondency. Why 
 it should cause this mental dejection, is just as 
 inexplicable as is the hopeful, buoyant spirit of 
 the hectic patient, whose more desperate malady 
 is seated in his lungs. The contrast is remark- 
 able, whatever may be the cause. While in 
 the last stage of consumption the sufferer is 
 cheerful and incredulous as to the issue which 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 41 
 
 is so obvious to others, the man labouring 
 under disease of the liver is often oppressed 
 with a heaviness of heart which repels relief 
 from any suggestion of reason or the consola- 
 tions of religion. The classical reader will 
 recollect the frightful story of the miserable 
 Tityus, as told by both Homer and Virgil, who, 
 for his nameless crime, was condemned to be 
 eternally tormented by the preying of a vulture 
 upon his liver, which was supernaturally repro- 
 duced as fast as consumed. 
 
 Rostroque immanis vultur obunoo, 
 Immortale jeour tunJens. 
 
 A huge vulture, with his hooky beak, 
 Pouncing his immortal liver. — Davidson. 
 
 Whether our poets designed that fable should 
 receive a physiological gloss, and were prompt- 
 ed, in part, by their own morbid experiences or 
 not, it is certainly a most graphic allegory, de- 
 scriptive at once of the seat, the intensity, and 
 hopelessness of that unspeakable wretchedness 
 which so often proceeds from a diseased condi- 
 tion of this organ. Such would seem to have 
 been the opinion of Lucretius, who, in giving 
 4.* 
 
42 INrLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the moral of various heathen fables, furnishes 
 the following interpretation of this, as trans- 
 lated by Dryden. 
 
 No Tityus torn by vultures lies in hell, 
 Nor could the lobes of his rank liver swell 
 To that prodigious mass for their eternal meal. 
 But he's the Tityus, who by love oppressed, 
 Or tyrant passions preying on his breast, 
 And ever anxious thoughts, is robbed of rest. 
 
 Hippocrates, Galen, Aretoeus, and other illus- 
 trious ancients, were accustomed to describe a 
 great variety of mental disease under the gene- 
 ral term "melancholy," because they believed a 
 pensive and desponding state of the mind to 
 arise from a superabundance of "black bile," 
 the literal meaning of the compound word 
 "melancholy." Others supposed the hidden 
 cause of this mental depression to be the 
 
 Spleen — and hence, "to be spleeny," as de- 
 scriptive of the gloomy and disconsolate, has 
 come down to us traditionally as a saying of 
 antiquity. What is the use of this spongy 
 viscus has never been determined. Dr. Good 
 says various hypotheses have been offered by 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 43 
 
 learned men; but they are hypotheses, and 
 nothing more. Archdeacon Paley thinks it is 
 employed as needful in the package of the 
 animal mass. It is possible, he says, that the 
 spleen may be "merely a stuffing, a soft cushion 
 to fill up a vacancy or hollow, which, unless 
 occupied, would leave the package loose and 
 unsteady." The same opinion concerning the 
 influence of the liver in producing emotions of 
 sadness is conveyed in the word "hypochon- 
 driac," applied by the ancients to the melan- 
 choly, and which has been domesticated by 
 the moderns. Every reiader who can analyse 
 the term, knows that it designates the posi- 
 tion of this organ, ono y^ovdpov, under the car- 
 tilage. Thus the opinion obtained early, that 
 by some mysterious generation, affections of 
 this sombre cast were the offspring of the 
 liver. 
 
 The writer is indebted to a lady of genius, 
 and various accomplishments of both mind and 
 person, for a critical remark and suggestion in 
 relation to the subject of hepatic influence, as 
 furnished by her own experience. She is 
 
44 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 favourably known to the literary and religious 
 community by several instructive and interest- 
 ing works, and has paid the common penalty of 
 the studious in those physical ailments which 
 are too often the price of their success. She 
 had very soon discovered that the fluctuations 
 in her animal spirits j religious enjoyment, and 
 spiritual exercises generally; the changes in 
 her temper, mental energy, and cheerfulness, 
 to which she is painfully subject, were symp- 
 tomatic of a corresponding change in the cour 
 dition of this sensitive organ. But the exhibi- 
 tion of some simple remedy, by which its 
 healthful functions are restored, brings back at 
 once her elastic freedom of thought and cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 The preceding illustrations of the close con- 
 nection between the spiritual man and the 
 material, are doubtless ample for the ordinary 
 reader. But in view of the grave moral uses 
 to which this interesting truth is to be applied 
 in our subsequent remarks, we will presume on 
 the reader's indulgence while we adduce a few 
 to exemplify the power of the passions as dis- 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 45 
 
 turbers of the healthy action of our bodies. 
 Some of these, it is known, retard the circu- 
 lation of the blood, which, on the contrary, 
 is accelerated by opposite emotions that are 
 stronger and more vigorous. Who has failed 
 to notice how the heart palpitates, and the 
 "pulse gallops," when the mind is excited by 
 
 Love. When Antiochus the Syrian was iU of 
 an occult disease which threatened his life, the 
 cause of it was undiscoverable until betrayed to 
 his physicians by their observing that his pulse 
 suddenly became irregular whenever Stratonice 
 entered the room. It then appeared that love 
 for her was the cause of his illness. This was 
 immediately told to his royal father, who wil- 
 lingly gave her to his son, that his immoderate 
 passion might not cause his death. Not less 
 operative is the influence of 
 
 Hope. What fact is better established by 
 the teachings, as well as the experience of the 
 medical profession, than that the success of 
 surgical operations, and the results of medicine, 
 are materially affected by the hope or despair 
 that preponderates in the mind of the patient. 
 
46 INFLUENCK Of HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Surgeons in the army have noticed a marked 
 contrast between the mortality among the 
 wounded of a victorious and that of a con- 
 quered army. The most severe and apparently 
 desperate cases recover in the former, while 
 hospital gangrene, erysipelas, typhus, and dysen- 
 tery, usually decimate the latter. Even the 
 lighter cases are comparatively slow in their 
 recovery, and imperfect in their convalescence. 
 After the great battle on the Mincio, 1859, be- 
 tween the French and Sardinians on the one 
 side, and Austrians on the other, so disastrous 
 to the latter, the defeated army retreated, fol- 
 lowed by the victors. A description of the 
 march of each army is given by two correspon- 
 dents of the London Times, one of whom travel- 
 led with the successful host, the other with the 
 defeated. The differences in views and state- 
 ments of the same place, scenes, and events, is 
 remarkable. The former are said to be march- 
 ing through a beautiful and luxuriant country 
 during the day, and at night encamping where 
 they are supplied with an abundance of the 
 best provisions, and all sorts of rural dainties. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 47 
 
 There is nothing of war about the proceed- 
 ing, except its stimulus and excitement. On 
 the side of the poor Austrians it is just the 
 reverse. In his letter of the same date, de- 
 scribing the same places, and a march over the 
 same road, the writer can scarcely find words 
 to set forth the sufierings, impatience, and dis- 
 gust existing around him. What was pleasant 
 to the former was intolerable to the latter. 
 What made all this difference'? asks the jour- 
 nalist, "One condition only; the French are 
 victorious, the Austrians have been defeated. 
 The contrast may convey a distinctive idea of 
 the extent to which moral impressions affect 
 the efficiency of the soldier." y 
 
 When Dr. Rush was asked by a young man, 
 his patient, supposed to be near his death in 
 consumption, whether he might learn to play 
 on the flute, the doctor told him yes, and at 
 once said to his parents that he would get well. 
 Parke tells us in his travels that one day, in 
 his journey through the burning desert, ex- 
 hausted with privations and fatigue, and ready, 
 as he supposed, to die, he chanced at that 
 
48 INFLtfENCE or HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 moment to spy a tiny flower that had reared 
 its head above the ground. " What !" thought 
 he — "will that Providence which has watched 
 over this humble plant, not care for me, who 
 have been taught to regard him as a Father 1" 
 The thought revived his sinking spirits, and 
 he immediately felt both his strength and his 
 resolution to be greatly invigorated. Not less 
 potent is the agency of 
 
 Fear. How much has been said of its inju- 
 rious influence as predisposing to disease, espe- 
 cially during the prevalence of epidemics! A 
 curious experiment was tried in Russia with 
 four murderers, who were placed, without know- 
 ing it, in separate beds, where four persons had 
 died with cholera. They slept soundly and 
 safely, none of them taking the disease. They 
 were then put into beds, on which they were 
 told that persons had just died of malignant 
 cholera. The beds, however, were perfectly 
 new, and had not been used at all. The result 
 was, that three of them took the disease, and 
 died within four hours. 
 
 During the prevalence of that appaling epi- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 49 
 
 demic in the city of Philadelphia and vicinity, 
 not a single case occurred among the inmates of 
 the Cherry Hill prison, which was ascribed to 
 the fact that the existence of that pestilence in 
 their neighbourhood was effectually concealed 
 from them until its severity had abated. Doubt- 
 less the freedom of physicians from fear is one 
 of the main causes of the well-known immunity 
 with which so many of them mingle among 
 patients sick with the most contagious dis- 
 eases. The efficacy of fear has been exhibited 
 in instances of recovery from complaints which 
 bade defiance to every means that science could 
 devise. Both Doctors Batchelder and Rush 
 mention cases of gout which were effectually 
 dispelled by a sudden fright. An old man 
 who for several years had suffered an annual 
 attack of gout, was lying in one of these 
 paroxysms, when his son, by some accident, 
 drove the shaft of a wagon through the window 
 of his room, ^vith a terrific noise and a disas- 
 trous smashing of the glass. The shock was 
 electrifying, and he leaped from his bed with 
 5 
 
50 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the agility of a boy, forgetting his crutches and 
 cane, which were no longer needed. 
 
 By the same prophylactic aid of fear, Boer- 
 haave once relieved a number of persons from 
 epileptic fits, which were occasioned by witness- 
 ing the convulsions of others. In the hearing 
 of these patients, he gave orders that hot irons 
 should be applied to the first person who should 
 be attacked. The expedient proved successful, 
 and not one opportunity occurred for a resort 
 to this frightful remedy. And who can doubt 
 that most of the monomania which Dr. Moore 
 calls the fashionable apology for murder, might 
 be effectually prevented by the restraining 
 agency of fear, if known that certain retri- 
 bution would follow the crime. 
 
 Not long ago a man in New Hampshire was 
 convicted of murder, committed in a state of 
 partial derangement from strong drinli. Just 
 before his execution he acknowledged that his 
 punishment was deserved, but added, that "had 
 I known I should be hung for killing the man, 
 I would have let him alone." 
 
 The teachings of Broussais respecting inflam- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 51 
 
 mation of the stomach, made such an impres- 
 sion on the minds, and so excited the fears of 
 many, we are told, as to have greatly multi- 
 plied the cases in Paris at the time. Doctor 
 John Hunter attributed the heart-disease, by 
 which he ultimately died in a fit of passion, to 
 his fear of having caught hydrophobia while 
 dissecting the body, of a patient who died of 
 that disease. When Corvisart lectured at Paris 
 on the heart, aflfections of that organ, whether 
 real or imaginary, were greatly multiplied. 
 He agrees with Testa, another writer on the 
 same subject, that the feelings have great in- 
 fluence in changing the natural action of the 
 heart, and producing disorder. The latter au- 
 thor considered the powerful and irregular ope- 
 rations of the passions as the most frequent 
 cause of organic disease of the heart; which 
 explains why this complaint was so much more 
 common in Italy during seasons of political 
 agitation, and especially in France at the time 
 of the Revolution, than at any other period. 
 The French Journal of Medicine records the 
 case of an aged female, who, from agitation and 
 
52 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 fright, became black as a negro, from head to 
 foot in a few hours. The same cause whitened 
 the hair on half the head of a patient in the 
 Pennsylvania Hospital, and on the whole head 
 of Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI., in a 
 single night. 
 
 A correspondent of the London Medical 
 Times, writing from India, February 19, 1858, 
 says that a Sepoy of the Bengal army, having 
 been made a prisoner, was brought before the 
 authorities for examination. The man trem- 
 bled violently; intense horror and despair were 
 depicted on his face, and he seemed to be ' 
 almost stupified with fear. The writer, who 
 was present, adds, that within the space of half 
 an hour his hair became gray on every portion 
 of his head. " When first seen by us, it was 
 the glossy jet-black of the Bengalee;' his age 
 was twenty-four. The attention of the by- 
 standers was first attracted by the Sergeant, 
 whose prisoner he was, exclaiming, 'he is turn- 
 ing gray!' and I, with several other persons, 
 watched its progress. Gradually, but deci- 
 dedly, the change went on, and a uniform gray 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 53 
 
 colour was completed within the period above 
 named." 
 
 A few years ago two young men attempted 
 to rob an eagle's nest, high up on a cliff on the 
 bank of the Hudson river, but several feet 
 below the summit. One of them was let down 
 in a basket, suspended by a rope, till he came 
 opposite the nest. The eagle returned to pro- 
 tect, her young, and in endeavouring to defend 
 himself against her talons, the young man drew 
 his knife, and in the contest accidentally cut all 
 the strands of the rope but one. Meantime his 
 companion was drawing him up to the summit, 
 but he was so affected by fear at his perilous 
 condition, that the next day his hair became as 
 hoary as that of an old man. 
 
 The following case may be adduced, not 
 merely for the illustration of our subject, but 
 for the wholesome warning that it suggests 
 against the vice of which it is a monitory regis- 
 ter. A young man, twenty-three years old, 
 came from the mines to San Francisco, with 
 the intention of soon leaving the latter place 
 for home. On the evening of his arrival, he, 
 5* 
 
54 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 with his companions, visited the gambling sa- 
 loons. After watching for a time the varied 
 fortunes of a table, supposed to be undergoing 
 the process of "tapping," from the continued 
 success of those betting against the bank, the 
 excitement overcame his better judgment, and 
 he threw upon the "seven-spot" of a new deal, 
 a bag which he said contained eleven hundred 
 doUars — his all — the result of two years' priva- 
 tion and hard labour — exclaiming, with a voice 
 trembling from intense excitement, " My home, 
 or the mines!" As the dealer slowly resumed 
 the drawing of his cards, his countenance, livid 
 with fear of the inevitable fate that seems ever 
 attendant upon the tapping process when once 
 commenced, the writer, who was present, says : 
 "I turned my eyes upon the young man who 
 had staked his whole gains upon a card. Never 
 shall I forget the impression made by his look 
 of intense anxiety as he watched the cards as 
 they fell from the dealer's hands. All the ener- 
 gies of his system seemed concentrated in the 
 fixed gaze of his eyes, while the deadly pallor 
 of his face bespoke the subdued action of his 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 55 
 
 heart. All around seemed infected with the 
 sympathetic powers of the spell; even the 
 hitherto successful winners forgot their own 
 stakes in the hazardous chance placed upon thg 
 issue of the bet. The cards are slowly told 
 with the precision of high-wrought excitement. 
 The seven-spot wins — the spell is broken — re- 
 action takes place. The winner exclaims, with 
 a deep-drawn sighj 'I will never gamble again!' 
 and was carried from the room in a deep 
 swoon, from which he did not fuUy recover 
 until the next morning; and then to know that 
 the equivalent surrendered, for his gain was 
 the colour of his hair, now changed to a per- 
 fect white !" Not less sudden, nor less calami- 
 tous often, are the effects of 
 
 Grief. Father Chrysostom describes it as 
 "a cruel torture of the soul, consuming the 
 body, and giiawing the very heart." Melanc- 
 thon says, "it strikes the heart, makes it flutter 
 and pine away in great pain." It was believed 
 that Philip V. of Spain died suddenly by the 
 breaking of his heart on hearing of the hope- 
 less defeat of his army near Plaisance. Dr. 
 
56 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Zimmerman states, that on opening the king's 
 body the heart was found actually burst; so 
 that, as Johnson says, the vulgar metaphorical 
 expression of a "broken heart," is sometimes 
 pathologically correct. What amazing results 
 have followed a sudden paroxysm of 
 
 Joy. a woman in the city of New York 
 heard that her husband and child were on board 
 a ship that had been wrecked. Accustomed to 
 go to the wharf from day to day, as if desirous 
 of being nearer the beloved objects that were 
 supposed to be buried beneath the sea, she sud- 
 denly beheld them landing from a vessel that 
 had picked them up. The joy on seeing them 
 safe was overwhelming. After the first saluta- 
 tion her reason fled, and from that time to the 
 present she ha* not known them. She still 
 sits on what she thinks the same rock where 
 she used to bewail their fate, wringing her 
 hands with ineffable distress; while every week 
 the husband and son visit her, hoping to find 
 a gleam of returning memory, but in vain. 
 
 Sophocles,* Chilo, Juventius, Talma, and 
 Fouquet, are said to have died from the ex- 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 57 
 
 citement of excessive joy. Life, was extin- 
 guished in a moment by a sudden surcharge of 
 the brain with blood, causing apoplexy. How 
 many have witnessed the withering power of 
 
 Chagrin, or Shame, Eev. Daniel Baker tells 
 the story of a young man, who several years 
 ago was charged before an ecclesiastical court 
 with an infamous crime, but; as he declared 
 the imputation to be slanderous, a committee 
 was appointed to investigate the matter, and 
 report. "I was present," Mr. Baker says, 
 " when, in the presence of two or three hun- 
 dred citizens, the report was made, which 
 affirmed that the charge against him was true ! 
 I saw the man the moment his character was 
 thus blasted for ever. After one frafltie effort, 
 with a pistol, to take the life of the person who 
 had thus exposed him, he dropped his head, and 
 could not bear to look upon man or woman any 
 more. Soon after returning to his lodgings, 
 he laid himself down and died. Shame killed 
 him!" How mysterious is the power of 
 
 Sympathy — which one describes, as the natu- 
 ral check that the Almighty puts upon unchari- 
 
58 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 table self. In spite of themselves, there are 
 few that have not felt compassion for others. 
 This affords a beautiful proof both of the divine 
 beneficence and of the power of the mind over 
 the body. It is that inexplicable something in 
 our moral and physical structure by which a 
 multitude may be apparently possessed by the 
 same spirit; the organism of each instanta- 
 neously taking on the same action, simply from 
 the mind being devoted to the same object. 
 There is no part nor organ of the body in 
 which existing uneasiness may not be aggra- 
 vated or relieved according as the attention is 
 directed to the part or diverted from it, "Look 
 at a person when yawning — ^read, or only think 
 of it, and you begin to gape yourself The 
 wheezing and asthmatic struggles seen on one 
 man, have been known to produce the same 
 symptoms in another. Many obstinate and dis- 
 tressing coughs have been aggravated and pro- 
 longed by the mere apprehension of their return 
 if relieved for a season." The physical eflfects 
 of a 
 MoKBiD Imitative Sympathy, and of Imagi- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 59 
 
 NATION, on the nervous system, are familiarly- 
 known. They have been displayed in all the 
 various extravagancies vphich, at times, have 
 attended the preaching of the gospel, and too 
 often impeded its progress. The phenomena of 
 this sort which are recorded in Dr. Davidson's 
 "History of the Presbyterian Church in the 
 State of Kentucky," are not less interesting to 
 the psychologist and physician than they are to 
 the preacher. They were occasioned, doubtless, 
 in part, by an undue excitement of animal feel- 
 ing. But the manifold forms, especially the 
 " bodily exercises," by which this excited feel- 
 ing was exhibited, have ever been, to some 
 extent, inexplicable on any known principles 
 of mental or physical science. They were classi- 
 fied iinder the significant names of the Falling, 
 Rolling, Running, Dancing, Barking, and Jerk- 
 ing exercises, each of which was descriptive of 
 a distinctive sort of bodily movement or agita- 
 tion. "We select, for an example, that muscu- 
 lar convulsion which was familiarly called the 
 Jerks. The first recorded instance of its occur- 
 rence was at the administration of the Lord's 
 
60 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Supper in East Tennessee, when several hundred 
 of both sexes were affected with this strange 
 and involuntary contortion. " The subject was 
 instantaneously seized with spasms or convul-' 
 sions in every muscle, nerve, and tendon. His 
 head was jerked or thrown from side to side 
 with such rapidity that it was impossible to 
 distinguish his visage, and the most lively fears 
 were ' entertained lest he should dislocate his 
 neck, or dash out his brains. His body par- 
 took of the same impulse, and was hurried on 
 by like jerks over every obstacle — ^fallen trunks 
 of trees, or, in a church, over pews and benches, 
 apparently to the most imminent danger of 
 being bruised and mangled. It was useless to 
 attempt to hold or restrain him, and the 
 paroxysm was permitted gradually to exhaust 
 itself. An additional motive for leaving him 
 to himself was the superstitious notion that all 
 attempt at restraint was 'resisting the Spirit of 
 God.' One remarkable feature of these bodily 
 affections was, that the very apprehension of an 
 attack would often bring it on in spite of all 
 precaution or efforts of the will to prevent it. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 61 
 
 A young man, the son of an elder, who was 
 a tanner, feigned sickness on Sabbath morning 
 to avoid accompanying the family to a camp- 
 meeting. He was left alone in bed, with none 
 in the house but a few black children. He 
 lay some time triumphing in the success of his 
 stratagem, but afraid to rise too soon, lest some 
 one might be accidentally lingering, and detect 
 him. As he lay quiet with his head covered, 
 his thoughts were naturally directed to the 
 camp-meeting, and fancy painted an assembled 
 multitude, the public worship, and individuals 
 falling into the usual spasmodic convulsions. 
 All at once he found himself violently jerked 
 out of bed, and dashed round the room and 
 against the walls, in a manner altogether be- 
 yond his control. Recollecting that praying 
 was said to be a good sedative on such occa- 
 sions, he resorted to the experiment, and, to 
 his great satisfaction, found it successful. He 
 returned to bed quite relieved, but only to be 
 again affected in the same way, and again 
 quieted by the act of prayer. He then dressed 
 himself, and to occupy his mind, went to the 
 6 
 
62 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 tan yard, and drawing a skin from the vat, 
 prepared to take off the hair. He rolled up 
 his sleeves, and grasping the knife, vras about 
 to commence operations, w^hen instantaneously 
 the knife was flirted out of his hand, and he 
 himself jerked over logs, and against fences, 
 as before. Gaining relief by resorting to the 
 former remedy, he ventured to resume his 
 occupation, and again was interrupted. But 
 finding his talisman losing its efficacy, he began 
 now to be really alarmed, and quitting the 
 yard, he returned to his chamber and betook 
 himself to prayer in good earnest. In this 
 condition, weeping and crying to God for 
 mercy, he was found by the family on their 
 return. The result of this singular incident 
 was, that he became a truly converted man, 
 and shortly after connected himself with the 
 church. 
 
 The same author mentions another example 
 of the involuntary nature of these bodily exer- 
 cises, in the case of a lady and gentleman of 
 some note in the fashionable world, who were 
 attracted to the camp-meeting at Cane Ridge 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 63 
 
 by mere curiosity. On the way they amused 
 themselves with a variety of jokes upon the 
 poor deluded creatures who allowed themselves 
 to roll screaming in the mud, and crying for 
 mercy; and sportively agreed, that if either of 
 them should fall, the other should remain, 
 and render suitable protection and assistance. 
 They had not been long on the ground, when, 
 to the consternation of the gentleman, his gay 
 companion suddenly dropped; whereupon, in- 
 stead of fuMUing his promise, he fled at full 
 speied. Flight, however, proved no preserva- 
 tive, for he had not gone two hundred yards 
 before he was seized in the same way, and 
 measured his own length upon the ground; 
 while a crowd flocked around him to witness 
 his mortification, and offer prayers in his be- 
 half. 
 
 Very much like this, and equally marvellous, 
 are the bodily exercises which have attended 
 the late work of grace in Ireland. Dr. Mac- 
 naughton says, that "persons would be sud- 
 denly struck down as if they were dead; and 
 not under the influence of exciting appeals 
 
64 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 made to them, for the same things happened 
 to them when they were alone, and no person 
 speaking to them." 
 
 Instructive exemplifications of onr subject, 
 concerning the power of the imagination, might 
 be taken from the records of empiricism. 
 Every feat of -medical charlatanry has been 
 a signal illustration of the strong reciprocal 
 influence of the mind and the body. In the 
 early part of the present century, a native of 
 New England reaped a harvest of more than 
 ten thousand pounds sterling from grateful, 
 but deluded patients in Great Britain, whom 
 he had relieved of distressing maladies by 
 means of his " metallic tractors." These were 
 two small pieces of metal of difi'erent kinds, 
 which received their name from being drawn 
 slightly over the part of the body affected, and 
 which were said to attract the disease to the 
 surface. That these marvellous cures were 
 produced by the imagination of the sufferer, 
 was proved by Dr. Haygarth, who had a couple 
 of wooden tractors made, to resemble in ap- 
 pearance the metallic. The tractors of both 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXRERIENCE. 65 
 
 sorts were afterwards applied to five patients, 
 and the same benefit followed, whether the 
 instrument used was made of wood or of iron; 
 thus demonstrating the whole to be a grand 
 imposture. It was a case which clearly be- 
 longs to the same category with that related 
 of Dr. Woodhouse, who tested the power of 
 imagination on certain persons, who, when 
 nitrous oxide excited great Attention, were 
 anxious to breathe the gas. He administered 
 to them ten gallons of atmospherical air, in 
 doses of from four to six quarts. Impressed 
 with the idea that they were inhaling the 
 exhilarating gas, they soon began to exhibit 
 the usual quickness of pulse, vertigo, ringing 
 in the ears, difiiculty of breathing, faintnesSj 
 weakness of the knees, and nausea, which 
 lasted from six to eight hours. 
 
 Bartholini, a famous physician, born at 
 Copenhagen (1616,) declares that he once, by 
 mistake, gave a patient a bottle of mere water 
 instead of another bottle of liquor designed 
 for an emetic, and that the patient's imagina- 
 6* 
 
66 INrLVENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 tion was so affected by the expectation, that 
 the water produced the effect he intended, 
 
 Franciscus Borri, born at Milan in the be- 
 ginning of the seventeenth century, was said 
 to cure all diseases, and so great was his repu- 
 tation, that patients were carried to him from 
 a great distance. But when it came to be 
 observed that he cured only those who had a 
 strong imagination, his credit sunk at once, 
 and he worked no more wonders. A most 
 remarkable example of the irresistible power 
 of a disquieted mind is mentioned by Gregorius 
 Leti, in his history of the Duke D'Ossuna. 
 He , tells us that a rich Neapolitan merchant, 
 Jacob Morel, prided himself in not having once 
 set his foot out of the city during forty-eight 
 years. This coming to the ears of the Duke, 
 Morel had notice sent to him that he was to 
 take no journey out of the kingdom under the 
 penalty of ten thousand crowns. The mer- 
 chant smiled at receiving the order, but after- 
 wards, not being able to fathom the reason of 
 such a prohibition, grew so uneasy, that he 
 paid the fine, and took a little trip out of the 
 kingdom. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 67 
 
 Selden, in his "Table-Talk," mentions the 
 case of a gentleman that had been in a pro- 
 longed state of melancholy, whose malady I 
 relieved, he says, by the following very simple 
 expedient. "Perceiving his great confidence 
 in me, and knowing that his complaint was 
 rather fancied than real, I desired him to let 
 me alone for a short time, and then come again, 
 when I would give him directions, which, if 
 faithfully followed, would cure him. In the 
 meantime I got a card, and wrapped it in a 
 handsome piece of taffeta, to which I put 
 strings, and when he came, gave it to him to 
 hang about his neck. At the same time I 
 charged him not to disorder himself with im- 
 proper eating and drinking; take very little 
 supper, attend as usual to his devotional duties 
 as he went to bed, and in a short time he 
 would be well. Three or four days after, I 
 called upon him, and found him very much 
 better, but perceiving that there was still a 
 remnant of his mental disquiet, I gave him 
 another string to hang about his neck. Three 
 days after, he came to my office in the Temple, 
 and professed that he was as well as he had 
 
68 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 ever been in his life, and thanked me for the 
 care I had taken of him. The gentleman 
 lived many years, and was never troubled 
 after." 
 
 Similar examples of the reflected influences 
 of the mind and body on each other might 
 be easily adduced to a much greater extent. 
 We have indulged in our selections already 
 to a profuseness perhaps, but the truths they 
 illustrate cannot be presented in too many 
 phases, nor too deeply impressed. It is a 
 branch of the great subject of Moral Thera- 
 peutics, w^hich is too little studied by those 
 who are charged with the health of either the 
 body or of the soul. They may be read with 
 advantage by many, as interesting psychologi- 
 cal facts, and at the same time help to prepare 
 them for the more interesting part of our 
 inquiry — the illustrations of this connection 
 between the outer and inner man, as fur- 
 nished by 
 
 III. CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE. 
 
 "We have already said, that it is a subject 
 which is worthy the attention of all, whatever 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 69 
 
 their character, moral or religious; but it is 
 more particularly the case of the latter that 
 this investigation contemplates. It is to show 
 the influence of the mind and feelings upon 
 the body, as well as the constant and yet often 
 unsuspected actings of the flesh, with its un- 
 numbered infirmities, upon the spirit; and that 
 the devotional exercises of the latter are greatly 
 affected by the physical condition of the for- 
 mer. And if the foregoing observations have 
 been uninteresting, or unintelligible to any, 
 there are those who will understand us now. 
 Here we strike a chord which will vibrate 
 more or less in every changed heart that has 
 been given to the study of its own exercises. 
 No person accustomed to notice his various 
 religious frames, can have failed to perceive 
 that these are closely allied to what is usually 
 denominated his "constitution." Is there such 
 a blending of the juices of the animal economy 
 as to produce what is called a nervous tem- 
 perament, or that excess of bile which makes 
 it melancholy'? Or is the man gentle or se- 
 rene, sanguine or timid, cheerful or sad, you 
 
70 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 will find that these idiosyncrasies will not be 
 merged and lost in the changes wrought by 
 regenerating grace. His religion will not so 
 neutralize and remove the cause of his lowness 
 of spirits, his timidity, or whatever it may be 
 that is peculiar to his nature, as to make him 
 at all times cheerful and self-possessed. The 
 bashful man will be a bashful Christian; and 
 the bold man, constitutionally, will be bold iu 
 a state of grace. After all that the Spirit has 
 accomplished in each, it will still be true in 
 all, that the religious character wiU be tinc- 
 tured by that of the natural man, as the liquor 
 put into an old cask commonly receives a 
 strong tang from the vessel. 
 
 Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem 
 Testa diu. 
 
 The odours of the wine, that first shall stain 
 The virgin vessel, it shall long retain. — Francis. 
 
 In this respect the Spirit's operation on the 
 soul has been happily compared to the work 
 of a sculptor, who makes a statue of wood, 
 of stone, or of marble, indifferently, according 
 to the material put into his hand. So the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 71 
 
 Spirit, in forming the new man, still retains 
 so much of the old as to make it evident what 
 is the rock from which he was hewn. Nor is 
 it a less interesting fact, that this gracious 
 influence is so exerted in the various condi- 
 tions of hfe where it is felt, as to qualify the 
 soul for the appropriate duties of its particular 
 station. Does regenerating grace find a man 
 in high life or humble, in Caesar's household, 
 among the fishermen of Galilee, or the ser- 
 vants of Philemon, it requires no change in 
 his place, but vy^orks a change on his heart, 
 and gives new help to discharge his duties 
 better. The same Holy Spirit who makes a 
 Christian master gentle and prudent in com- 
 manding, makes a Christian servant faithful 
 and cheerful in obeying; as the astrologers 
 said of Cyrus, that the same stars which made 
 him to be chosen king amongst the armies of 
 men when he came to be a man, made him 
 to be chosen king among the shepherds' child- 
 ren when he was a child. In rearing the New 
 Testament temple of the Redeemer on earth, 
 there is the same occasion for various gifts 
 
72 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 and kinds of service that there was in the 
 magnificent structure of Solomon. And hence 
 the innocent and useful differences between 
 men, in their fallen state, are preserved and 
 turned to a profitable account in their reco- 
 very. See a familiar illustration of this in the 
 original teachers of the gospel, or the twelve 
 apostles. Simon Peter was by natural tem- 
 perament ardent, sanguine, precipitate; and 
 this characteristic of the natural man is con- 
 tinually betraying itself after his conversion. 
 You observe it in his conversations with his 
 Master; his bold professions, hasty promises, 
 which opened the way for his sifting by Satan, 
 and his lamentable fall. After the resurrec- 
 tion, see him running with John to visit the 
 sepulchre; and while his timid and cautious 
 companion stoops down at first, and only ven- 
 tures to look into the place, the intrepid Peter 
 rushes by and plunges into the gloomy abode 
 of the dead, examines the very spot where the 
 sacred dust had rested, and the linen clothes 
 in which it had been wrapped. Both of them 
 regenerated men, and men perhaps of equal 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 73 
 
 piety; but very unlike before their conversion, 
 and scarcely more alike afterwards. Dr. Mason 
 used to say, that the grace which would make 
 John appear like an angel, would be only just 
 enough to keep Peter from knocking a man 
 down. 
 
 Look next at Paul, whose lofty bearing, and 
 undaunted courage by nature, was not a whit 
 impaired, but only sanctified by grace, and 
 retained to the end of his life. See Luther 
 and Melancthon, as opposite in their Christian 
 character as they were in their original tem- 
 perament. "Melancthon," Cecil says, "is like 
 a snail with his couple of horns ; he puts out 
 his horns and feels — and feels— and feels. No 
 education could have rendered these two men 
 alike. Their difference began in the womb. 
 Luther dashes in saying his things; Melanc- 
 thon must go round about." The same divine 
 influence had wrought effectually on the heart 
 of both; yet, like the statue of which we 
 spoke, the image corresponded to the material 
 out of which it had been constructed. That 
 any amount of spiritual influence should ever 
 7 
 
74 INrLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 destroy these physical characteristics and make 
 men of such divers temperaments alike, is to 
 be expected no more than that it should make 
 them of one stature, or give them the same 
 features or complexion. 
 
 It will be recollected how Caesar recognizes 
 the influence of temperament, when he ob- 
 jected to Cassius, because he was "lean and 
 thought too much." He wished to have around 
 him 
 
 Sleek headed men, and such as sleep o' nights. 
 Would he were fatter. 
 
 Siich men as Cassius feared are usually 
 "lean," because their "too much" thinking 
 developes the brain and the nervous system at 
 the expense of some function in the animal 
 or organic. Men of this sort, according to 
 Dr. Johnson, will be found thin and sallow, 
 with weak digestion, and quickness or irrita- 
 bility of nerve, like Lord Wellington or Bona- 
 parte, till the latter became bloated by disease. 
 Martin Luther's amazing executive powers 
 were as closely connected with his physical 
 qualities as with his moral. His great mind 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 75 
 
 was lodged in a body which seemed to have 
 b'een created for just such a tenant. His frame 
 was large, well proportioned, athletic, and capa- 
 ble of enduring, without fatigue, any amount 
 of labour and privation. He was affable, hope- 
 ful, and a stranger to those bodily ailments 
 that so beset and embitter the life of the seden- 
 tary and studious. Dr. Cox is reported to 
 have said, that it was well that Luther was 
 not a dyspeptic, for the Reformation would 
 have been delayed, had he wanted a good 
 digestion. 
 
 But there are other, and in some respects 
 more marked and painful illustrations, in the 
 morbid experience of some Christians, which 
 are at once an effect and a symptom of the 
 State of their health. rRev. Timothy Rogers, 
 a minister in London near the close of the 
 seventeenth century, who was happily delivered 
 from long affliction and great spiritual distress 
 produced by this cause, describes the condition 
 as one which is in every respect sad and over- 
 whelming. In a letter to a friend he says, "It 
 is a state of darkness that has no discernible 
 
76 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 beams of light. It is a land of darkness, on 
 which no sun at all seems to shine. It does 
 generally, indeed, first begin at the body, and 
 then conveys its venom to the mind; and if 
 anything could be found that might keep the 
 blood and spirits in their due temper and 
 motion, this would obstruct its further pro- 
 gress, and in a great measure keep the soul 
 clear." How many belong to that class who 
 are familiarly said to look only at the dark 
 side of every object, and are unwilling to 
 engage in any enterprise, from an anticipa- 
 tion of its failure. Whether the happiness of 
 this world or the next be their pursuit, the 
 prospect is cheered by scarcely a ray of hope. 
 Such a tendency to gloom is a thorn in the 
 flesh, by which they are often tormented; nor 
 is any class more exposed to the buffetings 
 of this minister of Satan, than the teachers 
 of religion. How; often do we witness the sad 
 spectacle of those whose manifold bodily in- 
 firmities, brought on by sedentary habits, great 
 anxiety, or excessive study and exhaustion of 
 sensorial power, defraud them of all the conso- 
 
ON EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 77 
 
 lations of that benignant system of faith which 
 they are enabled to expound so successfully to 
 others. Instead of an open, cheerful expres- 
 sion of countenance, we often see a wrinkled, 
 contracted, sinister look, which speaks any- 
 thing but in favour of the benign religion of 
 the gospel. Thus, Christianity itself is made 
 to suifer from the physical sufferings of its 
 professors and expounders. The light-minded 
 and thoughtless imbibe a prejudice against it, 
 from observing the care-worn and sorrowful 
 features of some of its advocates. They think 
 it to be a legitimate effect of their principles, 
 and are made to shun the places, and books, 
 and people, whose influence appears to be so 
 detrimental to all earthly enjoyment. Unhap- 
 pily, these outward tokens of disquietude are 
 but too significant of what is passing within. 
 If the face be covered with gloom, it is only 
 an index of the state of such a Christian's 
 heart, when in the retirement of his closet he 
 pours out its exercises in lamentations, and 
 confessions of sin, and supplications for relief. 
 At one time, he feels that he has grieved the 
 
 i7» 
 
78 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Spirit, that his best services are only hypo- 
 critical forms, and surely God has forsaken 
 him. His heart appears like the nether mill- 
 stone, and his bosom the cage of every unclean 
 bird. The arrows of the Almighty are within 
 him, the poison whereof drinketh up his spirit, 
 and the terrors of God do set themselves in 
 array against him. Again the scene is wholly 
 changed; the turbid current of his thoughts 
 has become clear as crystal. The rain is over 
 and gone, and the time of the singing of birds 
 is come. The , change in his exercises is like 
 the transition from the. terrific tempest to the 
 serene sky, and air, and pleasant sun, that fol- 
 low it. Or ever he is aware, his soul makes him 
 like the chariots of Amminadib. His doubts are 
 solved, his fears are gone, and his present joys 
 perhaps are in proportion to his previous sad- 
 ness. He is brought into Christ's banqueting 
 house, and the banner over him is love. Tie is 
 stayed with flagons and comforted with apples, 
 and restored to the joys of salvation. 
 
 That such spiritual fluctuations as these, to 
 which so many Christians are subject, are very 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 79 
 
 often produced by physical causes, is as capable 
 of proof, as it is that an excited pulse and 
 increased heat are symptoms of fever. They 
 are the reflected influence of some bodily mal- 
 ady upon the soul. They arise, as Rev, Dr, 
 J, R. McDuff says, from a diseased body, an 
 overstrung mind — a succession of calaniities, 
 weakening and impairing the nervous system. 
 We know how susceptible are the body and 
 mind together, of being affiected by external 
 influences. Of that constitution which, in our 
 ignorance, we call union of soul and body, we 
 know little respecting what is cause and what 
 is efiiect. We would fain believe that the 
 mind has power over the body; but it is just 
 as true that the body rules the mind. Causes 
 apparently the most trivial— a heated room, 
 want of exercise, a sunless day, a northern 
 aspect — will make all the difference between 
 happiness and unhappiness; between faith and 
 doubt; between courage and indecision. To 
 our fancy there is something humiliating in 
 being thus at the mercy of our animal or- 
 ganism. We would fain find nobler causes 
 
80 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 for our emotions. But many of those sighs 
 and tears, and morbid, depressed feelings which 
 Christians speak of as the result of spiritual 
 darkness and the desertion of God, are merely 
 the result of physical derangement; the penalty 
 often for the violation of the laws of health. 
 The atmosphere we breathe is enough to ac- 
 count for them. They come and go, rise and 
 fall, with the mercury in the tube. These are 
 cases not for the spiritual, but for the bodily 
 physician. Their cure is in attendance to the 
 usual laws and prescriptions which regulate 
 the healthy action of the bodily functions. 
 We once knew a man of superior natural gifts 
 and piety, an officer of the church, who suf- 
 fered occasionally froin such a cause. The 
 effect on his devotional feelings was so marked, 
 that you could discover the state of his health 
 in his prayers. They were always excellent 
 and edifying, yet there was at times a subdued 
 manner, or a sadness, which indicated the in- 
 fluence of bodily infirmity, and of the struggle 
 of the soul to resist the tendency. 
 
 Many have discovered that their periods of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 81 
 
 spiritual depression are always contempora- 
 neous with periodical, changes in their physical 
 condition, or with that sort of indisposition 
 which proceeds from gastric derangement or 
 an affection of the liver. How many thou- 
 sands are daily affected by changes in the 
 atmosphere, scarcely less than was Dr. Francia, 
 Dictator of Paraguay, whose most extravagant 
 outbreaks of passion, and cruel exertions of 
 despotic power, generally occurred during his 
 seasons of hypochondria, which were most fre- 
 quent when the wind was north-east, but which 
 ended with a change to south-west, when he 
 would begin to sing and laugh to himself, and 
 was readily accessible. Sir Woodbine Parish 
 informs us, in his narrative of a visit to Buenos 
 Ayres, that a sort of moral derangement pre- 
 vails when the wind blows from the north; 
 that quarrels- and bloodshed are much more 
 frequent at such times than at any other. He 
 relates that a gentleman of amiable manners 
 under ordinary circumstances, was so affected 
 by this wind, that whenever it prevailed, he 
 would quarrel with any one he met; and he 
 
82 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 was at last executed for murder, after having 
 been engaged in street-fights, -with knives, at 
 least twenty times. 
 
 The cases in which this sort of morbid suf- 
 fering is exemplified are so numerous, that 
 their name is Legion. They find that their 
 state while here "is a conjunction of their 
 soul to a frail distempered body, and so near 
 a conjunction, that the actions of the soul must 
 have great dependence on the body. Its ap- 
 prehensions of spiritual good are limited by 
 the frailty of the body, and the soul can go 
 no higher than the body will allow." We 
 have knowTi instances in which the seasons of 
 spiritual joy and depression alternated like an 
 intermittent disease, coming and departing at 
 regular intervals. In the church of the late 
 Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn, New York, was an 
 excellent female, whose " mind was found to 
 be shrouded in darkness and gloom. After 
 many conversations held at different times for 
 months, one day I called upon her," he says, 
 " and to my surprise found her calm, and that 
 her distress of spirit had given place to glad- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 83 
 
 ness. But three days after this, her light had 
 departed and she had relapsed into her former 
 state of despair. Not long after, she became 
 hopeful and happy for a little season, and then 
 as depressed and sorrowful as ever. These 
 alternations from gloom to gladness were inex- 
 plicable, until I was able to connect them with 
 the state of her bodily health. When I men- 
 tioned the cause to her, she admitted the coin- 
 cidence between the coming of pain into her 
 head and the departure of her spiritual peace ; 
 but this explanation seemed credible only dur- 
 ing her intervals of peace, which at length 
 became short. In the morning she was always 
 hopeful, but every afternoon in despair. In 
 the morning she believed that her afternoon 
 distress was caused by her bodily infirmity, 
 but would entirely disbelieve it in the after- 
 noon. At length the morbid bodily state 
 which had so affected her mind was changed. 
 The light of Christian hope and joy were no 
 longer withdrawn. Her death was peaceful, 
 without a doubt of a happy immortality." 
 During Mr. Cecil's protracted sickness of 
 
84 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 three years, the state of his mind fluctuated 
 with his malady. Its principal effect was ap- 
 parent in throwing a cloud over his comfort. 
 He was precisely like : a man laden with a 
 heavy weight. As the load was lightened, he 
 began to think, feel, exert and enjoy himself 
 in his natural manner. "When the burden was 
 increased, he sank down again tinder the op- 
 pression. Sometimes these intermissions are 
 much more prolonged, as in the case of the 
 late excellent and venerable Dr. James Hall, 
 of North Carolina, who was of a melancholy 
 temperament; and after finishing his education 
 at Princeton he fell into a gloomy dejection, 
 which interrupted his studies and labours for 
 more than a year. After his restoration he 
 laboured successfully and comfortably in the 
 ministry many years, even to old age; but at 
 last was overtaken again, and entirely over- 
 whelmed by this terrible malady, "Of all 
 men that I ever saw," Dr. A, Alexander says, 
 "he had the tenderest sympathy with persons 
 labouring under religious despondency. When 
 on a journey, I have known him to travel 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 85 
 
 miles out of his way to converse with a suf- 
 ferer of this kind; and his manner was most 
 tender and affectionate in speaking to such." 
 
 A venerable clergyman, who had suffered 
 greatly from nervous affections, discovered this 
 to be characteristic of his own experience; that 
 when the period of gloom and distress did not 
 terminate for two or three weeks, it would in 
 the meantime recur only every other day. But 
 the more common cases are those in which 
 the cloud, when gathered, remains suspended 
 and unmoved for days or weeks, with scarcely 
 a gleam of sunshine. Such a sufferer was the 
 late eminently learned and pious Isaac Milner, 
 Dean of Carlisle, whose extraordinary talents 
 and attainments in science were conceded by 
 all, and whose genuine piety was questioned 
 by none but himself. And yet, while the 
 source of so much light and spiritual instruc- 
 tion to others, he was often an opaque and 
 cheerless body to himself. "Though I have 
 endeavoured to discharge my duty as well as 
 I could," he writes to Mr. Wilberforce, "yet 
 sadness and melancholy of heart stick close 
 8 
 
83 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 by and increase upon me. I tell nobody, but 
 I am very much sunk indeed, and I wish. I 
 could have the relief of weeping as I used to 
 do," Again, in writing to another, a clerical 
 friend, he says, " My views have of late been 
 exceedingly dark and distressing; in a word. 
 Almighty God seems to hide his face, I en- 
 trust the secret hardly to any earthly being. 
 I know not what will become of me. There 
 is doubtless a good deal of bodily affection 
 mingled with this, but it is not all so. I bless 
 God, however, that I never lose sight of the 
 cross ; and though I should die without seeing 
 any personal interest in the Redeemer's merits, 
 I think, I hope, that I should be found at his 
 feet. I wiU thank you for a word at your 
 leisure. My door is bolted at the time of my 
 writing this, for I am full of tears." Such 
 spiritual sadness is easily accounted for, when 
 it is understood that Dr. Milner was for up- 
 wards of forty years, a victim of some of the 
 most distressing complaints that flesh is heir 
 to. Spasms in his stomach, severe and unin- 
 terrupted headaches, oppression of the breath. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 87 
 
 broken slumbers, disturbed by frightful dreams, 
 were among the diseases which caused his 
 physicians to tell him, many years before his 
 death, that with such a pulse as his, a man's 
 life was not worth one minute. 
 
 Another example is furnished by Richard 
 Baxter, in whose practical and devotional wri- 
 tings it is easy to discover the constitutional 
 habits and qualities of the man. No person, 
 not inspired, ever wrote more graphically of 
 heaven and hell, as if he had visited both, and 
 had come back to the earth again to exhort 
 men to seek the one and escape the other. 
 But, notwithstanding his pre-eminent piety, 
 during his early years his mind was greatly 
 troubled with doubts about his own salvation, 
 promoted, says his biographer, by the par- 
 ticular cast of his mind, and the state of his 
 body. And, though habitually under the go- 
 vjernment of religious principles, it is well 
 known that he had certain besetting infirmi- 
 ties of temper, which are among the most 
 common diagnostics of what were some of his 
 manifold diseases. The late Dr. Payson was 
 
00 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 another, whose vibrations of Christian feeling, 
 from the joyous to the sad, the cheerful to the 
 desponding and melancholy, are scarcely less 
 notorious than were his uncommon zeal and 
 ministerial success. The cause is at once 
 explained, when his biographer tells us that 
 his physical conformation was of a very deli- 
 cate structure, extremely sensitive, and easily 
 excited, so that nervous irritability and conse- 
 quent depression were an ingredient in his 
 nature. Hence, he adds, we have seen him 
 writing bitter things against himself, for causes 
 which, with a different temperament, would 
 have given him little uneasiness. The case of 
 David Brainerd, the apostolic missionary, is in 
 some respects more marked and instructive on 
 this subject than even Payson's. But it is 
 easy to make the alrnost opposite and contra- 
 dictory details of his diary harmonize with one 
 another, and both with eminent godliness, 
 when the writer of his Memoirs, President 
 Edwards, tells us of his frail health, and of 
 his constitutional proneness to dejection and 
 melancholy. His willing spirit would have 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 89 
 
 made him a rival of Paul, but under the weak- 
 ness of his flesh he sunk before he reached 
 the age of thirty. 
 
 Such illustrations need not be multiplied, 
 and yet we cannot forbear to advert, for a 
 moment, before we pass on, to the touching 
 case of one in whose character there is an 
 abiding interest, which affords a guaranty that 
 the repetition, even of that which is familiarly 
 known, will not be tiresome. And perhaps 
 within the range of casuistic research, we 
 could not find a more affecting instance of 
 morbid religious affection, than that of Cow- 
 per. How long his mind was shrouded in 
 darkness, and racked with the most fearful 
 forebodings, is as widely known as is his 
 name. In one of his somewhat playful moods, 
 when writing to the Rev. John Newton, " my 
 thoughts," he says, " are clad in a sober livery, 
 for the most part as grave as that of a bishop's 
 servant. They turn, too, upon spiritual sub- 
 jects; but the tallest fellow, and the loudest 
 among them all, is he who is continually cry- 
 ing out with a loud voice, actum est de te, 
 8* 
 
90 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 periisti— it is all over, you are lost." But what 
 was the state of his mind for many years, is 
 nowhere described in more affecting terms 
 than in the last original poem which he ever 
 wrote, and which he called the Castaway. It 
 was founded on an incident mentioned in Lord 
 Anson's Voyages, which he had read many 
 years before, though the concluding stanzas 
 show that the real subject of his muse was 
 not the sufferer mentioned by Anson: for hav- 
 ing described the case of the unhappy mariner, 
 his being washed headlong from on board. 
 
 Of friends, of hope, of all bereft ; 
 
 his sinking beneath the "whelming brine;" 
 then rising to the surface, struggling among 
 the waves, his crying for help, the efforts made 
 to save him, the mournful sound of his voice, 
 heard in every blast by his comrades, as the 
 ship was driven farther and farther from him, 
 till they 
 
 Could catch the sound no more ; 
 
 when, overcome at length, and exhausted, he- 
 sunk; the poet then adds: 
 
 I therefore purpose not, or dream. 
 Descanting on his fate, 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 91 
 
 To give the melancholy theme 
 
 A more enduring date; 
 But misery delights to trace 
 Its semblance in another's case. 
 
 No voice diTine the storm allayed, 
 
 No light propitious shone; 
 
 When snatched from all effectual aid, 
 
 We perish'd each alone; 
 But I beneath a rougher sea, 
 Am whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he. 
 
 That the cause of Cowper's spiritual depres- 
 sion was disease, has been abundantly proved 
 to all, unless it be those "who would far 
 sooner tolerate a poet's being a madman than 
 his being a saint." His despondency was pro- 
 duced by physical causes, which could not be 
 removed by reasoning, any more than a head- 
 ache or a paroxysm of the gout. So the suf- 
 ferer himself appears to believe, as is more 
 than implied in the following extract from 
 one of his letters: — "The mind of man is not 
 a fountain, but a cistern, and mine, God knows, 
 a broken one. Sally Perry's case has given 
 us much concern; I have no doubt it is dis- 
 temper. But distresses of mind that are. occa- 
 sioned by distemper are the most difficult of 
 
92 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 all to deal with. They refdse all consola- 
 tion; they wiU hear no reason. God only, 
 by his own immediate impressions, can relieve 
 them, as after an experience of thirteen years' 
 misery I can abundantly testify." Like other 
 valetudinarians of a particular class, his nerves 
 were as sensitive to atmospheric changes as 
 is the mercury of the barometer. He was 
 joyful or sad, as the day was serene or cloudy. 
 "I rise cheerless or distressed," says he to one 
 of his friends, "and brighten as the sun goes 
 on." He had his four seasons of feeling, as 
 the revolving earth described the four grand 
 stages of the sun's progress in the ecHptic. 
 Thus, in another of his letters, he says: "I 
 now see a long winter before me, and am to 
 get through it as I can. I know the ground 
 before I tread upon it: it is hollow : it is 
 agitated; it suffers shocks in every direction; 
 it is like the soil of Calabria — all whirlpool 
 and undulation. But I must reel through it ; 
 at least, if I be not swallowed up by the 
 way."' 
 
 In a brief notice of Cowper by Mr, Cecil, 
 
ON RELiaiOUS EXPERIENCE. 93 
 
 he alludes to an "unfounded report" in circu- 
 lation, that the poet's melancholy was derived 
 from his residence and connection at Olney. 
 The fact, however, Mr. Cecil says, was just 
 the reverse, as was attested both by respect- 
 able living witnesses, and by manuscripts of 
 Cowper's own writing at the calmest period 
 of his life. Many years before, and shortly 
 after he began the study of law, he had a 
 fearful attack, which was alleviated by reading 
 the Gothic and uncouth poems of pious George 
 Herbert. This relief, however, was only for 
 a season. His thoughts were constantly tend- 
 ing back towards the same turbid channel 
 from which they had been diverted. Then 
 again he would be tempted to all sorts of 
 evil — to murmuring against Providence, scep- 
 ticism, disgust of life, and even to suicide. 
 And yet, whenever relief came, even for a sea- 
 son, it was attended with a renewed interest 
 in the Bible, and a lively faith in its distin- 
 guishing doctrines. The longest and happiest 
 period of his life was at St. Albans, under 
 the care of Dr. Cotton, a physician as capable 
 
94 INFLUENCE 0]? HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 of administering to the spiritual as to the 
 natural maladies of his patients. The vast 
 black wall which he represented as visibly- 
 erected between himself and heaven, Dr. Moore 
 says, was some impediment to the right action 
 of his brain in relation to thought and sight. 
 His disease was kept up by monotony and 
 medicine. There were none but quackish at- 
 tempts at cure, except while under the care 
 of Dr. Cotton, who for a time relieved, and, 
 had his. advice been properly followed out, 
 would liave probably cured him. It was from 
 his treatment that Cowper first obtained a 
 clear view of those sublime and animating 
 truths which so distinguished and exalted his 
 future strains as a poet. Here also he re- 
 ceived that settled tranquillity and peace, 
 which he enjoyed for several years afterwards. 
 So far, therefore, was his constitutional malady 
 from being produced or increased by his evan- 
 gelical connections, either at St. Albans or at 
 Olney, that he seems never to have had any 
 settled peace but from the truths learned in 
 these societies. It appears that among them 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 95 
 
 alone he found the only sunshine he ever 
 enjoyed through "the cloudy day of his 
 afflicted life." While residing with this ex- 
 cellent friend, his distress was for a long time 
 entirely removed by the passage in Romans: 
 Him hath God set forth to he a propitiation, 
 through faith in his blood, to declare his right- 
 eousness for the remission of sins that are past. 
 In this scripture he saw the remedy which 
 God provides for the relief of a guilty con- 
 science, with such clearness, that, for several 
 years after, his heart was filled with love, and 
 his life occupied with prayer, praise, and doing 
 good to all as he. had opportunity. Mr. New- 
 ton told me, Cecil says, that from Cowper's 
 first coming to Olney, it was observed he had 
 studied his Bible with such advantage, and 
 was so well acquainted with its design, that 
 not only his troubles were removed, but that 
 to the end of his life he never had clearer 
 views of the peculiar doctrines of the gospel 
 than now when he first became an habitual 
 hearer of them. That during this period the 
 inseparable attendants of a lively faith ap- 
 
96 INrLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 peared, by his exerting himself to the utmost 
 of his power in every benevolent service he 
 could render to his poor neighbours; and that 
 Mr. Newton used to consider him as a sort 
 of curate, from his constant attendance upon 
 the sick and afflicted in that large and neces- 
 sitous parish. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEKIENOE. ,97 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 USES OF KNOWLEDaE ON THIS SUBJECT. 
 
 I was a stricken deer, that left the herd 
 
 Long since. With many an arrow deep infixed 
 
 My panting sides were charged.— Cowpeb. 
 
 Though the character of this discussion, as 
 well as its limited scope, have precluded many 
 important remarks which come within the 
 province of the physiologist, yet much that 
 might be written is rendered unnecessary, by 
 a knowledge which many derive from their 
 own experience. It is a subject which, as we 
 have said before, is too little examined and 
 understood. " Many of our young preachers," 
 Dr. Alexander says, in his instructive book 
 on Religious Experience, "when they go forth 
 on their important errand, are poorly qualified 
 to direct the doubting conscience, or to ad- 
 minister safe consolation to the troubled in 
 9 
 
98 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 spirit. And in. modern preaching there is 
 little account made of the- various distressing 
 cases of deep affliction under which many 
 serious persons are suffering. To no small 
 proportion of the religious, both teachers and 
 people, it seems to be a profound secret, how 
 much the exercises of a changed heart may 
 be affected by the health or the condition 
 of the body." They cannot understand how 
 a man's brain and nervous system may so 
 suffer from faults in his digestive organs, as 
 to produce irritability of temper, unsteadi- 
 ness in any pursuit or application, distrust of 
 friends, fear of evil tidings, and doubts con- 
 cerning his own salvation. These are com- 
 monly regarded as moral affections, whereas 
 they are in reality physical evils, which are 
 to be remedied or removed by physical means. 
 They are as legitimately symptoms of disease 
 as is nausea, dimness of vision, or headache. 
 And is a man unable to judge himself, much 
 less is he qualified to meet the numerous cases 
 that are almost daily presented in an exten- 
 sive pastoral charge, when unskilled to distin- 
 
-ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 99 
 
 guish, with some degree of accuracy, between 
 influences which proceed from the body, and 
 the principles, disposition, and state of the 
 soul. As a part of his furniture for some of 
 the most responsible labours of his calling, he 
 needs a thorough acquaintance with a subject 
 so closely connected with Christian experience. 
 Among the counsellors who so much aided 
 the Rev. Timothy Rogers in his period of spi- 
 ritual darkness, he quotes old Mr. Greenham as 
 saying "that there is a great deal of wisdom 
 requisite to consider both the state of the body 
 and of the soul. If a man that is troubled in 
 conscience comes to a minister, it may be he 
 will look all to the soul, and nothing to the 
 body; if he cometh to a physician, he con- 
 sidereth the body, and neglecteth the soul. 
 For my part, I would never have the physi- 
 cian's counsel despised, nor the labour of the 
 minister neglected; because the soul and body 
 dwelling together, it is convenient that as the 
 soul should be cured by the word, by prayer, 
 by fasting, or by comforting, so the body must 
 be brought into some temperature by physic 
 
lOD INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 and diet, by harmless diversions, and such like 
 ways — providing always, that it be so done in 
 the fear of God, as not to think by these ordi- 
 nary means quite to smother or evade our 
 troubles, but to use theiii as preparatives, 
 whereby our souls may be made more capable 
 of the spiritual methods that are to follow 
 a,fterwards." 
 
 The practical uses of the knowledge of 
 which we come to speak now, cannot be fully 
 enumerated, nor adequately described. As the 
 apostle says of the inspired truth which he 
 commends to Timothy, we would say, that it 
 "is profitable for" 
 
 Doctrine. 
 
 We mean to say, that here is presented a 
 theory in casuistic divinity which solves in- 
 numerable cases of constant occurrence, by 
 which many are often confounded without it. 
 It is admitted that there is a diflSlculty to be 
 encountered, in turning such doctrine on the 
 subject of our spiritual maladies to a benefi- 
 cial result, on account of the inability to con- 
 vince the sufferer of the real cause of his 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 101 
 
 despondency. Pie seems to lack the capacity 
 of perceiving, or of applying the sort of truth 
 which his case requires, however ' plainly it 
 may be set before him; for, as President Ed- 
 wards observes, in speaking of Brainerd, it is 
 rare that melancholy people are sensible of 
 their own disease — and thai such things are 
 to ■ be ascribed to it as are undoubtedly its 
 genuine fruits or effects. Otherwise we should 
 be amazed at the perplexity and disconsolate- 
 ness of some excellent characters, and the 
 readiness with which they refuse to be com- 
 forted. Even the acute and discriminating 
 Dr. Eush, so skilful in explaining and reliev- 
 ing the maladies of others, was utterly de- 
 ceived in relation to his own. His Essay on 
 the Influence of Physical Causes upon the 
 Moral Faculty, evinces mature reflection, and 
 accurate Icnowledge on this subject; and yet, 
 when, in a state of religious despondency him- 
 self, he was assured by his pastor that it was 
 a symptom of disease, he could not believe it. 
 Nor did he become fully convinced that the 
 cause of his spiritual distress was physical, 
 9* 
 
102 INFLUENCE OE HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 until it had been removed by the improvement 
 of his general health. Indeed it is commonly 
 found, that where mental depression results 
 from impaired health, our attempts to relieve 
 the mind by counsel tend rather to aggravate 
 its sorrovs^, so long as the physical cause re- 
 mains unmitigated. The Rev. Thomas Boston 
 w^as, at one time, in such a state of doubt and 
 spiritual depression during his ministry, with- 
 out perceiving the cause, that he was tempted 
 to give it up. But although this eminent 
 Christian scholar was in so great darkness 
 himself, he was a burning and a shining light 
 to others. His exposition of Providence, under 
 the quaint title of "Crook in the Lot," sur- 
 passes any work of the kind in our language. 
 "I do not know that I could point out a 
 work," Dr. A. Alexander says, "which is so 
 well adapted to reconcile the afflicted saint to 
 his lot in this world, and help him to improve 
 the dealings of Providence towards him, espe- 
 cially in the 'dark and cloudy day' of adver- 
 sity." 
 
 A late preacher, well known by his manifold 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 103 
 
 useful labours, writes in his diary: — "Many of 
 my people, and especially females, talk thus to 
 me — 'I am under continual distress of mind; 
 I can lay hold of no permanent ground of 
 peace. If I seem to get a little, it is soon 
 gone again. I am out at sea, without compass 
 or anchor. My heart sinks, my spirit faints, 
 my knees tremble; all is dark above, and all 
 is horror beneath.' 'And pray, what is your 
 mode of lifel' 'I sit by myself.' 'In this 
 small room, I suppose, and over your firel' 
 'A considerable part of my time.' 'And what 
 time do you go to bed'?' 'I cannot retire till 
 two or three o'clock in the morning.' 'And 
 you lie late, I suppose, in the morning? ' Fre- 
 quently.' 'And pray what else can you ex- 
 pect from this mode of life than a relaxed 
 and unstrung system, and, of course, a mind 
 enfeebled, anxious, and disordered'? I under- 
 stand your case; God seems to have qualified 
 me to understand it, by special dispensations. 
 My natural disposition is gay, volatile, spirited. 
 My nature would never sink. But I have 
 sometimes felt my spirit absorbed in horrible 
 
104 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 apprehensions, without any assignable natural 
 cause. Perhaps it was necessary I should be 
 suffered to feel this, that I might feel for 
 others; for certainly no man can have any 
 adequate sympathy with others, who has never 
 thus suffered himself. I can feel for you, 
 "therefore, while I tell you that I think the 
 affair with you is chiefly physical. I myself 
 have brought on the same feelings by the same 
 means. I have sat in my study till I have 
 persuaded myself that the ceiling was too low 
 to suffer me to, stand and rise upright, and air 
 and exercise alone could remove the impres- 
 sion from my mind.' " 
 
 In the last illness of the commentator Scott, 
 his mind was observed by his friends to be 
 gloomy during the paroxysm of his fever; nor 
 could his comfort be restored by any counsel 
 of his pious attendants, until the fever had 
 abated. Andrew Fuller also suffered greatly 
 on his deathbed, from a similar cause. So 
 when Dr. Madan once attempted to calm the 
 mind of Cowper, by quotations from the Scrip- 
 tures, it served only to increase his sufferings. 
 
ON EELiaiOUS EXPERIENCE. 105 
 
 It was then at the commencement of a slow 
 nervous fever, to which he was liable; but after 
 four months skilful treatment by Dr. Cotton, 
 his health was so far improved that the pro- 
 mises of the gospel were apprehended without 
 hesitation, and whatever his friend Madan had 
 said to him long before, revived in all its 
 clearness. An aged minister of the gospel 
 says, we have known persons, who were poor 
 in spirit, hungering and thirsting after right- 
 eousness, glorying only in the cross of Christ, 
 and yet gloomily concluding that they have 
 no lot nor part in the matter, and that their 
 heart is not right with God. And whyl The 
 reason is to be found in something beyond 
 the preacher's province; and tiU there is a 
 change in the animal economy, all the succours 
 of religion are in vain. 
 
 In an admirable review of a paper on Moral 
 Causes of Disease, by the Secretary of the 
 Koyal Academy of Medicine in Paris, the au- 
 thor reproaches his medical brethren for their 
 ignorance or neglect. He chides them for 
 the overlooking of psychological causes of dis- 
 
106 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 ease, and of the influence of mental emotions 
 on its development, its progress, and its termi- 
 nation. " If a patient dies," he says, " we open 
 his body, rummage the viscera, and scrutinize 
 most narrowly all the organs and tissues, in 
 the hope of discovering lesions of some one 
 sort or another. There is not a small mem- 
 brane, cavity, nor follicle, which is not care- 
 fully examined. One thing only escapes our 
 attention, which is this — we are looking at 
 merely organic effects, forgetting all the while 
 that we must mount higher up, to discover 
 their causes. These organic alterations are 
 observed, perhaps, in the body of a person who 
 has suffered deeply firom mental distress and 
 anxiety, which have been the energetic cause 
 of his decay; but they cannot be studied in 
 the laboratory, nor in the amphitheatre." An- 
 other profitable use of this subject is, for the 
 promotion of 
 
 Charity. 
 
 So far as it is understood and practically 
 felt, it will make us pause before we censure 
 those of our brethren whose condition rather 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEKIENCE. 107 
 
 claims our condolence and hearty commisera- 
 tion. We think them morose, hypochondriac, 
 or misanthropic; assail them with raillery and 
 banter, and anon with reproof for feelings of 
 sadness, which they can no more resist nor 
 control, than they can prevent a flushed cheek 
 in fever, or a yellow skin in jaundice. We 
 might as well jeer at Dr. Watts for his pigmy 
 size, at Pope for his deformity, or at Milton 
 for his blindness. Dr. John Cheyne says, that 
 of all the miseries which afilict human life, or 
 relate principally to the body in this valley 
 of tears, I think " nervous disorders, in their 
 extreme and last degree," are the most de- 
 plorable, and beyond all comparison the worst. 
 And yet there are many in society, even among 
 the intelligent, who are accustomed to treat all 
 such cases of nervous disorder, as only imagi- 
 nary complaints, which are better managed by 
 ridicule than by sober counsel, whether medi- 
 cal or religious. In order to cure them, they 
 think it necessary only to divert the attention 
 of the sufferer, and convince him that he will 
 be well enough and recover his lost cheerful- 
 
108 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 ness, if he will but cease to brood over his 
 own wretchedness, mix in society, and think 
 of other things beside himself. "Many will 
 say to such an one, 'Why do you so pore 
 over your case, and thus gratify the devils 
 Whereas it is the very nature of the disease 
 to cause such fixed musing. You might as 
 well say to a man in a fever, 'Why are you 
 not wein why will you be sickl' Some, in- 
 deed, suppose that the melancholy hug their 
 disease and are unwilling to give it up. You 
 might as well suppose that a man would be 
 pleased with lying on a bed of thorns." The 
 reason of their utter misapprehension of such 
 cases, is their own happy exemption from all 
 that sort of morbid wretchedness which they 
 treat with so much levity in others, without 
 knowing what they do. To persons of this 
 description, moreover, all our disquisitions on 
 the moral effect of physical causes, are much 
 like a treatise in Tamul or Hindostanee: they 
 have no just conception of our meaning, nor 
 of the utility of what we say. Nor is it 
 among the lighter afflictions of the subjects 
 
ON REliaiOUS EXPERIENCE. 109 
 
 of nervous affections, that they receive so little 
 charity or sympathy from others whose gene- 
 ral intelligence, and especially religious pre- 
 tensions, would warrant them to expect more 
 courtesy at least, if not greater tenderness, 
 "It is a foolish course which some take with 
 their melancholy friends, to answer all their 
 complaints and moans with this — that it is 
 nothing but fancy; nothing but imagination 
 and whimsey. It is a real disease, a real 
 misery, that they are tormented with; and if 
 it be a fancy, yet a diseased fancy is as great 
 a disease as any other; it fills them with an- 
 guish and tribulation. But this so disordered 
 fancy is the consequent of a greater evil, and 
 one of the sad effects that are produced by 
 that black humour that has vitiated all the 
 natural spirits. These afflicted persons can 
 never possibly believe that you pity them, or 
 that you are heartily concerned for them, if 
 you do not credit what they say; and truly it 
 often falls out, that because melancholy persons 
 do not always look very ill, or have pretty 
 good stomachs, and do not at first very much 
 10 
 
110 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 decline in their bodies, other persons, that 
 know nothing of the distemper, are apt to 
 think that they make themselves worse than 
 they are." But if our subject is unintelligible 
 to some, it is not so to others; we describe an 
 experience with which they are wofuUy famil- 
 iar ; and while they are not slow to condemn 
 themselves for their fretfulness, irritability of 
 temper, and many obliquities of feeling and 
 conduct which they so frequently betray, yet 
 their faults, however numerous, will be judged 
 with least severity by those who best under- 
 stand the cause. With nerves so disordered 
 and unstrung, there is need of far more vigi- 
 lance and prayer, to even appear cheerful and 
 amiable, than most good men, without very 
 special grace, are able to maintain. "A man 
 may be a good performer, but what can he do 
 with a disordered instrument 1 The occupant 
 of a house may have good eyes, but how can 
 he see accurately through a soiled window? 
 Let the organ be put in tune, and the glass be 
 made clean, before you call in question the 
 musical skill of the one, or the eyesight of 
 
ON EELiaiOUS EXPERIENCE. Ill 
 
 the other." Harsh speeches may fret, perplex, 
 and enrage, but will never do the sufferers 
 any good. In his excellent counsels on the 
 subject of spiritual depression, Mr. Rogers 
 says: — "Some indeed will advise you to chide 
 and rebuke them upon all occasions ; but I 
 dare confidently say, such advisers never felt 
 this disease; for if they had, they would know 
 that by such a method they do but pour oil 
 into the flame, and chafe and exasperate their 
 wounds instead of healing them. Mr. Dod, by 
 reason of his mild, meek, and merciful spirit, 
 was reckoned one of the fittest persons to deal 
 with people thus afflicted. Never was any 
 minister more tender and compassionate. If 
 you would be serviceable to such persons, you 
 must not vex them with tart and rigorous dis- 
 course. It causes many poor souls to cherish 
 and conceal their troubles, to their greater tor- 
 ment, because they meet with so very harsh 
 entertainment from those to whom they have 
 begun to explain their case. Our blessed Lord 
 and principal Physician, was meek and lowly, 
 and would not break the bruised reed, nor 
 
112 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 quench the smokip,g flax. And the first visit 
 that the forementioned Mr. Dod made to Mr. 
 Peacock in his anguish, was to jput him in 
 mind of God's kindness. 
 
 Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem 
 Fassis, et magnam morbi deponere partem. — HoR. Epist. 
 The power of words and soothing sounds can ease 
 The raging pain and lessen the disease. — Feancis. 
 
 Another most important use of this subject 
 is for 
 
 Reproof and Correction. 
 
 When thoroughly examined and well under- 
 stood, it exposes and explodes the popular 
 error in relation to those disordered states of 
 the mind that are supposed by many to be 
 produced by religion. Such events are deplor- 
 able whenever they occur, and whatever the 
 occasion; but it would certainly be a remark- 
 able exception to the general doctrines of phi- 
 losophy as well as of religion, if it coujd be 
 proved that these are the legitimate eflFect of 
 so pure and benignant a cause. " This one 
 thing I must testify," Dr, Alexander says, " that 
 I never knew the most pungent convictions of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 113 
 
 sin to terminate in insanity; and as to the 
 affections of love to God and the lively hope 
 of everlasting life producing insanity, it is too 
 absurd for any one to believe it." We readily 
 concede that this belongs to a legion of evils, 
 intellectual and moral, as well as physical, 
 which are the natural product of fanaticism 
 and superstition; and this explains the fact, 
 that before the revolution so large a propor- 
 tion of the insane in France were monks. In- 
 deed, it is diiRcult to account for many of the 
 effects of enthusiasm in any other way, than 
 by supposing it to be a species of insanity in 
 which the aberration relates usually to one 
 subject, while in others the judgment is sound. 
 And it is perfectly obvious, that the greatly 
 multiplied cases of this kind of mental dis- 
 order at the present time, in different parts 
 of -our country, are the offspring of certain 
 epidemical delusions by which we have been 
 sorely afflicted of late, and which have been 
 promoted by nothing so much as by the notice 
 of others, and especially their attempts to sup- 
 press them by coercion. But we are sustained, 
 10* 
 
114 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 not by the highest medical authority only, but 
 by a faithful examination of the statistics of 
 insanity, when we assert that the hallucina- 
 tions of those persons whose mental disorder is 
 imputed to religion, " are the result of pre- 
 existing disease, and only take their form from 
 the accidental habits and feelings of the pa- 
 tients." This has been so fully demonstrated, 
 that scarcely any modern writer of eminence 
 advocates the opposite opinion. From the 
 numerous authors whose testimony is easily 
 accessible, we will quote a paragraph from two 
 or three, who are in the highest repute. 
 
 Dr. George Moore, member of the Royal 
 College of Physicians, London, says: "That 
 bodily disorder which favours the manifestation 
 of the mind in an insane manner, may be 
 produced by any of our passions when unre- 
 strained by a holy understanding. The best 
 blessings may thus be converted into curses; 
 the best gifts into the most injurious agents. 
 Some say religion is a frequent cause of in- 
 sanity. No; true religion is the spirit of love, 
 of power, and of a sound mind; ever active 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 115 
 
 in diversified duties and delights; always busy 
 in a becoming manner, and in decent order. 
 But the wild notions, unmeaning superstitions, 
 spiritual bondage, unrequired and forbidden 
 attempts to reconcile the rites and ceremonies 
 which wayward men have substituted for the 
 liberty of God, begin in disobedience and end 
 in darkness. It is strange fire in the censer 
 which brings down the flaming vengeance, and 
 opens a passage to the infinite abyss." 
 
 Of those subjects of what is called religious 
 melancholy, or religious madness, who come 
 under medical treatment. Dr. Ashbel Green 
 says: "It is undeniable that the greater part 
 are such as would previously be termed irreli- 
 gious persons. Their religious anxiety has com- 
 menced with their mental aberration, and has 
 disappeared on the restoration of health. In 
 such cases, though the apprehension of divine 
 anger may not seem unreasonable, it is as 
 really an illusion as if the despondency had 
 assumed the most alarming type. In fact, 
 where religious anxiety or excitement has any 
 share in producing mental aberration, this will 
 
116 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 generally put on the form of irreligious pro- 
 faneness, or something contradictory of the 
 previous healthful state of mind." 
 
 In regard to what are called the moral 
 causes of insanity, Dr. Abercrombie says: "I 
 suspect there has been a good deal of fallacy, 
 arising from considering as a moral cause, that 
 which was really a part of the disease. This, 
 I think, applies in a peculiar manner to the 
 important subject of religion, which by a com- 
 mon but very loose method of speaking, is 
 often mentioned as a cause of insanity. But 
 where there is a constitutional tendency to 
 insanity, or to melancholy, one of its leading 
 modifications, every subject is distorted to 
 which the mind can be directed; and none 
 more frequently or more remarkably, than reli- 
 gious belief This, however, is the effect, not 
 the cause; and the various forms which it 
 assumes may be ascribed to the subject being 
 one to which the minds of all men are so 
 naturally directed" in one degree or another, 
 and of which no man living can divest him- 
 self" 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 117 
 
 Dr. Burrowes asserts, in his well known 
 work on insanity, "that there is not a tittle 
 of evidence to substantiate that Christianity, 
 abstractedly, ever made a person insane. Such 
 an accusation is only one of the abortions of 
 infidelity, or of those who lack knowledge." 
 
 In Dr. Cheyne's interesting work on partial 
 derangement of mind in supposed connection 
 with religion, he says: "I never saw a case of 
 mental derangement, even where it was trace- 
 able to a moral cause, in which there was not 
 reason to believe that bodily disease could 
 have been detected before the earliest aberra- 
 tion, had an opportunity of examination been 
 ofiered. Not only does every deranged state 
 of the intellectual faculties and the natural 
 affections depend upon bodily disease, but de- 
 rangements of the religious and moral senti- 
 ments also." 
 
 And, not to multiply authorities, we will add 
 no more than a paragraph from Dr. Combe, 
 who, in full concurrence with the others, 
 maintains that "when fairly examined, the 
 danger is seen to arise solely from the abuse 
 
118 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 of religion; and indeed, that the best safe- 
 guard is found in a right understanding of its 
 principles and submission to its precepts. For 
 if the best Christian be he who, in meekness, 
 humility, and sincerity, places his trust in God, 
 and seeks to fulfil all his commandments, then 
 he who exhausts his soul in devotion, and at 
 the same time finds no leisure or no inclina- 
 tion for attending to the common duties of his 
 station, and who, so far from arriving at hap- 
 piness or peace of mind, becomes every day 
 the more estranged from them, and finds him- 
 self at last involved in disease and despair, 
 cannot be held as a follower of Christ, but 
 must rather be held as the follower of a phan- 
 tom assuming the aspect of religion. AVhen 
 insanity attacks the latter, it is obviously not 
 religion that is the cause ; it is only the abuse 
 of certain feelings, the regulated activity of 
 which is necessary to the right exercise of reli- 
 gion; and against such abuse, a sense of true 
 religion would have been the most powerful 
 protection." 
 
 Dr. James Johnson contends that in every 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 119 
 
 case where the mind is said to be diseased, 
 it ought to be considered as only a figure of 
 rhetoric; that mind is merely an invisible 
 agent, manifesting itself solely through the 
 medium of the corporeal organs. When these 
 last are deranged, the mental manifestations 
 must also be deranged; but the mind itself 
 remains unchanged, unassailable, imperishable. 
 Even in insanity, it is not the mind which is 
 diseased. Some portion of the brain is de- 
 ranged, and then the mind can no more mani- 
 fest itself sanely, than a musician can bring 
 forth harmonious notes from an untuned in- 
 strument. As the mind is not material, neither 
 is it liable to disease or death. If we once 
 admit that it is subject to the one, we must 
 inevitably come to the conclusion that it is 
 liable to the other! "With the essence or na- 
 ture of mind, we are, and ever shall be igno- ^ 
 rant. It is with the corporeal organs, through 
 which it reveals its actions, that we have to 
 do. If these have come into an abnormal or 
 sickly condition, the effect will be often visible 
 in the corresponding state of the intellect: 
 
120 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 and if, at such a time, they be specially conr 
 versant with the subject of morals and religion, 
 like a jaundiced eye, it will impart its morbid 
 hue to them both. 
 
 The error of hastily ascribing religious me- 
 lancholy to the direct agency or influence of 
 religion, is exposed in the account given of a 
 patient in the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1842, 
 by Dr. Kirkbride, Physician to the institution. 
 
 "A young man of very moderate mental ca- 
 pacity, little education, and accustomed to a 
 laborious occupation, from too much confine- 
 ment at his business, finds his health failing, 
 and gives up his employment for a few months, 
 to recruit. At the end of that time, although 
 not well, he is able to return to work, but 
 then discovers that the changes in the times 
 make it impossible for him to find anything 
 to do. His means being exhausted, his body 
 weak, without his customary exercise, his raind 
 gradually becomes in a morbid state, when 
 some excitement from Miller's prophecy occur- 
 ring in his neighbourhood, he immediately 
 attempts to study the subject, and to ascertain 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 121 
 
 its truth from close reading of the Bible — an 
 investigation utterly unsuited for his capacity 
 under any circumstances — and the difficulties 
 he encounters at the very threshhold, lead to 
 a violent attack of mania. The disease vpas 
 attributed to 'Miller's prophecy,' or to 'reli- 
 gious excitement,' but neither of these causes 
 would give a proper idea of the origin of the 
 case. Before being excited on that subject, 
 the patient's mind was ready to be overturned 
 by any abstruse or exciting matter that might 
 be presented to it. Without his loss of em- 
 ployment this would not have occurred, and 
 without the enfeebled health which accompa- 
 nied it, his attempted investigation might have 
 been harmless." 
 
 Within the sphere of our own pastoral 
 labours, there have occurred four cases of this 
 species of mental disorder, three of which were 
 connected with known physical derangement. 
 Two were effectually relieved, after a few 
 months, by judicious medical treatment, though 
 one of them was so iaggravated that the person 
 attempted suicide, and on one occasion nearly 
 11 
 
122 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 effected it; the third still lingers, the sufferer 
 being a victim of bodily disease. In the fourth 
 there was a constitutional wildness on other 
 subjects than that of religion; and although 
 his temperament was sanguine, his mind habit- 
 xially cheerful, and his hope of salvation un- 
 commonly firm, yet in a moment of temptation 
 he was overcome, and destroyed himself. An- 
 other, whom we have known for twenty years, 
 and esteemed as a man of more than ordinary 
 intellect and piety, has long been subject to 
 periods of religious melancholy, when he sus- 
 pends his business, loses all interest in society, 
 withdraws to his chamber, and remains for 
 weeks and months, until the cloud of spiritual 
 gloom has passed; he then returns to his secu- 
 lar duties and to the church, as if he had 
 never been otherwise than cheerful and happy 
 in his religion, which is at all times, in sick- 
 ness or health, his main topic of conversation. 
 No allusion is made to the past, there are no 
 inquiries, and he volunteers to give no infor- 
 mation ; nor have his friends or physicians ever 
 been able to explain all the phenomena of this 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXRERIENCE. 123 
 
 case by any of the known doctrines of psycho- 
 logy, physiology, or religion. That his melan- 
 choly is not produced by his religion, would 
 appear from the fact, that at all other times 
 it is the source of his highest enjoyment. But 
 as it regards the cause of these periodical 
 changes in his physical condition which occa- 
 sion this spiritual occultation, we do not hazard 
 a conjecture. 
 
 Not less injurious is the mistake of imputing 
 to Satanic agency what is dependent on bodily 
 disease, as is exhibited in the case of the wife 
 of the Rev. John Newton, who was unable to 
 leave the house for nearly two years before she 
 died, in 1790. In the beginning of October, 
 she was confined to her bed, and was soon 
 after deprived of all locomotive power. In this 
 state, distress arose in her mind, which applied 
 to the whole system of truth, and she said, 
 "If there be a Saviour," "If there be a God;" 
 and in this condition continued for a fortnight, 
 when there is reason to believe that her doubts 
 were removed. Mr. Newton accounted for his 
 wife's temporary unbelief, by referring it to 
 
124 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the influence of Satan. Mrs. Newton's, how- 
 ever, was a case of palsy— depending, as was 
 supposed, upon a disease of the brain, by 
 which her faith, the foundation of her reli- 
 gion, was disturbed, while her affections were 
 uninjured. It is well known that Bunyan 
 was grievously harassed at times with what he 
 believed to be satanic temptations to the worst 
 species of evil; and that Luther also supposed 
 himself, on one occasion at least, to have been 
 assaulted by the devil. But with regard to 
 certain phenomena which it is common to re- 
 fer to his influence, such as " unbidden and 
 repulsive thoughts and feelings, and false per- 
 ceptions, both voices and visions, that they 
 may be produced by mere morbid physical 
 agency, is unquestionable; because they are 
 frequent accompaniments of pure disease, and 
 yield with the disease, to medical treatment. 
 Those, therefore, who are called to counsel 
 persons thus afilicted, should never lose sight 
 of the inquiry, whether such may not be the 
 actual origin of what otherwise might be 
 treated as temptations of the devil. That 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEKIENCE. 125 
 
 Satan may have the power of injecting his 
 malicious or blasphemous suggestions imme- 
 diately into the mind, we have not intended 
 at all to controvert. But we are disposed. to 
 adopt the principle of Dr. Cheyne, that, 'if 
 an appeal to Him who conquered Satan, and 
 who will aid all who come to him in faith, 
 fails to relieve those who are thus afiiicted, 
 they may rest assured, that disease, and not 
 the devil, is the enemy with which they have 
 to contend,' and they must seek relief accord- 
 ingly- 
 
 "And if we are pressed beyond this point 
 with the hypothesis, that while disease may be 
 the proximate cause of these distressing and 
 horrible calamities, yet Satan may be the agent 
 who employs this instrumentality to harass the 
 Christian, we should be inclined to fall back 
 upon the ground thus quaintly maintained by 
 Richard Baxter: 'If it were, as some fancy, a 
 possession of the devil, it is possible that physic 
 might cast him out. For if you cure the 
 melancholy, (black bile,) his bed is taken away, 
 and the advantage gone by which he worketh; 
 11* 
 
126 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 cure the choler (bile) and the choleric opera- 
 tions of the devil will cease: it is by means 
 and humours in us, that he worketh.'" 
 
 But this injurious influence on the mind 
 has been ascribed, not so much to religion in 
 general, as to certain forms or sectarian modes 
 in which it has been expounded, and that are 
 supposed to be peculiarly adapted to fill the 
 soul with gloom and despondency. Hence the 
 maxim, so long in vogue among the Romanists, 
 " Spiritus Calvinianus, est spiritus melanchoU- 
 cus," (so nearly English that we need not trans- 
 late it.) Even Esquirol more than hints at 
 Calvinism as, in some cases, the cause of reli- 
 gious melancholy; and it is well known that 
 the sentiment wrapped up in this calumnious 
 apothegm was a popular solution of the un- 
 happy case of Cowper. Thus, a writer in the 
 Encyclopedia Britannica at that time, with 
 great confidence ascribed his mental malady to 
 the theory of justification which he had adopt- 
 ed, his natural disposition fitting him to receive 
 all the horrors, without the consolations of his 
 faith. Macaulay also favours the same opinion, 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 127 
 
 by pronouncing the religious teachers of the 
 poet "worthy of incineration." Nor is there 
 anything, we are constrained to say, in the 
 over cautious, imperfect, and disingenuous, 
 however interesting Memoirs by Haley, that 
 forbids this Inference. And yet, it could not 
 but have been known by the author, or rather 
 compiler of that work, that the period of his 
 life, during which he enjoyed, together with 
 the unclouded sunshine of reason, the peace 
 and joy of religion, was the interval from 1764 
 to 1773, when he believed and openly pro- 
 fessed every article of his faith, the eifect of 
 which was represented as afterward being so 
 calamitous. It was then that his character 
 was exhibited in all its attractiveness, unveiled 
 by any of the mists that had come over it 
 before, and which gathered again toward the 
 close of his life. He was more cheerful and 
 affectionate in his intercourse, partaking with 
 lively interest in the common concerns of so- 
 ciety, and happy in the enjoyment of his reli- 
 gion; and when he became subsequently the 
 victim of his afflictive hallucination, he could 
 
128 
 
 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 not avoid acknowledging that his gloomy per- 
 suasion was at variance with every article of 
 his creed, and he was driven to regard himself 
 as an inexplicable exception to his own prin- 
 ciples. We have shown already that religious 
 truth of any kind had nothing to do as a 
 procuring cause of Cowper's malady. It was 
 as clearly a case of hypochondriasis as are 
 those instances in which the patient has fan- 
 cied himself a tea-pot or a sack of wool; or 
 as was that of the baker of Ferrara, mentioned 
 by an Italian Count, who thought himself a 
 lump of butter, and durst not sit in the sun, 
 nor come near the fire, for fear of being 
 melted, and his thinking substance destroyed. 
 We maintain then, that this unhappy condi- 
 tion, which, without due examination, has been 
 imputed to religion, is an effect produced by 
 physical causes. That a different opinion 
 should have obtained to any extent, is to be 
 ascribed to misapprehension, perhaps in part, 
 but we doubt not that more frequently it may 
 be traced to another source, which is thus no- 
 ticed by Dr. Cheyne. "When a man from 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 129 
 
 having been worldly becomes religious, there 
 is no one against whom prejudice is stronger. 
 No change is less agreeable, not even a change 
 from respectability of conduct to the sort of 
 profligacy which defies public opinion, than 
 that which leads a man, whose previous mo- 
 tives were of a purely secular kind, to make 
 the attainment of the kingdom of God his first 
 object, by which he necessarily rises in the 
 moral scale. That any one formerly on our 
 own level should take, or affect to take higher 
 ground, offends our self-love. It is a constant 
 rebuke, by reminding us of his superiority of 
 principle. Hence, it frequently happens that 
 when a man really turns to God, first he is 
 represented as a hypocrite, then a fool, and last 
 of all, a madman. That his motives and his 
 judgment will be arraigned, every neophyte 
 may expect, as being matter of uniform expe- 
 rience; and that madness is a consequence of 
 divine teaching, is a conclusion which is as 
 old as the days of Fortius Festus." 
 
 A well known minister of London, who has 
 lately died, was called to visit a woman whose 
 
130 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 mind was disordered, and on remarking^ that 
 it was a case which required the assistance 
 of a physician rather than that of a clergy- 
 man, her husband replied, "Sir, we sent to 
 you because it is a religious case; her mind 
 has been injured by constantly reading the 
 Bible." "I have known many instances," I 
 replied, "of persons being brought to their 
 senses by reading the Bible; but it is possible 
 that too intense an application to that, as well 
 as to any, other subject, may have disordered 
 your wife." " There is every proof of it," said 
 he ; and was proceeding to multiply his proofs, 
 till her brother interrupted him by thus ad- 
 dressing me: — "Sir, I have no longer patience 
 to stand by, and see you imposed on. The 
 truth of the matter is this: my brother has 
 forsaken his wife, and been long connected 
 with an immoral woman. He had the best of 
 wives in her, and one who was strongly at- 
 tached to him; but she has seen his heart and 
 property given to another, and, in her solitude 
 and distress, went to the Bible as the only 
 consolation left her. Her health and spirits 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 131 
 
 at length, sunk under her troubles; and there 
 she lies distifacted — not from reading her 
 Bible^ — ^but from the infidelity and cruelty of 
 her husband." The reader need not be told 
 that the miscreant made no reply to his bro- 
 ther's statement, but immediately left the room 
 in the utmost confusion. Another use of this 
 subject, and the last which we shall mention, 
 is for 
 
 Consolation. 
 
 And for this grateful ministry, its scope is 
 as wide as the office is benignant. As may 
 be well presumed, this doctrine of physical 
 influences is easily capable of being perverted. 
 Some may mistake the buoyancy of animal 
 spirits for the influences of the Comforter, and 
 others may ascribe the motions of sins which 
 are by the law, to the power of bodily disease. 
 But it is not intended by this admission of 
 the efiect of physical causes upon the soul, to 
 offer an apology for sin, to furnish a conve- 
 nient excuse for indolence, suUenness, a cynical 
 temper, or any other culpable dispositions to 
 which a man may be constitutionally prone. 
 
132 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 All these may be natural, but very criminal 
 nevertheless. The diiFerence is wide between 
 a neglect of prayer and watchfulness occasioned 
 by great fatigue in the performance of other 
 duties, as in the case of the disciples in the 
 garden, and an omission caused by giving way 
 to an inbred laziness. As a question in morals, 
 the point is material whether a man's hasti- 
 ness of spirit be a symptom of hepatic disease, 
 or the habitual prompting of a depraved and 
 neglected heart. We are not accountable to 
 God for the difference in our complexion, or in 
 the length of our limbs, but he justly makes 
 us responsible for the envy and jealousy and 
 malice of our dispositions. Nor is it enough 
 to refer such perplexing cases to the tribunal 
 of conscience, in view of the well known influ- 
 ence of various moral, as well as physical causes, 
 in misguiding its decisions. Not long ago we 
 received, in a letter, the account of a young 
 man of fervent piety, who was at this time 
 preparing for the ministry; but in such a state, 
 as to be wholly unable to pursue his studies. 
 For several years he has felt himself urged 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 133 
 
 and almost coerced, as he says, to make various 
 vows to. God, promising to spend so many 
 hours a day in devotional exercises, and to 
 keep days of "fasting and prayer on various 
 accounts. These vows have become so bur- 
 densome, as to interfere with his duty as well 
 as with his peace. He has forgotten some of 
 the reasons for these vows, and now he feels 
 himself solemnly bound by his vow, but knows 
 not what to do to fulfil it; and some of the 
 occasions on which days of fasting were vowed 
 to be kept, have passed, and his vow not ful- 
 filled. He is kept awake a great part of the 
 night, and is incapable of study. "I endea- 
 voured," says my informant, "to show him, 
 in what cases vows were not binding, and flat- 
 tered myself that I had relieved his mind, but 
 in a few days he came back, and I went over 
 the whole again; but all to little purpose. 
 And by this it may be commonly known, that 
 the disease is physical, when the clearest rea- 
 soning and admitted conclusions produce no 
 effect." 
 
 "Some time since," says the same corres- 
 12 
 
134 iNrLUENCE or health and disease 
 
 pondent, "I was consulted respecting the case 
 of a young man, who, in obedience to his 
 conscience, had vowed that he would never 
 taste butter — ^but as this entered into so many 
 kinds of food, he was kept in continual per- 
 plexity. This, however, seems to have been 
 merely a device of Satan." 
 
 "Not long ago there was a pious and useful 
 pastor in the interior of Pennsylvania, who, 
 when pursuing his theological studies, resolved 
 or vowed, against so many kinds of food, be- 
 cause they were gratifying to his palate, that 
 he actually was suffering for want of nutritive 
 food." 
 
 To what extent such religious whims, or 
 any morbid exercises of persons in such an 
 unhealthy mental condition are culpable, is 
 perhaps the most perplexing inquiry which 
 this whole subject suggests. That man is 
 answerable for his conduct so long as " exag- 
 gerated irritability stops shorts of derange- 
 ment," would seem to be an axiom in morals; 
 and yet what shall we understand by derange- 
 ment] What is that changed condition of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 135 
 
 the man, or how far must it go, in order to 
 release him for the time, from the claims of 
 the moral law'? It has been confidently as- 
 serted, that the feelings produced by nervous 
 diseases are not strictly moral, nor are we 
 accountable for them except as we are account- 
 able for inducing that state of physical organi- 
 zation in which they originate. 
 
 And admitting this also to be true, those 
 cases will nevertheless continually occur which 
 it will occasion no little perplexity to decide. 
 Moral qualities, such as pride, envy, jealousy, 
 covetousness, &c., we know are hereditary, as 
 well as those that are intellectual: "Hence we 
 often find," Dr. Rush says, "certain virtues 
 and vices as peculiar to families through all 
 their degrees of consanguinity and duration, 
 as is a peculiarity of voice, complexion, or 
 shape." But however this innate or transmit- 
 ted tendency to certain kinds of evil may ex- 
 cite commiseration, we regard it not so much 
 as an apology for having yielded to the incli- 
 nation, as a cogent motive for continual vigi- 
 lance against it. But notwithstanding the 
 
136 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 difficulties with which the subject is embar- 
 rassed, there is nevertheless, much in this doc- 
 trine of physical influences for the comfort of 
 those whose wretched experience often makes 
 it so desirable. It is a relief to find that they 
 were in error concerning the nature of their 
 distressing affection ; to discover that what was 
 supposed to be an infusion of Satan, has been 
 caused, perhaps, by a mistake in the quality 
 or quantity of their food, or by changes in 
 the atmosphere. They see the danger of 
 making their feelings the test of their Chris- 
 tian character, so long as their health is im- 
 paired. Indeed it is painful to read the 
 diaries of many eminent believers, and see 
 how they suffered from the imaginary belief 
 of the withdrawment of God's favour, mani- 
 fested, as they supposed, by the variable state 
 of their feelings. Who but the victim himself 
 can conceive of the wretchedness of a soul that 
 vents its anguish in language such as the fol- 
 lowing: "I taste nothing but gall and worm- 
 wood; nothing but misery and vexation. I 
 ivas at ease, hut he hath broken me asunder; he 
 
ON EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 137 
 
 hath taken me hy my neck and shaken me to 
 pieces, and set me up for his mark; his archers 
 compass me round about; he cleaveth my reins 
 asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my 
 gall upon the ground. I dare not look up to 
 heaven, for there I see how great a God I 
 have against me; I dare not look into his word, 
 for there I see all his threats as so many 
 barbed arrows to. strike me to the heart; I 
 dare not look into the grave, because thence 
 I am like to have a doleful resurrection. The 
 Almighty is my enemy. The prayers of others 
 can do me no good unless I have faith, and I 
 find I have none at all, for that would purify 
 and cleanse my heart. I do nothing else but 
 sin; and God, as he is holy, must set himself 
 against me, his enemy." The grand difiiculty 
 in many of these cases, lies in a deranged con- 
 dition of the animal part. A highly respect- 
 able clergyman, still living in New England, 
 after having preached with much acceptance 
 %,nd success to a congregation for twenty years, 
 was called to another field of labour; the 
 change proving not so happy in all respects 
 12* 
 
138 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 as he had anticipated, his health failed, and 
 with it his hope. On entering the pulpit one 
 Sabbath morning, he sat for a while, then 
 arose, and instead of commencing as usual the 
 exercises of the day, he remarked to the people 
 that he had been deceived in relation to his 
 personal religion, was not worthy of the office 
 of a preacher, and could not any longer dis- 
 charge it. A physician who was present called 
 on him afterwards, and was enabled to con- 
 vince him that the cause of his despondency 
 was physical. In the course of two weeks of 
 medical treatment it was removed, his Chris- 
 tian hope revived, he resumed his labours as a 
 preacher, and has continued to perform them 
 ever since with comfort to himself and useful- 
 ness to others. 
 
 So far therefore, as it may be shown to the 
 spiritually depressed that their gloominess is 
 a symptom of disease, they may be_ consoled 
 by the assurance, that such distress of their 
 soul is perfectly consistent with its regenerate 
 state and its safety. That the highest medical 
 authority teaches, that whenever a change in 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXrERIENCE. 139 
 
 the temper or mind takes place, without a 
 plain and manifest moral cause, the condition 
 of the liver or digestive organs should be exa- 
 mined; "for there will be found the origin of 
 the mischief, three times out of four." Let 
 them resort then to such remedies as the exi- 
 gencies of the case demand, and wait for relief 
 to be afforded through the proper channel. 
 
 The same consideration, moreover, may often 
 minister substantial consolation in the case of 
 departed friends, whose exercises have appeared 
 more or less ambiguous, as flesh and heart 
 were failing under the power of disease. 
 
 It is an important observation of Pearson, 
 in his life of Mr. Hay, of Leeds, that good 
 men may be unreasonably depressed, and bad 
 men elevated, under the near prospect of death, 
 from the mere operation of natural causes. 
 The Saviour's declaration makes it fearfully 
 certain that the judgment-day will reveal many 
 disappointments of some rejected, who died in 
 the confident hope of salvation; of others re- 
 ceived, who left this world in darkness and 
 despair. How difficult as well as delicate then, 
 
140 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 is the task of those who undertake to compile 
 the memoirs of the pious from their diaries, 
 or the records of their secret experience! 
 How great their need of judgment, sound dis- 
 cretion, and especially of that knowledge of 
 mental disorders and morbid influences, which 
 many of such writers have evidently lacked! 
 Indeed we are by no means convinced that 
 there .is not virtually a breach of trust in 
 exposing the records of Christian experience, 
 perhaps meant to be secret, to the inspection 
 of the public. Such relations, moreover, while 
 they have not benefitted the pious, have been 
 subjects of merriment to the profane. 
 
 That the deeply interesting biography of 
 Payson would have been more valuable by 
 some omissions, will hardly be questioned by 
 those who regard the portions to which we 
 refer, as indicative rather of the state of his 
 health than of the condition of his soul. And 
 so of the amiable poet of Olney, who, through 
 the whole period of his gloomy aberrations, 
 kept a journal of his feelings, which was pub- 
 lished after his decease, in spite of the earnest 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 141 
 
 expostulations of his more judicious friends. 
 It was regarded by them as a heartless viola^ 
 tion of the secrets of the sepulchre, as a throw- 
 ing open of the closet of the anatomist to the 
 gaze of the vulgar, and a yielding to the pry- 
 ings of a prurient curiosity, under a pretence 
 of correcting certain false notions of religion. 
 
 How few of us would be willing to submit 
 it to the most discreet friend that might sur- 
 vive us, to draw our religious character from 
 what we might write from day to day of our 
 religious exercises, under a full conviction at 
 the time we penned it, of its truth! We say 
 then, in conclusion, that while this doctrine is 
 never to be used as an excuse for wilful delin- 
 quency in any, it may afford effective consola- 
 tion to the afflicted believer when bowed down 
 with infirmities of soul which he cannot over- 
 come. If rightly understood it wiU tend not 
 only to minister relief, but will make us more 
 watchful against sin in all its forms, and espe- 
 cially against that to which we have a consti- 
 tutional bias. Are we naturally passionate and 
 excitable ; are we envious, proud, covetous, or 
 
142 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 jealous, it will cause us to pray and watch 
 against these besetting sins with peculiar vigi- 
 lance; while our numerous failures in this and 
 every other duty, will make us feel our abso- 
 lute dependence on the Spirit, both for grace 
 to enjoy our religion, and strength to obey its 
 precepts. Above all, it will commend to our 
 hearts that great Redeemer who hath home our 
 griefs, and carried our sorrows. We shall look 
 away from our desperate moral defilement, to 
 that blood which cleanseth from all sin; from 
 our weakness, to his strength; from our sins, 
 to his perfect righteousness. It is but a little 
 while, and he that shall come will come, and will 
 not tarry. The day of our emancipation is fast 
 approaching, when the earthly house of this 
 tabernacle wiU be exchanged for a building of 
 God, a house not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens. The spirit shall no more be im- 
 peded by the disorders of the flesh, for this 
 vile body shall he fashioned like unto Chrisfs 
 glorious body. 
 
 But as godly Mason says, we are not to 
 expect the sunshine of joy all through this 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 14S 
 
 vale of tears. Comfortable frames and joyful 
 feelings, though sweet and delightful, are not 
 always most profitable. Were we ever on the 
 mount of joy, we should forget we are strangers 
 and pilgrims on earth — be for building taber- 
 nacles of rest in a polluted place, and cry out 
 with the highly favoured disciples, it is good 
 for us to he here. But they knew not what 
 they said. It is the glory of a Christian to 
 live by faith on Jesus; to judge of his love 
 by the word of truth, more than by sense and 
 feeling; — yea, under dejection and disquiet of 
 soul, to hope and trust in God; to check and 
 rebuke one's self for doubts and diffidence, is 
 the real exercise of faith. Thy frames may 
 vary with the changes of thy health and of thy 
 mortal part, but the foundation of God's love 
 standeth sure. Thou mayest meet with many 
 things from within and without to- cast down 
 and disquiet thee; but thou art called to look 
 to Jesus, and say, Why art thou cast down, 
 O my soull and why art thou disquieted 
 within mel Hope thou in God; for I shall 
 yet praise him, who is the health of my coun- 
 tenance, and my God! 
 
1*44 
 
 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TEMPTATIONS. 
 
 This is the very painting of your fears.— Shakspeabe. 
 
 Me oft hath fancy — 
 Myself creating what I saw. — Cowpee. 
 
 The apostle James reproves those who are too 
 ready to connect their enticements to evil with 
 supernatural causes; who ascribe to circum- 
 stances around them, an influence which pro- 
 ceeds from a susceptibility within them. Let 
 no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 
 of God, for God cannot be tempted of evil, 
 neither tempteth he any man. But every man 
 is tempted when he is drawn away ly his own 
 lusts and enticed. The danger of walking 
 among sparks belongs only to those who wear 
 combustible garments. Nothing is more com- 
 mon among the desponding and morbid than 
 a proneness to this very mistake. They im- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 145 
 
 pute their unhappy experiences to a cause 
 which very often is only "the painting of their 
 fears." How far the prince of tempters may 
 take occasion, from their sickly physical state, 
 to lead them into errors concerning their spi- 
 ritual, we presume not to say. There is, how- 
 ever, the same intervention of second causes 
 in their case, as in that which James speaks 
 of. They are drawn away by their own bodily 
 affections, and enticed into grave mistakes, 
 which cause their many doubts and disquiet • 
 about their spiritual safety. It is a tempta- 
 tion of some, in their desponding state, to 
 think that they have committed 
 
 The Sin against the Holy Ghost. 
 
 We have known Christians, with eminent 
 gifts, and piety which nobody doubted but 
 themselves, who have been at times ., exceed- 
 ingly distressed with the apprehension that 
 they were guilty of this unpardonable sin. 
 The perplexing question concerning its nature, 
 than which. Father Austin said, "there was no 
 harder in all the Scriptures," is clearly an- 
 swered, as they suppose, in their own forlorn 
 13 
 
146 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 experience. Among the schoolmen of the mid- 
 dle ages there were no less than six different 
 opinions about this fearful sin, all of which, 
 in later times, have been rejected as erroneous. 
 Calvin defined it a malicious resistance to 
 divine truth, only for the sake of resistance. 
 In this view Arminius concurred with Calvin, 
 although opposed to him in so many others 
 of more importance. Since the Reformation, a 
 more common opinion has been, that it was 
 ' the sin of the Jews when they ascribed the 
 miracles of Christ to the agency of Satan. 
 Dr. Chalmers and others, think it to be, not 
 so much any one sin against the Holy Ghost, 
 as a prolonged sinning — a resisting and griev- 
 ing the heavenly Comforter until he ceases to 
 strive, and withdraws ; when the forsaken -heart 
 is left like a field on which the clouds shed 
 no more rain. The good seed of the word 
 will not take root and bring forth fruit in the 
 former case, any more than bare grain, wheat, 
 or some other will germinate, so long as the 
 earth is powder and dust in the absence of 
 proper moisture. Conviction of sin, regenera- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 147 
 
 tion, sanctification, are no longer possible, be- 
 cause the dishonoured Spirit, so often repelled, 
 has let these impenitent persons alone. Sin- 
 ning now has become unpardonable, as it can 
 no longer be repented of, and not because it 
 is, in its own nature, worse than it was before 
 the Spirit's final exit. It does not come with- 
 in the scope of the present volume to write a 
 treatise on this grave subject; but it is intro- 
 duced to the reader's notice only so far as to 
 exhibit the moral effect of a physical cause. 
 The gloomy prognosis in cases like these, is a 
 token, not as the sufferers suppose, that they 
 are unconverted, but that they are unwell. 
 Mr. Kemper says, that in ninety-nine instances 
 out of a hundred it is a symptom of bodily 
 disease, "of which state Satan takes advantage 
 to annoy and distress them. This appears," 
 he adds, "for two reasons — ^first, that so many 
 recover, become comfortable, and ceaSe to 
 charge themselves with the commission of that 
 most frightful of all sins: the second is, that 
 others know their characters to be better than 
 
148 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 they say they are, and from the unreasonable 
 charges which they bring against themselves, 
 which others, in their sober senses, can see 
 were impossible." We once knew a young 
 man, who had lived twelve years under the 
 impression that he had survived his day of 
 grace. He supposed that he could refer to 
 the very day, and mention the act, by M-hich 
 he caused the Holy Spirit to withdraw, and 
 leave him in a condition of hopeless obduracy. 
 In all this time he had shown a becoming 
 respect to the preaching of the gospel, but 
 without any benefit of which he was conscious, 
 or that was visible to others. No one sus- 
 pected what was the state of his mind — not 
 his pastor, nor most intimate friends; for in 
 all his conversation he had carefully concealed 
 it from both. But the Spirit that he had 
 exiled for ever, as he imagined, was striving 
 with' him still, and at length constrained him 
 to reveal this oppressive secret to his pastor. 
 He was then told that the very distress of 
 mind which had caused him to seek that inter- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 149 
 
 view, was at once the token and effect of the 
 Holy Spirit's presence. The remark was sup- 
 ported by citation from the Scriptures, and 
 followed by prayer. His mind was at once 
 relieved, when his joy was now great in pro- 
 portion to his former deep and long-continued 
 sorrow. Dr. Ridgley says, that " such as are 
 guilty of this sin have no conviction in their 
 conscience of any crime committed herein; but 
 stop their ears against all reproof, and often 
 set themselves, with the greatest hatred and 
 malice against those who, with faithfulness, 
 admonish them to the contrary. That they go 
 out of the way of God's ordinances, and wil- 
 lingly exclude themselves from the means of 
 grace, which they treat with the utmost con- 
 tempt, and use all means in their power that 
 others may be deprived of them." A conscious- 
 ness of sill then, according to Dr. Eidgley, 
 a solicitude and sorrow produced by a person's 
 fears of having sinned beyond pardon, are evi- 
 dence that his case is not so desperate as he 
 supposes. His "pain to find he cannot feel" 
 13* 
 
150 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 is a symptom of vitality. It proves that he 
 has not passed into the callous state of those 
 whom the apostle Paul describes as past feel- 
 ing. Some time before the Eev. Daniel Baker 
 made a profession of religion, he was in great 
 spiritual darkness, and on the borders of des- 
 pair from the fear that he had sinned away 
 his day of grace. "The unpardonable sin! — 
 the unpardonable sin! — I was very much afraid 
 that I had committed it ; but one day, reading 
 a book called 'Russel's Seven Sermons,' I met 
 with a sentence in the last sermon which gave 
 me great comfort. It was to this effect — :that 
 if a man has any serious concern about the 
 salvation of his soul, and has a tender thought 
 in relation to his Kedeemer, that was proof 
 positive that he had not committed the unpar- 
 donable sin. Immediately my burden was 
 gone; every cloud was scattered, and my feel- 
 ings became most delightful. It was like the 
 beauty of spring after a long and dreary win- 
 ter. I had ne\T' views of my Saviour; felt that 
 I could rest upon him; and was enabled to 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 151 
 
 rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of 0ory." 
 Another common temptation is to the 
 
 Adoption of a false standard of duty, 
 or of ambiguous eyidences of a regenerate 
 
 STATE, 
 
 Like the Jews who could not discern the 
 signs of the times which were so visible in 
 the moral firmament, and so intelligible to 
 many, they asked for others that the Saviour 
 would not give, and which they had no 
 divine warrant to expect. Thus, how many 
 have lost their spiritual peace by the sudden 
 occurrence of an " alarming passage of Scrip- 
 ture," as if it were a supernatural warning. 
 They forget that a bad spirit can suggest a 
 text as well as the Good, and that its mean- 
 ing is liable to be perverted in order that 
 it may suit the morbid state of their mind 
 when it is presented, just as water takes the 
 colour of the soil over which it runs. It is 
 mentioned in the life of Mr, Lackington, the 
 celebrated bookseller, that when quite a youth, 
 he was • at one time locked up to prevent his 
 attending a Methodist meeting in Taunton. 
 
152 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Under a strong mental impression that he 
 ought to go, he opened his Bible for direction, 
 when his eye caught the passage: He shall 
 give his angels charge concerning thee, and in 
 their hand they shall hear thee up, lest thou dash 
 thy foot against a stone. This, Mr. Lacking- 
 ton says, "was quite enough for me; so, with- 
 out a moment's hesitation, I ran up two pair 
 of stairs to my own room, and out of the 
 window I leaped, to the great terror of my 
 poor mistress, who had charge of me." He 
 was, of course, severely bruised, and confined 
 to his bed fourteen days. Doubtless young 
 Lackington was sincere, and was not aware 
 of his adopting the very sense of the passage 
 imposed on it by Satan, and which, in his ex- 
 cited state, he was so predisposed to receive. 
 The great -moral lesson which this experience 
 taught him was never forgotten. Nor was it 
 bought dearly, even at the expense of so much 
 bodily peril. It is a striking exemplification 
 of the folly of all who are, like him, enticed 
 to bite the Tempter's hook when baited by a 
 text of the Bible. Persons sometimes think 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 153 
 
 themselves to be following a light from heaven, 
 when they are led by a vain imagination and 
 a deceiving heart. Others, again, trust to the 
 evidence of "dreams," and are at one time 
 alarmed, and at another comforted, by thoughts 
 from the visions of the night, which they seem 
 to believe are prompted by the same Spirit 
 that addressed Eliphaz the Temanite: as if 
 physiology had not made it too clear to be 
 any longer doubted, that the character of our 
 dreams depends very much upon our physical 
 condition as affected by the amount or quality 
 of our food last taken, and the state of our 
 stomach. One man retiring to bed after a 
 light meal, will dream of Paradise; while the 
 digestive organs of another, gorged and op- 
 pressed by the excesses of the evening, will 
 make him dream of perdition. Baron Trenck 
 relates, that being almost dead with hunger 
 when confined in his dungeon, his dreams 
 every night presented to him the well filled 
 and luxurious tables of Berlin, from which, as 
 they were spread before him, he imagined he 
 was about to relieve his hunger. Not a small 
 
154 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 proportion of our dreams at night are the pro- 
 longed waking thoughts of the day, and come, 
 according to Solomon, through the multitude of 
 business. Condorcet told some one, that while 
 he was engaged in abstruse and profound cal- 
 culations, he was frequently obliged to leave 
 them in an unfinished state in order to retire 
 to rest, and that the remaining steps, and the 
 conclusion of his calculation, had more than 
 once presented themselves in his dreams. Mr. 
 Coleridge says, that after reading an account 
 of the Khan Kubla, he fell into a sleep, and 
 in that situation composed an entire poem of 
 not less than two hundred lines, some of which 
 he afterwards committed to writing. President 
 Edwards so fully believed that our dreams are 
 generally fashioned from the materials of the 
 thoughts and feelings that we have while 
 awake, that he used to take particular notice 
 of his dreams, in order to ascertain from them 
 what his predominant inclinations were. Such 
 being the connection between the operations 
 of our mind in sleep and our sensations and 
 conceptions when awake, we see the error of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 155 
 
 those who are so ready to ascribe their dreams 
 to a supernatural influence, and receive them 
 as revealing the will of God. We once knew 
 a lady, in advanced age, that gave little evi- 
 dence of piety, who had cherished for many 
 years an unwavering assurance of her salva- 
 tion, which was based upon nothing but a 
 dream. That God no longer informs men of 
 his mind through supernatural dreams, as he 
 did in patriarchal times, we do not assert. 
 We presume to fix no limit to this method of 
 divine communication — to say when it ceased; 
 or that old men do not dream dreams, and young 
 men see visions still. The apparent connection 
 that is sometimes seen between men's dreams 
 and the subsequent events which they seem to 
 foresee and predict, is too striking and exact 
 to be accidental or fortuitous, or to be ex- 
 plained "on simple and natural principles." 
 A dream of this sort is mentioned in the 
 memoir of a distinguished clergyman of Eng- 
 land, to whom the facts were well known. A 
 young lady, whose mind had become awakened 
 to consider the subject of religion with special 
 
156 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 interest, dreamed of being in a place of wor- 
 ship, where she heard a sermon, but when she 
 awoke, could remember nothing but the per- 
 sonal appearance of the preacher, and his text. 
 The impression on her mind, however, was 
 very deep, and she resolved on the next Lord's 
 day morning to "find the place that she 
 dreamed of, if she should go from one end of 
 London to the other." About one o'clock she 
 found herself in the heart of the city, where 
 she dined, and afterwards set out again in 
 search of this place of worship. About half- 
 after-two o'clock she saw a .great number of 
 people going down the Old Jewry, and deter- 
 mining to see where they went, she was led 
 by them to the meeting-house of the Kev. Mr. 
 Shower, She had no sooner entered the door, 
 than, turning to a companion, she said with some 
 surprise, " This is the very place I saw in my 
 dream." It was not long before Mr. Shower 
 entered the pulpit, when, with greater surprise, 
 she observed, "This is the very man I saw in 
 my dream; and if every part of it holds true, 
 he will take for his text the 7th verse of the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 157 
 
 H6th Psalm: Return unto thy rest, O my soul, 
 for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. 
 When he arose to pray, every petition ex- 
 pressed the desire of her heart. Then followed 
 the sermon, which, to her joyous amazement, 
 was on the very passage which had been im- 
 pressed on her mind in the dream. The result 
 was her saving conversion, and her finding 
 that rest for her soul which she had so long 
 sought elsewhere in vain. Not less remark- 
 able was the case mentioned by Dr. Aber- 
 crombie, of a most respectable clergyman in a 
 country parish of Scotland, who made a collec- 
 tion in his church for an object of public 
 benevolence, in which he felt deeply interest- 
 ed. The amount of the collection, which was 
 received in ladles carried through the church, 
 feU greatly short of his expectation; and dur- 
 ing the evening of the day he frequently 
 alluded to the fact with expressions of much 
 disappointment. In the following night he 
 dreamed that three one-pound notes had been 
 left in one of the ladles, having been so com- 
 pressed that they had stuck in the corner 
 14 
 
158 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 when the ladle was emptied. He was so im- 
 pressed with the vision, that at an early hour 
 in the morning he went to the church, found 
 the ladle that he had seen in his dream, and 
 drew from one of the corners of it, the three 
 one-pound notes. The same writer gives an 
 account of another clergyman, who had gone 
 to Edinburgh from a short distance in the 
 country, and was sleeping at an inn, when he 
 dreamed of seeing a fire, and one of his child- 
 ren in the midst of it. He awoke with the 
 impression, and instantly left town on his 
 return home. AVhen he arrived within sight 
 of his house, he found it on fire, and got there 
 in time to assist in saving one of his children, 
 who, in the alarm and confusion, had been 
 left in a state of danger. The authority on 
 which we have the story forbids us to doubt 
 its authenticity. But while there is now and 
 then a case like these, which no philosophy 
 of the mental powers can fully explain, yet the 
 wild, grotesque, incoherent, and non-natural 
 character of most, prove them 
 
 To be the children of an idle brain, 
 Begot of nothing but vain fantasy. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXRERIENCE. 159 
 
 As the bard of Avon expounds the theory, 
 under the whimsical fiction of Queen Mab sal- 
 lying forth by night in her hazle-nut chariot, 
 on her dream-inspiring missions — 
 
 When in this state, she gallops night by night 
 Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; 
 On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight; 
 O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees ; 
 O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream: 
 Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 
 And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; 
 And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail. 
 Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep. 
 Then dreams he of another benefice: 
 Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck. 
 And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats. 
 Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades. 
 Of healths five fathom deep ; and then anon 
 Drums in his ear; at which he starts, and wakes; 
 And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, 
 And sleeps again. 
 
 Many Christians, of a nervous temperament, 
 are tempted to make too much of 
 
 KeLIGIOUS FRAMES. 
 
 They will imagine themselves, perhaps, to 
 be in a state of favour with God, or to be 
 unreconciled, according to their present im- 
 
160 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 pression or mental enjoyment. Mr. Brownlow • 
 North, in one of his public addresses in Ire- 
 land, mentioned the case of a female in Bel- 
 fast, who said that she knew that Christ had 
 pardoned her sins, because she was so happy ; 
 but if her feeling of happiness were taken 
 away, she would not think her sins to have 
 been forgiven. "Many imagine, unless they 
 are at all times in a glow of fervour, an 
 ecstatic frame of feeling, all must be wrong 
 with them. But there is nothing more dan- 
 gerous or deceptive than a life of mere feel- 
 ing; and its most dangerous phase is a life of 
 religious emotional excitement. It is in the 
 last degree erroneous to consider all this glow- 
 ing ecstacy of frame a necessary condition of 
 healthful spiritual life. You will not be asked, 
 in the last great day, whether you had great 
 enjoyment, or much enlargement of soul here. 
 Speak to that vast multitude which no man 
 can number, now around the throne. Ask 
 them whether they came through much con- 
 solati on and joy in the Lord. No ! through 
 much tribulation. Ask them whether they 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 161 
 
 were saved by their warmth of love to their 
 Saviour. No! but they had washed their 
 robes, and made them white in the blood of 
 the Lamb." Many persons, Mr. North says, 
 derive their faith from their feelings, whereas 
 they ought to do the exact reverse, and let 
 their feelings flow from their faith. 
 
 The power of temptation in the form we 
 now speak of, was exemplified, to a remark- 
 able extent, in the case of Mrs. Hawkes, that 
 devoted friend of Mr. Cecil, of London, and 
 an honoured servant of Christ. Her copious 
 diary is full of meditations which exhibit her 
 spiritual vacillancy, and show that this was 
 her infirmity. Thus, after one of her transi- 
 tions from spiritual gloom to light and hope, 
 she exclaims: "How variable are our firames 
 and feelings! How like the shining and the 
 shadow passing over the green plain! But, 
 blessed be God, our salvation consisteth not in 
 frames and feelings, but in being epgrafted on 
 the living Vine, and abiding in Christ; con- 
 sisteth not even in our sensible hold on him, 
 14* 
 
162 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 but in our simple belief of his gracious decla- 
 ration that he wUl never leave, nor forsake, 
 nor suffer us to be plucked out of his hand." 
 In reference to such cases as hers, Mr. New- 
 ton remarks, " that a humble, dependent frame 
 of spirit, perseverance in the appointed means, 
 care to avoid aU occasions of sin, a sincere 
 endeavour to glorify God, an eye to Jesus 
 Christ as our all in all, are sure indications 
 that the soul 'is thriving,' whether sensible 
 consolation abound or not. Neither high nor 
 low frames Mill do for a standard of faith; self 
 may be strong in both." Persons who are 
 conscious of such spiritual, oscillations, should 
 learn to discriminate between their emotions or 
 frames and their habitual principles of action. 
 The former may be likened to the little eddies 
 near the margin of a river, which, at different 
 times, flow towards aU points of the compass. 
 The latter are the current, constantly tending 
 the same way, and which makes it evident in 
 what direction the great volume of water is 
 running; . In one of his affectionate letters to 
 Mrs. Hawkes~"that relates to the reUgious 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 163 
 
 depression which she often suffered, he com- 
 pares an afflicted believer to "a man that has 
 an orchard laden with fruit, who, because the 
 wind has blown off the leaves, sits down and 
 weeps. If one asks, ' What do you weep for V 
 'Why, my apple-leaves are gone!' 'But, have 
 you not your apples leftf 'Yes.' 'Very 
 well, then, do not grieve for a few leaves, 
 which could only hinder the ripening of your 
 fruit.' Pardon and promises, that cannot fail, 
 lie at the root of your profession, my dear 
 daughter; and fruits of faith, hope, and love, 
 that no one can question, have long covered 
 your branches. The east wind sometimes car- 
 ries off a few leaves, though the rough wind 
 is stayed. And what if every leaf were gone"? 
 What if not a single earthly comfort were 
 leff? Christ has prayed and promised that 
 your fruit shall remain; and it shall be my 
 joy to behold it in all eternity." Not less 
 injurious to the spiritual progress of others, 
 is a 
 
 Habit of mental inteospectign-. 
 
 We mean, not the salutary practice of self- 
 
164 iNrLUENOE or health and disease 
 
 examination, which is commended alike by 
 apostolic injunction and Christian experience. 
 But we speak of a continual peering inward 
 on their thoughts, emotions, ajffections, convic- 
 tions of sin, and various exercises of mind, 
 instead of looking away from them all to 
 Christ. It is the natural proneness of a 
 doubting and fearful mind, which it is often 
 hard to resist. But, like Mary's visit to the 
 sepulchre after the resurrection, it is a seek- 
 ing of the living among the dead. Some 
 persons, in their desponding moods, Mr. Spen- 
 cer says, " think only of themselves and their 
 sins. Nothing can magnify equal to melan- 
 choly — and nothing is so monotonous. A me- 
 lancholy man, left to himself and the sway of 
 his melancholy, wiU not have a new idea once 
 a month. His thoughts will move round and 
 round in the same dark circle. This will do 
 him no good; he ought to get out of it. De- 
 pression never benefits body or soul. We are 
 saved hy hope." But next in danger to this 
 mistake of looking to themselves for help and 
 light, is their " making a test of the experience 
 
ON EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 165 
 
 of others for the trial of our own." In a letter 
 to Mr. Anderson, Dr. Chalmers speaks of the 
 besetting anxiety that attends such a prac- 
 tice, concerning which he makes the following 
 excellent suggestions, as the promptings of his 
 own observation and consciousness: "When 
 you read books upon the subject of conver- 
 sion, you see a certain process assigned, and 
 in such a confident and authoritative way too, 
 that you are apt to conceive that this is the 
 very process, and that there can be no other. 
 I compare it with my own history, and my 
 own resolutions, and I am apt to be alarmed 
 at the want of correspondence in a good many 
 particulars. Scott's 'Force of Truth' is an 
 example; Doddridge's 'Kise and Progress of 
 Religion in the Soul' another; and last, though 
 not least, the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' I pro- 
 nounce them all to be excellent, and that 
 there are many exemplifications such as they 
 describe. But the process is not authoritative, 
 nor is it universal. The Spirit taketh its own 
 way with each individual, and you know it 
 only by its fruits. I cannot say of myself that 
 
166 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 I ever felt a state of mind corresponding to 
 John Bunyan's Slough of Despond. Indeed, 
 I blame myself most sincerely, that I cannot 
 excite in my heart a high enough conception 
 of sin in all its malignity. I hope I have the 
 conviction, but I cannot command the degree 
 of emotion that I should like; and in the 
 hardness of a heart, not so tenderly alive, as 
 it ought to be, to the authority of my Law- 
 giver, and the enormity of trampling upon 
 him, I feel how far, and very far I am at this 
 moment from the measure of the stature of the 
 perfect man in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, 
 what am I to infer from thisl — that I have 
 not yet surmounted the impassable barrier 
 which stands between me and the gate of hfe] 
 So one would suppose from John Bunyan, and 
 so I would suppose myself, were it not for the 
 kind assurance of my Saviour, whose every 
 testimony is truth, and every tone is tender- 
 ness: He that believeth in me, though he were 
 dead, yet shall he live. This is my firm hold, 
 and I will not let it go. I sicken at all my 
 own imperfect preparations. I take one deci 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 167 
 
 sive and immediate step, and resign my all to 
 the sufficiency of my Saviour." Many Chris- 
 tians, of unequal experience, are wont to 
 
 Make an idol of comfort. 
 
 This temptation is akin to that already men- 
 tioned, which rests the believer's hope on the 
 imstable basis of frames. But it implies an 
 erroneous view of the Scriptures, and a mis- 
 take of the only source from which solid and 
 enduring comfort can ever emanate. In his 
 life, written by Clarke, Dr. Harris is quoted 
 as exposing, with much discrimination, this 
 among other raistakes of disturbed minds that 
 are seeking relief. "What an idol," he says, 
 "do some make of comfort, as if it were their 
 Christ ■?" It absorbs their thoughts, and they 
 seem to care for nothing but this. And when 
 their comfort comes, they are apt to lose it — 
 some by nourishing too great scrupulosity, and 
 others by contracting carelessness and hardness 
 of heart. But if we miss or lose our comforts 
 for other causes than our own remarkable de- 
 fault and disobedience, we must acquiesce in 
 the pleasure of God till th^wessed day dawns. 
 
168 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 But why look so intently after this, when, if 
 we study and understand the covenant of grace, 
 and are but sincere, it will give us quietness 
 under our manifold infirmities and trials, even 
 though comforts flow not in upon us? But 
 another error of these seekers after comfort is 
 to mistake its abatement for an absolute re- 
 moval. 'In some cases, perhaps, their fears 
 may be just; and yet many are ready to mis- 
 trust the least declension of it for its loss. 
 They ought to understand that comfort long 
 enjoyed does not make the impression it did 
 at first — especially if they came out of great 
 darkness; for then it is like standing in the 
 open sun, after having just come out of a dun- 
 geon. The change, at first, is very impressive; 
 but after a long and habitual sunshine, though 
 the heat and benign influences are just the 
 same, yet use and time abate gradually the 
 transports of the sensation." Hence the peace 
 of such believers, unlike the steady flow of a 
 river, is as unstable as the waters of the 
 always changing ocean. Many excellent Chris- 
 tians, in reading the teachings of Christ, ap- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 169 
 
 pear to make the same mistake as did. the 
 sons of Zebedee; they are looking for their 
 crown without the antecedent cross — ^fpr the 
 victory of faitji, without the good fight through 
 which Paul gained it, and everybody else, who 
 has gained it at all. In their desire to be 
 filled with comfort, which is one of the fruits of 
 sanctification, they lose sight of the process of 
 trial by which God is pleased, in most cases, 
 to carry on and mature this work of the Spirit. 
 Such mistaken disciples expect to enjoy, in 
 the present life. Mason says, that unmingled 
 happiness which God has promised only for 
 the future. 'O, give me comforts^ or I die!' 
 saith the soul of such an one; 'for surely, 
 were I a chUd of God, I should not be thus 
 tried, afflicted, and distressed.' 'Nay,' saith 
 the Saviour, 'ye know not what ye ask. Dost 
 thou forget the exhortation which speaketh unto 
 you as unto children, despise not thou the chas- 
 tening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art re- 
 huTced of him. Did I bid thee beUeve on me"? 
 Believe also my words; through much tribula- 
 tion thou must enter my kingdom.' We often 
 15 
 
170 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 pray, like Peter, to be excused being washed 
 by our Lord; but we consider neither his love 
 nor our own advantage. If I wash thee not, 
 thou hast no fart with me. If^ye he without 
 chastisement, then are ye not sons. I will purc/e 
 away thy dross and thy tin, and purify thee in 
 the furnace. Then shall thy graces shine 
 brighter, thy faith grow stronger, thy love 
 burn more fervent, and thy obedience be more 
 cheerful. O happy to live, not so much on 
 comforts, as on the God of all comforts," 
 But the worst of all forms of temptation, is 
 when it tends to 
 
 Despair. 
 
 The unhappy condition of which we have 
 treated, assumes many phases, and is modified 
 by circumstances almost numberless. In all 
 cases it is attended with mental suffering more 
 or less aggravated; but the malady sometimes 
 reaches its dreadful chmax in a state of des- 
 pair. In most instances of this kind, the 
 symptoms of bodily disease are so apparent, 
 that all religious counsels may be deferred as 
 superfluous, until the physical state has been 
 
ON EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 171 
 
 changed by proper medical treatment. Some- 
 times, however, when there are no perceptible 
 indications of impaired health, the mind sinks 
 into a state of hopelessness, which is promoted 
 and nurtured by perverted views of truth, or 
 a misapplication of its meaning. They are 
 afraid to pray, perhaps^ because the sacrifice of 
 the mcked is abomination; or at some former 
 time they may have eaten and drunk damnation 
 to themselves by partaking unworthily at the 
 Lord's table. Not long ago a pastor told me 
 of an interesting female member of his church, 
 who had been despairing of her salvation many 
 years, because of her having been guilty, as 
 she supposed, of this presumptuous act. Very 
 often, in this sickly state, the mind is tempted 
 to ponder the divine decrees, or the mystery 
 of election, or try to reconcile the divine 
 purposes and foreknowledge with human free 
 agency. It endeavours to "pry between the 
 folded leaves" of the book of life, which is for- 
 bidden even to Gabriel; to comprehend that 
 which is incomprehensible, and to know that 
 which passeth knowledge. The forlornness and 
 
172 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 desperation that such diseased musings lead to, 
 are indescribable. But cases of this kind so 
 closely resemble those in which the mind is 
 brooding over an imagined sin against the 
 Holy Ghost, that the counsels addressed to the 
 former are not less adapted to instruct the 
 latter. Persons under the power of temptation 
 in this form, not only neglect the means of 
 grace, but, by a constant rumination on their 
 wretchedness, only make it the more difficult 
 to dislodge the delusion, and minister effectual 
 relief. But "despair never made a human 
 being better; it has made many a devil worse." 
 Mr. Spencer says, that at one time there was 
 in his congregation a woman about forty years 
 of age, who was a wonder to me. She was 
 one of the most intelligent and well educated 
 of the people; she had been brought up from 
 her childhood in the family of a clergyman, as 
 his daughter; was very attentive to the obser- 
 vance of the Sabbath; and was never absent 
 from her seat in the church. As the mother 
 of a family she had few equals. Everybody 
 respected her. But she was not a member of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 173 
 
 the church; and whenever I had endeavoured 
 to call attention to the subject, she was so 
 reserved, that I could not even conjecture what 
 was her particular state of mind. I was told 
 that she never spoke to any one in respect to 
 her rehgious feelings. One day I called upon 
 her, and frankly told her nay embarrassment 
 about her. I mentioned her uniform taci- 
 turnity; my motive in aiming to overcome it; 
 my supposition that some error kept her from 
 religion, and my inability to conjecture what 
 it was. I said to her that I had not a doubt 
 there was something locked up in her own 
 mind which she never whispered to me. She 
 seemed very much surprised at this declaration, 
 and I instantly asked her if it was not so'? 
 With some reluctance she confessed it was. 
 And then, after no little urgency, she said she 
 would tell me the whole- — not on her own ac- 
 count — but that her case might not discourage 
 me from aiming to lead others to Christ. She 
 then said that her day of grace was past; that 
 she had had every possible opportunity for sal- 
 vation; that every possible motive had been a 
 15* 
 
174 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 thousand times presented to her; that she had 
 been the subject of deep convictions and 
 anxiety often; she had lived through three re- 
 markable revivals of religion, in which many 
 of her companions had been led to Christ ; and 
 that she had again and again attempted to 
 work out her salvation, but all in vain, "I 
 know my day is gone," she said, "and I am 
 given over." She spoke this in a decided 
 manner, solemnly and coldly, unmoved as a 
 rock. As I was silently thinking for a mo- 
 ment how I could best remove her error, she 
 went on to say that she had never before now 
 mentioned this; that she fuUy believed in the 
 reality of experimental religion, and assented 
 to everything she had ever heard me preach, 
 except when once or twice I had spoken of 
 religious despair. But inasmuch as her day of 
 grace was past, she did not wish to have her 
 mind troubled on the subject of religion at all, 
 and asked me to say nothing more about it. 
 I inquired how long she had been in this state 
 of mindl She told me she had known for 
 eighteen years that there was no salvation for 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 175 
 
 her. I inquired if she ever prayed? She said 
 she had not prayed for eighteen years. I asked 
 if she did not feel unhappy to be in such a 
 state 1 She said she seldom thought of it, as 
 it would do no goodj and she never intended 
 to think of it again. I called to see her time 
 after time about once a week for six weeks; 
 examined all her reasons for thinking that her 
 day of grace had gone by, except. one, and 
 convinced her that they were false. Evidently 
 she had become intellectually interested; there 
 was but one point left. She had never, at any 
 preceding interview, expressed a wish to see 
 me, or asked me to call again. I now called 
 her attention summarily to the ground we had 
 gone over, and how she had found all her 
 refuges of lies swept away, save one, as she her- 
 self had acknowledged; and if that were gone, 
 she would think her salvation possible. I then 
 asked her if she wished to see me again? She 
 replied that her opinion was unchanged, but 
 that she would like to hear what I had to say 
 about the remaining point, which, as she truly 
 said, I had avoided so often. I called the next 
 
176 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 day, and took up the one point left — ^this last 
 item which doomed her to despair. As I exa- 
 mined it, reasoning with her, and asking if she 
 thought me right from step to step as I went 
 on, the intensity of her thoughts became pain- 
 ful to me. She gazed upon me with unutter- 
 able astonishment. Her former cold and stone- 
 like appearance was gone; her bosom heaved 
 with emotion; and her whole frame seemed 
 agitated with a new kind of life. To see the 
 dreadful fixedness of despair melting away from 
 her countenance, and the dawnings of inceptive 
 hope taking its place, was a new and strange 
 thing to me. It looked like putting life into 
 a corpse. As my explanation and argument 
 drew towards the close, she turned pale as 
 death. She almost ceased to breathe; and 
 when I had finished, and in answer to my 
 question, she confessed that she had no reason 
 to believe that her day of grace was past, and 
 instantly she looked as if she had waked up in 
 a new world. The tears gushed from her eyes 
 in a torrent, she clasped her hands, sprung 
 from her seat, and walked back and forth 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 177 
 
 across the room, exclaiming, " I can be saved ! — 
 I can be saved! — I can be saved!" She was 
 so entirely overcome that I thought she Vi^ould 
 faint, or perhaps her reason give way. I was 
 afraid to leave her, and remained, saying no- 
 thing, till she became more composed, when, 
 with a silent bow, I withdrew. The next Sab- 
 bath morning she was at the meeting for 
 inquirers, and appeared like other awakened 
 sinners, with nothing remarkable about her 
 except her manifest determination to seek the 
 Lord with aU her heart. In about three weeks 
 she became one of the happiest creatures in 
 hope, I ever saw. She afterwards united with 
 the church, and yet lives a happy and decided 
 believer. 
 
178 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 COUNSELS. 
 
 'Tis hard, in such a strife of rules, to choose 
 The best. 
 
 Aemstrokq. 
 
 Having examined the nature of physical 
 causes, their influence upon religious experi- 
 ence, and the uses of knowledge, we come now 
 to the most important department of our sub- 
 ject, viz. 
 
 The counsels which such cases of suffer- 
 ing REQUIRE. 
 
 And here we should repeat the remark, that 
 as we are not writing for medical men, neither 
 do we affect the medical knowledge which is 
 required to do it justice in all its bearings. 
 The most which has been proposed and at- 
 tempted, is to offer the results of some experi- 
 ence and observation in prosecuting the minis- 
 try, rather than the fruits of scientific research. 
 Without much of the latter, it has appeared 
 to the writer, that there is ample scope for 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 179 
 
 some profitable suggestions, by wbich the un- 
 happy condition of many may be reached and 
 relieved. 
 
 The more conversant we become with the 
 varied cases of spiritual disquietude, occurrent 
 in our churches, the more occasion we see for 
 all the aid which may be furnished by the 
 counsels and experience of others. That this 
 should have been made no more frequently the 
 subject of discussion by the pen or the pulpit, 
 is to be ascribed, not to its intrinsic barren- 
 ness, nor its want of importance, as is evident 
 from the prominency given it in the older 
 English writers, but the demand for treatises 
 on subjects like that of our present discussion 
 is small, and for the most part restricted to 
 those whose cases are portrayed, and very often 
 to a smaller number even than they. Some- 
 times there is such an utter prostration of all 
 energy, intellectual and moral, in the afflicted 
 themselves, that it is extremely difficult to 
 arrest their attention even by instructions, 
 which, if heeded, would relieve their spirits, 
 and restore them to cheerfulness. 
 
180 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 " In perusing the memoirs of those who have 
 devoted themselves to God," Dr. Cheyne says, 
 " nothing has appeared to us more remarkable 
 than their ignorance of, or inattention to, many 
 of those things which' aifect their spiritual 
 enjoyment; and especially that physical causes 
 should be so continually overlooked by those 
 who must be fully aware of the influence which 
 the body exercises over the mind, and the mind 
 over the body, in all men, but particularly in 
 Christians." They are habitually desponding 
 and unhappy; not appearing to know how 
 much the pleasurable emotions of the soul are 
 dependent on the state of the health. 
 
 Non est vivere, sed valere, vita. 
 Existence is not life, but to be well. 
 
 To those, then, who are perplexed about 
 their spiritual state, and are often fearful and 
 sad, we would say. 
 
 Endeavour, so par as possible, to ascer- 
 tain THE TRUE cause OF YOUR DOUBTS AND 
 SPIRITUAL TROUBLES. 
 
 This is Baxter's prescription. "If you 
 should mistake in the cause," he says, "it 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 181 
 
 would much frustrate the most excellent means 
 for cure. The very same doubts and com- 
 plaints may come from several causes in several 
 persons, and therefore admit not of the same 
 way of cure. Sometimes the cause begins in 
 the body, and thence proceedeth to the mind; 
 sometimes it begins in the mind, and thence 
 distempereth the body. Again, it proceedeth 
 ftom wordly crosses, or scruples upon points 
 of religious doctrine, decays of inward grace, 
 or, as it was with David, from the deep wounds 
 of some scandalous sin. Which of these is 
 your own case, you must be careful to find 
 out, and apply the means for cure accordingly. 
 And if, upon close and careful examination, 
 it prove like Achan's fraud, to be some latent 
 sin, then relief can- only come (as it infallibly 
 will come,) by putting it away. If the cause 
 be found in the state of your health, then 
 acquit your soul from all that part of your 
 disquietness which proceeds from this source ; 
 remembering in all your self-examinations, 
 self-judgings, and reflections on your heart, 
 that it is not directly to be charged with those 
 16 
 
182 INPLTJ^NCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 sorrows that come from your spleen, save only 
 remotely, as all other diseases are the fruits of 
 sin, as a lethargic dullness is the deserved 
 fruit of sin; but he that should charge it im- 
 mediately on his soul, vi^ould v^'rong himself, 
 and he that would attempt the cure, must do 
 it on the body." 
 
 It is admitted that such counsel as this is 
 attended with more or less danger; that it 
 may encourage presumption in some, and thus 
 lead them to heal the hurt of their spirit too 
 slightly and hastily, by resolving it into a 
 cause over which they have no control, and 
 for which they are not accountable. How 
 many pains which afflict the soul, especially in 
 later life, are only retributory. They are the 
 hitter things in which the sufferer is made to 
 possess the iniquities of his youth; "the physi- 
 cal results of early crime in the disease and 
 infirmity of the body; the mental results, in 
 the weakness, disorder, and unsettledness of 
 the intellect; and the moral results, in the 
 hardness, impenitency, and unbelief of the 
 soul." And although the petulance, impa- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 183 
 
 tience, repining, and restive spirit which they 
 often produce, are the effect of a physical cause, 
 yet they are not blameless, and are no more 
 to be ascribed to the mere sovereignty or pro- 
 vidence of God, than is the delirium tremens 
 of the drunkard, or the death of the suicide. 
 It is hoped that the subject has been suffi- 
 ciently guarded against this perversion, by 
 what has been said in the preceding chapter. 
 Unhappily, however, as has also been inti- 
 mated before, many of those who need such 
 instructions, are too dejected and inert to be 
 aroused to make any serious and persevering 
 inquiry after the source of their despondency. 
 "To reason with a man against the views 
 which arise from melancholy," Dr. Alexander 
 says, "is; commonly as inefficacious as reasoning 
 against bodily pain. I have long made this a 
 criterion, to ascertain whether the. dejection 
 experienced was owing to a physical cause; for 
 in that case, argument, though demonstrative, 
 had no effect." Very many are predisposed to 
 take it for granted that their gloom proceeds 
 from a culpable cause, whatever it may be; 
 
184 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 that the more they should investigate the pain- 
 ful subject, the more they would discover to 
 convince them that they were deceiving them- 
 selves, and that they had never been spiritually 
 changed. But let no professor of religion in 
 his senses ever be tempted to dispose of his 
 own case in this precipitate and summary way. 
 To give indulgence to such a lethargic ease, 
 while in doubt about his salvation, is evidence 
 of a sort of hallucination, which, instead of 
 impairing his responsibility, greatly increases 
 both his danger and his guilt. Let the in- 
 quiry into his own personal state, then, be 
 pursued diligently, until he come to a satisfac- 
 tory conclusion; let him persevere under a per- 
 suasion of the ineffable importance of the duty, 
 as involving all that is desirable or fearful in 
 the disclosures of eternity. His despondency 
 may be produced by false views of religion, or 
 these erroneous views may generate despond- 
 ency. Nor is it in every case easy to deter- 
 mine which is cause and which is effect; the 
 manner in which mind and body reciprocally 
 act upon each other being often so inscrutable 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 185 
 
 as to baffle the attempt to distinguish between 
 physical and mental causes. "Where des- 
 pondency puts on a religious form, its real 
 nature may be ascertained by inquiring into 
 the actual character and circumstances of the 
 sufferer. Where there is palpable illusion, 
 there is disease. False impressions may pro- 
 ceed from ignorance and misapprehension, and 
 such impressions will yield to moral treatment. 
 But if the notions are not merely inaccurate, 
 .but illusive; if the mind is found to have 
 shaped out for itself the ideal object of its 
 desponding apprehension, there can be no 
 ground for hesitation in pronouncing the de- 
 pression to be bodily distemper. There are 
 morbid states of mind which do not rise to 
 that height of nervous disorder which produces 
 hallucination, but which still indicate an un- 
 healthy state of body. There is such a thing 
 as the religious vapours, for which the Phar- 
 macopoeia prescribes suitable remedies. But 
 no one who knows what melancholy is, will 
 confound that terrible visitation with any self- 
 16* 
 
186 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 inflicted or fantastic complaints." Our second 
 counsel to those who are thus afflicted, is to 
 Avail themselves of judicious medical 
 
 ADVICE. 
 
 We refer in this direction more particularly 
 to those whose state of doubting and darkness 
 has been long continued. As in the case of 
 Dr. Eush, the cause may exist in a morbid 
 condition of the body, without being even sus- 
 pected by themselves. To those whose trouble 
 proceeds from this source, Baxter says again, 
 "expect not that rational or spiritual reinedies 
 should suffice for your cure, any more than 
 that a good sermon or comfortable words should 
 cure the falling sickness, or palsy, or a broken 
 head J for your melancholy fears are as really 
 a bodily disease as the other, only because 
 these work on the spirits and fantasy, on which 
 words of advice do also work to a certain ex- 
 tent ; therefore such words, and Scripture and 
 reason may somewhat resist it, and may pal- 
 liate and allay some of the effects at the pre- 
 sent, but as soon as time hath worn off the 
 force and effects of these reasons, the distemper 
 presently returns," 
 
ON KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 187 
 
 As the cause therefore is in the animal part, 
 it must be reached, if at all, by remedies which 
 it comes more within the province of the 
 medical than the spiritual counsellor to pre- 
 scribe. The physician, it is true, cannot cure 
 the moral cause that preys upon the mind, and, 
 through that medium, injures the body, but he 
 can, in a great measure, prevent the reaction of 
 the body on the mind, by which reaction the 
 moral afiiiction is rendered infinitely more diffi- 
 cult to bear. But let it not be forgotten that 
 not every physician, how skilful soever, and 
 learned, and successful in his general practice, 
 is qualified to instruct the description of pa- 
 tients whom these remarks contemplate. No 
 person has such opportunities of studying the 
 mutual and reciprocating relationship between 
 the mind and body, and yet it is one on which 
 many of the faculty betray the most culpable 
 ignorance. They want the " ability of search- 
 ing out and understanding the moral causes 
 of disease; they cannot read the book of the 
 heart; and yet it is in this book that are in- 
 scribed, day by day, and hour by hour, aU the 
 
188 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 griefs, and all the miseries, and all the vani- 
 ties, and all the fears, and all the joys, and all 
 the hopes of man, and in which will be found 
 the most active and incessant principle of that 
 frightful series of organic changes which con- 
 stitute pathology. Many a disease is the contre 
 coup (counter blow,) so to speak, of a strong 
 moral emotion. The mischief may not be ap- 
 parent at the time, but its germ will be, never- 
 theless, inevitably laid." Such sentiments from 
 an eminent lecturer in one of the best medical 
 schools of Europe, show the importance of spe- 
 cial care and discretion in the choice of a 
 physician for a malady which, by their own 
 confession, so few understand, or know how to 
 treat. Mr. Rogers advises all the afflicted of 
 this sort to apply to doctors not only learned 
 in the profession of physic, but who have 
 themselves felt the disease; for it is impossible 
 fully to understand the nature of it any other 
 way than by experience: and that person, he 
 says, is highly to be valued, whose endeavours 
 God will bless to the removal of a complaint 
 so obstinate and violent. How much evil has 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 189 
 
 resulted from the injudicious counsel of incom- 
 petent advisers who can compute'? 
 
 Infeliciter cegrotat, ubi plus est periouli, a medioamento quam a 
 
 morbo. 
 It is a sad condition for the sick, wlien they are put in greater 
 
 peril by their treatment, than by their disease. 
 
 Such, however, has been the change of late 
 years in the character of diseases, and espe- 
 cially so great has been the increase of those 
 by which the mind and spiritual affections are 
 disturbed, that cases of this sort are better 
 understood, and the number of competent ad- 
 visers among the faculty is much greater than 
 it was formerly. It is an interesting fact, 
 which is not generally known, that a large 
 proportion of our more serious ailments fall 
 within the category to which we now refer. 
 
 Near the close of the seventeenth century, 
 Sydenham estimated fevers to constitute, at 
 that time, two-thirds of the diseases of man- 
 kind. About seventy years afterwards, Dr. 
 Cheyne made nervous disorders about one- 
 third of the .complaints of the higher class in 
 England. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
 
190 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 century, Trotter supposed them to constitute 
 full two-thirds of all those which afflicted civi- 
 lized society. And a later writer still, expresses 
 the opinion that even Trotter's estimate falls 
 below the truth. Of the four hundred thou- 
 sand persons who died in England during 
 1856, one out of every eight died of diseases 
 of the brain and nerves ; and one out of every 
 sixteen died of diseases of the digestive organs. 
 We do not pretend to decide as to the com- 
 parative accuracy of these computations. It is 
 enough to say, that the lowest is sufficiently 
 great to appal, and also to show, that no de- 
 partment of the healing art claims more earn- 
 estly the attention of physicians than this. If 
 the connection between the mind and body be 
 so intimate as has been shown, the reasonable- 
 ness of this resort for medical advice would 
 be obvious, even if its practical value had not 
 been tested by common experience. How often 
 have we known a morbid condition of the mind 
 or spirits to be as speedily and as eflPectually 
 removed by the operation of a drug as a pain 
 in the head. That peevishness, impatience, 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 191 
 
 and irritability which malie one intolerable to 
 himself as well as to others, we see daily re- 
 lieved by the same simple agency, as by the 
 power of magic; and hence "our domestic 
 happiness often depends on the state of the 
 biliary and digestive organs; and the little dis- 
 turbances of conjugal life may sometimes be 
 more efficaciously cured by the physician than 
 by the moralist; for a sermon or homily mis- 
 applied will never act so directly as a sharp 
 medicine." 
 
 A physician in the city of Philadelphia was 
 recently invited to visit a lady enjoying appa- 
 rent health, living in affluence, and surrounded 
 with everything which wealth and elevated 
 condition, and affectionate friends could confer 
 to render her happy; yet in the midst of it 
 all she felt indescribably wretched, and sent 
 for her medical adviser to explain the cause. 
 It was a case of plethoric tendency, which 
 called for depletion. A moderate bleeding 
 afforded relief, and in a very few days she 
 was restored to her former cheerfulness. 
 
 The Rev. M. B. Hope, M.D., in a well writ- 
 
192 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 ten Essay on Religious Melancholy, mentions 
 the case of a young lady, who had been long and 
 intimately known to the writer, who was "of 
 a temperament highly nervous and sanguine, 
 and embarked very young, with all her ardour, 
 in the gay pleasures of fashionable life. A 
 single season convinced her fully of their emp- 
 tiness and folly. She was soon after brought 
 under the influence of pungent preaching, and 
 convinced of sin. The struggle was sharp and 
 long; but the result was, that she gave herself, 
 with all her heart, to a course of rigid reli- 
 gious duties. Above all, she seemed to live 
 in an atmosphere of prayer. Her faith in the 
 truth and promises of God, was without the 
 shadow of a cloud. And yet she had not the 
 pure enjoyment which she supposed to be the 
 necessary fruit of real piety. She did not, 
 therefore, look upon herself as a child of God; 
 and her consequent anxiety wore upon her 
 spirit, and secretly undermined her health. At 
 length, one day, as she rose from prayer, the 
 thought struck her like a thunderbolt, 'what, 
 if there is no God after all.' She repelled the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 193 
 
 thought with horror, and went her way. But 
 the shock had struck from her hand 'the 
 shield of faith,' and all her efforts were unable 
 to grasp it again. From henceforth she found 
 herself exposed to a constant shower of darts, 
 fiery and poisoned, and she could not resist 
 them. They stuck fast in her vitals, and drank 
 up her spirits. The poison thus injected into 
 the heart of her religious experience soon 
 spread, and blighted the whole. She never 
 knew a moment's peace, when her thoughts 
 were upon her once favourite, and still engross- 
 ing subject. She called herself an infidel, and 
 applied to herself the dreadful threatenings 
 and doom of the unbeliever. And yet it was 
 evident she was not, in any sense, an unbe- 
 liever. She was one of the most devout and 
 consistent persons we ever knew. She was 
 conscientious even to scrupulosity. She was 
 a most devoted and faithful Sunday-school 
 teacher, and God blessed her labours to the 
 conversion of nearly all her scholars. She re- 
 joiced to hear of persons becoming Christians, 
 and would often say, with despair in her tones, 
 17 
 
194 • INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 how she envied them. When any of her ac- 
 quaintances died without giving good evidence 
 of piety she became excited, and as she ex- 
 pressed it, was ready to scream aloud. She 
 gave every possible evidence that she had not, 
 in reality, a shadow of a doubt about the truth 
 of revelation. And yet no one ever dreamed 
 that her difficulties were connected with dis- 
 ease of any sort; for her mind was remarkably 
 clear, and active. The advice of pious friends 
 and ministers, therefore, based upon the suppo- 
 sition that her case was one of spiritual dark- 
 ness, or Satanic temptation, was to persevere 
 in prayer — to struggle on more earnestly, and 
 God would give her light after he had tried 
 her faith and patience and love. But the more 
 she prayed and struggled the worse she grew. 
 She would come from her closet, exhausted 
 with the fearful conflict, and looking ready to 
 sink into utter despair. The Sabbath was 
 always the worst day of the week; and the 
 labour and exhaustion of teaching aggravated 
 her symptoms. 
 
 The only treatment which was successful, 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. ]95 
 
 in this case, would by many have been re- 
 jected with horror. She was advised to give 
 up the struggle which she had maintained so 
 unequally, and which would only have resulted 
 in disastrous consequences — to think as little 
 as possible on the subject — to spend less time 
 in devotional exercises, and allow her mind to 
 gather its scattered strength by relaxation. 
 The form of prayer advised was short and 
 audible, and such as took for granted what she 
 had been struggling to convince herself of. 
 Incessant pains were taken to present the cha- 
 racter of God in a simple, affectionate, parental 
 light, when anything led to the subject. The 
 simplicity of faith, and the certainty of salva- 
 tion, were occasionally flashed across her mind, 
 when it was -in a suitable frame. The only 
 two evidences of piety which her state of mind 
 rendered available, were kept prominent as the 
 basis of new feelings and hopes, viz. her love 
 to the people of God, and the pain she felt 
 in the absence of divine favour, and the long- 
 ing for its return. These were untouched by 
 the dismal monster that had preyed upon her 
 hopes. 
 
196 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 By a judicious perseverance in a course 
 like this, accompanied with well directed hy- 
 gienic measures, suitable recreation, exercise, 
 and diet, for improving her general health, and 
 especially the tone of her nervous system, the 
 mental energies began to react, and new views 
 of truth and new hopes spring up in her 
 mind." 
 
 Another case, furnished by the same, and 
 adduced for the sake of showing the ef&cacy 
 of judicious medical treatment, is that of "a 
 lady, whose state of mind had baffled every 
 attempt made by her judicious husband, to 
 bring her relief. She was a woman of great 
 refinement and strength of mind, eminently 
 pious, and devoted to her interesting young 
 family, whose education she conducted herself 
 While conferring every accomplishment upon 
 her children, she was mainly anxious for their 
 spiritual welfare. When we saw her, she was 
 intensely excited, and had slept little for seve- 
 ral nights. She said she had lost all interest 
 in the instruction of her children, and had 
 become utterly regardless of their personal ap- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 197 
 
 pearance and her own. Her whole thoughts 
 and feelings were engrossed about their salva- 
 tion, her anxiety for which had become in- 
 supportably agonizing. When instructing, or 
 dressing, or leading them out for their accus- 
 tomed exercise, she was incessantly distracted 
 with the thought, what good will all this do, 
 wliile they are still impenitent! Though her 
 flushed face and flashing restless eye, indicated 
 strong physical excitement, yet her mind was 
 so clear on every subject, and all her views so 
 rational, that we attributed the whole difliculty 
 to excessive and protracted anxiety, for an ob- 
 ject of peculiar interest to a pious mother — 
 the salvation of her children. We made re- 
 peated attempts to reason with her on the error 
 and evils of her present state of mind. She 
 admitted fully the justice of our reasoning, 
 and concurred in the truth of aU our positions, 
 but we found that this was of no avail. Her 
 excitement continued, and with it her distress, 
 and aH her difficulties. It appeared like a 
 case of pure religious excitement, and was so 
 looked upon by all her family. They did not 
 17* 
 
198 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 deem her deranged, but it was evident she soon 
 would be, unless relieved. Finding reasoning 
 of no avail, and the excitement still increasing, 
 we became convinced, on minute examination, 
 that the whole difficulty originated, not in reli- 
 gious views or feelings at all, but in a morbid 
 increase of arterial action, arising from some 
 physical cause. One-twelfth of a grain of tartar 
 emetic, five or six times a day, gave perfect 
 relief, and restored both her views and feelings 
 to the healthy standard." 
 
 Dryden, whosfe mind, notwithstanding its 
 capacity for elevated and brilliant conceptions, 
 was sometimes turbid and dull, well knew the 
 utility of medical expedients as auxiliary to 
 thought. "When I have a grand design be- 
 fore me," says he, "I ever take physic and let 
 blood; for when you would have pure swift- 
 ness of thought and fiery flights of fancy, you 
 must have a care of the pensive part, and for 
 this, get help from the apothecary." Descartes, 
 the philosopher, went farther stiU, and asserted 
 that if any means can be found to render men 
 wiser and more ingenious than they have been 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 199 
 
 hitherto, such a method must be sought from 
 the assistance of medicine: and Plutarch, speak- 
 ing of the reaction of the mind upon the body 
 as the cause of those injuries which it requires 
 medicine to repair, very playfully observes, that 
 " should the body sue the mind before a court 
 of judicature for damages, it would be found 
 that the mind had proved to be a ruinous 
 tenant to its landlord." 
 
 None, we trust, will infer from what has 
 thus been said of medical assistance, that we 
 approve of that habitual tampering with drugs, 
 or the injudicious perusal of medical books, 
 which is so common with the nervous valetu- 
 dinarian, by which he only makes his malady 
 the worse. 
 
 Exuperat magis, aegrescitque medendo. 
 
 The disease is aggravated by the means used to core it. 
 
 Eousseau admitted that this was a powerful 
 cause of hypochondria in respect to himself. 
 " Having read," he says, " a little on physio- 
 logy, I set about studying anatomy; and pass- 
 ing in review the number and varied actions 
 
200 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 of the parts which compose my frame, I ex- 
 pected twenty times a day to feel them going 
 wrong. Far from being astonished at finding 
 myself dying, my wonder was that I could live 
 at all. I did not read the description of any 
 disease which I did not imagine myself to be 
 affected with; and I am sure that if I had not 
 been ill, I must have become so from this fatal 
 study. Finding in every complaint the symp- 
 toms of my own, I believed I had got them 
 all, and thereby added another still more into- 
 lerable, the fantasy of curing myself" All 
 this private empiricism we would discourage, 
 by directing the sufferer away from these ex- 
 periments upon himself, to the well-taught 
 physician, that more competent counsellor, who 
 has been designated by Providence. Another 
 important auxiliary to the desponding Chris- 
 tian is 
 
 Suitable society, 
 or habitual intercourse with others, and espe- 
 cially the devout, who possess a happier tem- 
 perament. 
 
 • Whatever cheerful and serene 
 
 Supports the mind, supports the body too. 
 
ON EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 201 
 
 The influence of sympathy, its operation for 
 both evil and good, is familiarly known. "We 
 are all," says Locke, " a kind of chameleon, 
 who take a moral tinge from the objects which 
 surround us." The manifestation of fear or of 
 confidence and self-possession in a time of dan- 
 ger, inspires a corresponding emotion in those 
 who behold it. The "quid times'? Csesarem 
 vehis," or Caesar's appeal to the affrighted 
 shipmaster, not to be afraid while he was 
 aboard, will occur as a striking illustration; 
 and how we all assimilate in character, as 
 well as in manners, to those with whom 
 we associate, is a fact of daily observation. 
 Hence the salutary effect of a cheerful, san- 
 guine Christian, upon those who are prone 
 to melancholy. As iron sharpeneth iron, so a 
 man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. 
 His society is exhilarating, like the wine pre- 
 scribed by Solomon to those that be of heavy 
 hearts. An interview with those of their own 
 morbid tendencies may be advantageous some- 
 times, by correcting the usual mistake of such 
 believers, that their case is peculiar, or has cer- 
 
202 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 tain unfavourable characteristics, by which it is 
 placed without the reach of the ordinary means 
 of relief. A comparison of exercises and senti- 
 ments is often productive of good, in showing 
 that their condition is not so singular as they 
 had imagined. It is very hard indeed to per- 
 suade a person under great pain and anguish, 
 and the sense of the wrath of God, and a fear 
 of hell, that ever any has heretofore been so 
 perplexed as he. Such, generally, think them- 
 selves worse than Cain, or Judas, or Simon 
 Magus, and that their sins have greater ag- 
 gravation. Mr. Rogers says, "I have known 
 several that were long afflicted with trouble of 
 mind, and melancholy — as Mr. Rosewell and 
 Mr. Porter — ^both ministers, the latter whereof 
 was six years oppressed with this distemper ; 
 yet afterwards both rejoiced in the light of 
 God's countenance. I myself was near two 
 years in great pain of body, and greater pain 
 of soul, and without any prospect of peace or 
 help; and yet God hath revived me in his 
 sovereign grace and mercy; and there have 
 been several heretofore sorely perplexed with 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 203 
 
 great inward and outward trouble, whom God 
 after that wonderfully refreshed. Mr. Eobert 
 Bruce, some time ago minister at Edinburgh, 
 was twenty years in terrors of conscience, and 
 yet delivered afterwards." From the prevail- 
 ing lack of sympathy with which such sufferers 
 meet, many prefer to hide their sorrows in 
 their own bosom, to the risk of opening their 
 heart to those who could poorly appreciate an 
 experience so foreign to their own. Thus the 
 late Captain Benjamin Wickes, of Philadel- 
 phia, concealed his long and oppressive melan- 
 choly for nearly twenty years, until it was 
 discovered by that devoted servant of Christ, 
 Mr. Joseph Eastbum, whose affectionate con- 
 versation and judicious counsels were the means 
 of affording immediate relief. 
 
 How far the distressing symptoms of Cow- 
 per's malady were mitigated by the delightful 
 society of the Unwins, is easily inferred from 
 his memoirs ; nor are any of us so imperturb- 
 able in our spiritual temperament, as not to 
 be more or less lifted up or depressed by the 
 joy or sadness of those Christian friends with 
 
204 INPLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 whom we mingle. And hence one of four car- 
 dinal niles which the eminent casuist already 
 quoted, has given to melancholy Christians, is 
 to "keep company with the more cheerful 
 sort of the godly; converse with men of the 
 strongest faith, that have much of the heavenly 
 mirth of believers, which faith doth fetch from 
 the blood of Christ and from the promises of 
 his word, and who can speak experimentally 
 of the joy of the Holy Ghost, and these will 
 be a great help to the reviving of your spirit 
 and changing your melancholy habit, so far as 
 without a physician it may be expected." On 
 the other hand, decline, so far as practicable, 
 the society of the gloomy and disconsolate. 
 Their sorrowful spirit, like an evil distemper, 
 is contagious, and your influence upon each 
 other will be reciprocally prejudicial. 
 
 Oderunt hilarem tristes, tristemque jocosi. 
 
 The grave dislike the cheerful, and the merry hate the grave. 
 
 Some physiologists contend that laughter, 
 as one of the greatest aids to digestion, is 
 highly conducive to health, and therefore Hufe- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 205 
 
 land, physician to the king of Prussia, com- 
 mends the wisdom of the ancients, who main- 
 tained a jester, that was always present at 
 their meals, "whose quips and cranks would 
 keep the table in a roar." Dr. Everard Mayn- 
 waring, in his " Tutela Sanitatis," published in 
 1663, tells his melancholy patients to walk in 
 the green fields, orchards, parks, and gardens — 
 to avoid solitariness, and keep merry company. 
 In the chapter entitled "Hygiastic Precautions 
 and Rules appropriate to the various Passions 
 of Mind," he says: "Mirth subtiliates, purifies, 
 and cheers the spirits ; puts them upon activity 
 that before were torpid, dull, and heavy, and 
 excites them to operation and duty in the 
 several faculties; volatizeth, rarifies, and atte- 
 nuates gross, feculent, obstructing humours; 
 preserves youth, vigour, and beauty; makes 
 the body plump and fat, by expanding the 
 spirits into the external parts, and conveying 
 nutriment, whose wholesome effects are much 
 the same with those of exercise, and may well 
 supply when that is wanting. 
 
 Dam fata eiuunt vivite Iseti. — Seneca. 
 
 While the fates permit, let your life be cheerful." 
 
 18 
 
206 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 Such counsel, quoted from the old Eoman 
 philosopher, oh whom Father Jerome bestows 
 such extravagant praise, is much better than 
 some of his instructions for carrying it into 
 effect. But how much wiser the teaching of 
 Paul, who would provide against a large pro- 
 portion of our disquietudes in life, by a 
 removal of the cause. We are prone to look 
 no further than to our own case, as if it 
 were peculiar, and nobody ever suffered in 
 the same way, or to the same extent, with 
 ourselves. But this, the apostle teaches, is 
 as impolitic as it is selfish. Look not every 
 man on his own things, hut every man also on 
 the things of others. Do not dwell in perpe- 
 tual meditation on the ills that afilict your- 
 selves, but turn your thoughts sometimes to 
 the incomparably greater trials of others. Your 
 mind may be depressed and sad under the 
 influence of some imagined or real malady, but 
 is it not because you forget how much better 
 is your condition than that of many whose 
 " days are blackness, whose every breath is in 
 suffering, and who feed on tears'?" You may 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 207 
 
 not possess your wonted ease of locomotion, 
 and perhaps spend many long days and nights 
 in great pain. But what is all that ypu en- 
 dure, a hundred-fold increased, compared with 
 the bitter cup of such a poor suffering cripple 
 as is mentioned by Dr. Hall, who, he says, is 
 still living (1859) at the age of forty-five, with 
 every joint in his body as immovable as a 
 solid bone, except those of two toes and two 
 fingers. His jaws have been set and motion- 
 less for thirty years, the only aperture through 
 which he receives food being that made by 
 the falling out of his front teeth. In the 
 Journal of Health for 1859, is a sprightly let- 
 ter to the editor from a correspondent in Vir- 
 ginia, who describes himself as rigid and help- 
 less as a mass of stone; his eyes and tongue 
 being the only members over which he has 
 the least control. "My digestive organs," he 
 writes, "have lost their activity, and I have a 
 distressing asthmatic affection. The inability 
 to open my jaws forces me to subsist upon 
 such food as I can compress through a cavity 
 made by the loss of two of my teeth." But 
 
208 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 the aspect of his letter is bright and genial, 
 indicating a livelier sense of the Divine benefi- 
 cence than thousands show, vi'ho have health 
 and everything around them to make life 
 happy. Examples of such utter physical dis- 
 ability in the organs of the body, and derange- 
 ment of their functions, are comparatively rare. 
 But what a rebuke do they minister to the 
 thousands of murmurers who habitually under- 
 value the blessings of Providence, because 
 their abundance and commonness make them 
 so familiar. One of the happiest persons we 
 ever heard of, was a lady who was so pros- 
 trated by palsy that she had no power over 
 a limb or muscle from her neck downwards, 
 and could move no part of her whole person 
 but her head. Dr, Paley says, that one great 
 cause of our insensibility to the goodness of 
 the Creator, is the very extensiveness of his 
 bounty. We prize but little what we share 
 only in common with the rest, or with the 
 generality of our species,. When we hear of 
 blessings, we think forthwith of successes, of 
 prosperous fortunes, of honours, riches, prefer- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 209 
 
 ments — i. e. of those advantages and superiori- 
 ties over others which we happen either to 
 possess or to be in pursuit of, or to covet. 
 The common benefits of our nature entirely 
 escape us. Yet these are the great things. 
 These constitute what most properly ought to 
 be accounted blessings of Providence; what 
 alone, if we might so speak, are worthy of its 
 care. Nightly rest and daily bread, the ordi- 
 nary use of our limbs, and senses, and under- 
 standings, are gifts which admit of no com- 
 parison with any other. Yet, because almost 
 every man we meet with possesses these, we 
 leave them out of our enumeration; they 
 raise no sentiment, they move no gratitude. 
 Now, herein is our judgment perverted by our 
 selfishness. A blessing ought, in truth, to be 
 the more satisfactory — the bounty at least of 
 the donor is rendered more conspicuous by its 
 very diffusion, its commonness, its ' cheapness ; 
 by its falling to the lot, and forming the hap- 
 piness of the great bulk and body of our spe- 
 cies, as well as ourselves. Nay, even when we 
 
 18* 
 
210 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 do not possess it, it ought to be a matter of 
 thankfulness that others do. But we have a 
 different way of thinking. We court distinc- 
 tion — that I do not quarrel with — ^but we can 
 see nothing but what has distinction to recom- 
 mend it. This necessarily contracts our view 
 of the Creator's beneficence within a narrow 
 compass; and most unjustly. It is in those 
 things which are so common as to be no dis- 
 tinction, that the amplitude of the dinne 
 benignity is perceived. The thirty-sixth chap- 
 ter of his work on Natural Theology, entitled 
 "The Goodness of the Deity," from which we 
 have taken the preceding paragraphs, his bio- 
 grapher says, was "written under the pangs of 
 the stone." 
 
 Solonion's opinion of the beneficial effect of 
 cheerfulness is easily inferred, not only from 
 the manner in which he commends it, but 
 the frequency. A merry heart, he says, doeth 
 good like a medicine, hut a broken spirit drieth 
 the hones. Or, as it is better rendered per- 
 haps, in the old translation, "A joyful heart 
 causeth good health; but a sorrowful mind 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 211 
 
 drieth the bones." A fourth counsel, of incal- 
 culable value to those who would enjoy spirit- 
 ual comfort, is to 
 
 Be temperate. 
 
 We refer not merely to the total disuse of 
 alcoholic drinks and intoxicating drugs, which 
 will be presumed^ of course, but to that habit- 
 ual control over every appetite which will keep 
 us within the limits that are prescribed by 
 both reason and health. 
 
 Learn temperance, friends; and hear without disdain 
 The choice of water. Thus the Coan sage* 
 Opin'd, and thus the learned of every school. 
 
 In respect to drink, Dr. Johnson says " water 
 is the only fluid which does not possess irri- 
 tating, or at least, stimulating qualities; and in 
 proportion as we rise on the scale of potation, 
 from table-beer to ardent spirits, in the same 
 ratio we educate the stomach and bowels for 
 that state of morbid sensibility, which, in civi- 
 lized life, will sooner or later supervene." 
 
 It does not properly fall within the scope 
 of the writer to furnish such details as would 
 
 * Hippocrates. 
 
212 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 be expected in a dietetical treatise, and wliich 
 would come with more authority from an ex- 
 perienced physician. Burton, in his most 
 extraordinary work called the "Anatomy of 
 Melancholy," has given a curious disquisition 
 on the intrinsic qualities of different kinds of 
 food, and of their comparative tendency to 
 nurture certain pleasant or painful affections 
 of the mind, as well as animal propensities; 
 but like many of the opinions of this eccentric 
 writer, it is to be received with some material 
 abatements. Dr. Rush, however, asserts that 
 the effects of diet upon the moral faculty are 
 more certain, though less attended to, than the 
 effects of climate; that the quality, as well as 
 the quantity of the aliment, has its influence; 
 and that pride, cruelty, and sensuality, are as 
 much the natural consequences of luxurious 
 living, as are apoplexies and palsies. Fulness 
 of bread, we are told, was one of the predis- 
 posing causes of the vices of the cities of the 
 plain. He concurs too, with Dr. Paris and 
 other eminent medical writers, both foreign 
 and domestic, in reprobating the too free use 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 213 
 
 of animal food by persons of sedentary habits, 
 which not only predisposes to inflammatory 
 diseases, but has a sensible influence on the 
 morals. Dr. McNish, of Glasgow, quotes with 
 approbation another opinion of Hufeland, that 
 "infants who are accustomed to eat much 
 animal food become robust, but at the same 
 time passionate, violent, and brutal." It is 
 said that a man living solely on beef, as the 
 Indians generally do, and full of freedom and 
 fresh air, has blood very nearly approaching, 
 in chemical character, to that of a lion; the 
 fibrin and red globules being more abundant, 
 in proportion to the liquor sanguinis, and the 
 temper of his mind approximates to the indo- 
 mitable savage. When the Hon. C. A. Murray 
 had been living for some time entirely on 
 buffalo-beef, among the Pawnee Indians, his 
 body got into the true savage training, and in 
 the excitement and liberty of the wilds, he 
 enjoyed the perfection of his animal nature. 
 In describing the kind of intoxication arising 
 from over-stimulating blood, he says, "I have 
 never known such excitement in any exer- 
 
214 INFLUENCE OE HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 cise as I have experienced from a solitary- 
 walk among the mountains; thoughts crowd 
 upon thoughts which I can neither control 
 nor breathe in words." The efficacy of a 
 vegetable diet upon the passions, was veri- 
 fied in the practice of Dr. Arbuthnot, who 
 assures us that he cured several patients of 
 irascible tempers, by nothing but the pre- 
 scription of a simple vegetable regimen. Some 
 devout persons, like Payson, have erred on 
 the side of excessive abstinence; which his 
 biographer pronounces to have been the great 
 mistake of his life. To what extremes others 
 have been carried under the influence of 
 superstition, to mortify the body for the sins 
 of the soul, is familiar to all who are con- 
 versant with the history of Asceticism ; but the 
 more common and dangerous error by far, is 
 the opposite, or that of indulging the appe- 
 tite too freely. 
 
 "When we contemplate each varying tribe 
 of mankind, from the turtle-eating alderman 
 to the earth-devouring Ottomaque, and see him 
 subsist, exclusively or collectedly, on every- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 215 
 
 thing which air, earth, or ocean can produce, 
 with, coeteris paribus, an equal degree of lon- 
 gevity, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion 
 that it is principally by excess that we con- 
 vert food into poison, and become liable to the 
 attack of that Protean host of human miseries, 
 called Nervous Diseases. Thus, Dr. Combe 
 reasserts, with special approbation, the pub- 
 lished opinion of a distinguished American 
 physician, that intemperate eating is almost a 
 xmiversal fault; that it is begun in the cradle, 
 and continued till we go down to the grave ; 
 that it is far more common than intemperance 
 in drinking; and the aggregate of mischief 
 that it does, is greater. 
 
 Plures crapula, qnam gladiua. 
 Gluttony kills more tlian the sword. 
 
 "For every reeling drunkard that disgraces 
 our country, it contains one hundred persons 
 who eat to excess and suffer by the practice." 
 Baglivi, a celebrated Koman physician, men- 
 tions, that in Italy an unusually large propor- 
 tion of the sick recovered during Lent, in 
 
216 INFLTIBNCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 consequence of the lower diet which is then 
 observed as a part of the religious duties of 
 the season. An eminent physician of London, 
 writing on the influence of the luxurious habits 
 of that great metropolis on the health of the 
 higher classes, asserts that there is not one in 
 ten whose digestive organs are in a healthy 
 condition. This is proved, he says, incontest- 
 ably by the tint of the eye and countenance, 
 the feel of the skin, the state of the tongue, 
 the stomach, and the bile. 
 
 Let the whole subject of dietetic economy 
 then, be carefully regarded by those who are 
 subject to spiritual and nervous depression; 
 and while the conflicting opinions of the fac- 
 ulty, on the subject of diet or regimen, will 
 abundantly show how "doctors disagree," yet 
 they are, nevertheless, replete with suggestions 
 of the highest practical value. It need hardly 
 be remarked, that independent of the influence 
 on the animal spirits and health, yet as pre- 
 scribed by Christian morality, the appetites 
 should be kept under habitual control. The 
 spiritual man should learn, with the apostle 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 217 
 
 Paul, to keep his body under. He should live 
 in that elevated state of communion with God, 
 that he will not be tempted to descend from 
 the higher and purer enjoyments of his reli- 
 gion, to seek happiness in the gratification of 
 the epicurean and sensualist. But how far it 
 is lawful to indulge a healthful appetite at his 
 table from day to day, is a question of morals 
 , which cannot be settled for a Christian by any 
 of the rules of medical science or physiology. 
 Put a knife to thy throat, Solomon says, if thou 
 he a man given to appetite. Restrain thyself, as 
 if excess or repletion were death. But what 
 may be received as at once the fruit of expe- 
 rience and the dictate of science, has been 
 expressed in the measures of a writer not less 
 gifted with poetic genius than with medical 
 knowledge: 
 
 beyond the sense 
 
 Of light refection, at the genial board 
 Indulge not often, nor protract the feast 
 To dull satiety. 
 
 Dr. Holland's three rules are: 1. Not to 
 eat so much nor so long, as to cause a sense 
 19 
 
218 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 of uneasy repletion. 2. The rate of eating 
 always to be so slow as to allow thorougK 
 mastication. 3. Use no urgent exercise, either 
 of body or mind, immediately after a full meal. 
 Rules," he remarks, "whose simplicity and 
 familiarity may lessen their seeming value, 
 yet in practice they will be found to include, 
 directly or indirectly, a great proportion of the 
 cases that come before the faculty for treat- 
 ment." To these, however, he virtually adds a 
 fourth, in a subsequent paragraph, in which 
 he earnestly dehorts from the pernicious habit 
 of directing the attention after eatitig to the 
 region of the stomach, as tending greatly to 
 disturb the process of digestion. To the ques- 
 tion. How much ought I to eaf? Dr. Hall says, 
 it ought to be a sufficient rule for all men of 
 common sense to reply — eat what you want, 
 and as much as you want, and at regular 
 times. But in the imperfect subjection to rea- 
 son, instinct, and appetite, in which we find 
 ourselves, a more definite guide is needed. 
 The amount of food required difiers with the 
 diiferent seasons. We need more in winter 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 219 
 
 than in summer. It differs with the weather; 
 more foQd is needed in a cold, damp, raw 
 day, than in a cheerful, dry, warm one. Men 
 require more food than women; those who 
 labour, more than those who rest; those who 
 are growing, more than those who have reached 
 maturity. To lay down rules for all these, 
 would require a better memory than would be 
 exercised; and to weigh out the food to each 
 particular case, would be attended with a very 
 great deal of trouble. His opinion is, that in 
 most cases, sedentary men in health eat too 
 much, and that the necessity for so many hours 
 of bodily exercise which many undergo, is a 
 penalty for excessive indulgence of appetite. 
 Doubtless a certain quantity of food is neces- 
 sary to sustain the physical man in the vigor- 
 ous use of his bodily functions; so is exercise 
 not less needful for the twofold object, first, to 
 work off and push out from the body all that 
 is foreign, old, and useless; second, to replace 
 these with strong, well-made particles; thus 
 keeping the system clear of all rubbish, and 
 replenishing it with what is new and perfect. 
 
220 INFLUENCE OE HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 » 
 
 And yet it may be incidentally remarked 
 here — and it contains a great practical truth — 
 the less a man eats to a certain limit, the less 
 he has to work off. Hence, those who eat 
 little and work little, can study quite as much, 
 and as advantageously, as those who eat a 
 great deal, and, in order to get rid of their 
 surplusage, have either to spend a large share 
 of their time in working, or in washing or 
 scrubbing it off with hard flesh-brushes — that 
 is to say, for the few minutes pleasure of the 
 passage of food down the throat, hours of 
 otherwise unrequited exercise have to be gone 
 through, or dancing under cool shower-baths, 
 or the purgatorial application of hair-gloves or 
 bristle-brushes. If literary men would drink 
 only water, and eat one-half less, they could 
 well afford to dispense with the fruitless exer- 
 cises and penances just referred to. Few per- 
 sons afflicted with despondency are aware how 
 their malady is often aggravated by the occa- 
 sional irritation of food or drink reacting on 
 their mind by reason of the morbid sensibility 
 of the stomach. Dr. Johnson says, "I have 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXEERIENCE. 221 
 
 known many persons that found themselves so 
 irritable after eating certain articles of difficult 
 digestion, that they avoided society till the fit 
 went off"." Hence the rule that he gives to 
 enable each person to decide his own case is, 
 "any discomfort of body, any irritability or 
 despondency of mind succeeding food or drink 
 at the distance, of an hour, a day, or even two 
 or three days, may be regarded — other evident 
 causes being absent — as a presumptive proof 
 that the quantity has been too much, or the 
 quality injurious." It is said, in the Life of 
 President Edwards, that although of an infirm 
 constitution and indifierent health, yet he was 
 able to spend thirteen hours daily in his study. 
 This surprising power of endurance is ex- 
 plained in the succeeding paragraph, in which 
 we read that he carefully observed the effects 
 of different sorts of food, and selected those 
 which best fitted him for mental labour. Hav- 
 ing also ascertained the quantity of food which, 
 while it sustained his bodily strength, left his 
 mind most sprightly and active, he scrupulously 
 confined himself within the prescribed limits. 
 19* 
 
222 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 But not to dwell in details that are so accessi- 
 ble in elaborate treatises on this very subject, 
 and that are deservedly held in the highest 
 repute, we will only add, that the substance of 
 what we have designed to say in the preceding 
 remarks, is comprehended in an old Latin dis- 
 tich, by whom composed we do not recollect : 
 
 Si tibi defioiant medioi, medici tibi fiant 
 
 Haefi tria; mens hilaris, requies, moderata dioeta, 
 
 which one has paraphrased in the following 
 clumsy couplet: 
 
 Employ three physicians; first, Doctor Diet, 
 Then Doctor Merryman, with Doctor Quiet. 
 
 Another counsel to be heeded with special 
 care by the desponding, is to 
 
 Be habitually occupied. 
 
 We refer not to bodily exercise merely, so 
 essential to vigorous health, and to a lively 
 flow of the animal spirits, but we speak of 
 occupation for the mind, in connection with 
 some useful employment, to save it from those 
 morbid actings by which it is made the prey 
 to its own energies. Many diseases of body are 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 223 
 
 produced, increased, and perpetuated by the 
 attention being directed to the disordered part, 
 but the employment which diverts the atten- 
 tion from the disease, often cures it. It is said 
 that Kant was able to forget the pain of gout 
 by a voluntary effort of thought; and par- 
 oxysms of his disease, that would have laid 
 others aside, were scarcely heeded, while his 
 mind was absorbed by some problem in meta- 
 physics. We once knew an enterprising and 
 successM man of business, who had hardly 
 reached the meridian of his life before he had 
 made a handsome fortune. He was now ad- 
 vised to sell his establishment, and live for the 
 future more at his ease. The counsel was 
 well intended; it seemed to be judicious, and 
 was followed; but the sudden abstraction of so 
 much care, by which his mind had been dis- 
 tended, caused a collapse. He soon became 
 unhappy, desponding, and would have sunk 
 into a state of melancholy but for the interpo- 
 sition of friends, who perceived at once his 
 alarming condition, and the obvious cause. 
 Without asking his consent, they re-purchased 
 
224 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 his place of business, and induced him to re- 
 sume it. In a few weeks he recovered his 
 former cheerfulness and mental energy. Em- 
 ployment gave a healthful stimulus to his mind, 
 which suffered no relapse to its former morbid 
 state through many years to the close of a 
 long and useful life. 
 
 Whoever has noticed the amazing power of 
 the thoughts in disturbing the functions of the 
 body, will accord with the poet, that 
 
 'Tis the great "art of life to manage well 
 The restless mind. 
 
 This is none the less true in relation to 
 religious men than to others. " There are 
 many," Cecil says, " who sit at home, nursing 
 themselves over a fire, and then trace up the 
 natural effects of solitude, and want of air and 
 exercise, into spiritual desertion. But this is 
 to confound nature and grace, and to make a 
 sort of mystery of that which is readily con- 
 nected with a natural cause." Now and then 
 we find one who appears to be happy in a sort 
 of quietism, or cloistered piety, which rather 
 shuns than seeks communion with what is 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 225 
 
 without. How it will be in the world to 
 come, we do not pretend to say; but it has 
 never been found in this, that they are the 
 happiest in religion who withdraw from all 
 active occupation, and spend their whole time 
 in devout contemplations. No man, it has been 
 said, is ever more religious for having his miad 
 constantly occupied with religion. This may 
 seem a parodox, but those who know how 
 little necessary connection there is between 
 theological studies and spirituality of mind, 
 and how much a professional familiarity with 
 such subjects tends to deteriorate their influ- 
 ence, will readily subscribe to the truth of the 
 assertion. Although the truly pious man can 
 have but one dominant motive, the glory of 
 God, yet the active powers of the mind will 
 find useful and pleasant exercise in a thousand 
 difi'erent ways of promoting it. To be engaged 
 in doing good then, is alike needful tb the 
 happiness of the spiritual man and to his 
 health. 
 
 Under a former head, we quoted one of four 
 rules for the relief of melancholy Christians, 
 
226 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 and here we add another from the same au- 
 thor, viz. " to avoid idleness and want of em- 
 ployment; which, as it is a life not pleasing 
 to God, so it is the opportunity for melancholy 
 thoughts to be -working, and the chiefest sea- 
 son for Satan to tempt us." It has often been 
 observed in relation to clergymen who have 
 been laborious and useful, that they ill endure 
 a change to leisure from the occupation of a 
 pastoral charge; but that in their sine titulo 
 condition, they are apt to become either ner- 
 vous and low-spirited, or turn to doing harm. 
 
 We were struck with a remark of Dr. Green, 
 many years ago, on his retirement from Prince- 
 ton, "that he did not know whether hereafter 
 he should do much good; but he was resolved, 
 if possible, to avoid doing mischief, which was 
 more than was apt to be true of many of his 
 brethren in similar circumstances." 
 
 To brood over our spiritual maladies, watch- 
 ing from day to day our changing frames, will 
 no more help to attain a better spiritual condi- 
 tion, than the fingering of his pulse, or exam- 
 ining the tongue by the victim of dyspepsia 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, 227 
 
 will conduce to his more healthful digestion. 
 In either case, the less he thinks of himself 
 the better; and the only efifectual expedient 
 for diverting his thoughts will be found in 
 some pleasant and useful occupation. Such 
 was the relief which Cowper derived from his 
 labour in translating Homer, and the poetical 
 works of Madam Guion; and to find an anti- 
 dote to his distressing melancholy was sup- 
 posed to be Dr. Johnson's main inducement 
 for proposing, towards the close of his life, to 
 publish a translation of Thuanus. For the 
 same purpose of turning his mind from its 
 troubling meditations, he advised Boswell, who 
 was as much given to despondency as himself, 
 " never to speak of it to his friends in com- 
 pany." 
 
 " Were I asked," says a well known writer, 
 "upon what circumstance the prevention of 
 low spirits chiefly depended, I should borrow 
 the ancient orator's mode of enforcing the 
 leading principle of his art, and reply — em- 
 ployment — employment — employment. This 
 is the grand panacea for the tsedium vitse, and 
 
228 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 all the train of fancied evils which prove so 
 much more insupportable than real ones. It 
 is a medicine that may be presented in a 
 thousand forms, all equally efficacious." 
 
 We remember the case of a fellovs^-student 
 in our theological course, whose mind was so 
 disquieted with fears about his spiritual condi- 
 tion, that it became a serious question whether 
 he should not renounce the hope of entering 
 the ministry; but upon a statement of his case 
 to one of his teachers, he was advised to dis- 
 continue his examinations of himself for a 
 season, take it for granted, if he pleased, that 
 his state was as bad as he feared, but to turn 
 his attention to the case of others, pray more 
 for them, and resolve to do all in his power 
 for their salvation. This counsel was received, 
 and was followed with the happiest results. 
 His mind was gradually relieved, his spirits 
 became buoyant and cheerful, and after finish- 
 ing his studies, he entered the sacred profes- 
 sion with a joyful hope of his calling and sal- 
 vation, which continued to the end of his life. 
 Kev. Dr. Lobdell was at one time in a state 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCi;, 229 
 
 of distressing doubt about three great ques- 
 tions pertaining to Christianity — Whether it 
 was true'? — ^Was he personally interested in 
 if? — ^Ilad he been called of God to preach 
 it ? The very solicitude which he felt on the 
 subject was evidence of his spiritual change, 
 although he seemed not to know it. But 
 instead of first undertaking to investigate the 
 evidences of Christianity, then the subject of 
 his personal faith and salvation, and, last of 
 all, his call to the ministry, the process was 
 exactly reversed. He first resolved to make 
 it the purpose of his life to preach the gospel. 
 "Then, and not till then, did he experience 
 the preciousness of the Saviour to his own 
 soul." His doubts and difficulties all. vanished 
 like darkness and mist before the rising sun. 
 It was by doing of the will of God that he 
 was made to know the truth of his doctrine. 
 And so on in all his future life, whenever 
 doubts and difficulties revived, they were re- 
 moved, not by reasoning, but by losing sight 
 of them in doing the will of his Divine Mas- 
 ter. We would say, then, to every troubled 
 20 
 
230 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 believer, copy his example. Let not an ele- 
 vated condition in life, and w^ealth, if you have 
 them, tempt you to be idle. If not required 
 to toil for your daily bread, yet let a regard 
 for your happiness and health, and the moni- 
 tions of conscience, make you as industrious 
 as if you were. Consider your affluence and 
 leisure as talents, by means of which you have 
 the enviable opportunity of promoting the wel- 
 fare of others, gratuitously, in a thousand 
 modes, which are forbidden to others. Go 
 join yourself to the most active benefactors 
 of society; enter their ranks, or plant yourself 
 in the van. Take your full share in the 
 labours of the Sunday-school or Bible-class 
 teacher, the distribution of tracts, the visiting 
 of the poor and sick, and afflicted. Deny 
 yourself many gratifications of ease, and plea- 
 sure, and advantage, for the sake of redeem- 
 ing the time and the means of doing more 
 good. Aim directly, like Harlan Page, at the 
 single object of saving men's souls; and whe- 
 ther your success shall correspond to your 
 wishes or not, you shall enjoy the reflex ad- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 231 
 
 vantage of your benevolence. In watering 
 others, you shall be watered yourself. 
 
 We are aware of the difficulty of complying 
 with this counsel, in many cases,, and none are 
 more peculiarly trying than those of clergy- 
 men, who, from declining health, advancing 
 age, or some untoward events, have been dis- 
 lodged from posts of active usefulness, and 
 have now nothing to do which is suited to 
 their character, capacity, and circumstances. 
 Such, it is well known, is often the unhappy 
 condition of some of the most useful, as well 
 as respectable and venerable ministers of the 
 church; and it is one of the ominous signs of 
 the times, that their number seems to be in- 
 creasing. From the emoluments of their call- 
 ing, few derive more than the means for a 
 very frugal maintenance of their family, and 
 therefore, when by reason of age and multi- 
 plied infirmities, the grasshopper has become a 
 burden, they find superadded to all their afiiic- 
 tions the trials of poverty. We will not en- 
 large; but for ourselves, we are constrained 
 to say, that we feel it to be a material defect 
 
232 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 in our ecclesiastical economy, that their con- 
 dition and claims are not more particularly 
 and tenderly regarded; that in view of the 
 resources and benevolence of the Church, some- 
 thing has not been projected at least, if not 
 carried into effect, by which such an important 
 casus omissus should have been provided for, 
 some feasible plan by which their remaining 
 strength, their stores of learning and experi- 
 ence, may be turned to a profitable account, 
 and these Mnasons of the ministry made happy 
 and useful during the remnant of their pil- 
 grimage. Persons subject to depression should 
 "Watch and promote bodily health." 
 A counsel which we quote from a letter of 
 the friend mentioned in our introductory note. 
 We did not then taiow to what extent his 
 sense of the value of health was suggested by 
 the precarious :State of his own. The influence 
 of the body on the mental and moral faculties, - 
 shows the importance of a scrupulous attention 
 to the former; to the use of all the means by 
 which it may be preserved from any form of 
 disease, and in the healthful exercise of all its 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 233 
 
 functions. The fact cannot be impressed too 
 deeply, that the connection between our sad 
 and joyous emotions and our health is as 
 inseparable as is that between the machinery 
 of a clock or watch and the hands on the dial- 
 plate: the movements which meet the eye are 
 right or wrong, according to the condition of 
 the wheels and parts that are invisible — 
 
 Sine animo corpus, neo sine corpora 
 Animus, bene valere potest. 
 
 The mind or body ill, each partner feels 
 The sufferings of the other. 
 
 On a subject of so much interest we have 
 the teachings of many authors, some of whom 
 not only weary by their diffuse details, but 
 greatly perplex the mind by their disagree- 
 ment among themselves. To those who need 
 instruction most, and who have not the oppor- 
 tunity nor the time for much reading of this 
 sort, it may be useful, .at the risk of being 
 thought prolix, to recapitulate and present 
 again, in a connected form and with some 
 amplification, a few of the instructions given 
 vei'y briefly in the preceding pages on the 
 20* 
 
234 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 authority of Drs. Holland, Hall, Eush, and 
 others, that enforce the " duty of health," such 
 as 
 
 Due discrimination and self-control in 
 relation to our food. 
 
 That we abstain from whatever is found to 
 injure, and restrict ourselves rigidly to that 
 sort and amount of aliment, whether animal or 
 vegetable, which is most conducive to our gene- 
 ral vigour and enjoyment, and which best com- 
 ports with an active, cheerful, and sound mind 
 in a sound body. Plutarch says that his coun- 
 trymen, the Boeotians, were remarkable for 
 their stupidity because they ate too much. 
 They were good trencher-men, and good for 
 nothing else. Let these and preceding hints 
 on diet be properly heeded by the religious 
 man, and his own experience wiU prove that 
 his ^iritual as well as intellectual enjoyment 
 and usefulness are closely connected both with 
 the quality and quantity of his daily food, and 
 the right times for taking it. Kichard Cum- 
 berland says in his Memoirs, Nature has given 
 me the hereditary blessing of a constitutional 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 235 
 
 and habitual temperance, that revolts at excess 
 of any sort, and never suffers appetite to load 
 the frame. I am accordingly as fit to resume 
 my book or my pen the instant after my meal, 
 as I was in the freshest hours of the morning. 
 
 Give both mind and body sufficient rest, 
 and at the proper season. 
 
 Not a small proportion of that despondency 
 which is so incident to the sedentary class 
 comes from excessive study at unseasonable 
 hours. It is one of the "diseases of litera- 
 ture," to which good men are as liable as 
 others. It is night study, Dr. Johnson says, 
 that ruins the constitution, by keeping up a 
 bewildered chaos of impressions on the brain 
 during the succeeding sleep — ^if that can be 
 called sleep which is constantly interrupted by 
 incoherent dreams, and half-waking trains of 
 thought. Physiologists have proved that peri- 
 odical rest is necessary to the reproduction of 
 that power in the nerves by which the will is 
 enabled to act on the muscles. A due propor- 
 tion of repose, therefore, is essential to the 
 proper manifestation of mind in the orderly 
 
236 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 use of the body. We have known many re- 
 markable cases of nervous disorder which were 
 connected with this sort of imprudence. Night 
 watching, or late sitting up, was reprobated in 
 a doctor's Manual for the Nervous, written two 
 hundred years ago, as tending to "tire and 
 waste the animal spirits, by keeping them too 
 long upon duty, debilitating nature, and there- 
 by shortening the period of usefulness," ac- 
 cording to the maxim, 
 
 Quod ciret alterna requie, durable non est. 
 What would endure, must have alternate rest. 
 
 A theological student, who was about aban- 
 doning his studies in utter discouragement 
 from declining health, was induced to forego 
 his purpose until he had tried what could be 
 done for him by a change of habits as to 
 eating, sleeping, study, and rest. The new 
 regimen proved so beneficial, that vpithout the 
 aid of drugs, by which he imagined his life 
 had been sustained, he began to recover. In a 
 short time his mind became cheerful, he re- 
 gained his bodily vigour, and resumed his stu- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 237 
 
 dies, which he afterwards prosecuted with equal 
 profit and pleasure. It was the Eev. Dr. Mil- 
 ler's counsel not to study much by night. 
 Begin with the dawn of day, and improve 
 every moment of daylight that you can secure ; 
 but be extremely cautious of night studies. I 
 have known them to injure incurably the eyes 
 and the general health of many unwary stu- 
 dents before they apprehended the least danger. 
 Study, to a late hour at night, ought never to 
 be indulged at all by any one who values his 
 health. Two hours sleep before midnight are 
 worth 'three, if not four, after it; and he who 
 frequently allows himself to remain at his stu- 
 dies after eleven o'clock in the evening, is 
 probably laying up in store for himself bitter 
 repentance. A late writer ascribes the excel- 
 lent health and mental vigour of M. Guizot, 
 while Minister of France under Louis Philippe, 
 to his " prodigious faculty for sleep." After 
 the most boisterous and tumultuous sittings at 
 the Chambers, where he had been baited by 
 the opposition in the most savage manner, he 
 was accustomed to go home, throw himself 
 
238 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 upon a couch, and fall immediately into a 
 profound sleep, from which he was not dis- 
 turbed till midnight, when proofs of the Moni- 
 teur were brought to him for inspection. It 
 is well known that Henry Kirke White, Urqu- 
 hart, and Henry Martyn, suffered at times from 
 extreme depression of spirits, caused by an 
 overtaxing of their mind, which occasioned the 
 premature death of two, and probably abridged 
 the Hfe of the third. " My discoveries," Henry 
 Martyn says, "are all at an end, and I am 
 just where I was, in perfect darkness!" — a fit- 
 ting sequel to the paragraph in his diary by 
 which it is preceded: "I scarcely know how 
 this week has passed; I remember, however, 
 that one night I did not sleep a wink. One 
 discovery succeeded another so rapidly in He- 
 brew, Arabic, and Greek, that I was some- 
 times almost in ecstasy." What effect could 
 be linked to a cause more closely and insepa- 
 rably than were the collapse of soul he speaks 
 of, with his habitual imprudence in the vio- 
 lation of well-known physical laws'? 
 
 Many suffer great depression of spirits from 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 239 
 
 the injurious effects of narcotics, especially 
 in the form of tobacco. The name of minis- 
 ters who use it, to the prejudice of their 
 health, is legion. For this, and other reasons, 
 some ecclesiastical bodies have made it a sub- 
 ject of discipline. Not long ago, a candidate 
 for the ministry at the West was refused his 
 license on account of his declining to give the 
 habit up. Cowper greatly admired the Eev. 
 Mr. Bull, of Newport-Pagnell, for his genius, 
 literature, fine taste, and lovely temper — but, 
 alas! nothing is perfect, he writes in a playful, 
 but half serious letter, preserved by Haley, 
 "the Bull smokes tobacco." In the famous 
 "Counterblast to Tobacco" of King James the 
 First, the custom of smoking is anathematized 
 as "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, 
 paineful to the braine, dangerous to the lungs; 
 and in the black, stinking fume thereof, 
 nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke 
 of the pit that is bottomless." In the time 
 of Elizabeth, an edict was published against 
 its use for fear lest England should become 
 
240 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 like the barbarians from whom its use was 
 derived. 
 
 Anglorum corpora in barbarorum naturam degenerasse, quum 
 iidem ao barbari deleotentur. 
 
 Dr. Dunglison told the writer, that of the 
 many cases of functional aifections of the heart 
 that he had seen, particularly among young 
 men, a large proportion appeared to be owing 
 to an immoderate use of tobacco. The accom- 
 plished author of "Letters on Clerical Habits 
 and Manners," says that no class of persons are 
 more apt to fall into excess in the use of 
 tobacco, in every way, than students; and no 
 class of students, perhaps, more remarkably 
 than those who are devoted to the study of 
 theology. Whether their sedentary habits, and 
 especially their habits of stated composition, 
 form the peculiar temptation by which so many 
 of them are unhappily beguiled, I know not; 
 but it has fallen to my lot to know a very 
 large number of ministers, young and old, who 
 by excessive smoking, chewing, or snuffing, 
 have deranged the tone of their stomachs; 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 241 
 
 have undermined their health; have seriously- 
 injured their voices; have had the fumes of 
 tobacco so thoroughly inwrought in their per- 
 sons and clothing, that it became impossible 
 for many delicate people to sit near them with 
 impunity. They have laid themselves, after a 
 while, under so absolute a necessity of smoking 
 or chewing incessantly, that they have been 
 obliged to withdraw from company, or from 
 the most urgent business, and even to break 
 off in the midst of a meal, and retire to smoke, 
 or else run the risk of a severe affection of the 
 stomach. In vain do you remind such people, 
 when they are young, and when their habits 
 are forming, that the use of tobacco is, in most 
 cases, unheal thful, and in many extremely so; 
 that if they use it at all, they are in danger 
 of being betrayed into excess, in spite of every 
 resolution to the contrary. They will not be- 
 lieve you ; they are in no danger ; others may 
 have insensibly fallen into excess, and become 
 offensive, but they never will. Onward they 
 go with inflexible self-will, as am ox goeth to 
 the slaughter; resolving to follow appetite at 
 21 
 
242 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 all hazards, until some of them become them- 
 selves fearful examples of the evils against 
 which they were warned! The truth is, no 
 man — especially no young man — ought ever 
 to use tobacco in any shape, who can possibly 
 avoid it; that is, who does not find himself 
 reduced to the same necessity of taking it, as 
 a medicine, that he is now and then of taking 
 calomel; in which case, instead of allowing 
 himself to contract a fondness for the article, 
 and living upon it daily, a wise nian will take 
 it, as he would a most nauseous medicine, in 
 as small quantities, and as seldom as possible. 
 If the most servile votary of the segar, the 
 quid, and the snuff-box, could take even a 
 cursory glance at the ruined health, the trem- 
 bling nerves, the impaired mental faculties, 
 the miserable tippling habits, the disgraceful 
 slavery, and the revolting fume, to which they 
 have insensibly conducted many an unsuspect- 
 ing devotee, he would fly with horror before 
 even the possible approaches of danger. 
 
 But our venerable monitor reprobates the 
 practice as not less a trespass against our neigh- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 243 
 
 bour than injurious to ourselves. I have known, 
 he says, some persons who in consequence of 
 their habitually chewing tobacco, or some other 
 substance, or smoking, were under a necessity 
 so constant and pressing of discharging saliva 
 from their mouths, that they were really a 
 trouble to themselves, as well as to everybody 
 else. I have certainly known, at least, one 
 tobacco-chewing clergyman, of whom a re- 
 spectable professor of religion declared that he 
 would most cheerfully pay his board for a 
 week or more at a tavern, or at any other 
 place, rather than endure his company, at a 
 single meal, or for one evening in his own 
 dwelling. How melancholy, that a minister 
 of religion, instead of being a pattern of neat- 
 ness and purity, and possessing such manners 
 as to render his company attractive to all 
 classes of people, should allow himself, by his 
 personal habits, to drive all cleanly and deli- 
 cate persons from his presence! But the in- 
 dulgence ceases to be a mere offence against 
 taste, when we contemplate its havoc of life. 
 According to the estimate of discerning physi- 
 
244 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 cians, not less than twenty thousand die in 
 the United States every year from the use of 
 tobacco. In Germany, wheris this pernicious 
 habit is far more common, it is said that of 
 all the deaths between the ages of eighteen 
 and thirty-five, one-half originate in the waste 
 of constitution by smoking. But in unnum- 
 bered cases where it does not destroy life, it 
 exhausts and deranges the nervous powers, and 
 produces some of the most distressing and un- 
 manageable ailments. M. Bouisson, a French 
 writer, has lately published some startling facts 
 upon the danger of smoking. He states that 
 cancer in the mouth has grown so frequent 
 from the use of tobacco, that it now forms 
 one of the most dreaded diseases in the hospi- 
 tals. From 1845 to 1859 he has himself per- 
 foi-med sixty-eight operations for cancers in 
 the lips in the Hospital St. Eloi. The use of 
 tobacco rarely produces lip cancer in youth. 
 Almost all of Bouisson's patients had passed 
 the age of forty. The disease is also more 
 frequent with individuals of the humbler class, 
 who smoke short pipes, and tobacco of inferior 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 245 
 
 quality, while with the orientals who are care- 
 ful to preserve the coolness of the mouth-piece 
 by the transmission of the smoke through 
 water, it is unknown ; showing that it is gene- 
 rated more by the constant application of heat 
 to the lips, than by the inhaling of nicotine. 
 It is a common cause of disease in the sto- 
 mach, and especially those forms that go under 
 the name of dyspepsia, with all their kindred 
 train of evils. It also exerts a disastrous in- 
 fluence upon the mind, and frequently pro- 
 duces an enfeebling of the memory, a confusion 
 of ideas, irritability of temper, want of energy, 
 an unsteadiness of purpose, melancholy, and 
 sometimes insanity. These are the ultimate 
 effects of the use of tobacco; and though one 
 may not perceive them in his own case, we 
 are assured that the tendency of the drug is 
 always toward disease. 
 
 Much that is said of the evils of tobacco 
 may be repeated of alcoholic drinks, and of 
 stimulating or stupefying drugs. The prac- 
 tice of many, in their dejection, from physical 
 21* 
 
246 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 and other causes, to resort to opiates for re- 
 lief, is as noxious to the health as it is 
 immoral. Both Doctors Good and CuUen reject 
 them as pernicious in cases of despondency. 
 They seem to heighten the pressure of our 
 malady only to let it hang upon us after- 
 ward more heavily. The way in which such 
 agents operate injuriously, is "by disturbing 
 the chemistry of life to such a degree that 
 the nerve-matter no longer duly subserves its 
 purpose as a medium through which the soul 
 exercises volition, and perceives sensation." 
 Dr. Moore says that narcotic substances seem 
 to operate on the body by interfering with 
 the affinity existing between the blood and 
 the air, allowing the accumulation of carbon, 
 or other noxious agents, in the circulating 
 fluid, and thus arresting the action . of the 
 nervous system. On this principle, every kind 
 of intoxication disturbs the voluntary opera- 
 tions of the mind by poisoning the brain, 
 and thence impeding the influence of the will 
 upon the circulation, by preventing its control 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 247 
 
 over the nerves of sense and motion. Another 
 indispensable auxiliary to health, is 
 
 Exercise in pure air. 
 
 The tendency of the depressing passions is 
 to render us inert, taciturn, averse to society, 
 and misanthropic. The languor and restless- 
 ness that usually attend this disordered state, 
 make us unwilling to leave our retirement for 
 the open air, or for the bodily efforts which 
 our health calls for. 
 
 Ignavia corpus hebetat, labor firmat. 
 
 Indolence makes the body feeble, labour gives its strength. 
 
 It is not to be expected that in so limited 
 a treatise as this, we should give a tithe of 
 the excellent instructions or counsels which 
 may be quoted to any extent from standard 
 authors, in regard to the best means of pre- 
 serving health, or for restoring it when im- 
 paired: what they say of diet, drinks, dyigs, 
 sleep, employment, bathing, riding, gymnastic 
 exercises, walking, generous living, abstinence, 
 &c. "We merely allude to so copious a sub- 
 ject in this general way, to direct the reader's 
 
248 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 attention to what the wisesfc of them have 
 written, rather than to any instructions of our 
 own. But it ought to be specially noticed 
 by the seeker after health, that while the 
 disagreement of writers on the broad subject 
 of regimen is notorious, they are in perfect 
 harmony about the utility of exercise properly 
 taken, and of wholesome air. One of their 
 most distinguished authors says, if we would 
 preserve our nerves in a state to favour mental 
 exercise, we must insure our access to pure 
 air. It is not enough to be guided by our 
 senses in this matter; for unless we are sup- 
 plied with fresh air at the rate of at least 
 twenty cubic inches for every breath while 
 tranquil, and twenty-five while in action, we 
 shall be in danger. There is a great proba- 
 bility that the temper of an assembly is often 
 vastly influenced by the state of the air which 
 it b];pathes, and to talk of a moral atmosphere 
 is not altogether a figure of speech. It is 
 certain, that a crowded audience is usually 
 most excitable at the commencement of a ser- 
 vice, and the most' attentive towards its close; 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 249 
 
 and it not unfrequently happens, "that at the 
 end of a long sermon the flushed faces and 
 hazy eyes of the congregation too often indi- 
 cate that bad blood is adding its influence to 
 aggravate the mental confusion produced by 
 a disorderly discourse." Dr, Hall says, that 
 "while exercise tends to abate disease under 
 all circumstances, physicians recommend it to 
 be taken in open air, in order to produce more 
 immediate effects. The reason is, because a 
 breath of air taken into the lungs, perfectly 
 light and pure, comes out the next moment 
 so laden with the impurity which it took from 
 the blood, that it is a perfect stench, and would 
 destroy life if breathed again; but coming from 
 the body warm and rarefied, it ascends to re- 
 gions where there is no animal life for it to 
 destroy, to return to the lower world no more 
 until it has been restored to its former purity." 
 No persons better understand the value of 
 these two helpers to a vigorous use of both 
 the mental and bodily faculties, than some of 
 our most successful scholars. In " Peter's Let- 
 ters to his Kinsfolk," he gives us an amusing 
 
250 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 account of the boyish gymnastics of certain 
 illustrious Scotchmen in the early part of the 
 present century, who were wont to recruit their 
 minds, after severe study, by relaxing in the 
 athletic sports of youth, according to the advice 
 of Horace to his friend Virgil, 
 
 Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem. 
 Dulce est desipere in loco. 
 
 Mix a short folly -with thy laboured schemes, 
 'Tis joyous folly that unbends the mind. — Francis. 
 
 The men that "Peter" speaks of, were most 
 of them already beyond the meridian of life. 
 " I was not a little astonished," he says, " when 
 somebody proposed a trial of strength in leap- 
 ing. Nor was my astonishment at all dimi- 
 nished when Mr. Playfair began to throw off 
 bis coat and waistcoat, and to prepare himself 
 for taking his part in the contest; and, indeed, 
 the whole party did the same, except Jeffrey 
 alone, who was dressed in a short green jacket, 
 with scarcely ajuy skirts, and therefore seemed 
 to consider himself as already sufficiently " ac- 
 cinetus ludo." I used to be a good leaper in 
 my day, but I cut a very poor figure among 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 251 
 
 these sinewy Caledonians. With the excep- 
 tion of Leslie, they all jumped wonderfully; 
 and Jeffrey was quite miraculous, considering 
 his brevity of stride. But the greatest wonder 
 of the whole was Mr. Playfair. He also is a 
 short man, and cannot be less than seventy, 
 yet he took his stand with the assurance of an 
 athletic, and positively beat every one of us. 
 I was quite thunderstruck, never having heard 
 the least hint of his being so great a geome- 
 trician in this sense of the word." We will 
 only add to these suggestions with regard to 
 exercise of mind and body, the counsel of one 
 restored from prolonged melancholy, and who 
 recites the teachings of his own experience. 
 " Seek some suitable employment for exercise, 
 and at the same time for diverting your 
 thoughts from your trouble. Neglect, refuse, 
 or reject this, and you have no ground of 
 hope. If you are not confined to your bed, 
 or if* you can barely rise off it and walk, and 
 this only at times, you should think of some 
 useful, proper, and, if possible, profitable em- 
 ployment, at which you might do at least a 
 
252 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 little. In vain will you think and say, that 
 you are too weak; all experience loudly ex- 
 claims — take exercise! take exercise! — if you 
 can but walk or creep a little; and this espe- 
 cially to patients of your order. It is true 
 that you do at times become very weak, but 
 if you have no local disorder, or whether or 
 not your weakness is of a peculiar kind; it 
 will both come on and go off quicker than 
 the weakness of patients labouring under other 
 diseases." 
 
 While arranging our thoughts on the sub- 
 ject of this volume, we met with the following 
 remarks of the Uev. Dr. N. L. Rice. They 
 contain so many excellent counsels, reaffirming 
 our own, that we are constrained to transfer 
 them to our pages without change or abridg- 
 ment. He is writing with special reference to 
 his clerical brethren in their state of mental 
 depression; but his suggestions are scarcely 
 less adapted to the case of desponding Chris- 
 tians in general: 
 
 "There are some ministers and Christians 
 who can say, as Dr. Daniel Baker said, 'I am 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 253 
 
 always happy;' but there are many others 
 who have seasons of depression of shorter or 
 longer continuance, and of greater or less in- 
 tensity. They are sometimes caused by some 
 slight bodily indisposition, affecting the ner- 
 vous system; sometimes by nervous exhaustion 
 from loss of sleep or too long continued mental 
 exertion; sometimes by disappointed hopes; 
 and often by erroneous views as to prospects 
 of usefulness, &c. They seem to be of the 
 nature of melancholy, only they do not so 
 generally create doubts of one's piety; and the 
 causes being slight or transient, the mind soon 
 recovers its cheerfulness. But whatever cause 
 or causes produce these depressions, they are 
 not only very distressing, but for the time 
 being they unfit the mind for the discharge of 
 any duty. We cannot read, for the mind 
 takes no interest in any book, and wanders 
 from what we are reading to its own gloomy 
 imaginings. We cannot prepare a sermon, 
 for the mind will not take hold of any subject. 
 We feel, as we wander from text to text, that 
 there is not a text in the Bible on which we 
 22 
 
254 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 could preach. We lose hours in the vain effort 
 to choose a text, and then utterly fail to satisfy 
 ourselves. We feel disinclined to visit; we do 
 not wish to converse with any one, unless we 
 can talk gloomily to sohae bosom friend. The 
 pastor feels as if his usefulness were at an end 
 in his present field, and half resolves to resign 
 his pastoral charge. To those who are trou- 
 bled with such depressions, as we have often 
 been, we venture a few suggestions: 
 
 1. If it can be avoided, it is better not 
 to attempt any mental labour whilst the de- 
 pression continues. Whatever may be the 
 cause, the fact is — the nervous system is out 
 of tune. There is exhaustion and an irritable 
 condition; and any attempt to force the mind 
 to work will increase the diificulty; and the 
 work, whilst doubly difficult, will not be as 
 well done. Walk or ride out; breathe the 
 fresh air, and converse with Nature. Vigorous 
 muscular exercise, especially if at the same 
 time the mind is amused, will often allay 
 nervous irritation and depression. Or if there 
 is general prostration of the system, and a feel- 
 
ON EELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 255 
 
 ing of weariness, take half an hour's sleep; 
 and you will be surprised at the virtue that 
 is in ' tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy- 
 sleep.' Then a cup of good coffee wiU often 
 make one feel like a new man. Often, when 
 worn out with continuous preaching, we have 
 found surprising relief from this source. All 
 might not find the same benefit from it. 
 
 2. If it is absolutely necessary to preach 
 under such depressions, two suggestions will be 
 found important, viz. 1. Select a subject which 
 demands, at the outset, intellectual effort. De- 
 pressions, such as we are considering, interfere 
 far more with the emotions than with the in- 
 tellectual perceptions; and if the intellect can 
 get fairly to work in the effort to prove some 
 proposition, or to explain some point of doc- 
 trine or duty, the emotions wUl gradually rise 
 in the progress of the discussion, and the pain- 
 ful depression' will entirely disappear. 2. Com- 
 mence the discourse with the explanation of a 
 word, or the statement of a fact or principle, 
 and let the mind pass without special effort 
 from thought to thought, and it will, in a few 
 
256 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 minutes, work both vigorously and pleasantly. 
 To select a subject which, from the beginning, 
 appeals to the emotions, or is hortatory, or to 
 commence at a point above one's own state of 
 feeling, are both unsafe; for in either case the 
 mind, instead of rising, sinks into deeper de- 
 pression, and the preacher retires from the 
 pulpit with the distressing feeling that he has 
 made a failure. 
 
 3. It is unsafe to come to any new con- 
 clusions, or materially to change one's plans, 
 whilst labouring under such depressions. At 
 such times nothing appears in its true light. 
 We are likely to err in regard to the state 
 of feeling in our congregations; and difficul- 
 ties, which at other times would produce no 
 discouragement, appear insurmountable. In 
 our own experience, once and again, an hour's 
 sleep, a ride to the country, or a good cup 
 of coffee, has removed mountains of difficulty, 
 and driven away dark clouds that seemed to 
 threaten ruin to all our plans of usefulness. 
 The forming of important plans, which are to 
 give direction to our labours for life, or at 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEKIENCB. 257 
 
 least for years, requires a clear intellect and a 
 manly vigour. It is often diiRcult, though it 
 is most important, to avoid talking and acting 
 unvrisely in these fits of despondency. 
 
 4. There is little use in attempting to 
 reason persons out of these gloomy moods. 
 The effort to reason away a headache vrould 
 be about as successful. The trouble is physi- 
 cal; the body is affecting the animal spirits, 
 and thus obscuring the views and paralyzing 
 the energies of the mind. It is generally even 
 more unwise to ridicule the unreasonable con- 
 ceits of persons who are low-spirited. Des- 
 pondency is something strangely contradictory. 
 It is very distressing; yet the mind nurses it 
 as though it were a most delicious feeling. 
 Ridicule appears unfeeling and cruel, and only 
 fixes the mind more firmly in its gloomy state. 
 If it can be diverted to some agreeable subject, 
 the advantage will be very great; and a hearty 
 laugh sometimes drives away all the demons 
 of melancholy. 
 
 Some years ago, a minister from Virginia 
 was lying sick at our house in Cincinnati. 
 22* 
 
258 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 He had nearly recovered; but, as it often hap- 
 pens, he had become very desponding, and 
 seriously concluded that he should not live to 
 reach home. Just while he was talking thus 
 gloomily, our family physician came in. Dis- 
 covering the desponding state of the invalid, 
 he gradually turned the conversation into a 
 more pleasant channel; and in half an hour 
 he had the sick preacher laughing heartily. 
 When the doctor left, he dressed himself, and 
 walked about the house; and on the next day 
 went on his journey. 
 
 Others, as well as ministers of the gospel, 
 are afflicted with what is jestingly called the 
 hlues; and the suggestions already made may 
 be of some advantage to them. A Httle timely 
 rest and diversion will throw sunshine over 
 the affairs of a man, which in hours of gloom 
 seem desperate; and the Christian who is just 
 ready to give up his class in the Sabbath- 
 school, will resume his labours with cheerful- 
 ness." 
 
 In the fourth chapter of Dr. Alexander's 
 " Thoughts on Eeligious Experience," will be 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 259 
 
 found, among many wise counsels to persons 
 subject to spiritual depression, some very strik- 
 ing examples, interspersed with judicious re- 
 marks. The importance of special watchfulness 
 and prayer against the invasion of melancholy 
 in the decline of life, especially when the 
 tendency is constitutional, may be inferred 
 from the cases of two persons who were over- 
 whelmed with this malady at last, though as 
 far from it in early life as any that the writer 
 ever knew. 
 
 The first was a man of extraordinary tal- 
 ents, and eloquence; bold and decisive in his 
 temper, and fond of company and good cheer. 
 When about fifty-five or six years of age, 
 without any external cause to produce the 
 efiect, his spirit^ began to sink, and feelings 
 of melancholy to seize upon him. He avoided 
 company, but I had frequent occasion to see 
 him, and sometimes he could be engaged in 
 conversation, when he could speak as judi- 
 ciously as before; but he soon reverted to his 
 dark melancholy mood. On one occasion he 
 mentioned his case to me, and observed with 
 
260 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 emphasis, that he had. no power whatever to 
 resist the disease, and said he, with despair in 
 his countenance, 'I shall soon be utterly over- 
 whelmed.' And so it turned out, for the dis- 
 ease advanced until it ended in the worst form 
 of mania, and soon terminated his life. The 
 other was the case of a gentleman who had 
 held office in the American army in the Revo- 
 lutionary war. About the same age, or a httle 
 later, he lost his cheerfulness, which had never 
 been interrupted before, and by degrees, sunk 
 into a most deplorable state of melancholy, 
 which as in the former case, soon ended in 
 death. In this case, the first thing which I 
 noticed, was a morbid sensibility of the moral 
 sense, which filled him with remorse, for acts 
 which had little or no moral turpitude attached 
 to them. Let the depressed and desponding 
 
 Look habitually to Christ. 
 
 A counsel, the most important, as it is the 
 most comprehensive of all that have been 
 oflfered. Look to Him continually for his as- 
 cension gift, the Comforter, to purify from sin, 
 to help in overcoming the world, the flesh, and 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 261 
 
 the devil. Without me ye can do nothing, says 
 tlie Saviour; and through Christ strengthening 
 me, says his great apostle, I can do all things. 
 " Look forward to Jesus Christ," is the counsel 
 of Mr. Rogers, "when you find things per- 
 plexed and troubled in your own souls; look 
 to Him, and in the direct acts of faith, we 
 have nobler objects to converse withal than 
 when we look and pore upon our guilty selves. 
 When we look into our troubled hearts, we 
 can see nothing beside confusion and disorder 
 there; but we may at the same time discern 
 an all-sufficient fulness in God and Christ to 
 relieve our wants. It is a long and tedious 
 work to consider the several steps by which 
 we are to proceed in such a case, whether we 
 have believed or not ; our duty is at this very 
 instant to believe — i. e., under a penitent sense 
 of what we have done amiss, to look unto 
 Christ for help. We must carefully distin- 
 guish between justification and sanctification ; 
 between those habits and those holy actions 
 that are the efi'ects of faith, and faith itself. 
 Our sanctification is full of imperfection; but 
 
2G2 INFLUENCE OE HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 that righteousness of Christ, wherein alone we 
 are to trust for acceptance with God, is com- 
 plete and perfect." Dr. Church, President of 
 the Medical Society of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva- 
 nia, mentions numerous facts to illustrate the 
 efficacy of faith in Christ in the prevention 
 and cure of diseases of body as well as mind. 
 As health is the result of nicely-balanced appe- 
 tites and passions, so of course anything that 
 exerts a regulating or controlling influence 
 over these in such a manner as to attune them 
 into harmony, will essentially aid us in fore- 
 stalling diseases, as well as in curing them. 
 Such a power as Dr. Church ascribes to evan- 
 gelical faith, would seem to be implied in the 
 language of Dr. Bell, who says that "so inti- 
 mate is the connection between physical com- 
 fort and moral well-being, that the one cannot 
 be seriously affected without the other suffer- 
 ing." Mr. Shrubsole tells us in his Christian 
 Memoirs, that he was once reduced so low that 
 his case was apparently hopeless. For hours 
 he was lying in convulsions, and during this 
 time he was in a state of great spiritual dark- 
 
ON KELiaiOUS EXPERIENCE. 263 
 
 ness and distress of mind. But so soon as the 
 light of divine truth broke in upon him, and 
 he experienced the support of true faith, his 
 convulsions left him, and he rapidly recovered. 
 Dr. Church mentions the case of several sick 
 persons of advanced age, who would probably 
 have died under the power of these attacks, 
 but for the perfect comj)osure of mind and 
 freedom from fear that were ministered by 
 their faith. In view of the many facts con- 
 cerning the remedial influence of faith alle- 
 ged by other physicians of equal eminence. 
 Dr. Ashbel Green takes occasion to combat 
 what he calls^ a " serious evil." He refers to 
 the " absurd, cruel, and wicked opinion," enter- 
 tained by many physicians, and embraced by 
 many of their patients, that a clergyman must 
 be kept out of a sick-room — at least till the 
 person is past recovery; an opinion which he 
 avers was proved fallacious by his own experi- 
 ence in the pastoral charge of one of the largest 
 congregations in the United States for more 
 than the fourth part of a century, during which 
 time he never knew an instance in which his 
 
264 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 ministerial visitations of the sick were appre- 
 hended, so far as he knew, to be injurious. 
 What excuse then can be given, he asks, for 
 depriving the sick of religious aid, when facts 
 innumerable demonstrate that it may be afford- 
 ed, not merely without harm, but often with 
 evident advantage in helping the physician. 
 The same sentiments on this important subject 
 were entertained by his friend, Dr. Rush, who 
 enumerates among the duties of a physician, 
 "piety towards God, a respect for religion, and 
 regular attendance on public worship." With- 
 out such moral endowments, he will meet 
 with many cases of disease which he wants 
 the requisite qualifications to treat. The suf- 
 ferers need a medical counsellor who can point 
 them to the halm of Gilead, and the Physician 
 there. They must be directed beyond the 
 remedy of secondary or merely physical causes 
 to Him who can make them efficacious. And 
 to mention all the cures that have been per- 
 formed by faith and hope, he says, "would 
 require many pages." But while the despond- 
 ing look to Christ, and pray for themselves. 
 
ON KEMGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 265^ 
 
 let "them seek an interest in the prayers of 
 "others. It is believed that the restoration of 
 "the K.ev. Mr. Eogers, several times referred to 
 in the preceding pages, was in answer to the 
 special prayers of his pious friends and breth- 
 ren in the ministry, many of whom were most 
 earnest and importunate in their intercessions, 
 till at length his mind was completely relieved. 
 He has left a monument of this deliverance 
 from his dreadful thraldom in a book well 
 worthy of the perusal of those who suffer under 
 spiritual distress jfrom physical or any other 
 causes. But the prevailing temptation of 
 Christians of this temperament, as we have 
 shown in another place, is to look to them- 
 selves, to watch their own fluctuating frames, 
 canvass their motives and conduct, as if they 
 expected to find the living among the dead. 
 As if the Israelite in the wilderness, bitten of 
 the fiery serpent, had depended for his reco- 
 very upon his former temperance, or the 
 strength of his constitution, and not upon 
 looking to the brazen image. Such reviews 
 of the past and searchings of heart, are not 
 23 
 
266 INFLUENCE OP HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 only proper, but they are exceedingly impor- 
 tant in many respects, but not for spiritual 
 comfort in distress, nor for aid to arrive at 
 assurance. To look back, as one observes, is 
 more than we can sustain without going back. 
 Indeed the better the Christian, the more 
 spiritually minded and holy, the more does he 
 usually discover to cause sorrow, and the keen- 
 est self-reproach, whenever he takes a retros- 
 pect of his past life and experience. For many 
 years, we are told, that even Baxter was in 
 great perplexity about himself, for reasons 
 which have been a common occasion of doubt- 
 ing among serious inquirers in every age of 
 "the church: it was because he could not trace 
 so distinctly the workings of the Spirit on his 
 heart, as they were described in some practical 
 writers, to whom he was directed for instruc- 
 tion, and he could not ascertain the time of his 
 conversion. Because he felt great hardness of 
 heart; supposed himself to be religious from 
 early education rather than conviction of the 
 Spirit; to be influenced more by fear than 
 by love ; and because his grief and humiliation 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 267 
 
 on account of sin were not greater. But he 
 was afterwards satisfied that these were not 
 sufficient nor scriptural grounds for doubting 
 his personal interest in the salvation of Christ. 
 Upon which, Orme, his accomplished biogra- 
 pher, remarks, that persons who are agitated 
 with perplexities similar to those of Baxter, 
 are frequently directed to means little calcu- 
 lated to afford relief. It is very questionable 
 whether any individual will ever obtain com- 
 fort by making himself, or the evidences of 
 personal religion, the object of chief attention. 
 AH hope to the guilty creature is exterior to 
 himself. In the human character, even under 
 Christian influence, sufficient reason for con- 
 demnation, and therefore for fear, will always 
 be found. It is not thinking of the disease, 
 nor of the mode in which the remedy operates, 
 nor of the description given of these things 
 by others, but using the remedy itself that will 
 effect the cure. The gospel is the heavenly 
 appointed balsam for all the wounds of sin, 
 and Jesus is the great Physician ; it is to him, 
 and to his testimony, therefore, as the revela- 
 
268 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 tion of pardon and healing, that the soul must 
 be directed in all the stages of its spiritual 
 career. "When the glory of his character and 
 work is seen, darkness of mind will b6 dissi- 
 pated, the power of sin will, be broken, genuine 
 contrition wiU be felt, and joy and hope will 
 fill the mind. It is from the Saviour and his 
 sacrifice that all proper excitement in religion 
 must proceed; and the attempt to produce that 
 excitement by the workings of the mind on 
 itself, must inevitably fail. Self-examination 
 to discover the power of truth and the pro- 
 gress of principle in us, is highly important; 
 but when employed with a view to obtain com- 
 fort under a sense of guilt, it never can suc- 
 ceed. Nothing but renewed application to the 
 cross can produce the latter efiect. 
 
 These sentiments are so important that they 
 cannot be repeated too often, nor be too deeply 
 impressed upon all, and especially upon every 
 inquirer after an assurance of hope. They de- 
 scribe the only way by which the perplexed 
 believer, even when released from the embar- 
 rassment of physical influences, can obtain a 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 269 
 
 solid and permanent peace. It is by looking 
 to Christ, not as holy in ourselves, but in order 
 to be made holy; not as the whole, whose 
 distempers have been cured already, but as the 
 sich, who must be cured by him alone, or 
 perish. We must go to him, feeling that we 
 owe him ten thousand times more than we can 
 pay; but that all he requires of us is to accept 
 a discharge, and be happy in the enjoyment of 
 this unmerited grace. In other words, we are 
 only to exalt our glorious Redeemer to his 
 true position as both the author and finisher 
 of our faith, the alpha and omega in our sal- 
 vation, and our peace is secured. Those very 
 views of ourselves, our self-reproach and feel- 
 ing of ill-desert, which have caused so much 
 disquiet, then become the evidences of that 
 spiritual change which is the beginning of 
 everlasting life. It is as easy for God to for- 
 give a thousand sins as one sin. If we be 
 never so unworthy and so vile, yet mercy seeks 
 no other qualification of its object but that it 
 is necessitous, and liable to ruin; and it is a 
 good way to fly to his mere grace and mercy, 
 23* 
 
270 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 for we have undone ourselves. Poring. upon' 
 ourselves does but increase our load. We are 
 apt to say in our distress, '.'Were we so and 
 so mortified to the world — were our hearts so 
 purified and cleansed, then we might approach 
 him with some boldness, who is altogether holy." 
 This is true, but yet we must first ask of 
 him to make us such, in whom he may delight. 
 And as we sorrowfully cast tjur eyes upon our 
 wounds and our miseries, let us look at the 
 same time to that Physician who has provided 
 a remedy for us by Christ, and who can heal 
 all our backslidings, and teach us to apply that 
 remedy. If we are the worst and most sinful 
 creatures upon earth, yet is a Saviour .tendered 
 to our acceptance and our choice; and if we 
 will receive him, all. our transgressions, how 
 heinous soever, wiU be blotted out. We re- 
 peat, then, the monition, in the midst of dis- 
 tracting cares and temptations, which so much 
 hinder the exercise of this faith, let us not 
 forget the promised help of the Holy Spirit. 
 Let us watch against the common sin of the 
 desponding, who undervalue his aid, and prac- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEEIENCE. 271 
 
 tically question its reality, when we are taught, 
 not only that he helpeth our infirmities, but that 
 he maketh intercession for us with groanings 
 which cannot he uttered. , 
 
 To know that we are Christians does not 
 imply that we are free from sin, but that we 
 are united to Christ. Our peace, and, joy, and 
 hope, the fruits of this union, need not be de- 
 stroyed by our imperfections, however great, 
 while we cling to Him as our righteousness. 
 "If we see ourselves bad enough for Christ," 
 Thomas Adam says, " he sees us good enough.'' 
 His people are sS,fe, notwithstanding their 
 doubts and fears, not because of any inherent 
 power in them to hold on to , the end, but be- 
 cause of the grace which reigns in their calling 
 and redemption, in view of which he has said, 
 he wiU never leave them nor forsake them. 
 
 The soul on Ms bosom that leans for repose, 
 Is safe from the assaults of its. bitterest foes; 
 That soul, tho' all hell should its vengeance awake. 
 He'll never, no never, no never forsake. 
 
 It is certainly among the deep mysteries of 
 Providence, that some of the most eminent 
 
272 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 saints who have ever lived, should have been 
 afflicted with despondency and gloom; and yet, 
 as pious Rutherford remarks, "as nights and 
 shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight 
 and dews better than a continued sun, so is 
 Christ's absence of special use, and it hath 
 some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap 
 to humility, and furnisheth a fair field for 
 faith." But is there no difficulty, it may be 
 asked, connected with the abandonment of a 
 pious man to such a state of mental darkness 
 and sufiering, especially when protracted to the 
 hour of death'? No greatelr difficulty, we con- 
 ceive, when viewed as the result of physical 
 disease, than in a good man's being suffered 
 to linger under a torturing complaint, or to 
 be laid aside by paralysis, or to be the victim 
 of brutal violence, of persecution, or of fatal 
 accident. We know of no promise that insures 
 a truly relig'ious man against such a trial, 
 although we believe the physical influence of 
 true religion to be the very best preservative 
 against those exciting causes which are likely 
 to develop a predisposition to mental disease. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXREEIENOE. 273 
 
 The history of Job is written to caution us 
 against falling into the error of his friends in 
 "so judging by feeble sense." It is true that 
 he emerged from his complicated and unparal- 
 leled afflictions; but in the cases of diseases 
 incurable, except by miracle, what reason is 
 there to expect an extraordinary interposition 
 of divine power, in anticipation of the blessed 
 cure which death will effect when the spirit 
 "bursts its chains with sweet surprise?' If 
 Cowper was perniitted to expire in apparent 
 mental darkness, let it not be regarded as 
 either militating against the divine . gqodnesg, 
 nor as indicating the divine. displeasure against 
 the sufferer, should any one under similar cir- 
 cumstances be allowed to close his days under 
 the pressure of distemper, and to give no sign 
 in death. . . - 
 
 It has been suggested, by way of explana- 
 tion, that these sufferings of good men are 
 designed to enhance the joys of heaven by 
 contrast; that these light afflictions, which are 
 but for a moment, will tend to work for us a 
 far more exceeding atid eternal tveight of glory.. 
 
274 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 In many cases, moreover, they are made instru- 
 mental in furnishing religious teachers with a 
 sort of knowledge that conduces greatly to 
 their usefulness, and which can be acquired 
 only by experience. The apostle represents 
 our High Priest as one who could be touched 
 with the feeling of our infirmities, because he was 
 in all points tempted as we are. Such, accord- 
 ing to the Rev. Dr. Hall, was the discipline 
 which gave so much "sympathy, tenderness, 
 and heart-reaching power to the discourses, 
 conversation, and whole intercourse" of the 
 late Dr. J. W. Alexander. To qualify him for 
 this service, "the wise and gracious foresight 
 of Almighty God saw it necessary to lead his 
 disciple, from his earliest Christian walk, in 
 the path of some of the most poignant and 
 overwhelming distresses that can oppress the 
 human soul. Ascribe it to what immediate 
 cause we may — to delicate or disordered nerves, 
 to morbid sensibilities, whether physical or 
 moral; to excessive intellectual excitement; to 
 preternatural susceptibility to the extremes of 
 enjoyment and suffering, we know from the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 275 
 
 result that this part of experience — familiar to 
 him, in a greater or less measure, from his 
 youth to his last days — was the means sancti- 
 fied to the production and maintenance of that 
 depth, fulness, and richness of his spiritual 
 traits, which laid the foundation of, and gave 
 the predominant characteristics and direction 
 to, his piety and influence. It has been said 
 that God can bring afiliction to try and mani- 
 fest the graces of his people; as the stars, that 
 are a chief part of the glory of the world, are 
 then most illustrious and visible when the day 
 is gone; and then he makes the sun to rise 
 again, that displays new objects to us." The 
 rods of God ar6 many times very sharp, but 
 at last we shall find that they were "dipped in 
 honey, and managed with love." The conduct 
 of Providence is always wise and good, but 
 very often mysterious and unfathomable; and 
 in nothing more so, than in his bringing 
 'abundance of his servants to heaven by the 
 very gates of hell; and in suffering Satan to 
 buffet and perplex them, that they may. 
 triumph over him in the latter end. He 
 
276 INrLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 makes them to be in great perplexities, that 
 the sweet wonders, of his deliverance may the 
 niiore appear. : We went through fire and through 
 water, hut thou broughtest us out into a wealths/ 
 place.' God's, people should be well satisfied, 
 Mr. Eogers says, that He carries them to heaven 
 in the way He thinks most proper. It were 
 indeed a thiiig yerj desirable to be at ease, 
 to travel with light about us; but if we must 
 go through darkness, and danger, and calamity 
 to heaven, let us be satisfied that his will is 
 done, though we go weeping and groaning 
 along thither. When his candle shines upon 
 our tabernacle, we are well enough pleased; 
 but when he begins to correct and chasten us 
 for a season, we murmur, and think , he is a 
 hard master. But out of the ruins of the 
 fiesh, God raises the glorious structure of the 
 new creature, and from the destruction of our 
 earthly comforts he causes heavenly joys to 
 spring. Let us not find fault with God's pro- 
 vidence, for it will turn our water into wine, 
 our tears of grief into the most pleasant, joys, 
 and, as at the marriage of Cana, we shall have 
 
ON RELiaiOUS EXPERIENCE. 277 
 
 the best at last. Two sorts of people, Dr. 
 Watts observes, will be disappointed when 
 they get to heaven — the melancholy Christian, 
 to find himself there, and the censorious Chris- 
 tian, to find others there. But what can be 
 deep or mysterious in Providence, or hard for 
 us to believe, when we have once received that 
 amazing doctrine of grace, the great central 
 truth of revelation, that God so loved the world 
 as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 helieveth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life. To' many it is a subject of dis- 
 tressing perplexity, that persons of unques- 
 tioned piety sometimes continue to manifest 
 great imperfections to the very end of their 
 life. Even at the near approach of their tran- 
 sition from the earthly state to a heavenly, 
 their sanctification seems to be immature. 
 The mind of Dr. Guthrie .appears to have been 
 strongly impressed by this enigma in Christian 
 experience, of which he could offer no other 
 solution than that a change must take place 
 at the moment of death, second only to that 
 at the moment of conversion. "There is much 
 24 
 
278 INFLUENCE OF HEALTH AND DISEASE 
 
 sin to be cast off," he says, "like a slough, 
 with this mortal flesh. Saw we the spirit at 
 its departure, as Elisha saw his ascending 
 master, we might see a mantle of imperfection 
 and infirmity dropped from the chariot that 
 bears it in triumph to the skies. I have 
 thought that there must be a mysterious work 
 done by the Spirit of God in the very hour of 
 death, to form the glorious crown and cope- 
 stone of all His other labours; and that like 
 the wondrous but lovely plant which blows at 
 midnight, grace comes out in its perfect beauty 
 amid the darkness of the dying hour. How 
 that is done, I do not know. It takes one 
 whole summer to ripen the fields of corn, and 
 five hundred years to bring the oak to its full 
 maturity. But He, at whose almighty word 
 this earth sprung at once into perfect being, 
 loaded vdth orchards, and golden harvests, and 
 clustering vines, and stately palms, and giant 
 cedars — man in ripened manhood, and woman 
 in her full blown charms, is able in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, ere our fingers have closed the 
 filmy orbs, or we have stooped to print our 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 279 
 
 last fond kiss on the marble brow, to crown 
 the work his grace began. With him, one day 
 is as a thousand years, and a thousand years 
 as one day. lie shall perfect that which con- 
 cerneth you. He shall bring forth the headstone 
 thereof with shouting, crying, Grace, grace unto 
 it. • Now, therefore, unto Him that is able to keep 
 you from falling, and to present you faultless 
 before the presence of his glory with exceeding 
 joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory 
 and majesty, dominion and power, both now and 
 ever. Amen. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abercrombie on matter and mind ... 15 
 On insanity caused by religion . . . .116 
 
 Cases of dreaming mentioned by Mm . . . 157 
 Alexander, Dr. Archibald, his interest in the sub- 
 ject treated in this work, and counsel . . 8 
 His lamented death ...... 8 
 
 Extract from his work on Religious Experience 
 
 concerning young preachers ... 97 
 His opinion on insanity, as said to be caused by 
 
 religion ....... 112 
 
 His counsel, not to reason with a man against his 
 
 views when they arise from melancholy . 183 
 
 His account of Rev. Dr. Hall .... 84 
 
 Counsels given in the fourth chapter of his work 
 
 on Religious Experience .... 258 
 
 Two cases of melancholy mentioned by him . . 259 
 
 His opinion of Boston's " Crook in the Lot" . 102 
 Alexander, Dr. James W., his interest in the subject 
 
 of this work . - 8 
 
 His counsel to watch and promote bodily health 232 
 
 His poignant mental distress .... 274 
 
 Appetite, how far lawful to indulge it . . . 217 
 
 Aretseus 42 
 
 Attention, directed to a disordered part, increases the 
 
 disease" 223 
 
 Aristotle's remark on the great men of his times . 38 
 
 Antiochus, how affected by the passion of love . 45 
 
 Arminius, his view of the sin against the Holy Grhost 146 
 
 Afflictions of the soul, sometimes retributive . . 182 
 
 intended to try the graces of Christians . 274 
 Animal food, sometimes predisposes to inflammatory 
 diseases — opinions of Drs. Rush, Paris, McNish, 
 
 Arbuthnot 212,213 
 
 24* 
 
282 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Activity in doing good, remedy for low spirits . 222 
 
 Case of a theological student .... 228 
 
 Case of Dr. Lobdell 229 
 
 Air and exercise ....... 247 
 
 Alcotolic drinks ....... 211 
 
 Atmosphere, "moral," not always a figure of speech 248 
 
 Atmospherical air, and experiment of Dr. Woodhouse 65 
 Authors referred to, but not quoted, who have written 
 
 on subjects kindred to this .... 10 
 
 Arbuthnot, Dr., on the effect of vegetable regimen 214 
 
 Augustine, Father, concerning the unpardonable sin 145 
 
 B. 
 
 Baglivi, on the physical influence of Lent . . 215 
 Baker, Eev. Daniel ...... 150 
 
 His fear of having committed the unpardonable sin 150 
 His account of a young man killed by shame . 57 
 Always happy ....... 252 
 
 Bartolini, his mistake ...... 65 
 
 Barking exercise ....... 59 
 
 Baxter, Richard, troubled with doubts about his own 
 
 salvation ...... 87, 266 
 
 His advice to the desponding to seek medical aid 186 
 To ascertain the cause of their doubts and troubles 180 
 His opinion about casting out the devil by physic 125 
 Brain, its size and power increased by mental ex- 
 citement . . . .-. . . .31 
 
 32 
 32 
 
 Of Sir Astley Cooper's patient, visible 
 Of Doctor Caldwell's patient 
 Of Lord Byron, of Bonaparte, of Baron Cuvier, 
 of an idiot ...... 
 
 Brain and Stomach, like two friends in health, and 
 enemies when diseased .... 
 
 Brainerd, David, subject to low spirits 
 Beef, its effect on the blood — case of the Hon. C. A 
 Murray ...... 
 
 Believers troubled, Baxter's advice to 
 
 Brigham, Dr., his loss of appetite caused by a letter 
 
 Bile, black, or melancholy .... 
 
 Body, inexplicable structure .... 
 
 We know only a few facts concerning it 
 
 33 
 
 36 
 
 88 
 
 213 
 186 
 37 
 42 
 13 
 14 
 
INDEX. 
 
 283 
 
 Body of the spiritual man should be kept under 
 Bodily exercise in revivals, involuntary . 
 
 Case at Cane Ridge 
 
 Cases in Ireland mentioned by Dr. McNaughton 
 Book, its enlargement suggested by the friends of the 
 author ...... 
 
 Not written for medical men 
 Bonaparte lean in early life 
 Boerhaave's experiment on epileptic patients 
 Boeotians remarkable for stupidity . 
 Borri Franeiscus, seventeenth century, his reputation 
 and success ....... 
 
 Boston, Rev. Thomas, a case of spiritual depression 
 Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, his disquisitions on 
 the intrinsic qualities of certain kinds of food 
 
 Blues 
 
 Burrows, his opinion on insanity caused by Christianity 
 
 216 
 62 
 62 
 63 
 
 8 
 
 178 
 
 74 
 
 50 
 
 234 
 
 66 
 102 
 
 212 
 
 258 
 117 
 
 C. 
 
 Cranioscopy 28 
 
 Craniology 28 
 
 Chagrin, power of ...... 57 
 
 Cassius, why such men are lean .... 74 
 
 Why Caesar was afraid of him .... 74 
 Charity, promoted by a study of our subject . .106 
 
 Calvinism, erroneously ^d to be the cause of insanity 126 
 
 This the opinion of the Romanists, of Esquirol, of 
 
 Macaulay, and of Haley . . . 126, 127 
 
 Case of a clergyman in New England . . . 187 
 
 Calvin's opinion of the sin against the Holy Ghost . 146 
 
 Chalmers, Dr., his opinion of this sin . . . 146 
 
 Cause of our spiritual troubles should be ascertained 180 
 
 Caesar and the affrighted shipmaster . . . 201 
 Cases of mental disorder occurring within the sphere 
 
 of the author's pastoral labours . . . 121 
 
 Casus omissus ....... 232 
 
 Cheyne's, Dr., opinion on the effect of parental habits 22 
 
 His estimate of the number of nervous disorders 189 
 
 His opinion on Satanic agency . . . . 125 
 
 on the misery caused by nervous diseases 107 
 
284 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Cheyne, his opinion on the ignorance of good men 
 of the things that affect their spiritual enjoy- 
 ment ........ 180 
 
 His opinion on the prejudice of the world against 
 
 the religious . . . . . .129 
 
 Cherry Hill prisoners exempt from cholera . . 49 
 
 Cheerful Christians, their happy influence on others 201 
 
 Cheerfulness, commended by Ih-. Maynwaring . 205 
 
 by Seneca . . . 205 
 
 Cecil, Rev. Mr., his letter to Mrs. Hawkes . . 162 
 
 His remark on spiritual desertion . . . 224 
 
 on Melancthon and Luther . . 73 
 
 The "well-known minister" referred to on page . 129 
 
 His remark to Mr. Newton concerning Cowper . 95 
 
 Clergymen in a "sine titulo" state .... 226 
 
 Their peculiar trials, especially in advanced age . 230 
 
 Their condition and claims not properly regarded 232 
 
 Not to be kept from the sick-room . . . 263 
 Cheerful Christians, one of Baxter's four cardinal 
 
 rules to seek their company .... 204 
 
 Cicero quoted — ^his remark concerning human nature 27 
 
 Chilo said to have died of excessive joy . . . 56 
 Christians sometimes tempted to commit the mistake 
 
 of the sons of Zebedee 169 
 
 Their imperfection at the close of life an occasion 
 
 of perplexity to many; explanation of Dr. Guthrie 277 
 Christian experience . . •. . . .68 
 Christianity made to suffer from the physical suffer- 
 ings of its professors . . . . .77 
 
 Christ, the desponding should look to him . . 260 
 
 the Great Physician 264 
 
 Coleridge, his remark on a man's history prior to birth 23 
 
 Composed a poem in his sleep. . 154 
 
 Connection of body and mind mysterious . . 14 
 
 Cooper, Sir Astley — his patient .... 32 
 
 Consumptive patients cheerful .... 41 
 
 Cholera in Philadelphia ..... 49 
 
 Consolation, one of the uses of this Treatise . . 131 
 
 Conscience, misguided by disease .... 132 
 
 Exemplifications ...... 133 
 
INDEX. 285 
 
 FAGX. 
 
 Comparing experiences 164 
 
 Dr. Chalmers' letter to Mr. Andrews on tte practice 155 
 Comfort idolized — ^remarks of Dr. Harris . . 167 
 
 169 
 
 215 
 
 117 
 
 128 
 
 128 
 
 93 
 
 89 
 
 90 
 
 of William Mason . 
 Combe, Dr., on intemperate eating 
 
 On insanity imputed to religion . 
 Cowper, case of hypochondriasis 
 
 His malady nothing to do with religion 
 Happiest period of his life .... 
 
 His letter to Rev. J. Newton 
 Description of himself in the Castaway 
 His melancholy not derived from his residence at 
 Olney ...... 
 
 His own opinion of the cause of his suffering 
 His remark concerning the Rev. Mr. Bull . 
 His case does not militate against the divine 
 goodness ...... 
 
 Relief of his mind by translating Homer and the 
 works of Madame Gruion 
 
 The Unwins 
 
 His Journal ...... 
 
 Dr. Moore's opinion of his case . 
 Dr. Cotton's judicious treatment of his malady 
 Account of him by Rev. J. Newton 
 His melancholy erroneously ascribed to Calvinism 
 . His activity in. doing good .... 
 
 Constitution of a perso» closely connected with his 
 religious frames ..... 
 
 Illustrated in the case of the melancholy, timid, 
 
 cheerful, bashful, and bold . . . _ 69, 70 
 Counsel to the desponding sometimes attended with 
 
 danger ........ 182 
 
 Church, Dr., his opinion on the power of faith to 
 
 prevent and cure diseases .... 262 
 
 Confirmed by Doctor Bell .... 
 
 Case of Mr. Shrubsole .... 
 
 Opinion of Rev. Dr. Green 
 Cumberland, Richard, his temperance 
 Cullen, Dr., on the bad effects of opiates 
 Chrysostom, his opinion of grief 
 Cyrus, remark of the astrologer concerning him 
 
 93 
 
 91 
 
 239 
 
 273 
 
 227 
 
 203 
 
 140 
 
 94 
 
 94 
 
 95 
 
 126 
 
 96 
 
 69 
 
 262 
 262 
 263 
 234 
 246 
 55 
 71 
 
286 INDEX. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dancing exercise 59 
 
 " Dark side" — some persons look at no other . . 76 
 
 David's language concerning his make ... 13 
 
 David, subject to seasons of depression ... 24 
 Davidson's, Dr., account of hodily exercises in the 
 
 revivals in Kentucky ..... 59 
 
 Design of the author 16 
 
 Depression,. mental, periodical . . . .81 
 
 Case of Isaac Milner . . . . .85 
 
 The sufferer cannot resist it .... 108 
 
 Despair, temptation to . . . . . .170 
 
 A symptom of bodily disease .... 170 
 
 Christians led to it by perverted views of truth 171 
 
 Leads to a neglect of the means of grace . . 172 
 
 Never made a human being better . . . 172 
 
 Case mentioned by Dr. Spencer .... 172 
 
 Despondency, religious, how to ascertain its real nature 185 
 Descartes' opinion of medicine as an auxiliary to 
 
 thought 198 
 
 Of the seat of the mind ..... 34 
 Desponding Christians, not easily convinced of the 
 
 mistake concerning themselves . . .100 
 Such should pray for themselves, and seek an inte- 
 rest in the prayers of others .... 265 
 
 Case of Rev. Mr. Rogers 265 
 
 Despondency aggravated by the irritation of food and 
 
 drink 88 
 
 Decrees of God, Christians tempted to pry into them 171 
 
 Dreams, dependent on our physical condition__ . . 153 
 
 Their effect on the brain 82 
 
 Come through "the multitude of business" . . 154 
 Affected by the state of the stomach . . .153 
 
 Case of Baron Trenck . : . . . 153 
 Case of Condorcet — of Coleridge — of President 
 
 Edwards 154 
 
 Misapplied 155 
 
 Case of an aged female ..... 155 
 
 Of a young lady in England .... 155 
 
 Of two clergymen mentioned by Dr. Abercrombie 157 
 
 Shakspeare's description ..... 159 
 
INDEX. 287 
 
 PA8B. 
 
 Diary, extract from a preacher's account of nervous 
 
 females of his flock ..... 103 
 
 Diaphragm, remark of a physician concerning dis- 
 eases below it ...... 7 
 
 Dietetic economy to be studied by persons subject to 
 
 depression of spirits ..... 216 
 
 Diet, its effect on the moral faculty . . . 212 
 Digestion, organs of, connected with the mind . 31 
 Diseases, why nervous do not more impair the physi- 
 cal strength ....... 19 
 
 Diseases, change of late in their character . . 189 
 
 Diseases of the brain and nerves in England in 1856 190 
 
 Diaries of some eminent Christians read with pain 140 
 
 Few willing that survivors should see their own . 141 
 
 Dunglison, Dr 240 
 
 Drink, Dr. Johnson's opinion .... 211 
 
 Disciples in the garden of Grethsemane ... 25 
 
 Doctrine, the subject profitable for ... 100 
 
 Dod, Mr Ill 
 
 Drugs, stimulating or stupefying .... 245 
 Opinions of Drs. Good, Cullen, and. Moore, how 
 
 they operate on the body .... 246 
 
 Dyspepsia, Protean in its forms .... 38 
 
 Primarily a disease of the brain and nervous system 38 
 
 Dryden's translation of Lucretius . . . .42 
 
 Fable of Tityus 42 
 
 His method to obtain swiftness of thought and 
 
 flights of fancy ....*.. 198 
 
 E. 
 
 Ease, lethargic, not to be indulged . 
 Eastburn, Mr. Joseph, and Captain Wiekes 
 Eating, Dr. Holland's three rules . 
 
 How much a man may eat . 
 
 Opinion of Dr. Hall 
 
 Sedentary men eat too much 
 
 Dr. Johnson's rule to enable each to decide for 
 himself 
 
 Habit of President Edwards 
 
 His remark concerning Brainerd's melancholy 
 
 182 
 203 
 217 
 218 
 218 
 219 
 
 221 
 221 
 101 
 
288 INDEX. 
 
 FAaz. 
 
 Eating, President Edwards's power of endurance and 
 
 remarkable abstemiousness .... 221 
 
 His opinion concerning dreams 154 
 
 Exercises, bodily, and the revival in Kentucky . 59 
 
 in Ireland . . 63 
 
 Exercise and air commended by all physicians . 248 
 
 Exercise of body by certain Scotchmen . . . 250 
 
 The counsels of one who had been benefitted by it 251 
 
 Excess converts food into poison .... 215 
 
 Empiricism shows the power of imagination . . 64 
 
 Empiricism, private, discouraged . . . . 199 
 
 Epileptic fits cured by fear 50 
 
 Esquirol ascribes Cowper's insanity to Calvinism . 126 
 English writers, older, give prominency to subjects 
 
 such as are treated in this work . . . 179 
 Enjoyment, spiritual, connected with the quality and 
 
 amount of our food . . . . .234 
 
 F. 
 
 Fathers, concurring with Paul on the prejudicial in 
 
 fluence of the body on the spirit 
 Falling exercise mentioned by Dr. Davidson 
 Francia, Dr., of Paraguay .... 
 Frames, some Christians make too much of them 
 
 Case of Mrs. Hawkes .... 
 
 Letter of Mr. Cecil 
 
 Frames should be distinguished from principles 
 Familiarity ■^ith religion professional . 
 Faith, its efficacy in the cure of diseases 
 Fear, eflFect on four murderers in Russia . 
 
 Freedom from it, one cause of the safety of physi- 
 cians in epidemic and contagious diseases 
 
 Curative efficacy in cases mentioned by Doctors 
 Batchelder and Rush 
 
 Preventive of the monomania which is the cause of 
 BO many murders 
 
 Of epilepsy 
 
 Case in New Hampshire 
 
 Effect of Broussais' teachings 
 
 Case of Dr. Hunter . 
 
 26 
 
 59 
 
 81 
 
 159 
 
 161 
 
 162 
 
 162 
 
 225 
 
 262 
 
 48 
 
 49 
 
 49 
 
 50 
 50 
 60 
 50 
 51 
 
INDEX. 289 
 
 PAGE, 
 
 Fear, of a female mentioned in the French Journal 
 
 of Medicine, who became black from fe!ir . . 52 
 Of Marie Antoinette, whose hair became white in 
 
 a single night ...... 52 
 
 Of a Sepoy in the Bengal army .... 52 
 
 Of the youth who robbed an eagle's nest . . 53 
 
 Of the gambler at San Francisco ... 53 
 
 Fears of having eaten and drunk damnation . . 171 
 
 Foolish course of many with their melancholy friends 109 ' 
 
 Food, men need more than women .... 219 
 
 care and discrimination in the choice of . . 284 
 
 its effect 234 
 
 Fluctuations, spiritual 162 
 
 Case of Mrs. Hawkes 161 
 
 Case mentioned by Dr. Spencer .... 82 
 
 Fuller, Andrew, depressed in mind on his death-bed 104 
 Fulness of bread a predisposing cause of the vices of 
 
 the cities of the Plain 212 
 
 G. 
 
 Galen 42 
 
 Greenham's, old Mr., remark 99 
 
 Green, Dr. Ashbel, his resolution not to do any harm 226 
 His opinion on the causes of religious melancholy 115 
 On excluding ministers from the chambers of 
 
 the sick 
 
 Grief, description of Father Chrysostom . 
 
 Of Melancthon 
 
 Its effect on Philip of Spain 
 Gloominess consistent with a regenerate state . 
 Gout, cured by a paroxysm of fear . 
 Ghost, Holy, sin against— Father Austin's remark 
 concerning it . 
 Different opinions among the schoolmen concern 
 ing its nature . . • _ • 
 Good, Dr., on the bad effects of narcotics 
 
 His opinion concerning the spleen 
 Guthrie, Dr., his opinion of the change which takes 
 
 place in Christians at the moment of death . 277 
 25 
 
 268 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 
 272 
 49 
 
 145 
 
 146 
 
 246 
 
 42 
 
290 INDEX. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hair, turned wliite by fear 52 
 
 Haygarth's, Dr., exposure of Perkins's tractors • 64 
 
 Hall, EeT. Dr. James, case of melancholy . . 84 
 Hall, Rev. Dr., extract from his sermon on the death 
 
 of Dr. J. W. Alexander 274 
 
 Hall, Dr., on air and exercise .... 247 
 
 Cases of- suffering mentioned by him . . . 207 
 Harsh speeches do the desponding harm . . .111 
 Happiness, domestic, often dependent on the biliary 
 
 and digestive organs ..... 191 
 
 Haley's Memoirs of Cowper imperfect and disingenuous 127 
 
 Hawkes, Mrs., extract from her diary . . . 161 
 
 Heads of great thinkers ..... 33 
 
 Head of Bonaparte — of the insane — of Dean Swift 33 
 
 Henry VIII. and Cardinal Woolsey ... 37 
 Heart affected by the brain . . . . .38 
 
 by the passion of love ... 45 
 
 Heart of Dr. Hunter, disease of 51 
 
 Heart, Corvisart's lectures on .... 51 
 
 Heart disease. Testa's opinion .... 51 
 Heart diseases common in Italy and France during 
 
 the Revolution ...... 51 
 
 Heart-broken, cause of death of Philip V. of Spain 56 
 Heart renewed, its exercises affected by the condition 
 
 of the body .69 
 
 Healthy persons cannot understand the feelings of 
 
 those who are subject to nervous affections . 98 
 
 Health, counsel to promote it . . . . . 232 
 Health, bodily, connection between it and spiritual 
 
 enjoyment . . . . . . . 69 
 
 Henry VIII 37 
 
 Hippocrates on melancholy ..... 42 
 
 on temperance ..... 211 
 
 Hope, influence in curing disease .... 45 
 
 Experience of surgeons in the army ... 46 
 
 Patient of Dr. Rush, Austrian army ... 46 
 Hope, M. D., Rev. M. B., case of religious melan- 
 choly mentioned by him . . . .197 
 
 Holy Spirit's operation compared to work of a sculptor 70 
 
 Homer, his account of Tityus .... 41 
 
INDEX. 291 
 
 Hunter, Dr., cause of his disease of heart 
 Hufeland, Dr., commends the ancients 
 
 His opinion concerning infants that eat much ani- 
 mal food ...... 
 
 Hypochondriac, meaning of the word analyzed 
 
 I. 
 
 Idiosyncrasies 
 
 Idiots in a Massachusetts' Charity . . j 
 Imagination, power of . . . 
 
 Exemplified in the records of empiricism 
 In Dr. Haygarth's wooden tractors 
 In the experiment of Dr. Woodhouse . 
 Patient of Bartholini 
 Case of Franciscus Borri 
 Case mentioned by Selden . 
 Insanity, not produced by religion 
 Opinion of Dr. A. Alexander 
 of Dr. George Moore 
 of Dr. Ashbel Green 
 of Dr. James Johnson 
 of Dr. Abercrombie 
 of Burrowes, Cheyne, Combe 
 of Kirkbride, error exposed in a case re- 
 ported by Dr. Kirkbride 
 Irons, hot, and the epileptic patients 
 Introspection, sometimes injurious to spiritual progress 
 Ignorance of good men of things which affect their 
 
 spiritual enjoyment 
 
 Kemark on the subject by Dr. Cheyne 
 
 J. 
 
 James, the Apostle, his reproof of those who falsely 
 
 ascribe their temptation to God 
 Jerks, or jerking exercise in religion 
 
 Cases described, involuntary 
 
 Prayer, a sedative 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, his translation of Thuanus 
 Johnson's, Dr. J., opinion concerning a broken heart 
 
 Concerning night studies. ..... 
 
 On the best sort of drinks . . • • "> 
 John the Evangelist's temperament — Dr. Mason's remarks 73 
 
292 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 273 
 
 56 
 56 
 
 Job's history usefal for caution 
 
 Joy, its effect on a woman in New York . 
 
 on certain eminent men 
 Joys of heaven heightened by contrast with present 
 
 affliction 273 
 
 Juventius, said to have died of joy ... 56 
 Justification and sanctification, the desponding must 
 
 distinguish between them .... 261 
 Juvenile delinquents at Parkhurst . . . .23 
 
 K. 
 
 Kant, could forget the pain of gout by an effort of 
 
 thought 223 
 
 Kemper, Mr., his remark about the unpardonable sin 147 
 Knowledge of the subject especially important to cler- 
 gymen and instructors of chiidren ... 6 
 
 L. 
 
 Lawrence, Dr., his system of materialism . . 28 
 
 Lackington, Mr., his delusion .... 151 
 
 Laughter, an aid to digestion ..... 204 
 
 Latin distich on preserving health .... 222 
 
 Lady of genius, her opinion of hepatio influence on 
 
 her mind and spirits . . . ' . . 43 
 Leti G-regorius — his story of Jacob Morel and the 
 
 DukeD'Ossuna . . . ' . . .66 
 
 Leslie . . . . . . . . . 251 
 
 Life, its enjoyment dependent on the nervous system 19 
 
 Liver, what its use ...... 39 
 
 Influence on the temperament .... 40 
 
 Passions and moral feelings .... 44 
 
 Its affinities for that which is gloomy ... 40 
 
 The cause inexplicable ..... 40 
 
 The story of Tityua interpreted by Lucretius . 41 
 
 Locke's opinion of the influence of association . . 201 
 
 Love, the effect on the pulse ..... 45 
 
 Lucretius ........ 41 
 
 Lungs, affected by the brain ..... 88 
 
 Luther's, Martin, physical make .... 74 
 
 Dr. Cox's remark concerning him ... 75 
 
 Eev.xMr. Cecil's 73 
 
 Luxurious habits of London — their influence . . 216 
 
INDEX. 
 
 293 
 
 M. 
 Manicheans of the third century, their mixture of 
 
 Persian philosophy with Christianity . . 27 
 
 Materialism ....... 28 
 
 Madan's, Dr. , mistake of the source of Cowper's malady 104 
 Mad, why worldly men, on becoming religious, are 
 
 called madmen — ^Dr. Cheyne's reason . . 129 
 
 Mab, Queen 159 
 
 Maynwaring, Dr., his Tutela Sanitatis . . . 205 
 
 His advice to his melancholy patients . . . 205 
 
 MacNish, Dr., of Glasgow, on animal food . . 213 
 
 McDuflfs, Dr., remarks on spiritual fluctuations . 79 
 McNaughton, Dr., his remarks concerning the cases 
 
 of bodily exercises in Ireland .... 63 
 Maladies, spiritual, not to be bfooded over 225, 270 
 Martyn, Henry, injured by overtaxing his mind . 238 
 Mason, Dr., his remark concerning Peter and John 73 
 Medicine, why not more cultivated among the ancients 21 
 The father of it born not less than 600 years be- 
 fore Christ . 21 
 
 Medical relief in the case of a lady . - . 191 
 Medical advice recommended . . . .186 
 
 Melancthon on the effect of grief .... 55 
 
 Melancholy, meaning of the term .... 42 
 
 Keligious, ease described . . 136, 192 
 
 Wrong to nurture it . . . . 259 
 
 Not to reason against it . . 183, 257 
 
 Remark of Dr. Alexander . . . 183 
 
 Melancholy Christians misjudged .... 107 
 
 The occasion of prejudice against religion . . 77 
 Their sufferings often pr9duced by physical causes 78 
 Conceal their distress — case of Captain Wickes . 203 
 Means of grace neglected by desponding Christians 172 
 Mental disorder — ^four cases mentioned by the author 121 
 Mind, power of a disquieted, in the case of a Neapo- 
 litan merchant ...... 66 
 
 Mind, affected by the organs of the body . . 31 
 
 collapse of, occasioned by giving up business 223 
 Ministers should understand the influence of physical 
 
 causes . . ■ 98 
 
 25* 
 
294 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE, 
 
 Miller, Kev. Dr. Samuel, on night study . . 237 
 
 on the use of tobacco . 240 
 
 Milner, Kev. Isaac, his maladies more than forty years 85 
 
 His letter to Mr. Wilberforce .... 85 
 
 Moral qualities hereditary ..... 135 
 
 Moral Therapeutics ...... 68 
 
 N. 
 Narcotics, their injurious effects 
 Nerves, derivation of the word 
 
 245 
 17 
 Channels of communication between mind and body 17 
 
 - - - 17 
 
 18 
 18 
 19 
 19 
 19 
 20 
 
 Omnipresence in the animal fabric 
 Sensation caused by touching them 
 Sympathy — Nervous System 
 Wonderful that they are not oftener deranged 
 Not' mortify so soon as other parts of the body 
 Nervous force, its nature .... 
 Not electric power ..... 
 "Way of communication with brain and spinal mar 
 
 row, not known . . . . . 
 Notion of Hippocrates and Galen 
 Knowledge of this fact not important . 
 Morbid results of this connection 
 Nervous diseases, the most numerous class 
 
 How far we are accountable for the feelings they 
 
 produce 
 
 20 
 20 
 20 
 20 
 189 
 
 134 
 
 Newton, Rev. John, his remark to Cecil about Cowper 95 
 
 Case of his wife ...... 123 
 
 His remark on frames . . . . .162 
 
 Nitrous oxide and Professor Woodhouse ... 65 
 
 0. • 
 
 Orme's remark on the means of obtaining comfort in 
 
 spiritual distress . . . . . . 267 
 
 Occupation needful to the desponding . . . 222 
 
 P. 
 
 Paley, Archdeacon, on the spleen .... 43 
 His remarks on the goodness of Grod, written 
 
 under the pangs of the stone . . . 210 
 
 Parental habits, effect on their offspring . . .23 
 
 Testimony furnished by prisons and almshouses . 22 
 
INDEX. 295 
 
 FAOZ. 
 
 Paul, description of conflict between body and spirit 26 
 Passions, power in disturbing the healthful action of 
 
 the body ....... 45 
 
 Park and the flower in the desert . . . .47 
 
 Parish, Sir Woodbine, account of a gentleiflan exe- 
 cuted for murder in Buenos Ayres ... 82 
 
 His account of the north wind of Buenos Ayres . 81 
 Payson, Dr., his physical conformation and tendency 
 
 to depression . . . . . . .88 
 
 Remark concerning his biography . . . 140 
 
 His excessiye abstinence ..... 214 
 
 Prayer, desponding Christians afraid to pray . . 171 
 
 Paul the Apostle's method of promoting cheerfulness 206 
 
 Paris, Dr., on the free use of animal food . . '212 
 
 Page, Harlan 230 
 
 Playfair 250 
 
 Paul the Apostle, his temperament ... 72 
 
 Phrenology 28 
 
 Presentiment of Dean Swift ..... 33 
 Preachers, young, too many not qualified to direct 
 
 the doubting conscience ..... 97 
 Preachers, counsels of Dr. Rice to such as are trou- 
 bled with mental depression .... 252 
 Preaching, modern, a defect in .... 98 
 Pearson's, Mr., remark concerning Mr. Hay . . 139 
 Peering inward on ourselves . . . 164, 261, 265 
 Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk . . . .249 
 Peter, Simon, his natural temperament ... 72 
 Pious men, why they should be permitted to fall into 
 
 a state of mental darkness .... 272 
 
 No promises that insure them against such a trial 272 
 
 Poring upon "ourselves ...... 270 
 
 Sentiments of Mr. Rogers . _ . . . . 270 
 
 Providence, one of its deep mysteries . . . 271 
 
 "Plutarch's remark about the Boeotians . . . 234 
 
 Of the reaction of the mind upon the body . . 199 
 
 Physical evils mistaken for moral affections . . 98 
 Physical influence, doctrine of, capable of being 
 
 ' perverted ....••• 182 
 
 Not intended to be an apology for sin, or perverse- 
 
 ness of any sort ...... 131 
 
296 INDEX. 
 
 PAQE. 
 
 Physical influence, much in the doctrine to comfort 
 
 the suffering ....... 136 
 
 May incite us to watch against our besetting sins 141 
 Physicians, not every one competent to prescribe for 
 
 the desponding ...... 187 
 
 What they can do 187 
 
 Too often ignorant of the reciprocal action of mind 
 
 and body 187 
 
 Cannot read the book of the heart . . . 187 
 Need moral qualifications . . . . .264 
 
 R. 
 
 112 
 235 
 236 
 149 
 252 
 
 Religion never causes insanity 
 Rest of mind and body necessary . 
 
 Case of a theological student 
 Ridgely, Dr., on the unpardonable sin 
 Rice, Dr. N. L., his excellent remarks 
 Rolling exercise. Dr. Davidson's account of . .59 
 
 Rogers, Rev. Timothy 75 
 
 His description of religious melancholy . . 76 
 
 His advice about the choice of a physician . . 188 
 Several cases of religious despondency mentioned 
 
 by him 202 
 
 His instruction to the desponding to look to Christ 261 
 
 His own relief in answer to prayer . . . 265 
 
 His book a monument of his deliverance . . 266 
 His remarks on Grod's way of taking Christians to 
 
 heaven 276 
 
 Rousseau's hypochondria, how promoted . . . 199 
 
 Rush, Dr., his hopeful patient .... 47 
 His essay on the influences of physical causes on 
 
 the moral faculty ..... 101 
 
 His opinion that moral qualities are hereditary . 135 
 
 On the free use of animal food .... 212 
 
 On the moral qualifications necessary for a physician 264 
 Himself an instance of despondency without sus- 
 pecting the cause . . . . .101 
 
 Rutherford, his remark ..... 272 
 
 Russel's Seven Sermons, an extract from them . 150 
 
 Running exercise in revivals. Dr. Davidson's account 59 
 
INDEX. 297 
 
 PAQZ. 
 
 s. 
 
 Sacred writings, furnist little instruction concerning 
 
 the union of soul and body ... 23 
 
 Sanctification to be distinguished from justification . 261 
 Savages know little of nervous diseases . . .21 
 
 Saul, the king's, distressing affection ... 24 
 
 Stackhouse, his opinion of Saul's case ... 24 
 Saviour, the, recognizes the influence of the natural 
 
 over the spiritual part . . . . .25 
 
 Stratonice loved by Antiochus .... 45 
 
 Shame, case mentioned by Eev. Dr. Baker . . 57 
 Satanic agency, mistake of imputing to it what is 
 
 dependent on bodily disease . . . . 144 
 
 Case of Rev. John Newton's wife . . . 123 
 Cases of Bunyan and Martin Luther . . . 124 
 Standard of piety, to adopt one that is false, a tempta- 
 tion of desponding Christians .... 151 
 
 Shakspeare's account of dreaming .... 159 
 
 Self-examination, does not always aid us in obtaining 
 
 comfort from guilt ...... 266 
 
 Spleen, what its use — opinion of Dr. Good . . 42 
 
 Opinion of Archdeacon Paley .... 48 
 
 Supposed connection with low spirits ... 42 
 
 Selden's Table-Talk .■ ^'^ 
 
 Secretary of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris 105 
 Reproof of his medical brethren for looking at the 
 
 organic effects of disease instead of its cause 106 
 
 Sleep, M. Guizot's faculty for .... 237 
 
 Science, its testimony to the reciprocal influence of 
 
 mind and body ...... 27 
 
 Sin, unpardonable, opinion about it since the Re- 
 formation ....... 146 
 
 In many cases the fear of having committed it a 
 
 symptom of bodily disease .... 147 
 
 Case of a young man who for twelve years sup- 
 posed himself to be guilty of it . . . 148 
 Scripture, sudden recurrence of alarming passages 
 
 often misused ....•• 151 
 
 Spiritual desertion imagined . . . • • 168 
 Spirituality of mind not necessarily connected with 
 
 theological studies ...... 225 
 
298 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Spiritual depression periodical .... 
 
 Case mentioned by Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 Of Mr. Cecil 
 
 Of a venerable clergyman ..... 
 
 Spirits, low, Dr. Rice's opinion concerning the cause 
 Swift, Dean, his mental imbecility in latter part of 
 his life ...... 
 
 Soul, known only by its attributes or qualities 
 
 Stomach, its action on the mind 
 
 Sophocles, said to have died of excessive joy 
 
 Society, suitable, recommended 
 
 Schoolmen of the Middle Ages 
 
 Solomon on cheerfulness 
 
 Smoking produces cancer in the mouth . 
 
 Affection of the heart 
 Shuttleworth, Mr. Kay, his examination of the juve- 
 nile delinquents at Parkhurst . 
 Sufferers from depression not able to apply the truth 
 their case requires — Case of Dr. Bush 
 Case of Rev. Thomas Boston 
 Case of Rev. Thomas Scott 
 Subject of this book useful for correction 
 Superstition, cause of insanity 
 Sunshine, perpetual, not to be expected . 
 Sufferers mentioned by Dr. Hall 
 Study at unseasonable hours . 
 Opinion of Dr. James Johnson . 
 Of the author of a Doctor's Manual for the 
 Nervous ..... 
 
 Case of a theological student 
 Opinion of Dr. S. Miller . 
 Sympathy in the organs of the body 
 The fact well known .... 
 
 Sympathy of the mind defined 
 
 Exemplified in yawning, wheezing, asthma, cough 
 Sympathy, morbid and imitative 
 
 Physical effects seen in revivals of religion 
 Its power illustrated in the success of empiricism 
 Sympathy, too little felt for persons subject to ner- 
 vous affection ...... 
 
 81 
 
 82 
 
 83 
 
 85 
 
 253 
 
 33 
 
 14 
 
 35 
 
 56 
 
 200 
 
 146 
 
 210 
 
 244 
 
 240 
 
 23 
 
 101 
 102 
 104 
 112 
 115 
 142 
 207 
 235 
 235 
 
 286 
 236 
 237 
 
 18 
 
 36 
 
 57 
 
 58 
 
 58 
 
 59 
 
 64 
 
 109 
 
INDEX. 299 
 
 Sydenham's estimate of the proportion of fevers to 
 
 other diseases jgg 
 
 Dr. Cheyne's estimate ..... 189 
 
 Estimate of Trotter ' jgo 
 
 T. 
 
 Talma, died of excessive joy 5g 
 
 Tampering with drugg discouraged . . . 199 
 Rousseau's confession in regard to himself . . 199 
 Treatises on kindred subjects numerous ... 8 
 Temptations of the desponding .... 144 
 The power of temptation derived from ourselves . 144 
 Temptation of some to think that they have commit- 
 ted the sin against the Holy Ghost . . . 145 
 Temptation of the desponding to watch their fluc- 
 tuating frames I59 
 
 Case of Rev. Richard Baxter .... 266 
 
 Remarks of Mr. Orme 267 
 
 Treatises on the subject of this volume not called for 
 
 by many . . ' I79 
 
 Temperance 211 
 
 Taedium vitae, a panacea for 227 
 
 Tityus, the fable concerning him explained . . 41 
 
 Tobacco, its injurious efiects 239 
 
 Candidate for the ministry rejected for using it . 239 
 
 Case of Rev. Mr. Bull 239 
 
 King James the First, his Counterblast against 
 
 Tobacco 239 
 
 Edict against it in the time of Elizabeth . . 239 
 Cases mentioned by Dr. Dunglison . . . 240 
 Sentiments of Rev. Dr. Miller . . . 240, 243 
 Excessive use of it by theological students . . 240 
 A sin against our neighbour .... 242 
 Deaths in Germany caused by its use . . . 244 
 Its effect on the mind ..... 245 
 
 Its effect on the mouth in causing cancer . . 244 
 
 U. 
 
 Unpardonable sin 145 
 
 Uses of knowledge on 'the subject of this book for 
 
 doctrine 100 
 
 Urquhart injured by excessive study . . .238 
 
300 INDEX. 
 
 V. 
 Virgil, quoted .41 
 
 W. 
 
 Waterloo, case of a soldier wounded there 
 
 Watchfulness against melancholy . 
 
 Water, the best drink according to Hippocrates an 
 
 Dr. Johnson ..... 
 
 Watts, his remark concerning the disappointments of 
 
 heaven ....... 
 
 Wellington, Lord, his physical constitution 
 Wretchedness of a state of spiritual despondency 
 Writings, sacred, why give so little instruction on the 
 
 subject of this volume 
 They contain exemplifications of its truth 
 Wind, north, its effect in Buenos Ayres 
 
 31 
 
 259 
 
 211 
 
 277 
 
 74 
 
 136 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 81 
 
 Wife, deranged, mentioned by a minister of London 180 
 Wickes, Captain, a case of prolonged melancholy . 203 
 White, Henry Kirke, depressions of mind . .238 
 Woodhouse, Dr., his experiment to show the power 
 
 of imagination ...... 65 
 
 Work on the subject of this volume called for .16 
 Woolsey, Cardinal 37 
 
 Zimmermann, Dr., his account of the death of Philp V., 
 
 King of Spain ...... 55 
 
 THE END. 
 
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