THE
HEALTHY CHRISTIAN:
AN APPEAL TO THE CHURCH.
BY HOWARD CROSBY,
PASTOR OF FOURTH-AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHUROH,
NEW YORE.
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, "-y the
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress,
at Washington.




PREFACE.
ADDRESS this book to Christians; to
i  those who, being in Christ Jesus, walk
X  X  not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
It is an effort to stir up pure minds by
way of remembrance.
The world's way of making a good Christian
is to lead the Christian into conformity with
itself and reduce Christianity to a matter of
ethics, and perhaps physiology. The Bible way
is to separate the Christians from the world
unto Christ, according to the grand truth that
Christianity is not a code or system for mind
and body, but a divine life, a life which is
directly antagonistic to the world's life.  The
church is lamentably allied to the world through
the agencies of wealth and fashion; and it becomes us to sound an alarm for Christ's sake,
and remind the people of God of their true privileges and responsibilities. Under the impulses
of earthly ambition for place and riches, a tendency has been developed to bring down all




4               PREFACE.
religion to the low level of a respectable naturalism, and thus dishonor God's revelation.
Sincerity (a sincerity, too, which scorns all seeking after God) is considered quite as good cas
regeneration; and a man is counted a Christian
who utterly ignores the person, work, and word
of Christ. It is considered a beautiful liberality
to put Mohammed, Vishnu, the Virgin Mary,
and Ormuzd on a par with Jesus, and to count
science, reason, poetry, and revelation as equal
authorities. This is the prevailing style of religion that we find in the newspapers which have
to cater to every sort of taste, and which, therefore, deemed an undefined olla podrida the most
Siitable form of religion for journalism. Weak
souls are snared by this popular and human
thing, and the vox populi becomes to them the
vox Dei. The true voice of God in his revealed
word is first neglected, then despised, then assailed.
The only remedy for this evil is for each individual Christian to renew his application to that
word, and, under its guidance, to come out and
be separated from the world at whatever cost of
social position, political honors, or pecuniary
fortune. We are to trust in the Lord and go
forward, and we shall find in him our exceeding great reward.




CHAPTER I.
The General View --------                    PAGE   7
CHAPTER II.
Other Means of Life —---------------------------- 22
CHAPTER III.
The Soul's Food —--------- ----- ----- --   37
CHAPTER IV.
The Soul's Food: Love for God's Word -3 —---------  3
CHAPTER V.
The Soul's Fresh Air ------------------------       69
CHAPTER VI.
The Soul's Exercise: in the Family ----------- 86




6                  CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
The Soul's Exercise: in Church Relations -1. —    102
CHAPTER VIII.
The Soul's Exercise: in the World without ------—. 117
CHAPTER IX.
The Soul's Exercise: in Christian Society —. —----- 131
CHAPTER X.
The Soul's Exercise: in Personal Culture ----- -- 147
A Closing Word ----------------------------- 162




THE
HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
CHAPTER I.
THE  GENERAL  VIEW.
" THAT THEY MAY BE SOUND IN THE
FAITH."
HE  old English word "sound,"
\11  S like the Greek  ytaivoav of this
passage in Paul's epistle to Titus, is
equivalent to the ordinary English
"healthy."  The apostle urges his
representative in Crete to secure healthiness in
the faith to the Cretan Christians. Titus 1:13.
As to the faith he speaks of, it is too often
referred merely to doctrine. Faith in the




8     THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
gospel sense has two complementary parts;
the one is the objective truth revealed by God
in his word, and the other is the soul's grasp
of that truth, the personal appropriation and
absorption of the divine doctrine. We have
no right to use the words "the faith" as meaning an external creed. The article before the
word does not give us that right, for in the
next chapter to the one from which we have
derived our text, we find the aged men are
to be sound in the faith, in the charity, and in
the patience-as the Greek has it. Now as
the charity and the patience refer to a condition of heart, so does the faith.  We have
corrupted the word in our usage, and talk of
a man's faith, when we refer only to the intellectual theses that he has chosen, for any
purpose whatever, to write on his standard.
We must correct this error, when we read the
Bible. Soundness in the faith does not mean
orthodoxy, but a healthiness of the soul in its
acceptance of the pure truth of God. Tbo
subjective side of the phrase receives the
greater emphasis.
This healthiness in faith, as subjective, is a




THE GENERAL VIEW.             9
personal matter. It cannot be affirmed of a 
aggregate, a community, without regard to
the individuals composing the community. If
the faith were in externals, it might be so
affirmed. Rites, ceremonies, and emblazoned
formularies would satisfy all the conditions.
A church composed of devils might in this
way be sound in the faith. But a healthy
church is that which consists of healthy Christians.
What, then, is a healthy Christian?  That
is the important question which we shall attempt to'answer in the following pages. The
very word suggests a comparison of soul with
body, and in pursuing this comparison we
may, perhaps, best reach our end.
The most natural inference which we draw
from the Ford and its use by the apostle is
that there are sickly Christians. Christ, the
great Physician, came to give health to these
souls, but somehow they have not received
the boon in its fulness. The remedies have
been sufficient, and the Physician has been
infinitely skilful.  The fault, therefore, must
lie in the patients.  Either they have not




10   TTHE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
conformed to the prescriptions, or they have
counteracted their effect by inconsistent additions, or they have permitted evil influences
to act upon them, and thus thwarted the sufficient help afforded them.
The inference from the apostle's words is
fully sustained by observation. Nothing can
be more apparent than the difference between
the New Testament Christian and the average Christian of to-day. If we draw a portrait of a Christian from the descriptions furnished us in Scripture, we have a man separated from the world, abjuring its habits of
life, its aims and ambitions, its maxims and
methods, its pomps and pleasures, and separated unto Christ; finding joy unspeakable i'
communion with Him, serving Him in His
cause of grace, using opportunities and means
to do good after His pattern, making all his
alliances and intimacies with Christ's people,
and living in the happy expectation of a home
with God.  But if we draw the portrait of
the average Christian, we have a man who
makes his partnerships and close relationships
with a Christless world, assumes the world's




THE GENERAL VIEW.              11
style of living, engages his attention and time
in the plans and purposes of this short life,
avoids any separating token from the world
lest he mar his worldly prospects, never speaks
of Christ except by a violent effort, is seen in
questionable transactions, brings up his family for earthly prizes, and dreads death and
eternity. These outward differences, that are
noticeable at a glance, could be paralleled by
the differences in spiritual feeling and principle. In the one case are profound meditation
on God's revealed truth, a handling of the
precious promises, a cheerful study of God's
daily providence, a constant inhaling of heavenly grace as of the odors of sweet flowers
all along the road, and the joyous feeling of
growing strength in the way of Christ; while
on the other are cares of property and preferment, envies and jealousies towards the more
successful, conscience-struggles against the
calls of God, grief or vexation at earthly disappointments, and a general dissatisfaction
and restlessness.
The average Christian thus described, is
sickly. By hypothesis he is a Christian, but




12    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
he has just enough life in his soul not to be
entirely dead. His spiritual life corresponds
to. the physical life of a man in a fever, and
with ulcers breaking forth upon his flesh,
racked with cough, tormented with headache,
or lost, perhaps, in stupor. He lives, but what
a life!
It is a melancholy and alarming fact that
vast numbers of Christians are of this type,
bringing reproach on the name they bear, and
counteracting the blessed invitations of the
gospel by the sad specimens of Christianity
they exhibit in themselves.
The conviction forces itself upon us that
the scars of these inconsistencies must remain
on the soul for ever. Heaven is not a dead
level. Grades mark differences of character
there, and the elements of that gradation we
may not anticipate. In mysterious consonance
with heaven's happiness must be the different
positions of those who have persisted even to
the last in frittering away the gifts of grace
by shameful dallying with a false world. We
cannot but believe that the Nethinim foreshadowed a class in heaven.  Surely there




THE GENERAL VIEW.              13
are some Gibeonitish Christians who will be
hewers of wood and drawers of water in the
Promised Land. It will not do for these sickly
Christians to say that when death comes, it will
be all the same. It will not be all the same.
The consequences of their worldliness will go
with them to all eternity. How that will be is
not for us to say, but the Scripture is very
plain that a wilful neglect of Christian privileges meets its appropriate reward. We will
not endeavor to interpret the following words
of our Lord, but they mean something: "That
servant, which knew his Lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according-to
his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."
This subject is one of the most important
that can appeal to a Christian's mind. It is
the question of his own relation to the Lord
Jesus and his work of grace. It is the question
of growth and evangelization. It is the question of personal truth and righteousness. One
grand reason why the whole world is not now
the Lord's by faith is the personal worldliness
of Christians. Not one Christian in ten testifies
as he should for his Master; not one in a




r14    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
thousand is a "burning and shining light."
The whole church, which ought to be electric
at every point, each member surcharged from
the Holy Spirit, has a feeble, fragmentary
efficiency, and shows the activity of a rheumatic
patient who has a few fingers free.  The
revival of the church is the first question before
Christians to-day. Let the joy of Christ's
salvation be understood by the church, and
then she may teach transgressors God's ways,
and behold sinners converted to the truth in
Jesus. It is Christians that need conversion,
just as poor Peter did; and the longer they
defer it, the harder a road will they make it.
Oh, what a sight this is for the angels! the
Lord Christ is crying out his heavenly wares,
and his own people will not buy them, though
an open treasury is theirs to use, given them
for this end.
That we may minister to the sick church,
let us examine what a healthy Christianity is.
Two great systems of efficiency are found in
the human body, the blood-system  and the
nerve-system. The heart is the reservoir of
the former and the brain of the latter. Through




THE GENERAL VIEW.              15
the blood the food is assimilated to the body,
and thus the body is constantly preserved and
maintains its integrity. The food supplies the
blood, and the air we inhale is a constant
purifier of the blood so supplied. On this
blood-system depends all else in the body, so
that the Scripture statement has a literal
force: "The life of the flesh is in the blood."
Lev. 17:11.  By a marvellous network of
arteries, capillaries and veins the blood is
circulated through every portion of the human
frame, and is perpetually engaged in its work
of repairing the body's waste and fostering its
growth.  If the blood lose in quantity or
quality, or if the circulation be impeded, the
body at once fails, weakness. and disease
invade it, and the life is so far marred. Hence
the main effort of the physician is to restore
the efficiency of the blood, and when this is
established, the  "vis medicina nature " —nature's restorative energy-accomplishes the
cure. The poison of the viper does not affect
the body until it is taken into the blood, and
conversely the purification of the blood is the
healing of the man.




16    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
Now if we regard the spiritual man, we find
an analogue to the blood-system of the body
in Christ himself. Christ is our life, just as in
the body "the life is in the blood."  It is as
Christ permeates the soul in its every department and function that the Christian meets
the requirements of his new  nature.  His
personal contact with the soul builds it up and
prevents its decay, supplying its ever-recurring
wants. He is "made unto us wisdom  and
righteousness and sanctification," as'well as
redemption; just as, in the body, bone and
sinew  and cartilage are derived from  the
blood, the whole man being built up from this
source. There is no part of the spiritual man
for which Christ is not the sufficient supply.
What are called the graces of the Spirit are
but the applications of Christ. The reason of
their name "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal. 5:22
and Eph. 5:9,) we shall consider hereafter.
What is our spiritual joy but the result of the
consciousness of Christ's saving presence?
What is our spiritual patience but the rest
and contentment which spring from the same
source? What is our Christian love but the




THE GENERAL VIEW.               17
touch of Christ's love reacting in us? See in
what a comprehensive way the cross of death
furnished us with life! Understand how Christ
is "all and in all!"  Behold how  without
Christ spiritual life is impossible! A soul
without Christ is as a body without blood. It
is a dead soul, however you may give it the
semblance of life by art. The Christless soul
is as truly destitute of spiritual life as the
beast is destitute of rational life, and the vegetable is destitute of animal life. The vegetable
lives, but it lives on a lower plane than the
beast; the beast lives, but it lives on a lower
plane than the man; the man lives, but he
lives on a lower plane than the saint.  So
when we say that a soul not sainted by Christ's
presence is dead, we do not say it has no kind
of life, but that it has no spiritual life-no
particle of that highest life for which God
designed it. In this true and sublime view, it
is dead. The spiritual life consists in Christ
everywhere active in the soul, as the blood is
in the body.  Of course this cannot be a
Christ speculative, or a Christ sentimental. Neither speculation nor sentiment is a spring of
Hea. tlhy Chrlptian.  2




18    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
life. Nor can it be a human Christ, who shall
cause a divine life in the soul. It is not an
exemplary Christ or a sympathizing Christ, but
an indwelling, energizing Christ, who must
form the very blood of the soul, his example
and his sympathy being real but secondary to
his essential union with us. It is in this way
the Christian says, "1 live, and yet not I, but
Christ liveth in me."  Gal. 2:20. So we can
understand the wonderful words of the prayer
of Jesus, "As thou, Father, art in me and I
in thee, that they also may be one in us." "I
in them and thou in me."  "That the love
wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them and.I in them."  John 17:21, 23, 26.
What is it that fills the Christian heart with
peace and causes it to rejoice in the fulness
of a heavenly hope? Is it its holiness? Is it
the record of the earth-life? Is it even God's
mercy and love?  Is not " Christ in us the
hope of glory"? Is not Christ dwelling in the
soul and moving it in its life, as the blood
dwells and moves in the veins, the cause and
pledge of our glory, the true basis of our joy
-and hope,?




THE GENERAL VIEW.             19
It is this which separates true Christianity
from all religions of mere creed and law, as
far as the heaven is separated from the earth.
The Christian, to whom duty is the idea of
religion, has not begun to understand the
principle of his spiritual life. Duty has no
part in the Christian scheme except as it proceeds from the Christ-life of the soul. In any
other light it is self-righteousness and heathenism. Hence the cry of God to the soul is not
" Do," but " Believe;" and this leads to another
branch of thought.
The blood is formed in the body from the
food eaten. So Christ is formed in us from
the Holy word accepted by faith. Faith is
thus the mouth of the soul, in accordance with
that exhortation of the Lord, "Open thy mouth
wide and I will fill it."  Ps. 81:10.  We
receive Jesus through the word. He that
feeds on God's word has Christ formed in him.
The written word introduces the personal
Word. And as the body cannot eat once for
all, but must eat daily, so God's word must be
daily used in order that the Christ-life be sustained in our souls. The disuse of the word




23    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
is, starvation process for the Christian. The
first Psalm describes the blessed man as one
meditating day and night in God's revealed
truth; and the 119th Psalm is a varied reiteration of the paramount importance of a
constant feasting upon the same holy word.
It is by reason of the waste and losses of the
body that the blood must be ever renewed by
food, and it is by reason of the waste of the
soul, its frailty and weakness through sin, that
Christ must be ever supplied anew to it by the
aliment of the word. From these considerations we may see the relation of the Bible to
the Christian. It is a vital relation. His
intelligence is in question only in a subordinate
way. His heart, his life, his inner being of
will and motive and affection are directly interested. The intellectual elements of the Bible
are only valuable as, by enlightening the mind,
they open the heart. The Bible is life-giving
only as Christ is in it, and the reading of the
Bible is life-receiving only as Christ is accepted in it. It is faith that alone makes this
appropriation. It is the trust of a child
listening to its father's voice, and by a natural




THE GENERAL VIEW.               21
instinct storing its treasures of truth il the
chambers of the soul.  It is a process of the
tenderest and truest affections. The soul has
passed beyond the region of doubts and critici;m when it has thus learned to feed on the
word. It has tasted the heavenly manna and
knows its freshness and sweetness.
A dark thought has to be inserted here. It
is possible for the Christian, by yielding to
worldly influences, to lose his relish for this
celestial food. "Our soul loatheth this light
bread" was said of provision from God's own
table. There is no better test of a healthy
piety than an appetite for the Bible. It shows
the soul's fondness for Christ and its longing
to sustain the constant experience of Christ
within.  It shows that it knows the way to do
this, and makes a habit of its privilege.  The
Bible study of faith is the making blood for
the soul, the supply of Christ's efficiency to
the spiritual life.




CHAPTER  II.
THE  GENERAL  YIEW —OTHER
MEANS  OF  LIFE,
^^ON^ONSIDER next some other features in the analogy between
(I  physical and spiritual life.:/   In the body the blood is kept pure
(  by the respiratory organs, supplying
fresh oxygen with every breath. Without this
the avenues of life would be clogged and the
food would prove a minister of evil and death.
Now it is remarkable how constantly the
teachings of Christ and his apostles urge Christians to association. They are not to forsake
the assembling of themselves together; the
very name of church (&Kc7aia) denotes an
assembly. A special blessing is given to the
gathering together of Christians to pray; they
are to meet together on the first day of the
week; they are spoken of as a company; they




OTHER MEANS OF LIFE.            23
are to refresh and comfort one another; in
short, the whole New Testament views the
Church of Christ as a band of brethren gathered together and separated from the world.
This Christian communion acts to the individual Christian as the fresh air acts upon the
body. It is by this that the faith of the soul
is preserved from becoming false or fantastic,
and the graces are maintained in truth.
Isolation begets selfishness, and selfishness
is the bane of faith. The truth of God in us
needs a perpetual contact with that truth in
others in order to preserve its purity. The
plant shut out from light and air withers or
has a sickly growth; and the Christianity that
foregoes the communion of the saints loses its
tone and is a prey to spiritual fungi.'e
cannot find high types of Christian life either
in the hermit's cell or in the haunts of fashion.
The Christianity found in either lacks oxygen.
It has not breathed a healthy atmosphere.
Asphyxia is threatened in each case: in the
one case by breathing, or trying to breathe, in
a vacuum, and in the other by breathing in an
impure air. The same divine physician who




24    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
has prescribed for us the food of the word,
has also prescribed a Christian communion as
a regulator of that word's effects in the heart.
The blood is indebted not only to the food
but to the air we breathe; and our possession
of Christ in us is dependent not only on the
truth we accept, but on the company we keep.
A clear conviction and childlike faith, with the
elasticity and vigorous glow belonging to them,
may be followed by a sad experience of doubts
and fears, of sloth and stupidity, of waywardness and wandering, all by reason of the false
associations permitted by the converted heart.
The sources of truth are kept open to the soul,
but they are counteracted in their efficacy by
the constraints of evil associations. "I read
my Bible and I pray," say many, "but I
obtain no relief."  The trouble is not in
the food, but the air. The social intimacies of
the world nullify all that the Bible and prayer
might do. No food will keep a man healthy
in a fetid cellar or armid the fumes of a matchfactory. The cry to a believer should be as
much " Look to your lungs" as "Look to your
stomach."  Cultivate a Christian society, as




OTHER MEANS OF LIFE.             25
well as study prayerfully God's word, if you
would have Christ in you as the blood of your
soul in a pure and unimpeded current.
But there is still another important consideration. We are wont, and rightly, to couple
exercise with air, when we prescribe for debilitated bodies. We know the breathing itself is
performed better when the body is properly
excited by motion; that the lungs play to their
full extent, and every corner of their functionary
surface is brought into use. We know, too,
that by exercise, desirable mechanical as well
as chemical changes are superinduced in the
system, the body throwing off its incumbrances,
while its tissues are strengthened by a more
equal distribution of its humors. So the soul
needs its exercise. It must put forth its activities in its social opportunities. The social
benefits will be rightly received and their
virtues enhanced by this. A Christian must
not be a passive recipient among his fellows,
but he must improve his recipiency by activity.
It is as we exercise our graces that they grow.
Christian society furnishes us with a pure air
to breathe, but we must be stirring amid it, if




26    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
we would gain all its advantages in ourselves.
We must drink it into the lungs of our spiritual
man by cheery exercise. Christian work ought
to be no more irksome than the activity of a
healthy body on a crisp autumn morning. By
Christian work we mean any use of the graces
God has given us.  The sympathies, the
encouragements, the helps, the instructions,
which we may bestow  on others; the selfrestraint, the love, the patience, the forbearance, which we may cultivate in ourselves;
the faith, obedience, hope, and filial affection,
which we may foster toward God-all classify
themselves under the head of Christian work,
that active exercise by which we make the
most of Christian society, and render it fully
the accompaniment of the spiritual food which
the word furnishes to the soul.
This sketch of the soul's blood-system may
suffice for our purpose. A few words respecting the soul's nerve-system follow. The nerves
of the body give sensation to every part, and
thus arouse responsive action to every touch
from without.  They are, besides, the connecting link between body and mind, running




OTIER MEANS OF LIFE.          27
in this way into a region where we cannot
trace them. A peculiar mystery belongs to
them in this their relation to the higher being.
In both these relations the nerves are the
watchful superintendents of the whole frame.
The blood-system could not exist a moment
without the nerve-system. It would forget to
perform iif functions if the nerves did not ever
give their ready signals. It is through the
nerves, too, the senses act. Sight and hearing,
smelling and taste would not be, but for nerves
which make them possible and efficient.
All our discriminations in the material world
are made through the nerves. We know the
difference between the sweet odor of the rose
and the foul fumes of mephitic vapor-between
the fair, sunny landscape, with stream and
mountain, and the dingy aspect of a smoky
factory-town in a rainp-storm; between the
delicious flavor of a peach and the bitter taste
of wormwood-only by the action of our nerves.
Now, if we turn to the spiritual man, we find
an element of the spiritual life which exactly
answers to the, nerve-system. It watches over
the whole life. It makes it sensitive to the




28    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
impact of the spiritual world without; it sug.
gests the soul's responsive activity; it connects
the soul with the mysterious infinite by bonds
that transcend description and definition, and
it gives the spiritual man his powers of discernment between good and evil. This is the
Spirit of God in the conscience and consciousness; (the Greeks had one word, &^(e6a, for
both.) The Spirit of God is resident in the
believer; hence he is called the temple of the
Holy Spirit. 1 Cor. 6-19; 2 Cor. 6-16. It is
from this source come the spiritual perceptions
and discriminations of the regenerated soul.
Look at Paul's remarkable language: "God
hath revealed [these mysteries] unto us by
his Spirit; for the Spirit searcleth all things,
yea, the deep things of God. For what man
knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit
of man which is in him? Even so the things
of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of
God. Now we have received, not the spirit of
the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things which are freely
given us of God....... But the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of




OTHER MEANS OF LIFE.           29
God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither
can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth
all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
Foli who hath known the mind of the Lord,
that he may instruct him? But we have the
mind of Christ."  1 Cor. 2:10-16.  This
indwelling of God the Spirit in the believer's
soul is too often explained away as figurative,
because incomprehensible. The presence of
our own souls within our bodies is incomprehensible; how can we expect to comprehend
the indwelling of the Divine Spirit?  But the
incomprehensible is true and demands our
faith, and the recognition of God within us
is the grandest secret of Christian growth.
"'Know ye not your own selves," says the
Apostle, "how that Jesus Christ is in you?"
2 Cor. 13:5. And so the Spirit is affirmed to
dwell equally within us. "If any man have
not the Spirit of Christ," (called the Spirit of
God immediately before,) "he is none of
His; and if Christ be in you, the body is dead
because of sin, but the spirit is life because of
righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that




30    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,
he that raised up Christ from the dead shall
also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit
that dwelleth in you." Rom. 8:9 —11. Here the
Spirit is called both the Spirit of God and the
Spirit of Christ, and has a veritable indwelling
in the human body and soul as the soul's true
life, and yet is distinct from Christ dwelling
in us. We may talk of it as an influence
or an emotion or a tendency; but it is more
than those. It is one who can bear witness
with our spirit, (ver. 16,) help our infirmities
and make intercession for us, (ver. 26,) and
that is what an influence or emotion or tendency could not do.  No! let us meet the
stupendous fact fully. It is truly God in us.
As we have said, the Holy Spirit in us is the
nerve-system of the spiritual life. It is he
who watches and witnesses within us, and by
his holy influences keeps the truth in us pure
and energetic. It is he who who gives that
wisdom of perception by which the Christian
soul knows the truth from a lie, and almost
instinctively separates the good from the evil.
It is he who checks and corrects, warns and




OTHER MEANS OF LIFE.            31
exhorts, encourages and soothes the soul in its
various exercises and experiences. Christ is
in us as the source of growth and the maintainer of life, and the Joly Ghost is in us as
the communicator of the life-principle, the
furnisher of spiritual sensation and its discriminating power. In point of time there is no
priority in the reception of Christ and the
Holy Spirit by the soul, but in logic there is.
It is the Holy Spirit who regenerates, who
quickens the dead soul to a new birth, and
thus enables it to accept Christ and all his
efficiency. Born of the Spirit, the new-born
soul feeds on the sincere milk of the word and
thus Christ is developed within. The whole
is one work of God with the soul, but our
finite minds are obliged to analyze and look
at it in parts.
The nerve-system of the body is preserved
in health by the same means which preserve
the blood-system. If the blood is kept pure
and vigorous, the nerves, like the sinews and the
muscles, will be kept in healthy exercise. So
in the Christian soul, it is Christ in us, in his
truth and fulness, through a constant com



32    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
munion with the word and with Christ's own
redeemed ones, that will ever preserve our
conscience from numbness and our judgment
from error. So our.active conscience and
correct judgment will react upon us in making
Christ more clear and satisfactory to the soul.
Tihe two systems act and react upon one
another. There is blood in the brain and
there are nerves in the heart. No human
mind can draw the line between the work of
Jesus and the work of the Spirit in the converted soul. The interlacings and implications
of both among motives, perceptions, affections
and will are a mystery and must be a mystery.
But we may make the general analysis, that
we have made, in considering Jesus Christ as
forming the-life-blood of the soul and the
Holy Spirit as forming the nerve-power of the
same, in its new condition as begotten of God
and endowed with a new nature. We may, in
general, place Christ in the region of the
affections and will, and the Holy Spirit in the
region of the conscience and judgment, and
yet we know well that this is but a crude
approximation to the truth.




OTHER MEANS OF LIFE.            33
A sound faith (or a healthy faith) is, then, a
free and regular action of these divine elements
in us, a "fulness of God," in accordance with
that prayer of Paul regarding the Ephesians:
"that he would grant you, according to the
riches of his glory, to be strengthened with
might by his Spirit in the inner man, that
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith....... that ye might be filled with all the
fulness of God."  A sound faith is a faith
which makes Christ, the life of the soul, to be
felt in every fibre of our being, giving a glow
to all and conforming all to itself; and in
which the Holy Spirit is ever the inspirer and
guide of this soul-life. A sound faith is thus
eminently a divine thing. It has no earthly
contents or earthly support. It anticipates
the heavenly citizenship and lives here an
exotic, a stranger and foreigner. It is no
product of philosophies or societies or poetry.
Nor can it be gauged by men's natural judgments, however refined and educated they
may be. MAen (unconverted and unregenerate
men) cannot, therefore, prescribe for a faith,
that it may become sound.  They are conUealtll Christian.  3




34    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
stantly attempting it, but none of their
nostrums ever reach the seat of the disease.
Nor can men without effort expect to gain a
sound or healthy faith. " Giving all diligence"
is the apostolic precept. (2 Pet. 1:5.) Unless
watched and nurtured, the soul's health decays.
Everything around us tends to injure the
plants of grace. Just as a diligent study of
God's word and a diligent companionship with
sincere Christians are necessary to the purity
and fulness of the Christ-life within, so a
diligent prayer-communion with God is the
essential condition of the spirit-life in us.
There is an analogy here with the nerve-life
of the body and its mysterious connections
with magnetism, electricity, and other imponderable agents. Prayer takes this mysterious
and powerful place in the soul's life, and
diligence in prayer must accompany diligence
in the word and Christian intercourse if we
would have the whole spiritual man healthy
and strong. Christ and the Holy Ghost are
both indwellers of the believer; the entire
spiritual life is in their presence and work.
The word and communion with the saints




OTHER MEANS OF LIFE.          35
nourish the Christ-experience, while prayer
nourishes the Spirit-experience, and yet both
are really one. As we have before seen, the
two streams are for ever intermingling. One
cannot take this Bible view of salvation and
renewal without seeing that no natural growth
could ever develop a Christian or a saint.
There must be a new birth or a new begetting
of God. And not only must the unconverted
soul bemade to realize this foundation fact,
but the believer must ever renew its freshness
in him, so that he may be saved sad legalistic
and self-righteous mistakes in attempting to
increase in holiness. Your growth, my Christian brother, is from within, not from without.
It is only through God in you that you can
grow. There is the root and sap of your
spiritual life. Laws and rules and churches
and ordinances have nothing to do with it,
except as they are the products of it. A due
thought of this will send you for a renewal of
soundness and health, not to any form of
external duty, but to your Bible and your
knees.  You will keep your heart with all
diligence, as appreciating the truth that out of




36    T HE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
it are the issues of life. You will be jealous
over it with a godly jealousy, and remember
that it belongs to God. You will be to the
world-that distinctive thing which belongs
only to Satan-as one dead, and your life will
be hid with Christ in God.
If you were sound in faith, healthy in your
piety, what an impassable gulf would lie
between you and the Christless world! for
God dwelleth in you I




CHAPTER III.
THE  SOUL'S FOOD.'THY LAW DO J LOVE."  FS. 119:163.
N the former chapters we have
followed the analogy of the bodily
life and spiritual life as suggested by
Scripture, and have noted that as the
blood-system and nerve-system mutually sustain one another, and the two form the
sources of physical life, so the Lord Jesus
Christ and the Holy Spirit in mysterious conjunction form the life eternal of the soul; and
we have also noted that as the blood and
nerve-fluid are furnished to the body through
the food, so the indwelling of Christ and the
Spirit is through the word of God; and, moreover, that as the blood and nerve-fluid thus




38     THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
originating are maintained in purity by means
of the breath, exercise, and nervous influences,
so the indwelling of Christ and the Spirit is
made efficient by Christian communion, activity, and prayer. We have thus all the data
from which to examine in detail the conditions
of a healthy piety.
1. Our first consideration will concern the
relation of the Christian to the written word of
God. I use the word "written" advisedly, for
to some minds it may appear arbitrary to
bind a man's salvation to a book, which might
be lost or put out of reach or become corrupted. Indeed, this is a very favorite objection
to Christianity on the part of a large class of
philosophers. They plead against it its injustice and partiality, as it makes salvation easier
to some than to others; perhaps, indeed,
impossible to many. No doubt there are sin..
cere minds that struggle with this perplexity,
and are inclined to feel that a revelation that
is to all alike is the only revelation which they
can accept, and that hence a written revelation
they must reject. There is an apparent force
in this argument, but yet a few  moments'




THE SOUL'S FOOD.               39
thought will destroy it; for, in the first place,
a revelation comes with its own proofs.  Having thus proved itself, no outside considerations
can invalidate it. Christianity is a revelation
proved by its own inherent perfections and by
the overwhelming evidences of the miraculous
works attending its proclamation. From Genesis to Revelation, from Adam to John, its
light shines in unmixed brilliancy, (for it is
alike Christianity before and after the earthly
life of Christ.) The divinity of the record is
as clear to the unprejudiced mind as the celestial origin of the midday sun.  God's grace
raising man from sin to holiness through the
sufferings of the God-man is a doctrine of
grandeur and perfection that no human mind
could ever have conceived; and all the accordant teachings of purity in the heart, love to
God and man and renunciation of self, are
both incomprehensible and repugnant to the
natural man. Besides this heavenly aspect
of the word, we have the external wonders
wrought in its confirmation by Moses, Elijah
and Elisha, and Christ and his apostles, done
in no corner, but performed openly before




40    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
nations, and deeply and permanently inscribed
on the common memories and traditions of
the race, as well as minutely recorded on the
sacred pages. These testimonies do not wax
weak through age, as some would falsely and
craftily argue. Is a father's testimony to his
early home any the less strong because the
child has never seen that home, and never
saw his father's childhood? When that child
is himself a grandfather, is his testimony to
his father's home anyweaker to his grandchildren? It is a false formula that evidence
grows weak by age. The character of the
bearers, and not the time through which they
bear it, can alone invalidate evidence. The
miracles of Jesus and his apostles are just as
potent testimonies to-day as they were when
they were performed. Nobody can impeach
the witnesses. The fulness of historic light
shines on them, and they stand out as conspicuously as the Alps in the sunshine. False
miracles and fabulous legends cannot bear
investigation, but the miracles of Christ and
the apostles court and rejoice in the most
searching scrutiny. Tle more you compare




THE SOUL'S FOOD.           41
the diamond and its imitation, the better for
the diamond. He is a fool who, because of
the imitation, flings all away and denies the
diamond.
The written revelation coming thus to us
with its attendant testimony within and withlout, it is the part of common sense to meet
theoretical objections with contempt. When
once a truth is established, we can occupy it
as an impregnable fortress. This is the course
of every right mind with the Scriptures. Having received their own abundant testimony, it
consents to leave outside problems unsolved
rather than stultify itself by denying the true
Scripture for their solution.
But, secondly, the difficulty about the injustice of a written revelation may itself not
appear so great, if we remember that the written word does not deny the spoken word, but
is its preservation. The spoken word to Adam
and Noah was to the whole race, and it is not
for us to say how much of that spoken word
has remained in tradition or thought or mental
structure in the various nations of the earth.
But to us the written word is the word, and




42     THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
hence we emphasize the adjective, and protest
against any naturalism  that would make all
alike by destroying the Bible. "God in nature" is a favorite expression with souls that
hate to think of sin and punishment, of penitence and pardon, of grace and gTatitude. But
"God in nature" is no comfort or help to the
helpless spirit. The whirlwind, the earthquake, the storm, the overwhelming waves, the
monsters of the sea and forest, the volcanic
fires, the consuming thunderbolt, the desolating
pestilence, the tortures of disease-these are
some of the sweet comforts to the needy and
sinking soul that "God in nature" presents.
What right has the natural religionist to call
out from nature some of its fair scenes and
construct a revelation and a creed from this
fragmentary eclecticism?  If God is in nature
as our instructor, he is instructor in all nature
and not in part. If God's revelation to the
help-seeking soul is through the workings of
the physical system-the material creationthen common sense protests against any elimination in the record. If the naturalist point
to the flower and the bird-song, to the winding




THE SOUL'S FOOD.           43
brook and the frisking lamb, and exclaim as
commentary on this text, "God is love —God
is my Father," I have a right to point to the
drought and the famine, to the deadly cobra's
fang and the poisonous breath of the cholera,
and exclaim as commentary on this text, "God
is angry-God is my enemy." I defy any one
to find a flaw in my reasoning. We have had
so much of this sentimental naturalism, that it
has obtained a circulation as of true coin, and
sensible people are caught by its sophistries.
Some of the blessed truths of God's word are
attributed to nature as their author, when
nature's voice is as dumb as the grave on
these sublime themes; and then when nature
is arrayed in these jewels from God's word,
that word is rejected and cast out as a pretender. What does nature teach at the grave
but corruption? What does she teach in sickness but decay?  What does she teach in
sorrow but despair? And this nature is the
comforter, poor soul, to which you would flee
in the day of your calamity!
It is something above and against nature
that we need; something that shall say, "Thus




44    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
far and no farther shalt thou go, and here
shall thy proud waves be stayed;" something
that shall rebuke the fever and the pain, as
well as the winds and the waves; something
that shall go deeper than pain and sorrow, to
sin, the cause of all, and there apply a balm;
something that shall give a triumph to the
spirit in the face of conscience and the truth,
and shall fill the heart with holy boldness.
Before these requirements how nature shrinks
away!  "The depth saith,'It is not in me,'
and the sea saith,'It is not in me."' In the
midst of nature's fairest garden we must look
for the Kol Jehovah, the voice of the Lord
God, as something very different from  the
trees, and which alone can touch the centre
of our moral being and guide our feet in truth.
That Kol Jehovah has never been wanting
since sin rendered man helpless; and whatever
speculation we may have regarding its character and method amid the wilds of barbarism
or the refinements of elegant paganism, the
practical fact for us is its presence with us in
the Bible.
The ready suggestion of superficial skeptics,




THE SOUL'S FOOD.            45
that others have their Bibles as good as ours,
anc, that it is vain for us to ignore the holy
books of India, Persia, China and Arabia, is a
suggestion quite like that of the naturalist for
both its plausibility and its weakness. It is a
very captivating liberality, apparently, that
appeals to a young heart, and on the score of
common justice bids it honor Vedas, Koran,
and Bible alike. The same excellent liberality
would have us honor Gaudama, Mohammed,
and Jesus Christ alike; and a perfectly analogous and comprehensive liberality would call
for an equal homage toward God and the
Devil. "Good Lord, good Devil," would be
the appropriate exordium to every prayer. It
is no compliment to truth to spread its garments over error. It is no compliment to
truth to represent her as looking any way and
all ways. It is no compliment to truth to say
"2 and 2 make 4 or 5 or 6, just as you please.
We must be liberal and let each be true."  If
this be liberality, I know of no place so free
as hell, where consistency is not a qualification
for admission. If the Vedas are true, then
the Koran and the Bible are lies;. if the Koran




43    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
is true, then the Vedas and the Bible are lies;
and if the Bible is true, the Vedas hnd the
Koran are lies. A pagan who honors the
Vedas, or a Mohammedan who honors the
Koran, is far more of a man than the so-called
Christian, who pretends to honor Vedas, Koran,
and Bible all alike. They are false, but he is
both false and shallow. One reading of the
Vedas or Koran will stop any sane man from
comparing the Bible with them; and the Persian and Chinese books may be treated in the
same way. Let me see the man who has read
both and is in doubt which is the true, they
or the Bible, and I'11 show you a man who
has seen the sun and a tallow-candle light, and
cannot for the life of him tell which is the
perennial luminary.  It is a reproach to
humanity that such rubbish ever has to be
cleared away before discussing the wonders of
the Book of God. But the devil is never weary
of putting the fool's cap on men.
The Kol Jehovah, the voice of the Lord God,
is to us only in the Book of God. There are
promptings and guidings in Providence and
spiritual influences, but the voice, the articu.




THE SOUL'S FOOD.           47
lated words and sentences that form the vehicle
of organic truth —this divine defining utterance is found only in the Bible. The 119th
Psalm, in the very centre of the Bible, is an
enlargement on this great truth. In that
psalm the psalmist uses seven different words
to express the written revelation of God. He
seems purposely to shut out any twisting of
his words into a praise of "sermons in stones
and books in the running brooks," and to confine the mind to the contemplation of that
specific revelation which to-day we call, with
its divine increase, the Bible. We cannot conceive of any other way in which God could
have made his voice heard by the mass of
mankind than by a written word. A literal
voice, an appeal to the ear, would have reached
the treatment of a natural phenomenon very
shortly. It would have been put away from
the conscience and soul with volcanoes and
earthquakes; criticism would have erected its
batteries, and thrown the shell of fixed law
and subjective imagination into the whole system, or-else the ear, accustomed to the sound,
would have given it no heed. Moreover, the




48    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
literal voice could not be examined, analyzed,
and weighed, as can the written word and its
potent evidences thus accumulated. It would
have had to become a written word in order
to dwell upon earth and be thoroughly known.
And once a written word among men, there is
a dishonoring of that word and a ruinous indulgence of man's sloth and neglect if a voice
should be added to the revelation.
The written word is thus the light of our
path. It is the perpetuation of heavenly truth,
a candle lighted from  the throne of God,
which can never be extinguished. In its relation to the Christian, or the Christian's relation
to it,
It should be the " man of his counsel."
This is the Bible phrase. In this very 119th
Psalm we have the words, "thy testimonies
are my counsellors," literally, "men of my
counsel."  This phrase of David corresponds
to the words of Stephen, Paul, and Peter, who
call the Scriptures the oracles or oracle of
God. They are the ever-present source of
instruction to the soul; and, as divine, can
never fail to meet every want proposed. The




THE SOUL'S FOOD.             49
fulness of God is found in his word, and this
word is no more defective in its instruction
than God is defective in his love and mercy.
Hence, just as the ship's pilot is always at the
helm with his eye upon the compass, so the
healthy believer will be found ever directing
his course by this unerring guide. This implies an intimate acquaintance with God's
word that I am sure is not common. It imn
plies the meditating in God's law day and
night, which seems a mere Utopian expression
to most Christians.  But yet who wants a
counsellor with whom he is not intimate? And
how can you get the counsellor's mind unless
you sit down with him by the hour and question him and lead out his manifold instructions?
Is there much of this done by Christians? I
put it to the honest opinion of my readers. Is
God's oracle consulted, is his word pondered,
is this divine counsellor received into intimate
communion by the so-called people of God?
Are not Christians pleading constantly that
they have no time to search the Scriptures?
This is their response to the Master! But is
it not often a fear lest the Scriptures would
Healthy Christian.  4




50    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
rebuke much of their daily conduct that keeps
them away? They desire not its counsel. The
"man of their counsel" is not the man whose
counsel is agreeable. But what can be substituted? Our reason is sadly deficient. God
is not going to guide us by dream or magic.
He has not promised a miracle. The Spirit's
movement is always through the word. With
the word unconsulted, no man can expect the
inspiration of the Spirit. "To the law and to
the testimony" is the cry of God to the soul.
There and there only are our orders and guarantees. There is a practical necromancy among
Christians, by which they substitute guesses,
chances and native cunning for the authority
and teaching of God's word. They walk by
the sparks of their own kindling rather than
seek God's gracious sunlight. The main book
on the merchant's desk, on the lady's table, in
the child's school, should be the Bible. It
would regulate the action of commerce, society,
and education. It would protect men in trade
from the temptations to fraud and deceit, as
well as from over-absorption in material interests; it would protect society from immodesty,




THE SOUL'S FOOD.            51
extravagance, frivolity, and selfishness; and it
would save the growing minds of the young
from the poison of worldliness and practical
infidelity, which form the staple of so many
schools. Now, while this is the legitimate
place and office of God's word as the man of
our counsel, the average Christian is actually
startled by the proposition. The Bible among
ledgers! The Bible in a drawing-room! The
Bible to be read and taught and consulted in
our fashionable schools! How absurd! And
so with a sneer in place of an argument, God's
holy word is dismissed from the places where
above all others it should appear as the "man
of counsel;" and you may be sure that the
hearts that have been ashamed of God's oracle
in business and society will not be forward to
consult it in the closet. The Bible is what we
need to reform both business and society. To
reinstate God's pure word in our haunts of
commerce and our social gatherings, as the
counsellor and thus the controller of all, should
be the aim of every evangelizing spirit. Let
the Christian, wherever he goes, be known as
the Bible-man, the man who keeps this divine




52    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
light nver before his feet. For God to give
the light and man to put it away from him is
to court disaster and defy God. Alas! how
many are doing that! How many are putting
the divine counsellor into a dungeon (like Jeremiah) because he counsels things unpleasant
to our greed or our low ambition?
Let us emancipate the Bible, and place it in
its high position of immediate and.perpetual
counsellor to the soul, a position to which God
has assigned it.




CHAPTER IV.
THE SOUL'S FOOD: LOVE FOP
GOD'S WORD.
i~ )   HE inspired word must be to the
i~ 1^   believer the object of afection.
Every path that leads to heaven
is trodden by willing feet. No one
is ever driven to Paradise. The very
essence of a holy life, in its initiation and
its consummation, is in the renewed will. It
is a very gross view of heaven that counts
it a place only, into which a man might be
cast, whether he will or no.  All true religion is a willing religion.  Now the root of
the will is in the affections. It is the new
heart that makes the new life. A man wills
to follow the truth, because he loves the truth.
That new affection is the original germ of




54    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
his godliness.  And just as the Christian
life is a willing life growing out of the affections, so every contribution to that- life from
God's grace is to be received into the love
of the soul, before it can be made efficient.
The Bible, God's revealed truth, is to be not
only the soul's food, but the soul's delicious
food, or else it does not at all adapt itself to
the whole economy of God's salvation. God
has no more prepared a bitter food for the
soul, than he has prepared a painful heaven.
The love that saves does not delight in tormenting. The unpalatableness of God's wine
must be in the diseased palate. It is a favorite notion with some that God delights in
making his people uncomfortable. They seem
to think that Christ's sufferings for sin were
not enough, but we must supplement them.
Hence the way to heaven must be studiously
beset with thorns in order to be orthodox.
Reading Scripture as a penance belongs to this
strange school of self-righteous piety. Under
this pernicious infatuation, children are made
to read portions of the Bible as utterly unmeaning to theni as a page of the Integral




THE SOUL'S FOOD.            55
Calculus, and so a distaste and disgust for
the Word of God is generated in their minds,
and they grow up with an aversion to the
Blessed Book as wholly unnecessary as a
repugnance to their own mother. We must
go back to first principles. If the means of
grace are not delightful to us, it is our fault
and not God's.  If we wander away from
God, he may send afflictions to awaken our
conviction, but to suppose that he will regularly deal out to us affliction as our meat and
drink, that he will give us a nauseous drug as
our daily food, is insulting to the character
of our Heavenly Father, and to the finished
work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet to
such a conclusion must we come, if we are to
read the Bible only as a duty, if we are to
take it up as a last resort, if we are to view it
as a Romanist views his knotted cord, with
which at appropriate times he must scourge
himself. And is not this the prevailing notion
in the church of Christ?  At least, does not
practice suggest the thought?
That the Bible should be disliked and avoided by unbelievers, whose unrenewed hearts




56    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
would be ever rebuked by it, and whose unrenewed tastes would have no appreciation
of its divine beauty, is by no means strange;
but that the children of God, born into the
kingdom of Christ and receiving the Holy
Ghost, should have no other connection with
the Word but that which conscience sternly
compels, is a paradox which might make angels weep. Go through the families you know,
and see this strange and sad phenomenon.
In how many Christian families the Bible
stands no chance with Shakespeare or the
last novel! Rarely touched on a week-day,
on Sundays even the biography or religious (?)
newspaper is preferred to it. Love for the
Bible! why, it is as rare as love for the
prayer-meeting, and love for Christian communion. All these signs of spiritual health
fail together. The fact of this apathy toward
God's Word ought to alarm, but habit weaves
its screen before the mind and it fails to see
the dangers of its position. It was lately said
that it would be a good thing to have an auto
da fe now and then in every Christian community. An old-fashioned persecution might




THE SOUL'S FOOD.             57
arouse the church of Christ and separate it
from the world. And so a personal disaster
might almost be sought in order to teach us'the inestimable preciousness of God's Word.
There is so much trifling in Christian circles,
so much flitting hither and thither in chase of
bubbles, so much superficial piety, so much
zeal for ribbons, that unless disaster come
and shake the earthly foundations, it seems
impossible that deep and grand and heavenly
thoughts can enter these souls and so the
blessed Bible become a cherished treasure.
I have read of a poor blind girl in France
who obtained the gospel of Mark in raised
letters, and learned to read it by the ends of
her fingers. By the peculiar character of her
daily toil her fingers became callous, and her
sense of touch diminished till she could not
distinguish the letters. One day she cut the
skin from the ends of her fingers to increase
their sensibility, only, however, to destroy it.
She felt that she must now give up her beloved book, and weeping, pressed it to her
lips, saying, "Farewell, farewell, sweet word
of my Heavenly Father, food for my soul!.I




58    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
must part with thee!" But to her surprise,
her lips, more delicate than her fingers, discerned the form of the letters.  She read
"Gospel according to Mark." Her soul, overflowing with gratitude, pours out thanks before the throne of her Father in heaven. All
night she perused with her lips the holy book,
and her heart overflowed with joy at the new
acquisition.
Oh for such a love for God's word in the
hearts of God's people! Shall we wait for
disasters before we know our privileges and
cultivate our true delights? Does it not seem
sometimes as if we should have to become
blind, so as not to see the glittering follies
about us, in order to prize aright our Jesus
and his Word? Are we not sometimes assured
in our reflections that afflictive dispensations:
are a necessity for our promotion, that only
the sternness of this treatment can transfer
us to our true position and spiritual relations
as the children of God? Nay, is not this the
philosophy that unlocks the whole mystery
of affliction? And to one who understands this
philosophy may not many a blow be avoided




THE SOUL'S FOOD.             59
by learning the lesson from  those already
received and flying to the refuge of Christ's
bosom  where peace is found?  In urging
Christians to love the Word, I am really urging them to love the Lord more. When they
are filled with his love, they will love his loveletters. When they feel that no love-relation
is so grand and so absorbing as that which
binds them to the Saviour, they will then feel
that no words are so sweet as his, no book
so precious as that which speaks of him and
speaks from him to the saved soul. And so,
conversely, if the Bible is not lovingly pondered, then there is but little force in the love
for Jesus, the appreciation of his glorious
presence is dull, the thoughts of his wooing
and winning work for the soul, are benumbed.
And here let me call attention to a type
af Christian often found, in which self-deception surrounds itself with plausibility. It is
where the love of Christ is deemed sufficient
without the Word.  The Bible is neglected,
and the soul comforts itself with knowing that
it can commune with the Lord without any
medium. While this is literally true, yet the




60    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
danger is very great that where the argument
it used, there is a substitution of nature, or
vague sentiment, or art-dreams for Christ. If
we stay long from  the Bible where Christ's
picture is, we are apt to form another sort of
Christ in the soul, and a very carnal one, too.
Many a professed Christian can consort fully
with the world, separate himself from God's
people, aud count the Bible stupid, and yet
carry with him a supposed Christ. There is
no security except in the ever fresh recurrence
to the revealed Word. There is the likeness
of the ineffable One. "They are they," says
Jesus, "which testify of me."  The Christ in
the waterfall or meadow, the Christ in the
marble or on the canvas, the Christ in the
esthetic transports of the mind, the Christ in
the softness of a social refinement may be a
mere spectacular Christ of the imagination,
a low, human Christ, and not the divine Jesus who saves his people from their sins, who
creates them  anew, who expels from  their
hearts the love of the world by filling those
hearts with himself, who sanctifies their motives, aims, and principles, and in short in




THE SOUL'S FOOD.             61
their entire lives substitute God for self. As
we have seen, the Christ who is in us is intr6duced within us by the word. Just as the
blood of the body is formed from the food of
the body, so Christ, the blood of the soul, is
formed from the word, the food of the soul.
The written word becomes the personal Word
within us. A Christ without the Bible is as
impossible as a salvation without a Christ..
Neglecters of the Bible are neglecters of
Christ, however much they may beguile themselves with some sentimental illusion, a pseudoChrist in a pseudo-Christianity. The face of.
Jesus is so full of -graces and glories that we
cannot imagine it independently; we must look
upon it to know it, and in the Bible only do
we look upon it. There it is-that wonderful face of love and truth. The study of that
face can never weary, the knowledge of its
infinite beauty can never be complete. To
go away from the Bible is to cloud over those
features and introduce a distorting medium.
Hence arise coldness, formalism,. worldliness,
and the anti-christ of religious dreaminess,
which so many take in place of the Crucified,




62    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
These considerations make it evident that a
love of God's word is a requisite for the true
Christ-life of the soul.  There will be, there
can be no true application to that word except
by love, and there can be no love for that
word except where there is love of Christ, of
whom that word is the exponent. The two
are correlated and reciprocal. The love of
Christ brings us to the Bible. The love of
the Bible brings us to Christ. The two are
indissolubly united in the very nature of truth.
Woe to the soul that attempts their disseverance!
If any one, in the light of these truths,
declares his desire to love the word, as he
appreciates his dereliction in the past, and
asks for counsel, as he feels it a hard thing
to love what he does not love, the answer is
found in the same light which prompts the
question. Your whole religious life is out of
sorts, if you do not love God's word. You
need a revolution in your life.  You have
habits to be mended, ways to be abandoned,
duties to be assumed, for your present system of life is not formed after Christ and his




THE SOUL'S FOOD.            63
word. You are to draw nearer to Jesus in
a love-consecration, and that with his word
in your hands; and as in doing this, you feel
that many a darling folly is slipping from
your grasp, let them go. The love of Jesus
will not bear such silly rivals. As Jesus becomes more known, the Bible will be more
prized, and as the Bible is more prized, Jesus
will become more precious and powerful to
you. It is the two, then, you are to seek.
Not Jesus without the Bible-that would land
you in sentimentalism. Not the Bible without Jesus-that would make you a legal formalist.  But the Bible and Jesus together;
and drive everything out of your path that
would interfere with your seeking.
If such a love of the word of God were rife
in the church of Christ, we should see every
Christian as eager to gain time for Bible
meditation as he is to procure the morning
paper. The desire would be before the sense
of duty. As a consequence of this, he would
J, low the Bible, its promises and precepts not
only, but all its connections and inter-dependencies.  More than that, the deep inner




-6:   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
meanings of the word would be ever bubbling up to him like the diamond waters of a
mountain spring, refreshing his whole being,
and making him forget the weariness and toil
of life.  He would become, as it were, inspired by the divine truth. It would be so
interwoven into his nature, that its heavenly
principles would not have to be sought after,
but would spontaneously assert themselves in
all his movements.
The perplexed questions of duty would all
disappear before the tutored promptings of
a Bible-pervaded soul. Casuistry would have
no place where God's philosophy would rule.
The life, surcharged with truth would, besides, electrify all its contacts with truth's
power. If the church would thus feed earnestly and heartily on God's word, its whole
tone of action and conversation would be
marvellously changed.  It would be taking
the divine means of elevation to an angelic
standard.  The ordinary themes of material
life would shrink to their subordinate position
and the busy nothings which consume so much
time and thought would be lost in the sub



THE SOUL'S FOOD.             65
stantial occupations of a healthy piety. Such
power has the Bible and the Bible only.
Such transmutations of the whole man can
it alone produce, for it is the wisdom of God
and the power of God in the receptive heart.
Oh! it is this power we need amid the mass
of frivolity that encumbers the church, and
makes it drag on its way so awkwardly and
slowly towards the millennium. Millennium!
can it be that God's people are seeking and
longing for its glories? Is its sheen of beauty
a captivating prospect to their faith? Is its
peace and holiness a star of guidance to their
pilgrim  feet?  Nay, rather, are not ceiled
houses and ephemeral comforts or displays
contenting their thoughts and aspirations, and
God's sweet coming dawn forgotten in the
artificial lights of the present night-time? And
is it not all this wrong arrangement of our
Christian life that is making its most natural
mistakes in our view  of everything else?
Does not it give death the very name as well as
character which it has no right to in a Christian's mind?  Does not it emphasize every
loss and disappointment with a tone of anHealthy Christian.  5




66    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
guish, where each should be arrayed with a
crown of hope?  Does not it tarnish all the
gold of love with the rust of selfishness? Oh
for faith in God's Bible, a faith that would
work by love and gather daily the manna,
lifting the thankful eye to the gracious heaven
that sent it! This is the angels' food. It is
only they who love Egyptian slavery who can
loathe it.  The angelic character will prize
the angelic fare. I would that the testimony
of the dying saint whose heart is all aglow
with the life-touch of the word, of the poverty-stricken child of God who revels in the
eternal wealth of the Scriptures, of the despised and rejected believer who in the holy
lore has learned how to despise all human
contumely and scorn, of the heart smitten
down to death that has achieved a glad resurrection at the voice of the heavenly truth-I
would that the testimony of these, mingling
in one grand chord of celestial harmony, could
be concentrated upon the souls of all who
read this, and persuade them now to put
themselves in full relation with the living
oracles. It is as we listen to our God speak



THE SOUL'S FOOD.             67
ing, that the great God-life tingles through
our souls; it is as we receive the sentiment
and the logic of the skies that the dreariness
and obscurity of earthly sentiment is lost, and
the false and unsatisfying logic of the world
is driven to its tomb. Walking with God is
the summit of privilege and happiness, and
that exalted walk is found when the voice of
prayer and praise has birth and sustenance
in the soothing voice of God speaking through
the revealed word, to the listening and enraptured spirit. Here is the secret that so many
miss. They turn hither and thither in unrest,
while their Beloved is near them  in vain.
They do not know the talismanic power of
this neglected Book.  No enchanted carpet,
that bore the fabled prince to wished-for
realms, could so transfer the soul to. the companionship of glory. All stories fail to reach
the high analogy, and represent the rare discoveries of peace and spiritual plenty to which
the trusting heart is borne by this celestial
vehicle of grace, which wears so earthly and
so unpretending form. Fear not to give yourselves to the love of the Bible. There can be




68    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
no idolatry here. Idolatry can only cling to
the letter, but it is the spiritual voice of the
word to which the Lord invites us, when he
says, "Search the Scriptures -for they are
they which testify of Me." If you believe that
that Lord Jesus is worth more than all besides, if you recognize your own salvation as
his fond work, if you know that the all of God
that can shine on human hearts resides in
that blessed Christ, then leap to the happy
task of learning that Saviour better by the
means himself has provided.  No longer let
the Bible be a book respectfully neglected;
no longer let its divine light reach you only
through the imperfect media of human treatises or human lips; but press through, for
the way is open to you, press through all
interposing veils, and in the Holy of holies
bathe your exultant spirit in the radiance that
there overflows from the oracle of God.




CHAPTER V.
THE  SOUL'S  FRESH  AIR.
".JE THAT WALKETH WITH WISE MEN
SHALL BE WISE."   fEOV. 13: 20.
"'(p ^    -^^T is not good for man to be
alone" was God's own declaration at the birth of the race.  A
man's society is as necessary to his
growth as his individuality. Indeed
he has no individuality except in society. He
is born with tendrils, and begins with life to
grope for something to clasp. His thoughts
are not his own till he has communicated them
to others, and his moral sense is but a blunt
potentiality till it is developed toward his fellows. The Church of God is founded on this




70     THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
principle. It is an aggregation, or congregation, with its infinite collateral supports. It is
like the golden boards of the tabernacle standing together and bound together by golden
bars, preserving the unity of the Spirit by the
bonds of peace, and forming together a dwelling
for the God of the church, in which an acceptable service is offered and where the light of
His glory shines from between the cherubim.
The "assembling of ourselves together" is a
token of the social union of believers in Christ
and a divine hint of this essential principle of
Christian growth and health.  Hermitages
and monasteries are Buddhist, not Christian
institutions, defying the revealed will of God
and the spiritual instincts of the new birth.
As the fresh air is necessary for the lungs, by
which they perform their renewing functions,
and purify the blood of the body, so the society
of believers is necessary to the spiritual life,
preserving it from a false entrance of the word
and a false development of Christ in the soul.
The word is the soul's food, but the society of
God's people is the soul's inbreathing, and
God has ordained the one as well as the other




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.           71
that Christ may be truly and fully formed in
us as the healthy blood is formed in the body.
God's people to-day have to be instructed
in this great truth, as the Corinthian Christians were instructed by Paul. The Corinthian
Christians fell into the society of worldly people, the usual arguments of rank, position,
wealth, fashion urging them to this course.
The apostle traces their spiritual misfortunes
to this sad error. He shows them that their
social relations should be confined to believers;
that between the soul with Christ and the soul
without Christ a great gulf was fixed —blessed
be God, not an impassable one, and hence
courtesy, kindness, and compassionate interest
might stretch across it, but yet it was a great
gulf-which forbade the communion of intimacy and the confidential relations of the
inner friendship. A bridging of this gulf was
a betrayal of truth, an alliance with the enemy, a degradation of the holy standard, a
reproach to Christ. Hear the apostle's words:
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? or what con



72    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
munion hath light with darkness? and what
concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part
hath a believer with an unbeliever?.......
Wherefore come out from among them and be
ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the
unclean thing; and I will receive you and will
be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons
and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." If
all this does not refer to the social relations of
Christians, to what else can it refer?  That
the Corinthians were idolaters does not help
the matter, for while that fact is objected
against them as one argument for separation
from them, yet the main argument is that they
were unbelievers. The apostle's argument and
apostolic order are, therefore, for to-day as
for then, for this nominally Christian land as
for pagan Corinth. This krepofvyia or unequal
yoking together is the social intimacy of believer with unbeliever.  An idolater is no
worse than any other unbeliever. The unbelief is what does the mischief in society. It
steals unobserved into the Christian's heart
from his contact with moral and excellent unbelievers, and the poison is more shbtle as the




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.           73
unbeliever is more moral and high-minded.
Christ is unthroned and a new Christ is introduced. The believer wishes to be on the same
plane with his intimate friend, and so lowers
his distinctive and specific truth to the level
of some general religion, which is at bottom
the substitution of a self-philosophy for revelation. In this way, hearts that have been
enlightened by the Holy Spirit to behold the
cross have given up both light and cross in
order to perform the behests of a high-toned
friendship. Beauty of sentiment and even
philanthropy are used in cementing this "unequal yoking," against which it is perilous to
argue, for noble sentiment and philanthropy
are fine things and they demand recognition
and homage from all; and so by these specious
means the Christian is un-Christed and thrown
into a wide and dreary sea of natural religion,
the religion of birds, beasts, and fishes.
Another style of mind fares no better-in
outward appearance, worse. In this case the
believer by social communion with unbelievers
who love and live for display, soon begins to
form the same tastes and cultivate the same




14    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
desires with them. The gay life is led, the
spiritual promptings to a useful life are repressed even to paralysis, worldly excitement
becomes the only food the soul can feed on,
and the name of the holy Christ is dragged by
the apostate believer into this career of mockery.  Sometimes gross sins, such as those
which even the world proscribes, yawn to engulf such a straying believer, putting a condemnation upon him in his own sight which
he had long since had in the sight of the
angels.
Another style of mind, by this unequal yoking, is found making moneyed gains by low
and selfish ways, grinding the faces of the poor
and taking advantage of others' misfortunes
under the robber's plea, "all is fair in trade."
By a close association with the unbelieving in
the conduct of financial business, not only are
the heavenly graces of forbearance, charity,
and brotherly love quenched, but common
justice is abused. Christians cheat one another under the name of business transactions;
they accumulate riches by deceit and fraud;
they leave debts unpaid while they indulge in




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.          75
luxurious living, taking advantage of some
technicality of weak human law and forgetting
the unalterable divine law; they bring up their
children for the same feverish mammon-worship aid plunge them into the same temptations
with the specious plea, "Oh! all the world
does it; we must not run counter to the current of life." Such are some of the manifold
and fearful evils which arise for the Church of
Christ from this erepofvyia or unequal yoking
together of believers with unbelievers. Young
and thoughtless Christians, without much experience, have very little idea of this truth,
and are ready to combat it with much indignation. "Is not the Gospel liberal? Does it
not preach charity? and now am I to give up
my intimacies with my sworn friends on the
ground of a Gospel demand? That would be
a narrow Puritanism-a wretched bigotryI'11 do nothing of the kind. I will have friends
who are not believers."  And so the will, captivated by the world, makes its indignant
decision, while the Holy Spirit speaks in vain
with warning voice, " What part hath a believer
with an unbeliever?" The love of holy things




76    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
steals away so imperceptibly —the love of
worldly things steals in so imperceptibly-the
whole transmutation is so very natural, without jar or surprise, that the young Christian
does not realize the dreadful change. The
young man must go into business, but he
forgets that it is his Christian duty to discriminate in business; and the young woman must
go into society, but she forgets that it is her
Christian duty to discriminate in society. Neither into business nor society have I a right
togo, except by the Lord's own ways. If I
do otherwise, I lose all the Lord's privileges.
And to go into either of them through worldly
intimacies is to despise the Lord's way altogether.
"But oh! how much I should have to give
up!" says the young Christian, thinking of
worldly successes, worldly applause, the gains
of avarice or vanity. Very well. Did you
never hear Jesus say anything about plucking
out a right eye and cutting off a right hand
for him? This is the very eye he wishes you
to pluck out-the very hand he wishes you tocut off. It will save your soul. This worldly




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.            77
society is sapping your spiritual vitality. You
are too young to know the full force of the
truth.  Take older Christians' word for it.
Take Christ's word for it: "What part hath a
believer with an unbeliever?"
And now let us look at the positive side of
this question. Let us ask how a believer is to
form his social alliances, since we have seen
how he is not to form them.
In general he is to select godly souls for his
intimates. The divine word enunciates the universal principle: "He that walketh with wise
men shall be wise."  The wisdom of which
God's word treats is the wisdom which practically recognizes the claims of God on the heart
and life, and the wise man is the godly man.
The first meaning of that passage in its high
sense is, that godliness is promoted by communion with the godly; and the next inferential
meaning is, that the proper communion of the
godly is with the godly. We need not stop
here to examine the psychological principle on
which these truths are founded.  Personal
esteem, desire to please, self-approval, unconscious imitation, the necessities of social com



78    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
bination-all these are elements of the working
by which like begets like, by which social life
is a crucible of assimilation. But more than
assimilation is obtained.  There is augmentation-increase of force for good or for evil, in
the alliances of society.  "As iron sharpeneth'
iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of
his fiiend." The old adage is universally received, "In union is strength." Social union
strengthens all the distinctive features of the
union. Is it a worldly society? The worldliness is intensified and raised to a higher
power by the union. Is it a godly society?
The spiritual truth and beauty of the alliance
are enhanced by the very fact of the communion.
In putting then the general principle into
practice, there is, first, the duty of Christian
parents to select the early companions of their
children'with care, and exclude the vicious
and evil-disposed, even ati tne cost of sundering friendships and alienating relatives. Better,
far better to say farewell for ever to the
parents, however dear. than to ruin your offspring for ever by the contaminating influence




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.          79
of the ill-trained and sin-indulged children.
Then, in riper years, when your children have
understood their relation to God as redeemed
by the blood of Christ-and the children of
all Christians should early reach that understanding and personal faith —it is for you to
bestow much supervision upon the friendships
that are formed in the tender and heedless
days of youth. You have the power to invite
to your house the proper young friends and to
keep out the improper. Exercise this power
as to God. Let no laws of etiquette set aside
the law of God. If you have to cut off whole
families of the highest respectability and most
desirable position from your circle, by refusing special home-friendships to their young
people, cut them off with the independence of
an emperor. Let the dukes and marquises
go, and good riddance to them, that your
children may escape the pollution of the vain
life with which their worldly children would
inoculate them. Never let your children have
the beginning of these low but fascinating
tastes. It is the little beginning that whets
the appetite for more, and then the indulgent




80    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
parent begins to say, "How can I keep my
dear children from society?" by "society"
meaning simply this gay and worldly form of
society; and this cry of the parent is a response to the cry of the child who has tasted
the glittering vanity, "How could you coop
me up and make my life to languish by imprisonment?" where the dreadful imprisonment and the cruel treatment, suggestive of
the Tower of London and Smithfield, are only
the withholding of the child from the poison
of a fashionable or semi-fashionable life. If
you would only begin at the beginning with
your children, you would avoid all trouble on
this score. Alas! too often you think far less
of their souls' health and God's will than of
earthly preferment for them and yourselves,
and so you are drawn in, and they too, and
sink in the vortex.
But, secondly, turning from parents, I speak
to young Christians themselves, and urge them
to ally themselves with one another. Do not
say that Christians are too few. How many
intimate friends do you want? Six or eight
are as many as one person can well manage.




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.          81
Two or three are a more available number.
Can you not find six or eight Christian friends,
who in taste and education and refinement
suit you?  Did you ever try? Did you ever
ask God to help you find them? The trouble,
I think, has been in your utter carelessness in
the matter. You have never felt it to be an,
important question. You must feel the truth
from God, and then you will find the way to
conform to it.
The social side of our nature is not developed, as it should be, in our churches. There
is a repellant coldness that is unseemly and
un-Christian. All the childish folly of caste
and rank which belongs to the world as one
of its bawbles is assumed by the Church of
Jesus, which ought to live above it and despise
it. Tosses of the head, supercilious airs, "I'm
better than you" looks, which are very suitable
to an ignorant world that has no God, are
found among those who have been exalted to
be the brothers and sisters of the Lord of
glory. No denunciation of all this can be too
strong. The church must make the breach
between it and the world wider, must cut off
Healthy Clilatian.  6




82    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
all communications except those of courtesy
and Christian help, must live within itself and
thus nourish the Christ-life, and in its own
work among the poor, the ignorant, and the
young must make and cement the social union
of its own members. What a strange idea
inhabits some Christian minds, that young
Christians can only be happy when allowed to
mingle with worldly people!  Society with
Christian companions cannot produce happiness! There is the same lamentable notion
of divine things in such'thinkers as in the boy
who asked his father, "Father, when I get to
heaven, if I am real good, wont God let me
come down here on Saturdays and play?"
What a dreadful notion of heaven that boy
had! And what a dreadful notion of Christianity and Christians must that mind have that
thinks a happy life on earth must be spent in
worldly associations! The Church of Jesus
has within it all the elements of social happiness. It is our fault if we do not utilize them.
The social evening, that centres around a
Scripture reading, or that ends with the worship of the Heavenly Father, who gives us the




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.          83
social happiness, is only distasteful to the
heart that has been weaned away from God
by the seductions of a godless society. The
sweetest and tenderest relations of social life
would be nurtured in such an atmosphere, instead of the formal, selfish, jealous, hypocritical excitements which have so largely usurped
and monopolized the name of society. The
recreation of such reunions would promote
the vigor of health in body and soul, and fit
every one for his or her appropriate duties of
the family and home, instead of making those
duties insipid and onerous, and causing them
to be slighted as is done by the feverish
nervousness generated in the false social ways
of the world.  Family divisions would be
avoided, and all that dreariness which marks
so many Christian households would be wanting.  The family ties strengthened would
preserve the young from the attractions of outside and questionable amusements which now
lure millions to their ruin. Does the question
arise in any mind, "How can I, already entangled in this net of evil, extricate myself?
I am now fully committed to this false society.




84    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
I have my worldly intimacies and all the
engagements which they naturally demand. It
were comparatively easy for one beginning life
and free from these embarrassments to select
a Christful circle of associates and friends, but
how can I?" The reply is, "You are to cultivate a taste you have vitiated." That requires
determination and prayerful attention. Moreover, in all the ways your judgment (not your
taste) suggests, you are to withdraw from your
mistaken alliances, substituting for them those
that God will approve, and in this way help
to reform your taste. In short, you have a
work to do. The change will not come like
the opening of a flower or the fall of a leaf,
but your higher powers must do what your
higher sense recognizes to be God's will. In
such a work the Holy Spirit will be with you
and give you success in the end and joy in
the way.
"He that walketh with wise men shall be
wise." The world's people are not wise, and
-God's people ought to know it.'Wisdom has
its criterion just beyond the grave. By that
let us-.be ready to be tested. Let us be as




THE SOUL'S FRESH AIR.            85
singular as need be, if only with our Lord
Jesus himself it can be said of us, " Wisdom
is justified of her children." The company
we. keep is an index of the heaven we seek.
Do we expect the association of the wise hereafter?  We shall form their alliance now.
As we said at the outset, Christ is formed
healthily and fully in him alone who breathes
the air of Christian intercourse.
)^..




CHAPTER VI.
THE  SOUL'S EXERCISE: IN  THE
FAMILY.
T'LXERCISE THYSELF UNTO GODLINESS:
FOR  BODILY EXERCISE* PROFITETH
LITTLE, BUT GODLINESS IS PROFITABLE  UNTO  ALL  THINGS, HAVING
PROMISE OF THE LIFE  THAT NOW
IS AND OF THAT WHICH IS TO COME."I
iTi M. 4:7, 8.._/9W HERE may be to the Christian a
i    ~  ~regular feeding upon God's word
and also a true communion with
God's people, and so Christ be formed
in him daily, while yet there may be
a great deficiency in his spiritual life. Remember the figure. The body may feed on healthy
* I take Chrysostom's and De Wette's view of awpar7x7
1yvvaaia.




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            87
food and breathe a healthy air, but unless it
exercise itself in this air, the assimilation will
be imperfect and the secretions irregular. So
there must be an exercise of the spiritual man,
an experimental use of his graces, if the word
is to profit him as it should. We have seen
how that word should be the man of his counsel and be loved by him in that capacity, and
we have seen how his intimacies should be
formed among those who have like precious
faith in Jesus with himself. Let us now note
the necessity and character of that exercise of
his gifts by which his true spiritual health is
promoted.
Paul's entreaty to Timothy, which we have
placed at the head of this chapter, is to "exercise himself unto godliness," to act in his Christian life as the athlete acts in his bodily
training and development.  It is (so to speak,
with reference to the Greek word gymnasia
used by Paul) a charge to Timothy to make
constant use of spiritual gymnastics. The
comparison is direct. Bodily exercise is a
benefit, but only for a short time, (see margin,)
but the exercise of the soul in its graces is for




88     THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
all time and eternity. The health of the soul
is far more important than the health of the
body; and all we do here to promote the
health of the soul tells upon the soul's history
for ever. This is the apostle's argument. Let
us apply it.
I. In looking at the necessity of spiritual
exercise, we draw from the body's analogy
that exercise conduces to health by quickening
the circulation, dissipating false accretions,
and bringing into play the utmost corners of
the respiratory organs. Putting this into a
spiritual translation, we have this: that spiritual exercise conduces to spiritual health by
making the presence of Christ more vividly
and intensely felt, (for Christ is the blood of
the soul,) by shaking off morbid views and
prejudices, and by developing the social Christian life to the fullest degree, for the respiration of the Christian is in the atmosphere of
Christian communion.  We may add, that
where these results follow this cause, there is
also a grand, healthy appetite for the word,
the food of the soul. But let us look at each
detail a moment.




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            89
1. The exercise of our gifts conduces to
spiritual health by making the presence of
Christ more vividly and intensely felt and
operative in the soul.
We all know how hearty exercise of the
body makes the blood tingle to the very extremities with a glow of vigor. We feel the
oneness of our frames by this self-assertion of
the physical life in all its parts, a oneness of
cooperation and harmony, and not a oneness
of conflict and discord as that which pain
might give. Just so, when a Christian takes
an active part in the common Christian life
and ministers to it with the free use of his
gifts, the very needs of the exercise bring
Christ uppermost to his thoughts. His dependence upon his Lord for strength and
enlightenment is felt, and the sweet comforts
of his Lord's help is his rich reward at every
step. There is no such bliss to the soul this
side heaven as the consciousness of the Redeemer's full presence. It is not the pleasure
of a beautiful sentiment striking the aesthetic
perception, nor is it the Archimedean delight
of discovery before a new glimpse of intellec.




90    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
tual truth, but it is the ineffable joy of a felt
union with the living God, of the direct and
all-supplying love of the divine Saviour. It is
the realization toward the Maker and Ruler of
all of the phrase which grace teaches faith,
"I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine."
It is beauty and truth not beheld, but lived.
I know of no way to this high and holy reali.
zation but that of the exercise of our spiritual
abilities as God has given them. Mere contemplation will not do it. That is apt to make
dreamers and to deceive the soul with sentimentalities. It will develop self rather than
Jesus. In the look, the word, the act for our
Lord we forget self and receive the joy of the
Lord.
2. The exercise of our gifts conduces to
spiritual health by shaking off morbid views
and prejudices. These tokens of spiritual disease come generally from the ignorance that
attends on the vis inertice or sluggishness of
the soul. The analogies of truth are not observed, the interlacings and practical modifications of doctrine are ignored, and hence
some notion is cultivated at the expense of




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            91
others, and a Christian cheats himself into
believing the redness of inflammation to he
the glow of health and a morbid swelling to
be the fulness of vigor. All sorts of queer and
pernicious doctrines are tenaciously heldthey may be either on the one hand in the
service of asceticism, or on the other in the
service of self-indulgence. The diseased symptoms appear in both directions, perhaps more
commonly in the latter. Now, what the patient
wants is simple exercise for Jesus-an activity
of his spiritual functions-the use of Christian
society not only to receive influences therefrom, but to bestow influences thereon; and
when his soul is shaken in such exercise, as
well as in positive action toward the unconverted, his sickly excrescences will be shaken
off, and his Christian character become symmetrical and wholesome. The apostolic character is formed in apostolic occupation. The
mere spiritual cultivation of self is the way to
hinder true self-cultivation.
3. The exercise of our gifts conduces to
spiritual health by developing the social Christian life to the fullest degree. The sympathies




92    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
are aroused from their depths, the profoundest
recesses of our being are touched by the vivid
realizations of Christian brotherhood, and the
Christ-life of each is felt on each in heartrecognitions that are like the intercourse of
heaven. We have noted the analogy in the
deep inbreathing in bodily exercise by which
the remotest lung-cell is distended and the
life is in fullest motion and efficiency. Here
is the glory of true Christian society, not the
sepulchral formality which some exhibit, who
make Christian society a conscience-task as
over against the worldly society they revel in,
but that which warm-hearted Christians enjoy
as they perceive in each other (with all their
faults) the lineaments of Jesus. It is this
which gives an electric thrill to life and makes
society a heavenly thing. The exercise of our
spiritual gifts brings us inevitably into such a
social experience. The sons of the prophets
go in companies. If you speak to the unregenerate, you wish a kindred heart to beat
with yours in the action; and if you contemplate the goodness of God in any of its aspects,
you would have another heart made a con



THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            93
noisseur by grace to double your joy by joining
you in the contemplation. Activity for the
Lord will always bring you into close union
with the people of the Lord.
Such, then, are the elements of the necessity
of spiritual exercise for spiritual health. We
proceed to detail,
II. The character of that exercise.
A mistake is very often made by. earnest
Christians in supposing that activity for Christ
must always be in one of the more apparent
forms of teaching a class or making missionary
visits. Now these two forms must ever be
paramount in the church's view. The teaching of God's word and the visitation of the
destitute are specified in the Scriptures as
potent and practicable forms of glorifying
Christ's name. Wherever we have the opportunity to undertake these royal styles of
Christian exercise, undoubtedly we should use
it. The number we can influence in a class,
and the sympathy we can show to the suffering, make these forms of Christian work
preferable to all others. But Christian exercise has a far wider application.  It is the




94    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
positive exercise of every grace that tends
God-ward or to complete godliness.  The
practice of forbearance, gentleness, meekness,
self-restraint, and holy earnestness in the daily
duties and occurrences of life, in the family,
in the haunts of commerce, and in the offices
of professional activity is itself a wholesome
spiritual exercise. But there is much more to
be done than this. Each sphere of life presents its own claims and opportunities.
1. Are you a parent? Then it is yours to
provide systematically for the education of
your children in the truth; and here is a field
of Christian effort directly at hand, full of
advantage to yourself as to others, and from
which no possible excuse can exempt you.
Conversation with your children upon vital
truths of revelation with endeavors to bring
out their active appreciation, prayer with them
that will ever make most sacred the memory
of your instructions and impress upon them
the sense of God's presence in the family,
regular instruction from God's word, so that
they become familiar with the Bible as the
book of the heart-these are the forms of




TIE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          95
Christian exercise which God sets before you.
To the mother especially do these home ministrations appertain.  She is, or should be,
always the careful executive of home. Her
eye should watch all the details of the family
and her direct influence should be hourly felt
in every part of the household. As familiarly
acquainted with all, and as looked to for counsel and direction by all, she should, as the
Lord's representative, see that the Lord's
truth is made known to her children and her
servants. Many mothers find it no hardship
to dress and adorn their daughters for balls,
to initiate them into all the hollow cant of
ball-rooms, receptions, matinees, and operas,
and to accompany them  into the frivolous
excitements of the world, while they have no
time or strength to teach them the word of
God or to train them  as disciples of Jesus.
These Christian mothers bring many a woe to
the Church of Christ. If they had no children, we might pass them by without emphasis,
but through their children they are operating
with formidable power upon future generations
to degrade Christianity and defile the streams




96    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
of truth. The true disciple of the Lord, finding herself at the head of a family, will use
time and talent, first of all, to consecrate her
household unto Him; and in doing this, she
will find very soon that the demands of the
gay, godless world must be flatly resisted. The
difficulties that often occur with Christian
mothers arise from a want of perception of
this fact: that a training for the world and a
training for Christ are incompatible; that this
point-blank refusal to the world is an absolute
necessity for the spirituality of the family.
The mother sees all her acquaintances educating their daughters to be butterflies, and
she must do the same. How can she make
herself conspicuous by saying "No"?  She
must go with the multitude to do evil, rather
than follow Christ. And so she wastes money,
thought, and time on diamonds and dresses
and hair-ornaments, and acts as Satan's agent
to destroy her daughter's soul.  Her conscience frequently rebukes her with neglect of
her daughter's higher interests, but the rebuke
is answered by a hypocritical sigh, "O dear
me! this perplexing life! I have no time for




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.           97
anything!"  Ah! tell the truth, Christian
mother, tell the truth: " Plenty of time for the
world; but no time for God!"  You have
acted as though you felt in your own heart
that all real enjoyment was to be found in the
excitements of the world, and so you have
taught your daughter the same fearful falsehood, until religion in your house is a mockery,
just the fag end of legalism and nothing more.
The true disciple nips this mischief in the bud.
She cuts off the world. She finds cheerfulness and joy and rational amusement in a
truly Christian life. She does not have to go
to unbelievers to ask how to be happy. By
cutting off the world, she has both time and
taste to teach her family the ways of God.
By doing this, she has achieved an independence with all its peace that a million of dollars
could not give.
A practical question comes up here. How
are we to act toward servants of a false and
bigoted faith? The answer is, to use discretion
and prayer. We cannot rudely assault prejudices. We ought not to magnify points of
difference. We ought not to excite suspicion.
Healt'iy Chrstlan.  7




98    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
We ought not to meddle with subordinate
details of their creed or worship. But the
mother of a family has a thousand opportunities tc say a word for Jesus to the servant
attending her, without arousing any personal
church-feeling. The duties of trusting the Saviour for his pardon and of seeking his Holy
Spirit might be often urged without any distinctive polemic being exhibited.
Family prayer is a grand centre for household piety. The servants of a different faith
may not appear, and they should never be
forced; but the family proper should always
be gathered at this holy service.  And it
should be made an honest, earnest, touching
service. The prayer should be felt by the
leader, who ought to be the father of the family, and the Scripture should be read with
reverence and attention. Oh! how much influence for life goes forth from the family altar!
The children carry the scene before their
minds, of the family group and the father
reading God's word, long after the father's
body has crumbled into dust, and the meaning of that scene is a constant quickener to




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.         09
the conscience. The excuses for the neglect
of family worship are all vain. Want of time,
want of ability, tardiness of the family and.
interruption of visitors are the pleas most frequently used. They scarcely deserve a reply.
Macke time, as you would for eating. Use a
written prayer, if you cannot make an extemporaneous one; insist, as father of your family,
upon a punctual attendance of all the members, and invite your visitors to bow the knee
with you. Never let an excuse find itself at
home in your religion that you would thrust
out of your business. Sunday may be made
a high day of profit to your family. Gather
your children about you on the holy day.
Read together with them from the Word. Let
them talk with you freely about what they
read.  Encourage their questions.  Search
with them for answers, if they are not at hand,
and set them to searching. Children are soon
delighted with this looking up truth. Then
pray and sing with them; tell them stories of
your own Christian experience and of God's
good providence to you; talk to them of the
works of God in nature and grace; read tow




100    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
them the narrative of. some true life; explain
some picture of Bible story; and so most
cheerily and happily use the golden opportunity of the day of rest for your family's lasting
benefit in the Lord. Remember that no Sunday-school can shoulder a parent's responsibility, nor can it wield a parent's power. The
parent was commissioned and ordered of God
to conduct the spiritual education of his children when God first founded and organized
his church upon earth. "Thou shalt teach
my words diligently unto thy children, and
shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy
house, and when thou walkest by the way, and
when thou liest down, and when thou risest
up." That divine ordinance has never been
abrogated. There is in it a principle that
time never can destroy. Here, then, Christian
parents, is one of the methods of the exercise
of your spiritual gifts, in which your spiritual
health is advanced. Are you engaged in it?
Is the truth of God written upon the posts of
your house and on your gates? Have sacred
associations been planted by you in the fruitful soil of home, whose fruit shall refresh your




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          101
children to all generations? If you have been
remiss here, for the sake of your own spiritual
health be remiss no longer. Rise up, as a
servant of God, shake off lethargy and all
excuses, cut off all associations that interfere,
and make your home a temple of the Lord
God of salvation. Go forward in mind to your
last hour upon earth and take a view of all
your excuses from that stand-point. See how
trivial they appear. Then re-consecrate your
family to the Lord. Rejoice in the spiritual
work that this lays upon you. It will quicken
your whole spiritual being, animate your faith,
sharpen your appetite for the truth, and give
your life a zest you never knew before. You
will, moreover, in making your house a bethel,
institute the strongest practical antidote against
the world-poison that is spread through the
atmosphere and which corrupts the very vitals
of religion. You will be furnishing to your
children, not an ephemeral pleasure which
will at last disgust the soul that sought it, but
an abiding joy in the consciousness of a family
bound together by heavenly ties and dwelling
for ever in the blessed light of God.




CHAPTER VII.
THE SOUL'S EXERCISE: IN
CHURCH  RELATIONS.
{9 ~~   HE church of Christ has life and
~'~1[ e organization, and is thus prepared
for growth. Its Author and Head
expects it to grow. The Spirit's exhortations through the inspired apostles have this growth of the church their constant theme. Its continuance on earth is for
the very purpose of growth. The only true
solution of the postponement of judgment
upon a guilty world is found in the increase
of Christ's church, and the development of
the divine seed.  Now this growth of the
church consists of two parts, the furtherance
of grace in the converted soul, and the conquest' of new souls by the same grace. By




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          103
the former the church grows deeper, by the
latter it grows broader.
To whom is this responsibility of growth confided? Have we any authority for selecting
any body or class of men in the church and
placing this distinctive duty in their hands?
Is there any warrant in Scripture for counting the officers of the church (whatever name
we may give them) as the exclusive agents of
God in building up the spiritual Zion? The
love of power on one hand, and the love of
ease on the other, have confirmed this error,
so that over a large part of nominal Christendom the fallacy is working, and its natural result is found in a ceremonial and formal church. The gospel idea of the church
is that of a body, where every member has
its appropriate function in building up the
whole, where responsibility is equally shared
by all, and the privileges of activity equally
enjoyed by all. Diversity of gifts and hence
diversity of operations are to be noted, but
nowhere do we learn that there is to prevail
a distinction of gifts and no gifts. The same
Spirit, from whom comes every endowment,




104   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
moves in all. The power to work for Christ
is not in the natural faculties, but in the
Spirit. The most imposing natural faculties
are nothing without the Spirit, and the Spirit
is powerful to accomplish the grandest results
where the natural faculties are weak and contemptible.'These truths, which are the very
A B C of spiritual knowledge, have to be reiterated, when we are discussing the subject
of Christian work, for faith seems ever to fail
in accepting them, and the church is full of
idlers because of the excuse of the lack of
natural faculties.
We have already addressed heads of fanilies and pointed out to them  the golden
opportunities God has set before them in the
careful training of their children and households in the truth.  We now take a wider
range of remark, and call upon every Christian to do his part in the organization of believers which we call a particular church, that
is, his part of the church universal. In this
assembly of believers for praise, prayer, instruction, and mutual sympathy and edification, we see the fairest type of the heavenly




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            105
society that can be found on earth.  This
concourse of saints is not only a banquet of
divine love, but also in some sort what the
Greeks called an "eranos" or feast to which
each guest contributes something. It is first
very clear that no one man can pray or praise
for another. If one leads, all should follow
audibly or inaudibly as the case may be; but
surely there is no worship where there is no
following. A listless demeanor or intermittent attention, as if a Christian were at a
spectacle, is a complete breach of divine order
and a prostitution of the sacred occasion. We
may expect the world to exhibit such conduct
in the assembly, but where is the believer's
heart that he should imitate the world in this
his high place of privilege? The same course
of thought holds good with regard to the
instruction given by those appointed to the
work. No Christian has a right to go to hear
merely a pleasant speech, to make eloquence
the object of his search, in going to the
congregation of the saints. There is fearftu
remissness and injurious error here. Chris'
tians are seeking sensation, excitement, amuse



106   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
ment, when the one thing to be sought is
instruction from God's word. If that is not
given, a Christian has a right to complain;
but when that is given, it is every believer's
duty to listen reverently not to man but to
God, and so receive the divine seed into a
good and honest heart.
There is another exercise in the assembly
in which every Christian should engage. Giving is worship. Jehoiada placed the chest
for offerings next to the altar of sacrifice. The
apostle ordered collections to be made for the
poor on the Lord's day. The giving to the
Lord of our substance has always been, from
the beginning of the church, an act of worship and a means of grace. No Christian has
a right to except this from his worship. If
a widow whose whole fortune was two mites,
which made together one farthing, was by
our Saviour commended for her pecuniary
gift to the Lord's cause, who is there that
can reasonably excuse himself on the ground
of poverty?  Christian men worth thousands
and hundreds of thousands contract their
whole souls into mean proportions, and rob




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          107;
themselves of large enjoyment in the divine
life by putting their ten cents into the plate,
while the poor excuse themselves altogether
from giving. All this is wrong. The pecuniary gifts of God's people ought to be multiplied by a hundred, and then the giving church
would be richer and happier for its gifts.
Every one should give, whether rich or poor.
The cent of the straitened is as much needed
for worship as the dollar of the richer. The
poor man should no more omit giving because of his poverty, than an illiterate man
should omit praying because of his grammar.
When we consider giving as worship, then we
see this matter in its true relations. Exercise
unto godliness is incomplete without a liberal
hand in God's name.
But besides these common acts of worship
in the assembly, there are others that appertain to the more general life of the church.
Visiting the poor and suffering is expressly
recorded by the Spirit as a mark of pure
religion. Our Saviour emphasizes this in his
picture of the judgment. How is it that half
the Christians in the world never think of this




108   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
exercise?  How many leave it to benevolent
societies, or agents, or ministers, forgetting
that it is a personal duty that no one can set
aside without directly disobeying the Lord
Jesus. God means your graces to grow by
your contact with the suffering, by your ministry to the sick and sorrowing, by your sympathizing relief brought opportunely to the
garret of the destitute. How can you refuse
God's method and prosper? Are you afraid
that such visiting will oblige you- to give
money? Then let that be an argument for
your going. You need just that grace. Do n't
say you have no means to give, when you can
wear rings and necklaces and diamonds. Try
the virtue of selling a diamond pin and giving
the proceeds to the needy, making the poor
widow's heart to leap with joy. It may be
the grandest step in Christianity you ever
took, since you were converted. When you
have learned how to visit the afflicted systematically, and how to comfort them with substantial kindness personally in the name of
Jesus, you will have opened a new fountain
of delight for yourself, such as you little




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.           109
dreamed of in the days of your selfish isolation.  You will look more like Jesus than
you ever did before. Go modestly, not as if
you were a superior going to- see an inferior,
for you are not; and go cheerfully, in the
love of the Master, and go tenderly with concern for the sick or sad one, and go with the
Scripture on your lips and a purse in your
pocket, and go calmly and not in a hurry,
remembering that this too is worship. Let
every Christian engage in this personal visiting, man and woman. I think if this rule of
Christ were obeyed, it would teach us to be
less extravagant in our expenditures for selfish ends, to be less dashing in our costume,
to be less thoughtful for our petty pleasures,
in short, it would raise us to a higher, nobler
level, nearer the angels and nearer to God.
Suppose we try it just for a month, and see
how it results.
Another form  of Christian exercise unto
godliness is found in teaching the word. The
error that ordained men are alone to teach
God's word is one of Satan's admirable devices to block the wheels of evangelization




110   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
There are indeed some who by their acquirements are fitted for a peculiar (and in some
respects a higher) style of teaching. They
have studied carefully, and under experienced
guides, the original languages of Scripture,
and have thoroughly digested the statements
of revelation in whatever of system divine
things are capable of sustaining to finite intellects. On these men the appointed agents of
the church put their seal of approbation, that
the church may have confidence in them as
called of God to be pastors and teachers.
But this by no means exhausts the teaching
of the church. There is to be teaching in
the family, and teaching out of the family,
whether it be in the Sunday-school or neighborhood visiting. The Bible is to be opened
and its precious promises spread' out before
the child, the sick patient, or the friend of
whatever sort; and for this high- function
every converted soul is capable. It needs no
Greek or Hebrew, nor does it require "the
laying on of the hands of the presbytery."
It demands only a pious heart and an overflowing love. When you have read a portion




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.         1il
of the word, and pondered it, and been illumined and warmed by the new rays of truth,
store up your treasure for another's benefit,
and seek an opportunity to enrich a friend. Let
no Christian fail to be a teacher of the word
in some form and way as regularly and systematically as possible. The converse of the
question in the second of Romans, is in perfect analogy with the gospel scheme: "Thou
that art taught thyself, teachest thou not another?"  The knowledge you possess of the
Word of God is enough to enlighten many a
dark heart. Can you rightfully hide your light
under a bushel-measure? When God entered
your heart, did he not make you a truthbearer? What have you to show for your
commission? Where is the work you have
wrought?. To whom have you taught the
word of God? With what child of sin or
of sorrow have you read the pages that minister heavenly comfort and instruction? Has
not your Christian life been wholly or greatly
defective in this duty? Can you not trace
many of your own symptoms of spiritual unhealthiness to this lack? Is not your want




112   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
of interest in and comfort from  the Bible
owing to your failure in making it known to
others? The Sunday-school teacher occupies
a position of growth. He receives quite as
much as he gives; I think more. We cannot
overestimate the value of well-ordered Sunday-schools for the training of both old and
young in the church. And what is true eminently of the well-ordered Sunday-school is
true of every form of systematic Bible instruction. It is not only in the preparation that
is necessary for the lesson, which increases
the knowledge of divine things, but it is in
the contact with a living soul receiving great
truths that the teacher obtains his own benefit. The truths are enlarged in his own soul
as he sees them impressing another; and his
sympathy runs with the pupil by awakening
his own impressions anew.
Another form of Christian exercise unto
godliness is found in utterance at the prayermeeting. It is not to be expected that any
man can arise and speak to edification among
God's people without due preparation. The
notion that any man is like a fountain, and




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          113
it needs only the turning of a fawcet and the
stream of useful speech will flow, is a mistaken one. The men who appear to speak
impromptu and with ease, are those who have
thoroughly prepared themselves. This thorough preparation is the secret of their ease in
utterance. The fault in our prayer-meetings
is that Christians do not prepare themselves
to speak to edification, and hence do not offer
a word. Their inability to speak they think
to be a natural lack, and hence they leave
the duty to others, when their inability is
simply owing to their neglect of preparation.
What is to be prepared? Not an exhaustive
essay. Not a sermon. Not a fine piece of
rhetoric. If it were any of these, inability
might be pleaded rightfully on the part of
many. But that which is to be prepared is
simply a fact-statement, as you would tell it
to a friend, a word of personal experience, a
view personally enjoyed of some passage of
Scripture, anything that is brief and simple
and calculated to warm or cheer the hearts of
believers. If every Christian felt his duty in
this respect, the leader of the meeting would
8




114   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
not have to summon by name any particular
member to guide the thoughts of the assembly, but only to designate which one of those
that offered should take his turn to discharge
this duty.  This very readiness would add
new life to the meeting, and increase its efficiency in all hearts. Diffidence in speaking
to a hundred persons may be overcome by
conscientious practice.  Let the first words
be few, and the simpler the better, and let
the desire be to do one's part towards edifying the church. The diffidence will grow less
at every utterance. Of course I do not refer
to those exceptional cases where nervous disease is a very just excuse from this form of
Christian exercise. In all these exercises of
exhortation or instruction, brevity, point and
simplicity must be insisted on, and these qualities will make it an easier duty to the conscientious soul? Where many are thus ready,
we have the best guarantee against untimely
dissertations, irrelevant harangues and empty
wordiness, which ought to have no part in
Christian assemblies.
Now, my fellow-believers, I have put before




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          115
you some of the ways in which the Lord calls
each of us to exercise himself unto godliness
in the midst of his church on earth. It reo
mains for us to apply the truth by asking
each himself the question, "Am I practising
this system of spiritual strengthening? Am
I taking this divinely-appointed means to preserve the vigorous vitality of my heaven-born
life?"
One of the most frequent and plausible
arguments against the practical adopTion of
these various forms of Christian exercise is
the want of time.  The mother's domestic
duties, and the father's business duties are
all-absorbing and leave no time for visiting or
teaching the word, or preparing edifying words
for the prayer-meeting, even if they allow time
for attending that meeting.  The answer to
this favorite argument is perfectlysimple. It
is that our eternal interests are superior to
all else, and that any plan of life which leaves
them out and neglects their furtherance according to God's appointments, is radically
wrong and cannot receive God's blessing.
Moreover, I know active business men and




116    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
excellent house-keeping ladies who do find
abundant time to attend to all these spiritual
exercises, and to whom the visitation of the
poor, and sick, and afflicted is a most happy
relief from their domestic or business duties.
And, still again, those who make the excuse
have plenty of time to visit their friends, to
read their favorite books, to do a large amount
of amateur shopping, and to take their drives
and ewcursions. The want of time is not an
-excuse we shall dare to use before the judgment-sea-t of Christ.  Our convictions there
will be too clear that selfishness occupied the
time that the Lord wanted.
Remember what. we have before shown,
-that regular exercise of our spiritual man is
as necessary for spiritual health as our bodily
exercise- is necessary for the right and sound
use of our physical functions; that revealed
truth received into the soul by faith; and-nurtured by Christian companionship, must also
be used in positive Christian activity toward
others, if Christ is to be completely developed
in us; and this, if we are Christ's, should be
our one aim.




CHAPTER VIII.
THE  SOUL'S EXERCISE: IN  THE
WORLD WITHOUT.
AVYING considered two spheres
of opportunity for the regular ex-'  ercise of our Christian graces, the,    one in the family and the other in
connection with church organization,
we turn now to a third, that which is presented
in our business life. It will be borne in mind
that this exercise is unto godliness-is a means
ordained of God for the development of truth
in us, to reject which is to consent to a stunted
spiritual condition with all its consequences.
Let this thought accompany all our investigations upon the subject.
Our life on earth is one and our character
is one. We cannot separate our social life




118   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
from our domestic life, or our business life
front either. The principles which operate in
one will operate in all. Selfishness and trickery in business will be found in the family as
equally selfishness and deceit. A man may
put on two faces, but he can have only one
heart. As everything goes to make up our one
character in life, so our one character will act
upon everything in life. All exceptions to this
rule are phenomenal only. A man who acts
the tyrant in his family may appear to be
affable and yielding in commercial circles, but
it is only in appearance. The iron hand wears
a velvet glove for policy's sake. Sometimes,
perhaps, his cunning is off its guard, and the
tyrant appears. Such slips form the eccentricities of some men that are so inexplicable
to their fellows. A godly man can no more
shut out his business life from his religion
than the sun can refuse to shine in one direction. When it is attempted, the religion is
proved, by that very fact, to be of a very low
order. It is like a stream in the desert that
the sands absorb before it can fertilize. I
know this type of strange Christianity is found.




THYL SOUL'S EXERCISE.         119
There are men who will meet with missionary
boards and occupy positions of responsibility
in the church, and yet go down to their office,
store, or counting-room as thorough heathen,
never saying a word to their clerks, or before
their clerks, of the Kingdom of Christ; but,
on the contrary, impressing their clerks and
their customers with a sense of their hardness
and unpitying severity, showing no sympathy
or tenderness toward any, acting the part in
real life of Shylock or Ralph Nickleby. What
must be the effect of such a life upon the
world in its estimate of evangelical religion?
For the world does not read the Bible.  It
reads men. It sees the grand and leading
firm  of Messrs. Driver &  Holdem.  Mr.
Driver built a large church in Driverville. He
furnished the parsonage of the city church, of
which he is a member. He gave the Sundayschool a noble library. He is chairman of
the board for providing the destitute with the
gospel.  Alas! his gifts have harmed the
church more than benefited it. They have
made the Sunday-school superintendent and
the church officers and the trustees and the




120    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
minister to close their eyes and mouths against
his worldliness, and so to join hands with it.
They always have a pleasant smile for Mr.
Driver, although they know that he has just
been engaged in a large " cornering operation."
And as for Mr. Holdem, the partner, he is the
man who makes such a beautiful prayer; who
instituted the daily prayer meeting, and sends
the "Journal of Missions " gratuitously to ten
thousand persons. He is also the man that
broke the heart of a simple-minded Christian
man from Kansas, who came to his store to
ask aid for a struggling band of Christ's people there, by thrusting him violently out of his
premises. He is the man who took advantage
of the usury laws to give his creditors the
go-by. He is the man who sells property to
weak purchasers, so as to foreclose and regain
the property with the first payment as clear
gain. All Wall street knows Messrs. Driver
& Holdem; and although they are worth five
millions at least, all Wall street watches them
as carefully in any business transaction as it
would watch a state-prison graduate.
What idea, I ask, will Wall street have of




THE' SOUL'S EXERCISE.          121
the Church of Jesus Christ, as it sees that
church through the firm of Driver & Holdem?
And what real benefit do such men confer
upon the church by their gifts, given as they
are to blind others and their own consciences
to their. own heathenish character?  It is
high time that the church should prefer straitness and poverty rather than entangling alliances with such traitors to the truth.
We have very'strong doubts whether Driver & Holdem were ever converted. We are
forced to believe them hypocrites and nothing
else. But there are others, of whose underlying faith in Christ we have no reason to doubt
-men who have given satisfactory evidence,
in crises of their lives, that they saw the
unseen and eternal. But these men leave all
manifestation of their religion outside of their
places of business. They are like automata,
moving mechanically through their routine,
but all soulless in the presence of their business
companions. They defend their conduct by
saying, "'^nly business in business hours."  I
take issue with their axiom.- Where did they
get it?  Is it in God's word?  Is there not




122   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
another sort of axiom in that blessed volume,
that says, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God "? That
axiom tells me that my godliness should ooze
out at every pore of my daily duties, when
I'm selling silks or buying molasses, not by
assumed cant and weak platitudes, but by an
honest, manly, Christian style of doing business that would sparkle with its true courtesy
and consideration, and so commend the Christianity that lay behind it. A man of that
stamp would know when to throw out the word
in season for God; when to correct firmly evil
language or conduct; when to encourage a
desponding clerk; when to have a private
interview with some one dependent upon him
and whom he could counsel as a father. Such a
one would have no lack of opportunity to let
his light shine in his place of business without
harming an iota of his commercial or monetary
interests.
In some of the large Christian firms of
England, where scores and hundredof clerks
are employed, regular morning prayers are
established, and the head of the house reads




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.         123
and expounds a passage of Scripture daily to
all, and on Sunday he has them all with their
families in a Sunday evening Bible-class. This
is a noble example. The relations thus established between employers and employed are
of the right sort. Holy sympathies are created
and nurtured between them, and they are all
led in their business to serve the Lord. Who
will brave public opinion and dare, for Christ's
sake, to begin such a custom here?  We are
too great cowards to be Christians. We are
always wondering what the world will say;
and if we surmise that it would ridicule a projected action on the side of God and truth, we
take care to be very quiet, perhaps hoping
secretly that some one else will do it and meet
the brunt, and then we can safely follow. Why
should it not be known and said of our Christian merchants, tradesmen, and mechanics,
"These men fear God and serve him in all
their business. An atmosphere of truth and
godliness surrounds their lives "? Is not this
the only reputation a Christian ought to have
in the world? Why should we have to search
the church records to discover if A. B. is a




124    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
Christian? Is that letting one's light shine?
Is that presenting oneself a living sacrifice to
God?  Is that standing with one's loins girt
about with truth?  Oh, how unlike these
Scriptural portraits of the true Christian are
those who exclude their religion- from their
places of business! We forget that Christianity is not a performance, but a life. If it
were a performance, we might crowd the worl
into certain hours or days and leave the rest
free. But it is a life, and if the life is vigorous
and healthy, it cannot be eclectic in its exhibitions.  It must overflow.  The Christian
business men we have just described are not
pointed out by the commercial world as cheats
and large-scale robbers. They do not belong
to the class of Driver & Holdem. But their
influence on Christianity is perhaps quite as
evil.  Those worldly men who happen to
know their church-membership must consider
religion, as seen in them, a very subordinate
arId insignificant affair. It is by no means as
important as business and money.. And so
these worldly men are supported  in their
theory of putting off all thoughts of personal




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          125
religion to a dying day. Those who are not
aware of the professed Christianity of these
ashamed believers are injured in another way.
They see their moral and upright lives, and
conclude that Christianity is of no more use
than a fifth wheel to a coach. " Here are men
as good as anything we wish to see. They do
not lie and steal. They are honorable men
and keep their engagements. They are respected by all, and trusts are reposed in them
to anyextent.:What more does man want?"
Now the real foundation of the commercial
uprightness of these men is in their Christian
faith. Men. may be commercially upright who
are not Christians, (although, generally, that
sort of uprightness will not bear a very rigid
microscopic examination,) but in these cases
to which we refer the correct commercial life
is really the result of Christian faith, and it is
disloyalty to God to hide that connection. It
confirms multitudes in endeavoring to go on
in life without God. It is a tacit testimony
for irreligion. When we think how much of a
man's life is spent in his place of business, it
is startling to think of this exclusion of religion




126   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
from the business field. It is virtually banishing religion from three-quarters of one's waking
life. We can see at a glance how fearfully
prejudicial it must be to one's own religious
experience; what a desert it must make of
personal piety. Imagine a tree with the sap
removed from three-quarters of it, or a man's
body with all signs of life confined to a quarter of it. What kind of vigor would there be
in that tree or in that man?
I know there rises up as a general objection
to the visible presence of a religious life in
business the fear of the charge of hypocrisy.
The fear of hypocrisy is a very right one. We
ought to dread hypocrisy. It is the worst of
sins. It is the lie unto God as unto man.
Our Saviour used words of fierce indignation,
not against the publicans and harlots, but
against the hypocrites. But the fear of hypocrisy and the fear of the charge of hypocrisy are
different things. We ought not rashly and
unreasonably to lay ourselves open to a false
charge, but sometimes we are obliged to, if we
would perform our duty before God. Daniel's
praying might have been looked upon as sheer




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.         127
hypocrisy, its motive being considered a desire
to show his independence of the king; but
that possibility would not stop Daniel's praying. Doubtless many charge Christians with
hypocrisy in going to church, but that charge
will not warrant a relinquishment of this high
duty. -If introducing living religion into your
place of business is going to bring upon you
the charge of hypocrisy, stand the charge like
a Christian, so long as it is a lying charge, so
long as you know you are not a hypocrite. I
know there is a cheap twaddle that goes for
religion with some shallow pates, or shrewd
pates, as the case may be. It is very disgusting and every manly heart is repelled by it.
But do not reject the pure gold because of the
counterfeit. Be discreet, use common sense,
be natural, and then be bold and independent.
Do what you know to be right in the sight of
God, and force those around you into respect.
Let the community as little expect you to be
a heathen in your store as in your church.
I have looked on the influence of such exercise of your spiritual life upon your own personal growth in grace, for that is our subject




128    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
— the means of developing the healthy Christian.  My allusions to influence and opinion
without have been only to illustrate this subjective condition.  If it were not for this
circumscription of subject, it would be easy to
show the immense importance of a positive
Christianity in our business men in business
hours for the spread of the truth. I could
enlarge on the channels opened by commercial intercourse for gospel currents, and the
power of young men nurtured under such
commercial training for the spiritual welfare.of the race.  But my design precludes this
direction of thought. It is the subjective influence we are now studying.  We are noting
that the law of Christian growth forbids the
repressing of the exercise of any of the divine
gifts, at the peril of the spiritual welfare; that
a Christian who withholds the demonstration
of his faith in any one department of his life
thereby diseases his spiritual nature, dishonoring God while he reduces his own capacity
for the higher joys of the  life of faith.
The Lord  as our shepherd  leads us into
green pastures and beside waters of rest, but




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            129
our perversity makes the landscape a desert.
We move among untried opportunities and
have no right to murmur at our barren and
unsatisfactory experience. The business life
of the Christian might be to him a well-spring
of spiritual refreshing. He might identify it
with all that is holy and divine. Every business connection might contain a golden thread
of godly recognition, and the purest and most
truly religious associations might cluster around
the buyings and sellings of trade. It is because Christian men have so long worked upon
an opposite and false principle that this proposition looks fairly startling.  If they begin
again from God to mould their business life
anew, they would see that there is no conflict
between religion and business, as they have
practically taught, but that the religion of
Jesus sanctifies business and belongs to it, as
much as to the social and domestic sides of
human life. And when they have made this
discovery, they will than make the still more
astonishing discovery that business sanctifies
them. God has called no disciple to a duty
that is not sanctifying, if used aright. If we
Ie..lithy Christi:n.  9




130   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
are not growing spiritually from our daily
occupations, we may be sure that we are very
wrong somewhere; we are divorcing them
from the spiritual life, and so virtually making
our business a clandestine dealing with the
enemy. It is such a false system which makes
some Christians say, under stress of conscience,
" I'm going to keep in business only a few
years, till I gain so much, and then I'm going
to serve the Lord more systematically and
zealously." My brother, what is to hinder
you from serving the Lord systematically and
earnestly in your business? Why have to go
out of it, in order to be a consistent Christian?
Why not sanctify your business by erecting an
altar in your counting-room? Your style of
speech suggests that your business has some
crooked ways in it that would not bear inspection. If this be so, I the more earnestly appeal
to you to cast out the demon from your store
and let the Lord Jesus, your Lord Jesus, ever
b)o by your side, at your ledger, behind your
counter, in conference with your customer, so
that you may exercise yourself unto godliness
in all your doings.




CHAPTER IX.
THE SOUL'S EXERCISE: IN
CHRISTIAN  SOCIETY.
)    f~- HAVE endeavored to show that
Az = the society of believers is the
4e!_  fresh air to a believer's piety, purifying his Christ-life from the false additions which accrue either from a
morbid isolation on the one hand, or from
worldly intimacies on the other.  My purpose now is to show that this society of believers is one of the appropriate spheres in
which he is to exercise himself unto godliness.
He is not only to be a recipient of good by
these relations, but to be also a giver of good.
And by the society of believers I do not
mean an alliance with believers in acts of




132    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
worship, a formal connection in what are
known as church relations, but a social life
with those who have the same hope, the same
salvation, the same Christ. The necessity of
forming such a relationship, the breaking up
of many common.habits which it implies, tile
complete abjuring of a trifling world, the willingness to be considered peculiar, and contrasted by that world-all these points we
have already considered. It remains for us
now only to consider the forms in which a
Christian may exercise his graces in such a
godly society thus constituted.
1. My first observation has respect to conversation.  I use the word in its modern
sense, for verbal intercourse.  God has endowed us with speech as the medium of communion and communication between soul and
soul. By it the observation, logic and imagery of the mind are projected into a condition that can be grasped and used by another.
Ideas that otherwise would be vague and
formless, are defined by this high faculty of
man, and by their very definition give birth
to new ideas, which are formative in their




THE SOUL'S EiERCISE.        133
turn, and so through language the mind grows
in knowledge and wisdom. The beasts that
are intended to remain stationary in their
rudimental knowledge, creatures of an instinct
that never grows, need little language; but
man, born to have dominion over the beasts
and with capacity to partake of the divine,
possesses alone of earth's inhabitants this
grand endowment by which his progress may
be insured, and his alliance with supernal
beings is established.  The prostitution of
such a faculty to low and trifling ends is a
fearful abuse of the divine grace and purpose.
It is not only where lying and slander defile
the tongue that speech is degraded, it is not
only where a wicked heart makes the tongue
the instrument of crime, but it is also where
this noble faculty becomes the agent of what
the apostle has called "foolish talking." Enter
any ball-room, pass from group to group, and
note the conversation that is common to all.
Is the twittering of swallows more vacant?
Petty scandal, commonplace compliments,
threadbare wit-these are the loftiest terms
we can use to designate the bubbles of prattle




134    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
to which men and women degrade speech in
their principal social reunions, for which they
make their especial preparations.  In this
style of school the mass of what is most
whimsically called "refined society" obtains
its education, and so this senseless chatter
becomes one of the characteristics of "refined
society." Any proposition to elevate the tone
of conversation is at once hailed as an audacious attempt to encroach upon the prerogative of fashion, and a desire to make everything sombre and dull. The lazy dawdle of
the drawing-room magnifies every effort to
convert it into something sensible as a presentation of the higher mathematics, or Hebrew
roots. People forget that it is just as easy
to talk sense as nonsense, if they will only
form the habit. Sense does not mean profound study. Sense may be very simple. A
peasant can talk sense.  And a Christian
ought to.
If we leave the ball-room and follow the
ordinary social visitor from house to house,
we find no higher standard of colloquy in
general use.  Dreary commonplace or un



THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          135
wholesome gossip meets us everywhere. If
we take to the street, we find a shrill treble
of laces and ribbons, and a running base of
dollars and dividends, as the almost universal
music of conversational life.
Now, in direct opposition to all this, the
believer is to use this large field of opportunity for the exercise of his religious acquirements. Not that each conversation of a Christian is to be a sermon, or that he is never
to talk without a testimony direct for Christ.
Such a method would defeat its own end.
But he is to be so full of the great fact of
Christ's redeeming love, that he will naturally
and easily turn anything in conversation to
the advantage of the grand subject. Moreover, his whole manner of treating all other
subjects will be that of a Christian, so that
he will show his believing soul even when he
makes no verbal allusion to the truths of revelation.  He will avoid words and phrases,
very common in the world which smack of
profanity or infidelity, and wlll not allow himself for a moment to descend to tattle or twaddle.  He can be humorous without being




136    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
either low or flat, preserving a religion and
dignity even in his pleasantry.
If a soul is full of Christ's love, this high
character of speech will not be a difficult task
or exhibit the appearance of stiffness,- but
will be the natural effluence of its affections.
It does not banish fun, but folly.  It does
not seek solemnity, but solidity.
At times, indeed, the Christian will be solemn in his speech. Where the right opportunity offers he will, remembering his high
commission of God, speak to his friend or
companion of the things of eternity.  This
responsibility is but little understood, or, at
least, but little accepted among the majority
of Christians. It should occupy a large part
of their thoughts, not as an unwelcome and
inconvenient load, but as a glad duty for
Christ's sake. It is a sad reflection that so
few of Christ's people are known by their
conversation, and that thus the influence of
the church is curtailed, and strange inferences
are drawn by the world with regard to the
value of the gospel.  A Christian who thus
refuses to testify for Christ is really testifying




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.        137
against him.  Many Christians have dated
their first true rapture in their religious experiences from the time when they dared to
open their mouths boldly for the Lord in
conversation with their friends. The breach
in the wall of reserve has proved a road for
heavenly delights to enter in.
But not only in speech with the unregenorate, but in conversation with converted souls
a great revolution should be inaugurated among
us. Why should not Christ's people, when
they meet together, speak of him?  Why
should their dear Saviour be unmentioned, as
if he were dead, or as if his name had an ill
omen in its use?  Why should not conversation among Christians naturally gravitate
toward the great themes of salvation. Remember the suggestive passage in the prophet
Malachi, "They that feared the Lord spake
often one to another, and the Lord hearkened
and heard it, and a book of remembrance was
written before him for them that feared the
Lord, and that thought upon his name. And
they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts,
in that day when I make up my jewels; and




138    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
I will spare them, as a man spareth his own
son that serveth him." By such frequent con.
versation. on divine things, they are kept fresh
and efficient in the soul, and one of the best
securities against worldliness is established.
The exercise is "unto godliness." In order
to such a habit we must have in the first
place a deeper and more living interest in
divine things, for out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh; and then we
must have a more familiar acquaintance with
God's word, so that its texts should ever rise
in our minds as the subjects of our remark.
The lack of these two qualifications probably
lies back of our failure in this important- department of spiritual exercise, and our reform
must begin there. As in every characteristic
action of a true Christianity, so here we see
that a real separation from the world, a clear
and seen distinction, is the will of God concerning us.
2. The second method in which our Christian life should exercise itself in society is in
mutual service.  It was said of Dorcas, she
was "full of good works."  Our social life




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          139
might be almost made up of this holy material.  Help is wanted by everybody every
day in some form, help for body and help for
soul. There are little disappointments to be
assuaged, little obstacles to be cleared away,
little provocations to be soothed down, little
sorrows to be comforted, little hardships to be
alleviated, besides the great evils to which we
are all exposed; and the Christian soul ought
to be ever-ready and watching to minister to
these constantly-recurring wants of our fellows. It is not only the actual relief in external matters that is brought about by such
a healthy system of "bearing one another's
burdens," but there is a higher ministry to the
sympathies of the soul.  The magnetism of
Christian friendship renews the desponding
or disordered heart, and our oneness in Christ
is made manifest.  Such a manifestation is
a heavenly balm, communicating peace and
strength. The adroitness of a Christian perception will discover the secret springs of blessing, and lead out their refreshing streams. It
is as a society founded on these principles of
sympathy and active love that the Scriptures




140    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
portray the church of Jesus, forming so marked
a contrast with the world, where self-display
and self-aggrandizement assume perhaps a
cloak of courtesy in the intercourse of society,
but where, notwithstanding, each soul is isolated and, according to the paradoxical proverb, even charity is cold.
There can be no doubt that the social nature and requirements of man are better met
and satisfied by an intercouse that has mutual relief and benefit as one of its constituent elements, than by one which has only the
connections of outward habit or fashion as
its essential power. It is a mistake to suppose that idleness or vacuity of mind and
heart has anything restful in it; and hence
the pleasures of worldly society, far from satisfying, leave a sense of dreariness and loneliness and weariness upon the spirit. It is
a species of intoxication, attractive, even fascinating, for a moment, but leaving its sting
behind. It is only where the affections have
instituted a ministry, a permanence of mutual
service, that the soul really rests and is refreshed.  And such a permanent institution




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.            141
we will vainly look for outside the influences
of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.  It is
not a native growth from man's selfish nature.
It should be the glory of the church of Christ
to exhibit this healthy action of a ceaseless
sympathy between its mnmbers, and in such
activities the Christian should, as we have
seen, find the very atmosphere he breathes.
It is a matter of deep concern that we find
Christ's church so little fulfilling the designs
of its Lord. Just as the ancient Jews let a
familiar intercourse with the idolatrous nations steal away their hearts from God, and
so, under the claims of business or falselyestablished relationships, let slip one by one
the distinctive features of their holy state,
until the severest chastisements were necessary to purge them of their corruption and
bring them back to God; so the church of
Jesus now is, by its false partnerships with
an unbelieving world, giving up the divine
methods of its true life, and yielding itself to
the pernicious, though often plausible, habits
of a Christless society, using the arguments
and reaching the conclusions which are for.




142    THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
eign to the revelation of God, and directly
antagonistic to all growth in grace. The deceitful allurements of riches, the attractions
of position, the taste for low pleasure are
more potent than the commands of God, the
consistency of Chost's truth, the beauty of
holiness and the raptures of divine communion. Can we see the sad repetition of Israel's
sin without shuddering in expectation of Israel's fearful chastisement? Is God going to
leave his people to corrupt themselves? Will
he not vindicate his truth, while he seeks
their recovery?
Some are ready to say that this is a puritanic view of things, and by that they would
mean that we are too stern in our judgment,
and too strict in our requirements. But to
the law and to the testimony! Let them decide the question for us. "Be ye holy as I
am holy," is the great command of God to
you and me, and the way to obey it is in
Jesus Christ by a life of faith and faith's
ready obedience. Does the prevailing form
of Christian society conform to this standard?
Is not the ordinary Christian life of to-day a




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          143
round of worldliness with a dash of legalistic
religion thrown in to satisfy conscience? Are
not many Christians as mad after money and
display as the ungodly?
I speak with emphasis of this sad condition of the church, because reform here must
really be the basis of all change for the better.
Of what use is anything else to a body, if
it breathe foul air?  Neither food nor exercise can save it from disease, if it is inhaling
poison into the lungs.  And if a believer
remain in full communion with the world, he
has no power to exercise himself healthfully.
Tlie sphere of healthy exercise is away from
him.  Give him a social life among God's
people, and then he can exercise his Christian energies to his increase in godliness; and
then too the Word of God will nourish him
aright and Christ be developed in his soul.
The great want of the church is, therefore,
separation from the world.  Every healthy
demand of recreation or amusement can be
found in the Christian society to which God's
word directs us, while the actions of such a
society in works of mutual comfort, encour.




144   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
agement, and help will prove themselves a
source of permanent pleasure, which has no
counterpart in the activities of a worldly society.  The unsatisfying character of worldly
society is keenly and sadly felt when its
ephemeral excitement is over. In spite of our
efforts to the contrary, it proves hollow and
mocking. Momentary triumphs and ultimate
defeat of self mark the history of the soul
that seeks its pleasure in anything short of
the divine; but the soul that-seeks its pleasure in God and his people, that finds its delight in giving and receiving the living sympathy of truth and holiness, occupies a sphere
of perennial sunshine.  God himself is the
minister of its pleasures, and he never fails.
Feverish excitement is exchanged for calm
repose, in accordance with the promise, " Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is
stayed on thee." As the world does not give
the happiness, so the world cannot take it
away. It is out of its reach. The chains of
bondage to the world are broken, and the
soul is free.  The unbeliever, as his name
implies, does not believe that such a life of




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.           145
happiness exists, and with him I do not now
attempt to argue; but you, my believing friend,
know that this truly happy life is within your
reach, and you ought to know that your conformity to the world is your only hinderance
to its enjoyment. Is it in vain that I bid you
listen to your dear Saviour, saying, "I have
chosen you out of the world;" "I have chosen
you that ye should go and bring forth fruit;"
and again, through his apostle, " Walk as children of light; "have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness"?.  Is it in vain
that Christ's own people are urged to break
the alliance with a world that hates Christ?
I beseech you not to let mere consequences
come into consideration, when the Saviour's
command is so explicit and reiterated. Exercise yourselves unto godliness by a speech
trained in Christian conversation, and by social
intimacies that shall further your spiritual
health, and so supply your spiritual joy. Cast
off, as Satan's chains, the false excuses about
the needs of youth and the requirements of
recreation and the demands of fashion, and
trust Jesus and Jesus only, as you obey his
Healthy Christian.  10




146   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
commands, letting consequences take care of
themselves. Then yours will be a symmetrical
Christ-life, and the spiritual diseases which
disfigure and desolate the church of Christ
will leave you to stand before God his noblest
work, a healthy Christian.




CHAPTER X.
THE SOUL'S EXERCISE: IN  PERSONAL CULTURE.
A ddIHE last sphere for the exercise
_!'of our Christian life, to which I
would refer, is that of direct personal
culture. We have considered the op-'    portunities offered in the family, in
our church relations, in our business, and in
our social connections. We now come to the
man himself. There is a direct work for him,
self, as well as an indirect work through his
relation to others. While man is made for
others, and the great part of his life must be
shaped amid associational forces, and while
the Christian's life is no exception to the rule
but must be very largely intermingled with
the lives of others, and in this intermingling




148   THE rEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
he finds the elements of a successful and
healthy growth, still there must be times of
separation from the great without, a shutting
up of the soul to its own converse, or rather a
withdrawing to be with God alone.
The active, nervous life which we lead in
this land and age has proved inimical to this
phase of Christian experience. The Church
of Christ in our country is an active, bustling
church, but it cannot be called a meditative
church; and so personal Christian experience
is more apt to assume the energetic than the
contemplative form. I speak of a ripe and
healthy experience.
We escape some great evils, it is true, by
this style of development, but we also lose
very great advantages. The evils we escape
are those of morbid self-inspection, which are
the spiritual diseases of honest monasteries
and nunneries; the vain attempt incessantly
to analyze our own hearts and know them,
which ends either in conceit or despair; the
critical examination of every motive and
thought; the dissection and measurement of
every sin and every grace in us-all which is




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          149
meddling with the incomprehensible, a very
vain, puzzling, and calamitous business. These
are great evils, indeed, which the driving,
Jehu-like Christian is not liable to suffer from;
but there are advantages in temporary isolation, whose loss he ought not to endure composedly. A meditative Christian need not be
a self-scrutinizing Christian. He may look at
his life historically, without dissecting his own
heart. The latter work is God's only. "Search
me, O God," is the psalmist's cry. He did
not know how to search himself. But while
we commit this search of our hearts to God,
our past lives lie before us as an historic fact,
which we can safely contemplate, as we would
a landscape or a numerical account.  We
ought to make a balance-sheet from time to
time in our religious life, as we do in our pecuniary concerns. Have I treated my fellowmen as a Christian ought to, last week, or last
month?  Have I been searching God's truth
with more eagerness? Have I been an example to my family and friends? Have I sought
the welfare of others?  Have I been regular
in my use of the means of growth which God




150   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
has provided?  Questions like these liave
nothing sickly in them. They are sound, honest questions, to be answered according to
historic fact-very different questions from
such as these: " Was my motive perfectly pure
when I gave that dollar to the poor man?
Did I sufficiently  weigh the words of my
prayer last evening? Is my heart ready to
make every sacrifice for Christ?"  It is this
latter style of questions whose answer involves
the analysis of alabyrinth, which makes melancholy and very useless Christians. Books
that encourage such an unscriptural self-dissection ought to be burned. But the contemplation of our past life, its outline of hill and
valley, the way God's mercy has led us, and
our own failures and progress-this is an easy
and wholesome duty. The whole Bible urges
us to it. "See what I have done for you, and
see how little you have used your advantages,"
is the virtual cry of God to his people all
through the history of his church. There is
not one of us who has not a history replete
with wonders of Divine grace. By looking
back carefully we can see how God has led us




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.         151
by ways we knew not; how trial has borne its
peaceable fruits of righteousness; how dangers
have been thwarted and thrust aside by the
interposition of providential trifles; how our
own errors have brought us injury, and yet
how God has ever overruled that injury for
our good; how, in short, our whole life has
been a constant discipline of an affectionate
Heavenly Father. Now, this profiting view
cannot be enjoyed while in the push and crowd
of busy life. It demands retirement and time.
The mind must be quiet, so that the memory
can act soberly and systematically. Yet very
few Christians apparently feel the importance
of this tranquil hour of meditation. Perhaps
they consider it a luxury they can forego,
rather than a necessity they must seize. They
hear David say, "I will meditate of all thy
work," Ps. 77:12; and again, "I meditate on
all thy works; and muse on the work of thy
hands," Ps. 143:5; and they think that was
well for David, so eminent a saint, but they,
alas! are too much driven in life for such a
high enjoyment. Perhaps, however, they deem
it neither necessity nor luxury, indeed think




152   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
nothing about it, but carelessly lose the benefits
of this means of grace.
Another subject of meditation is God's revealed word. The psalmist is full of this.
"In God's law doth he meditate day and
night" (Ps. 1:2)-this is in his description ol
a godly man. "I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways;" "My
hands also I will lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved, and I will meditate
in thy statutes;" " Mine eyes prevent the
night watches, that I might meditate in thy
word;" "I love thy law-it is my meditation
all the day;" " Thy testimonies are my meditation." These are some of the utterances of
the godly king himself, and here we see the
secret of his maintaining his integrity amid
the fearful temptations of wealth and absolute
power. There is infinite food for thought in
the Bible. We must do more than read the
Bible. A Christian should be like the clean
beasts of the law, and spend times of rest
in chewing the cud. The word read should
be brought up by memory for new and more
complete digestion, and only in this process




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.         153
can God's word be said to be known. This,
it will be marked, is a different thing from
studying the Scriptures, to which an allusion
has been made under another head. This is
the revolving of the studied word in our
thoughts, so as to fit it to our own cases and
apply it to our own lives. Studying the Word
implies search with every help of commentary,
encyclopedia, dictionary, and Scripture comparison that can be obtained; but meditating
on the Word is the use of the knowledge of the
Word thus.gained in all its relations to ourselves. This meditation on the Word naturally combines with meditation on our past
lives, and thus adjustment and improvement
are suggested. One of the grandest forms of
this meditation on the Word is found in the
review of Christ's marvellous work for us. To
follow the Son of God from heaven to earth,
to see him a babe at the inn-stable of Bethlehem, a youth at Nazareth, a teacher, wonderworker, and lover of souls in Galilee and
Judea, to witness his agony in the Garden and
on the Cross, to behold him bursting the bars
of the grave, and to look after his receding




154   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
figure in the clouds over Olivet, going to pre.
pare a place for us-these are enjoyments of
the meditative hour which impress their lasting
lessons on the heart and life. There, too, we
ponder on the love that wrought all this, the
yearning love of Jesus for his own ransomed
ones; and there, in an emphatic manner, do we
talk with Him, really present to our consciousness. This talking with Jesus is prayer-is
the confiding speech of a child and not the
cry of a stranger. It is not a shriek for help,
but a gentle use of a perpetual help afforded
in our Lord. Prayer is too often practically
considered as merely an appeal to mercy, and
so we who are Christ's are dishonoring him by
constantly doing over our first works. If we
are in Christ, his mercy is vouchsafed to uswe are already enveloped in his grace. Its
blessed provisions are secured to us by the
blood of the covenant. It is true that all we
receive is based on his wondrous mercy, but
the prayer of a believer should not be merely
the cry for mercy, but a child's unbosoming to
a Father. It is a holy communion with the
dearest of friends, a putting out of the hand




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          155
to receive his divine gifts, the very luxury of
dependence upon his bountiful love. It is
painful to see how some Christians take the
command to "pray without ceasing" to be an
order from  heaven to cry out continually,
"Lord, have mercy upon us! "-a very proper
cry for the inquirer, the convicted soul, the
seeking sinner, but as utterly out of place for
the chief prayer of the believer as would have
been the cry, "Make me as one of thy hired
servants," on the part of the prodigal, after he
had been welcomed and received as a. dear
son into his father's house. If our experiences
lead us to use only the cry for mercy, it proves
a very low view of our privileges and a very
low condition of our piety. False churches
have encouraged this method of keeping back
the believer in everlasting babyhood, by which
system priestcraft has attained its earthly
ends. We are, of course, always to ask forgiveness for our daily errors, but it is to be as
a child says to his father, "Father, forgive me
that fault," not as an alien coming now for the
first to receive pardon for a sinful soul. The
whole wretched figment of penance is con



156   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
structed on this false principle, ignoring Christ's
atonement once for all, and making, after
every sad lapse of a believer, a new entrance
into grace necessary. Superficial observers
may think this is laying a proper emphasis on
sin, but it is just the reverse: it is making sin
a matter of so little moment that a human
regimen can cure it, while at the same time it
belittles God's grace, which, if received into
the soul, is an enemy to sin and takes precedence there before the eye of God. God's
grace in the heart is a principle which enables
the believer to contend against sin, and which
is both encouragement and pledge of his success; and to make a believer begin anew, as a
convicted sinner, to cry for mercy, is to shut
him out from that gracious advantage and fill
him with despair. Let us put prayer where
Jesus puts it. It begins with "Our Father."
The rest all flows from that. When prayer is
thus viewed, lifted up from the low position it
holds in so many minds, and made a transporting communion with God, then the command to pray without ceasing is equivalent to
a divine authorization to walk with God all




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          157
the tiae and to enjoy a heavenly happiness in
the midst of all our earthly vicissitudes. The
command shows that we can carry the prayerful spirit with us in all our business of life, but
still there must be opportunities secured from
life's business, where the whole attention of the
soul may be given to this sublime exercise.
The laws of our spiritual nature demand this,
as well as the command of our Saviour concerning closet prayer. We cannot trust our
souls for any spiritual exercise in its full force
while the mind is absorbed in any external
business. The soul that thinks it can catch
its food as it goes will grow lean. There is
such a thing as cultivating everybody's garden
but our own.
Daniel's "three times a day" and David's
"seven times a day" were stated periods of
retirement for prayer and communion with
God of men who were overwhelmed with the
affairs of state, fully as busy as the busiest
man in any commercial city. There these
holy men gained the beauty of their spiritual
character. When prayer is regarded in this
its high and true character, there can be no




158   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
formality, no legalistic dragging in the exercise.
One other private exercise of the Christian
life I wish to mention, which, however, has a
public side. I refer to the use of the Lord's
Supper. The communion of the Lord's Supper is not the communion of saints, but the
communion of the body and blood of Christ.
We do meet together and hold communion
with one another at the same time, but the
essence of the exercise is in our communion
with our Lord, and hence the name. The
Lord's Supper is the central exercise of Christ's
Church. It is the emblematic service respecting the central fact of our redemption. It is
the gospel in token. In the apostolic church,
the Lord's Supper was partaken of every
Lord's Day. Around it gathered the worship
and instruction of the church. The apostle
Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians,
sets forth its prominence, while he guards it
from  perversion. It has been the fault of
many Protestant bodies, in practical protest
against the magical character which the Roman Church gave it, to diminish the real




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.          153
importance of the Eucharist as a means of
grace, an ordained exercise of the Christian
soul. We must avoid both extremes. On one
hand we must recognize from Scripture that
there is no mystic power in the elements or
the minister-that there is no material grace
or condemnation in the service, but that our
faith in Jesus and his word gives it all its
value to us, and our want of faith in Jesus
and his word gives it all its power to harm us,
as a holy exercise engaged in with a careless,
God-defying spirit. Then, on the other hand,
we must not treat it as a mere external service-to be used or not, as the whim may take
us-of small account if we have the truth in
our hearts. Our Saviour would not have instituted it if it was of small importance. Every
thing he ordered is and must be of importance.
He commanded it, and therefore there is grace
to be found in it by a faithful soul, which it
cannot afford to spare.
The Eucharist is, as its name signifies, a
thanksgiving service. It is concentrated praise
for redeeming love, or rather for an accomplished redemption. It is the glad reception




160   THE HEALTHY CHRISTIAN.
of a pledge from God, and the kernel of the
exercise is in the individual soul thus taking
gladly and thankfully this pledge from the
hand of God. There is no exercise more
simple, none more imposing, none more profitable. It is not a form, but a power, and that
power is realized through plain faith.
That a Christian should stay away from this
communion is as unreasonable as that he
should abandon prayer or the study of the
word. If he stay away from fear, he is superstitious. If he stay away from worldliness,
he is a backslider. In both cases he is abandoning a means of grace, and disobeying the
express commands of his Lord. He should
view it in its private character, in its relations
to himself, as a means of direct personal culture in holiness, if he would rightly estimate
his partaking or abstaining.  When faith
lays hold of Jesus in his ordinance-when, to
use the apostle's phrase, we " discern the
Lord's body" —then the Eucharist is a service
of glory, a refreshing from the presence of the
Lord.
We thus see that every believer has his own




THE SOUL'S EXERCISE.              161
soul to cherish, his own piety to cultivate, by
a direct culture, as well as by his active relations with others, for which time must be used
at whatever cost, and for neglect of which no
excuse of worldly care can stand for a moment
before the tribunal of God or the conscience,
and which, moreover, will bring its own peculiar reward by a heavenly vantage over'all the
possible trials of life. It is the exercise which
fits the soul for all other exercise.  Without
it, every aspect of the Christian life will be
disfigured.
eaethy Christan,.  11




A CLOSING WORD.
t   E have endeavored to follow
^^,^^l ~'Y  the analogy of the body, in
treating of the soul, and to show
what are the believer's spiritual
food, air, and exercise, by the right
use of which his spiritual life will be sound
and vigorous, by which both the blood-system
and nerve-system of the soul, the indwelling
of Christ and the Holy Spirit, will be maintained as against the powerful adversaries of
the divine life which are so abundant and besetting in this sin-smitten earth.
Truth is an exotic here. It must be preserved by extraordinary measures. The Lord
bids his people to be ever watchful. The vigilance of faith has a divine guarantee. It will
surely accomplish its end. But where there
is consent to the world's style of life, the
world's aims or the world's system of ethical




A CLOSING WORD.             163
law, there is the betrayal of the divine trust,
the defilement of the holy place.
Our citizenship is in heaven. We confess
we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
They that say such things declare plainly that
they seek a country. They desire a better
country: that is, a heavenly. It is with this
prospect in view, and in this habit of mind
and heart, that we are called upon to preserve
and nourish what the grace of God in Christ
Jesus has bestowed upon us.
The children of Israel at Sinai received a
complete law for their future habitation in
Palestine. But while still in the desert they
were to cherish that law, and use all that could
be used in the wilderness-situation. So are
we, fellow-Christians, furnished with a divine
law in Christ for our heavenly home; but
here, on our pilgrimage, is that law of holiness to be cherished and employed to the
fullest possible anticipation of the perfected
state. We are a separated people. Let us
Got break down the holy barriers our God has
)ut up.