984- e 
 
 Bern 
 
 31fi 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 e. 
 
 Class 
 
YB 1314 
 
 E GOSPEL OF 
 OOD HEALTH 
 
 BROWN 
 

 
 
THE GOSPEL OF GOOD 
 HEALTH 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN 
 
 THE PILGRIM PRESS 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 
GENERAL 
 
 And he showed me a river of 
 water of life, bright as crystal, 
 proceeding out of the throne of 
 God and of the Lamb, in the midst 
 of the street thereof. And on this 
 side of the river and on that was 
 the tree of life, bearing twelve 
 manner of fruits, yielding its fruit 
 every month: and the leaves of 
 the tree were for the healing of 
 
 the nations. 
 
 REVELATION 22 : 1, 2. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1908 
 BY LUTHER H. GARY 
 
\jr "ic. 
 
 I UNIVERSITY 
 THE 
 
 GOSPEL OF GOOD HEALTH 
 
 1 N the vision of the seer, " the leaves of the 
 tree were for the healing of the nations." The 
 leaves, rather than the fruit, became in his 
 mind the graceful symbols of the divine in- 
 terest in the curing of disease. The leaves 
 represent that which is incidental, a kind of 
 by-product. The main business of the tree 
 was to produce fruit; it bore fruit every 
 month " all manner of fruit " and un- 
 doubtedly the same kind of fruit as that 
 named by the apostle. Now " the fruit of 
 the Spirit," he says, " is love, joy, peace, 
 patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, 
 mildness, and self-control." These useful 
 moral qualities are the fruits of the Spirit; 
 the type of character here indicated is the 
 real fruit which the tree of life is intended 
 to produce in the garden of human experi- 
 ence. But incidental to its main purpose, 
 thrown in as you might say, there is a 
 further ministry to good health " the 
 leaves of the tree are for the healing of the 
 nations." 
 
 I wish to make this distinction clear at the 
 outset because in all our communities there 
 are groups of religiously disposed people who 
 make physical healing the central object of 
 
their interest. They talk about it, they think 
 about it, they write about it, incessantly. In 
 their published statements they deny the very 
 existence of disease, but with a curious incon- 
 sistency they at once proceed to spend their 
 main strength in a heroic effort to heal that 
 non-existent illness without the use of drugs. 
 In doing this they virtually narrow down their 
 religious interest to the business of raising 
 leaves. When the day of judgment comes it 
 is to be feared that many of them will have 
 " nothing but leaves " to show, for the 
 reason that they have been slighting the 
 weightier matters of useful and unselfish 
 service in their zeal to " demonstrate " their 
 ability to keep these perishable bodies in 
 good trim. To do this is to unduly exalt that 
 which is incidental and make it central. 
 
 We shall part company with these physi- 
 cal bodies of ours very soon at best. The 
 great question therefore is not whether a man 
 has a good liver and a sound stomach, but 
 whether he is sane and true, whether he is 
 upright, unselfish, serviceable in his personal 
 character. These groups of people who 
 make physical healing their chief concern can 
 show a considerable number of cures of a cer- 
 tain sort they are in the leaf business and 
 it would be strange if they did not at times 
 produce fairly good crops of these leaves. 
 But when you make inquiry as to the general 
 yield of fruit in the form of useful service, 
 when you ask them about providing homes 
 for the orphans and the aged, about making 
 
[7] 
 
 provision for the poor through wisely ad- 
 ministered and generously sustained chari- 
 ties, about bringing to bear those better in- 
 fluences upon the neglected portions of our 
 cities through social settlements and other 
 valued forms of endeavor, about providing 
 well-rounded Christian men and women thor- 
 oughly furnished for every good work, they 
 have not much to say for themselves. They 
 have unfortunately been occupied for the 
 most part in raising those leaves which are 
 for the healing of certain minor bodily 
 ailments. 
 
 Their successes are confined almost en- 
 tirely, if not altogether, to the correction of 
 functional troubles as distinct from cases 
 of organic disease. I have known many per- 
 sons who have been relieved from headaches, 
 indigestion, and other similar disorders by 
 mental therapeutics. I have never known of 
 a case of organic disease, where the presence 
 of the disease was conclusively established 
 by competent diagnosis before the treatment 
 began and the cure of it similarly proved 
 at the end, to be healed by that line of effort 
 alone. The principle of suggestion has great 
 value in maladies which have their origin in 
 nervous or mental disorders, but it seems 
 thus far to have had little or no efficacy in 
 the face of serious organic disease such as 
 cancer, tuberculosis, or Bright's disease. It 
 would surely be for the safety of children 
 and of the untaught generally, if mental 
 healers could be induced either by law or 
 
[8] 
 
 by the power of public opinion to confine 
 their efforts to that class of cases where sci- 
 entific research and wide experience unite 
 in indicating that suggestive therapeutics 
 may operate with some hope of success. 
 
 But having pointed out the distinction be- 
 tween what is central and what is incidental 
 to the main purpose of the gospel, I wish 
 to ask what is here offered us in our Bible for 
 our health. The Church of Jesus Christ 
 ought to " teach health," not as its chief busi- 
 ness, but as a leaf on the tree of its main pur- 
 pose, which, as already indicated,, is to pro- 
 duce the good fruit of Christian character 
 and service. We have been unnecessarily 
 frightened perhaps by the nonsense and wild- 
 fire which so often characterize this phase of 
 religious experience. We have neglected 
 what had better have been patiently cultivated 
 with intelligence and love. We would not 
 have so many religious side-shows to-day if 
 the performance in the main tent had been to 
 a greater degree well-rounded and complete. 
 We ought to be able to offer to all who 
 come the total helpfulness of the gospel of 
 the Son of God. 
 
 It has seemed to me that in the last half 
 of the nineteenth century there was a wide- 
 spread tendency to depend too much on the 
 without and not enough on the within. West- 
 ward the star of empire took its way for 
 centuries, seeking new fields for material 
 development. Now, as some one said the other 
 day, " Inward the star of empire takes its 
 
way." There has come a wholesome reaction 
 from the almost idolatrous trust in material 
 things and a quickening of interest in forces 
 unseen. Men and women have begun anew 
 to cultivate, to honor, to confide in, that 
 which is within, and this disposition shows it- 
 self in many ways. The kingdoms of this 
 world, bodily health, mental development, so- 
 cial charm, useful action, are by this move- 
 ment from within becoming more truly and 
 steadily kingdoms of the Spirit of Christ 
 no longer rebellious, no longer separate and 
 independent, but submissive and harmonious 
 kingdoms of the divine Spirit. 
 
 And I believe the main hope of our Chris- 
 tian world for improved health, and for the 
 consequent larger joy and effectiveness, lies 
 not so much in the increased efficiency of med- 
 ical science in dealing with disease when it 
 has actually fastened upon the patient, im- 
 portant as this is I believe our main hope 
 lies in so strengthening the inner life as to 
 secure increased immunity from the inroads 
 of disease. 
 
 Here is a gold mine, not far away in the 
 mountains, but deeply buried in your own 
 inner life! It has never been adequately 
 worked. You have your mind and spirit al- 
 ways with you, and they are always in touch 
 with all your members ; they sustain un- 
 brokenly sympathetic and vital relations with 
 all those functions upon which we depend for 
 healthy life. These inner forces may be util- 
 ized by intelligent faith and a wisely directed 
 
[10] 
 
 will in a way that will put you in possession 
 of wonderful values which for years, perhaps, 
 have been hidden under the soil of thoughtless- 
 ness and indifference. You can, if you will, 
 dig down and develop that which is within 
 you, so that it will earn for you and for 
 those you love priceless dividends! 
 
 Let me indicate, then, certain points in 
 this gospel of good health as it stands de- 
 clared in Holy Scripture. 
 
 First of all, right thoughts as the prevail- 
 ing habit of one's mental life " As a man 
 thmketh in his heart, so is he." This does 
 not mean that a single thought will cure a 
 cancer or even fill an aching tooth the 
 men who wrote the Bible were not crazy. 
 It does mean that states of mind tend 
 constantly to register themselves in conse- 
 quent physical conditions. Morbid condi- 
 tions of mind mean, by and by, morbid con- 
 ditions of body. Weakness, irresolution, fear, 
 prepare a soil altogether favorable for the 
 seeds of disease. On the other hand, healthy 
 states of mind minds free from all grudge, 
 bitterness, envy, minds filled with faith and 
 hope and love make for health as do sun- 
 shine, fresh air, and pure water. As a man 
 thinketh in his heart, steadily and insistently, 
 be it up or down, so he tends to become ! 
 
 It is a great deal harder to cultivate right 
 thoughts, right desires, right purposes so 
 that they shall always bear rule within, than 
 it is to go and take something out of a bottle 
 the real heights of human experience are 
 
[n] 
 
 never reached without hard climbing. But 
 the cry " Good health for a dollar a bottle " 
 is rapidly becoming a spent force. The cry 
 of good health at the price of the culti- 
 vation and training of all one's powers, physi- 
 cal, mental, spiritual, by bringing them into 
 joyous harmony with the revealed will of God, 
 is now to the fore. 
 
 And this mode of treatment has this further 
 advantage, that it may, and to be genuinely 
 and permanently efficacious must, include the 
 culture and development of the entire inner 
 life in a way that taking something out of a 
 bottle does not. Many of us will live to see 
 the day when there will be growing on all sides 
 these trees of life covered with leaves for the 
 healing of the nations ; and the common peo- 
 ple, having heard the good news gladly, will 
 be constantly utilizing this source of help for 
 their improved health. Strive to reach the 
 point where you can look up and say, " Thy 
 thoughts are my thoughts, and thy ways are 
 my ways, O Lord," and you will have gone 
 far toward the realization of that high claim, 
 " As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." 
 
 The main forms of fear which destroy our 
 peace of mind and thus invite the approach of 
 certain forms of disease are these the fear 
 of ill-health, the fear of adversity, the fear of 
 bereavement, and the fear of failing in the 
 performance of duty. Other fears there may 
 be, but they are unimportant as compared 
 with these four main forms ; and in the 
 very forefront of all harassing apprehension 
 
marches this terrible fear of possible physical 
 inadequacy. 
 
 It cannot be lightly regarded; we cannot 
 shoo it away by a wave of the hand or by 
 some fantastic flourish of the mind. The peo- 
 ple who assert that the thing feared has no 
 reality are simply flighty. Sickness and pain, 
 disease and death, are all stern realities to be 
 met and faced, and, as far as may be, con- 
 quered. The vital question is in what mood 
 we can best approach them when they come. 
 
 I know of none better than the high mood 
 of the singer who sang in olden time, " I will 
 fear no evil, for Thou art with me." With 
 all the practical wisdom you have shape 
 means to ends ; lay hold of every available 
 form of assistance in averting and counter- 
 acting sickness, sorrow, adversity, and fail- 
 ure. But when all visible forms of assistance 
 are in place, know that it will add to your 
 prospect of victory immeasurably if you 
 make your struggle unabashed, unafraid, be- 
 cause you have caught the spirit of that song 
 and have embodied it in those thought habits 
 which dominate your inner life. 
 
 I will not fear! Suppose each morning 
 when you awake to a hard day, you utilize the 
 well-known principle of mental suggestion 
 by deliberately storing the mind with right 
 thoughts. Begin your day with the repeti- 
 tion of certain assurances from Holy Writ, 
 uttering them over and over with your lips 
 and your mind and your soul, until the full 
 strength of them is felt in every cell of your 
 
being. " I will fear no evil, for Thou art with 
 me." " In quietness and in confidence shall 
 be my strength." " Be still, and know that 
 he is God." " The Lord of hosts is with me ; 
 the God of Jacob is my refuge." " Fear 
 not, only believe all things are possi- 
 ble to him that believeth." " I know Whom 
 I have believed, and I am persuaded that he 
 is able to keep that which I have committed 
 unto him." " He f orgiveth all my iniquities ; 
 he healeth all my diseases ; he redeemeth my 
 life from destruction ; he satisfieth my mouth 
 with good things, so that my youth is re- 
 newed like the eagle's ! " Begin the day with 
 these promises ringing in your ears, singing 
 through the secret chambers of your mind, 
 throbbing with added strength in the pulsa- 
 tions of your heart! When you relax the 
 tired muscles and the weary brain at night 
 as you sink to sleep, do it with these same 
 confident assurances furnishing your final 
 mood and yielding their wholesome, restful 
 influence through all the hours of sleep ! 
 
 I cannot tell you all it would mean for you 
 to do just this, but I could tell you much. 
 My report would be born of long experience 
 in a busy, strenuous life where all the aids, 
 seen and unseen, were needed, and where when 
 once brought into commission they have vin- 
 dicated the high claims I here advance on 
 their behalf. The habit of serious, resolute, 
 trustful meditation upon these divine assur- 
 ances, once formed and held, works its own 
 marvels. Souls once timid and despairing are 
 
[14} 
 
 led to say, " We never saw it on this fashion." 
 The verifiable results of such a practise upon 
 health, upon mental adequacy, upon char- 
 acter, delicate and imperceptible though they 
 seem at first, are increasingly registered upon 
 the life within until they utter themselves in 
 an enlarged and well-grounded efficiency for 
 all life's tasks. This is what the Psalmist 
 said he was perfectly aware of the fact 
 that life would not be all green pastures and 
 still waters ; he would be compelled to walk 
 in and through the valley of many a shadow, 
 but, come what might, still he would not fear 
 nor be afraid. The man whose inmost soul 
 is filled with and possessed by such thoughts 
 finds himself strongly fortified against the 
 ^ encroachments of disease. 
 
 In the second place, high expectations as 
 the fundamental choice of your deepest and 
 best self " According to your faith be it 
 unto you" The language of Scripture is al- 
 most always the language of great expecta- 
 tion, the only condition put upon it being the 
 receptivity of men. " Open thy mouth wide, 
 and I will fill it " there is no lack of ma- 
 terial with the Lord. " Prove me now here- 
 with, saith the Lord ; make your consecration 
 complete, and see if I will not open the win- 
 dows of heaven and pour you out such a bless- 
 ing that there shall not be room enough to re- 
 ceive it." " Stand up straight, the ceiling is 
 high " you will not bump your head ! Ac- 
 cording to your faith, your openness, your 
 willingness, your capacity, be it unto you! 
 
15 ] 
 
 There is nothing shadowy or unreal about it 
 men do become very largely what they ex- 
 pect to become in that hidden faith which 
 does not always utter itself in formal creeds, 
 but shows itself in shaping those persistent 
 aspirations which control the life. Include 
 within the firm grip of your anticipation this 
 physical nature, coveting for it earnestly the 
 best there is, and according to your faith be 
 it unto you ! 
 
 The people who are continually expecting 
 to catch all the diseases that are going, 
 rarely fail they usually catch them all. 
 The people who live in perpetual fear and 
 dread and apprehension almost always re- 
 alize, not their worst fears entire that 
 would be expecting too much but a good 
 working percentage of them. According to 
 their expectation it is gradually wrought out 
 for them in actual experience. 
 
 On the other hand, the quiet, serene con- 
 fidence of the intelligent physician, of the 
 trained nurse, or of the well-poised individual 
 in ordinary life, is like a steel armor against 
 all the attacks of disease, as each one goes 
 courageously about his business. According 
 to their faith it is unto them, and the result 
 is vastly different. If every one could form 
 the habit of going about with those same 
 familiar words from the Twenty-third Psalm 
 on his lips, in his mind, deeply embedded in 
 his heart, "I will fear no evil, for Thou 
 art with me ! I will fear no evil, for Thou art 
 with me ! " I do not say it would enable him 
 
[16 ] 
 
 to lie down with rattlesnakes or to drink 
 water out of a malarial swamp unhurt, but 
 it would add to his prospects for good health, 
 in some cases thirty, in some sixty, and in 
 some a hundredfold. Pitch your expectation 
 high look for the best, hope for the best, 
 strive for the best, and according to your 
 faith be it unto you! 
 
 In the third place, firm resolution as the 
 uncompromising attitude of your will " 
 woman, great is thy faith! be it unto thee 
 even as thou wilt! " Here was a mother 
 whose daughter was afflicted with one of those 
 nervous maladies epilepsy we call it now 
 which often baffle the skill of our best phy- 
 sicians to this hour. It seemed to the people 
 of that day, untrained in scientific diagnosis, 
 as they saw her writhing in her distress, that 
 she was " grievously tormented with a devil." 
 The best account of the matter they knew how 
 to give was to the effect that the nature of 
 the child had been overborne by some hostile, 
 malicious personality resident within. 
 
 The woman was an outsider, a Canaanite, 
 but she came boldly to Christ, saying, " Thou 
 Son of David, have mercy on me. Have 
 mercy on my child." She was not only a 
 heathen, she was noisy and inconsiderate. 
 The disciples said, " Send her away," but she 
 only cried the more earnestly to Christ. Then 
 Jesus said to her gently, " I am sent to the 
 lost sheep of the house of Israel." Still she 
 was not repulsed she said, " Lord, help 
 But Jesus said, further testing her 
 
[17] 
 
 resolution, " It is not meet to take the chil- 
 dren's bread and give it to the dogs." And 
 the woman replied, " Yes, Lord, the dogs eat 
 the crumbs which fall from their master's 
 table give me a crumb of divine help." Her 
 determination leaped all the barriers of race 
 and distance, all the obstacles which a 
 chronic and painful illness interposed! And 
 Jesus said to her, " O woman, great is thy 
 faith ! be it unto thee even as thou wilt! " 
 Faith expressing itself in determination had 
 won the day her daughter was healed from 
 that hour! 
 
 If you will stand up, your mind and heart 
 made right with God to the fullest extent you 
 know, and in God's name say, " Let there be 
 health," and keep on saying it resolutely, 
 trustfully, hopefully, that very action of 
 your inner life will work wonders. I do not 
 say that no disease can stand before you, for 
 you are not omnipotent, but I do say that 
 you will set in operation one of the great 
 healing forces of the world. 
 
 All about us there are people who have 
 stopped talking about their ills, stopped 
 thinking about them, stopped pitying them- 
 selves, who are saying in the way indicated, 
 " Let there be health," and there is health ! It 
 is done unto them at last even as they will. 
 When people fix their eyes on something high, 
 fine, useful, linking their determination with 
 the purpose of God for them, and say bravely 
 and steadily, We will! we will! we will! 
 they are putting themselves in a position to 
 
t 18] 
 
 come off more than conquerors through Him 
 who loves us. 
 
 I have tried to practise what I preach in 
 this matter, and I feel that I have earned the 
 right to speak as one having some measure of 
 experience. I have never been one of those 
 people, to whom Ian Maclaren refers, who are 
 " so brutally and offensively healthy as to 
 feel no true sympathy for those who are fight- 
 ing for their very lives." I was not born a 
 very robust baby, and many of my years have 
 been years of physical struggle ; and with 
 some of those ills I struggle now. But some 
 twenty years ago I learned better how to 
 fight I gained some new weapons ; I be- 
 gan to practise a different formation. This 
 has meant a long series of victories. I have 
 been in the active pastorate now over nineteen 
 years, and in all that time I have never missed 
 any kind of an appointment on account of 
 sickness. 
 
 It is eighteen years ago this winter since 
 I first began to hear people discuss the 
 grippe, which had then become epidemic un- 
 der that title. If I could recall all that I 
 have heard about that malady related by 
 those who were temporarily suffering from it, 
 I feel sure that I could write a natural his- 
 tory of the grippe, giving all the symptoms 
 in order and rehearsing all the unhappy re- 
 sults of it. This endless discoursing upon 
 it was not beneficial to those who made the 
 painful recitals it is never wise to talk 
 without a purpose, and unless one is talking 
 
[19] 
 
 to his physician, or his nurse, or his pastor, 
 or some member of his family about his ills 
 with some definite and wholesome end in view, 
 he had better not talk about them at all. 
 
 But with all the cases I have visited and 
 with all the discussions to which I have lis- 
 tened, I have never had the grippe myself ; I 
 never expect to have it, and I do not rap 
 wood when I say so, for there is nothing of 
 magic in it. Some honest attention to God's 
 laws of health, which are as sacred as the 
 Ten Commandments ; some ability to cherish 
 right thoughts and maintain a serene confi- 
 dence, and some power of resolution have 
 been sufficient thus far to safeguard me from 
 any inroad of that particular malady. In- 
 sist on being well ; go to bed with that idea 
 and get up with it; carry it about with you 
 as you carry your own face and hands about 
 with you and somehow you are apt to find 
 that it is unto you even as you will ! 
 
 And finally, have faith in God as the Su- 
 preme Friend and Helper of all our lives. 
 " Have -faith m God," Jesus said to his trem- 
 bling disciples, and although he sent them 
 forth with neither purse nor scrip, they 
 found in this new and high confidence in 
 which he had established them, an abiding 
 source of personal reenforcement and an 
 ample furnishing for a widely beneficent 
 service. 
 
 In a certain Eastern city there is a hos- 
 pital which I used to pass and repass, and it 
 always did me good just to look up at it. 
 
[20] 
 
 The building is brick, but set in the front of 
 it is a broad marble slab, and on it in letters 
 of gold are these plain words, " HAVE FAITH 
 IN GOD." It is a Christian hospital, as you 
 might imagine. Hundreds of sufferers, borne 
 thither in the ambulance or assisted up the 
 walk by loving friends, have looked up at 
 those words as they passed in at the door. 
 I am sure the words have given an added 
 courage to many an anxious heart. Hun- 
 dreds of sufferers have there been cured as 
 human intelligence and human love have co- 
 operated with those healing forces which are 
 altogether divine. As they walked away, re- 
 joicing in health regained, perhaps they 
 looked back at those words of gold, and were 
 made by the message they conveyed more 
 deeply grateful to Him who had wrought 
 with his chosen servants for their recovery. 
 Have faith in God they are good words 
 to have engraved upon a building devoted 
 to healing, or upon the walls of one's home, 
 or deeply embedded within one's heart! 
 They point ever to a sure source of inex- 
 haustible help. 
 
 We have often been afraid to aim boldly 
 for that simple, original, spiritual potency 
 of early Christianity which in the days of the 
 apostles healed the sick at the same time 
 that it was saving the soul from sin. Yet 
 even if we tried and failed, it would do us 
 good to aim high. But under the blind lead- 
 ership of certain fanatics, many people have 
 been led to feel that if they undertook to ex- 
 
ercise faith in God's power to heal directly, 
 they were estopped from using any material 
 remedies. This is the sheerest nonsense. The 
 Almighty is not so touchy as to withhold his 
 spiritual aid, because the patient is also using 
 some material remedy which he himself ex- 
 pressly created for the use of his children. 
 Those narrow-minded people ought not to 
 think that God is another such a one as 
 themselves ! 
 
 But, we are told with an air of finality, 
 there is no record that Jesus ever used drugs. 
 That is true there is no record that he ever 
 did. There is no record that he ever used 
 an elevator or a telephone, but he would be 
 a foolish man who would insist to-day upon 
 climbing the stairs to the top of a high build- 
 ing or upon doing all his errands on foot, 
 because Jesus never used an elevator or a 
 telephone. Sometimes a drug which God 
 made and which men have learned to use, 
 will accomplish a certain result more easily 
 and more quickly than it could be accom- 
 plished (if indeed it could be accomplished at 
 all) by purely mental and spiritual forces. 
 He would be a foolish man indeed who would 
 lightly decline its help. 
 
 And the very people who declaim so loudly 
 against the use of drugs in time of sickness, 
 all use soap. Soap is a drug; it is sold at 
 the drug stores ; its action is chemical. If a 
 person were furnished with plenty of hot 
 water and time enough, he might wash his 
 hands, his face, or his clothing clean without 
 
soap, but it can be done more quickly and 
 easily with soap; and for that reason all 
 sensible people use this drug we call soap. 
 The very people who become so agitated over 
 the use of drugs in healing disease constantly 
 use soap without realizing, apparently, how 
 very funny they are making themselves by 
 their inconsistency. 
 
 Have faith, then, in God, with no fear what- 
 soever that you are discrediting your faith in 
 him by employing all those useful aids which 
 he has created and appointed for our benefit ! 
 Have faith in God, and gather to yourself all 
 the mighty aid which you can claim out of 
 the Unseen for your perfect restoration ! 
 
 The divine readiness to aid us along physi- 
 cal lines reaches farther than we dream. In 
 certain quarters those wild and extravagant 
 guesses which always precede sober investi- 
 gation and verifiable knowledge are being 
 made, and they frequently repel the more 
 discriminating minds in the community. But 
 astronomy was not first astrology was 
 first, the awe, the wonder and the interest of 
 men in the stars leading to all manner of 
 fanciful claims. This gradually gave place 
 to an exact science which now maps out the 
 courses the planets take, measures the dis- 
 tances of the stars from each other and from 
 us, weighs their huge bulk, and by its spec- 
 trum analysis determines even the fuel they 
 burn. Chemistry was not first alchemy 
 was first with its wild attempts to transmute 
 the baser metals into precious gold and to 
 
[23] 
 
 work all kinds of magic. It pointed the way 
 for the coming of that exact science which 
 to-day lays whole communities under obliga- 
 tion to it, as it works out valued results in 
 manufacture and in agriculture, in the treat- 
 ment of disease, and in those sanitary meas- 
 ures which safeguard the health of the 
 community. 
 
 In similar fashion those movements called 
 " Christian Science," " The Home of Truth," 
 or " New Thought " are the astrology and 
 the alchemy of modern life, pointing the at- 
 tention of the world in a direction where 
 useful investigation will presently discover 
 values unsuspected as yet. We are not to be 
 deceived nor repelled by the wild guesses or 
 the extravagant claims made. We are not to 
 take leave of our senses, nor to make asser- 
 tions which were not true in the beginning, 
 are not true now, and never shall be true, 
 world without end. We are to separate the 
 wheat from the chaff and then sow it in the 
 good soil of patient, intelligent, sympathetic 
 effort, where it will bring forth in some cases 
 thirty, in some sixty, and in some a hundred- 
 fold of increased bodily vigor. 
 
 We must find and utilize all the help open 
 to us through mental and spiritual agencies 
 for the gaining and the maintenance of sound 
 health. And in this undertaking we are to 
 feel that the One who stood of old upon the 
 shore of the Sea of Galilee speaking in sym- 
 pathetic but confident tones to that boat-load 
 of discouraged men about their physical 
 
mi 
 
 needs, is with us yet and for us ever. " Chil- 
 dren, have ye any health? " his voice cries at 
 this hour ! " Cast your hope and your faith 
 and your power of will on the right side and 
 ye shall find." And when we realize the full 
 measure of help open to us in that quarter we 
 shall say, as the apostle said of old, but with 
 a new and a profounder gratitude, " It is the 
 Lord." 
 
 You will make a sad mistake if you neglect 
 that sympathetic figure on the shore who 
 watches you as you struggle through long 
 naghts and long days upon the sea of human 
 effort, often taking nothing, or as you fight 
 against the inroads of some dread disease. 
 You will live far below the appropriate level 
 of thought, of feeling, of moral action and 
 of bodily health as well, if you neglect His 
 offer of assistance. When the question comes, 
 " Children, are you gaining the deepest de- 
 sires of your hearts ? " you will be compelled 
 to answer him, " No." Watch for him, then, 
 on the shore of every sea. Listen for his 
 voice of sympathetic interest. Cast your 
 net of effort as he bids you, for he is bring- 
 ing to us at this hour, in the very turning of 
 the popular mind to these lines of aspira- 
 tion and effort, a fresh assurance of the di- 
 vine recognition of all these needs and of the 
 divine readiness to aid us in the fulfilment of 
 our highest hopes ! 
 
 In undertaking to use these mental and 
 spiritual aids for the gaining and main- 
 tenance of sound health, we shall in no wise 
 
[25 ] 
 
 advance the cause by any sort of pretense or 
 make-believe. I have heard companies of well- 
 fed, well-dressed people, sitting easily on 
 cushioned seats, behind stained glass, their 
 minds considerably befogged by persistent 
 attempts to believe what their common sense 
 told them was not true I have heard such 
 companies of people say, " There is no reality 
 in sin, sickness, disease, poverty, or death. 
 All is good and all is God. Everything in 
 the world is just lovely, and we are just 
 lovely, too." 
 
 It is a very economical view to take of the 
 matter. If there is no such thing as pov- 
 erty or sickness, then of course we are not 
 called upon to give any of our money to main- 
 tain homes, hospitals, relief societies, or asso- 
 ciated charities. But it is untrue; it is a 
 " false claim " which is leading scores of 
 confused and undiscriminating people to be- 
 come complacent, self-centered, self-satisfied, 
 morally indifferent to the stern needs about 
 them. Sin is a fact young men not out of 
 their teens take pieces of gas-pipe and beat 
 the brains out of helpless victims in order to 
 rob them. Crime is a fact men who stand 
 erect upon two feet, but who are in all other 
 respects lower than the four-footed animals, 
 perpetrate their crimes against the honor 
 and purity of young womanhood. Poverty 
 is a fact a hard, bitter, unyielding fact, 
 showing itself the relentless enemy of the 
 bodily, intellectual, and moral well-being of 
 those who suffer under its heel. 
 
[26] 
 
 scare it away with big, unmeaning words or 
 by any silly pretense that it does not exist. 
 It can only be relieved by generous, intelli- 
 gent, persistent service. Disease and death 
 are perpetually recurring facts, bringing 
 sorrow in their train to the homes of those 
 who hold the fantastic theories as well as to 
 those who still trust the evidence of their five 
 senses. We cannot dispose of the tribulation 
 of the world by vague talk about there being 
 no reality to it. There must be a fearless 
 facing of the facts of experience as they are, 
 coupled with a reasonable reliance upon those 
 forms of help which have often been neglected 
 because they were unseen. 
 
 With that open-eyed honesty, then, which 
 shuns nothing and hides nothing, take these 
 gospel ingredients, right thoughts, high ex- 
 pectations, firm resolution, faith in God, 
 and employ them in the interests of a more 
 complete and abiding state of health. Mix 
 them together, shake them well, use them 
 freely! You need not measure them out 
 narrowly with a drop tube or a teaspoon 
 there is nothing in them which will hurt 
 you take as much of them as you can 
 contain. They will do you good and only 
 good. 
 
 I do not offer them, wholesome though they 
 are, as an infallible panacea for all the ills 
 there are. We cannot, even with these aids, 
 banish all suffering, disease, and death. One 
 whose right thoughts, high expectations, firm 
 resolution and faith in God, utterly tran- 
 
[27] 
 
 scended anything we can expect to attain in 
 this present world, suffered. " He learned 
 obedience by the things that he suffered," 
 the Bible says. If any enthusiast in his pres- 
 ence had claimed that there was " no reality 
 in sin, sickness, disease, or death," he would 
 have regarded such a one as not altogether 
 in his right mind. When wicked men drove 
 nails through his feet and hands, and when 
 they pierced his side with a spear, he suffered 
 and died. 
 
 In like manner, if you are overtaken by 
 cruel accident, or if you are loaded down with 
 more work and care and necessary anxiety 
 than you have strength to bear, you will suf- 
 fer and it may be you will incur some painful 
 illness. And the time will come when we shall 
 all suffer and die. When we have done our 
 best, living under present conditions, in 
 crowded cities, with the water and food sup- 
 ply often contaminated, with the air we 
 breathe becoming sometimes the agent of 
 disease rather than of health, a certain 
 amount of sickness is inevitable. Reduce the 
 volume of it by wise sanitation and by taking 
 all personal precautions possible, and yet a 
 certain percentage of people will be ill at 
 some time during the year. 
 
 And even that which is best in us sometimes 
 becomes the occasion of a depleted vitality. 
 The father's unselfish ambition for the well- 
 being of his children, for their education, or 
 their social standing, coupled with his desire 
 to start them in life on a better footing than 
 
that which he enjoyed, carries him into an 
 amount of overwork which means a break- 
 down. And many a mother suffers from 
 dragging ill-health because she gave so freely 
 from her own store of vitality to her children. 
 And the sympathetic nature of many another, 
 in the face of the struggles of those who are 
 dear, yields itself so unreservedly to them as 
 to lower its own life forces. Do our best, it 
 still remains true that a considerable section 
 of the whole creation groans and travails 
 in physical pain at some time during its 
 career. 
 
 There are offsets and compensations 
 standing over against all such unavoidable 
 ills. If you had eyes to see, ears to hear, and 
 a heart to understand, you got something of 
 great value out of your last illness. It did 
 not simply bring you the customary feeling of 
 resentment coupled with a huge doctor's bill 
 it would not let you go until it had blessed 
 you. It brought you what the Psalmist pic- 
 tured, an enlargement and enrichment of 
 your whole being " Thou hast enlarged me 
 when I was in distress." 
 
 When you are called to lie upon a bed of 
 pain for many months, or to spend tiresome 
 weeks in a hospital, or to lie awake through 
 the lonely nights and hear the clock strike the 
 weary hours when sleep is denied, you may, 
 if you will, transmute all this into higher 
 qualities of mind and heart. You may come 
 to the point where your sympathies go out as 
 they never did before to the whole army of 
 
patient sufferers ; you may learn to think 
 with an added tenderness of those who lack the 
 comfort and alleviation you enjoy, in their 
 time of pain; you may enter into a new 
 appreciation of the faithful, unselfish hero- 
 ism of the poor who aid each other in their 
 times of trial; you may so pass through 
 that period of distress as to be enlarged in 
 your whole attitude toward the ills of the 
 world. 
 
 When we go along prosperously and joy- 
 ously, able to eat three meals a day and sleep 
 eight hours every night, able to take the car 
 for the place of business at the usual hour 
 each morning with never an interruption, and 
 able to do our full share of the world's work, 
 rej oicing in the chance to do it, we may begin 
 to fancy that this flesh which walls about our 
 life is brass impregnable. We may grow cal- 
 lous and careless touching those lives which 
 are struggling against heavier* odds than 
 ours, those lives which sometimes go down for 
 a month or two in physical defeat. If any 
 man's heart is becoming small, tight, and hard 
 by this round and round of pleasant experi- 
 ences, it may be that there is no other way 
 for his sympathies to be brought back to a 
 more abundant life than for him to travel the 
 way of pain and distress himself. Whether 
 this is the only way or not, it is one way 
 many a man comes through such an ordeal to 
 walk a bit more slowly for the rest of his days 
 but with new sympathy for all his fellows. 
 When he looks down into his own heart he 
 
[90] 
 
 says with profound gratitude, " The Lord 
 enlarged me when I was in distress." 
 
 But having made room for that illness 
 which is apparently unavoidable, and having 
 indicated a certain high office it may perform 
 in moral growth, I would again strongly in- 
 sist that it is not only the part of expediency 
 but morally imperative for every one to do 
 all that lies in his power to be well, steadily 
 and joyously well. It is part of our Chris- 
 tian duty to so obey God's laws of health, 
 which are as sacred as if he had actually 
 spoken them aloud from Sinai, to so order 
 our habits with reference to the maintenance 
 of a high degree of effectiveness, to so utilize 
 all means, material and spiritual, which make 
 for soundness, that we shall be up to the mark 
 in physical health. 
 
 I beseech you, as did the apostle of old, to 
 present your bodies a living not a half- 
 dead nor a diseased but a living offering 
 unto God, holy and acceptable, for this is 
 your reasonable service. Barring out acci- 
 dents or unhappy hereditary burdens or the 
 overwork which sometimes seems inevitable, 
 it lies within the power of a great number of 
 us to be thus ready for service three hundred 
 and sixty-five days in the year. And in set- 
 ting forth with that high resolve we shall re- 
 ceive unspeakable reenforcement from those 
 allies which are inner and spiritual. I make 
 no unreal or extravagant claims for this gos- 
 pel of good health, but I know from the Word 
 of God, from long years of experience, and 
 
[ 31 ) 
 
 from wide observation, that right thoughts, 
 high expectations, firm resolution, and faith 
 in God are for our health. They are leaves 
 on the tree of life to be used for the healing 
 of the nations. 
 
 You have all noticed where this tree of life 
 stood " in the middle of the street." It 
 grew and flourished, offering its gracious 
 and accessible ministry, there in the center of 
 a city whose walls are great and high. The 
 tree of healing was not remote from the com- 
 mon life, only to be found in some far-away 
 garden to which none but the privileged 
 might go. It was not shut away in some 
 sacredly guarded enclosure where only the 
 chosen few were admitted. It grew right in 
 the middle of the street, accessible to all, a 
 part of the common, daily environment. 
 
 We do not need to make pilgrimages to 
 some distant shrine, or to go apart into some 
 mystical occult sect, or to use prescribed 
 language which no one quite understands, in 
 order to avail ourselves of this help. Right 
 here, where we are carrying on the work of 
 ordinary life, where we are using our common 
 sense in our daily duties, we find this splendid 
 tree with healing in its very leaves, growing 
 in the middle of the busy street. If you will 
 take those leaves and use them habitually, it 
 will be good for the body and good as well for 
 the soul. Indeed you cannot use them with 
 the highest effectiveness until your moral pur- 
 poses are altogether right. The very fact 
 that God is pure, that God is love, makes it 
 
[M] 
 
 plain that his total helpfulness will only dwell 
 where purity and love are. You will find 
 therefore, in seeking to rightly use the leaves 
 of the tree for the healing of your bodily ills, 
 that you will be led also to eat the fruit of the 
 tree which will give you life everlasting. 
 
 OF THt 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 

 
 
 
 
 6156 
 
UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
YB 13147 
 
 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES