The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
One of Heaven's great hygienic teachers is now abroad in the world,
giving lessons on health to the children of men. The cholera is like the
angel whom God threatened to send as leader to the rebellious
Israelites. "Beware of him, obey his voice, and provoke him not; for he
will not pardon your transgressions." The advent of this fearful
messenger seems really to be made necessary by the contempt with which
men treat the physical laws of their being. What else could have
purified the dark places of New York? What a wiping-up and reforming and
cleansing is going before him through the country! At last we find that
Nature is in earnest, and that her laws cannot be always ignored with
impunity. Poisoned air is recognized at last as an evil,--even although
the poison cannot be weighed, measured, or tasted; and if all the
precautions that men are now willing to take could be made perpetual,
the alarm would be a blessing to the world.
Like the principles of spiritual religion, the principles of physical
religion are few and easy to be understood. An old medical apothegm
personifies the hygienic forces as the Doctors Air, Diet, Exercise, and
Quiet; and these four will be found, on reflection, to cover the whole
ground of what is required to preserve human health. A human being whose
lungs have always been nourished by pure air, whose stomach has been fed
only by appropriate food, whose muscles have been systematically trained
by appropriate exercises, and whose mind is kept tranquil by faith in
God and a good conscience, has _perfect physical religion_. There is a
line where physical religion must necessarily overlap spiritual religion
and rest upon it. No human being can be assured of perfect health,
through all the strain and wear and tear of such cares and such
perplexities as life brings, without the rest of _faith in God_. An
unsubmissive, unconfiding, unresigned soul will make vain the best
hygienic treatment; and, on the contrary, the most saintly religious
resolution and purpose maybe defeated and vitiated by an habitual
ignorance and disregard of the laws of the physical system.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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