are continually reproduced. This is evidently true with reference to all habits that have a predominantly sensuous manifestation. Says Dr. W. B. Carpenter: "Our nervous system grows to the modes in which it has been exercised." The strength of the habit of alcoholic intemperance lies in this, that impressions are scored into the nervous organism by stimulants, and these impressions report themselves in the demand of the nerves for a repetition of the stimulant. At first the demand is slight for the impression is slight; but successive indulgences deepen the impressions, and thus the demand grows strong and imperious. The appetite for alcohol is fundamentally physical, though its cause may be an act of the will. Once formed, the appetite cannot be willed out of existence any more than a wound can be willed out of existence; it must be healed. The apprehension of this truth has led many of the wisest thinkers to the conviction that the habit of drunkenness falls within the domain of medical rather than moral pathology, and must be treated as a disease.

Within certain wide limits, however, the nervous system is immediately subject to the influence of the will; and by the intelligent use of means that subjection of the nerves to the will

may be immensely increased. It is in the power of a man "to keep his body under," unless he has lost his power by suffering appetite, through long indulgence, to usurp authority over him. until it has intrenched itself in confirmed physical habits.

Habits of bodily action are clearly the reflex of impressions repeatedly made on the nerves; there is no doubt that mental and moral habits also are in large part the expression of reflex nervous action. Do not fear that I am approaching a materialistic conception of human life. The soul of man is not matter; nor is it dependent on matter for existence, though it is dependent on material organs for expression. The body is not the man, but the man's instrument. The more we learn about it and its relations to the soul the better; for bodily conditions potently affect the entire range of life, from those activities which ally us to the brute up to those which reveal our kinship to God. Thought is not produced by the brain; but it is elaborated through cerebral instrumentation, and, apparently, is registered on the cerebral tissues. Our habits of thinking have thus a physical basis. This is equally true of our spiritual exercises, for all these have a rational element, that is, they all involve mental action, and mental action is

invariably accompanied by physical change. Our feelings also have their accompaniment of nerve-impressions. Many who read Dr. Holland's Bitter-Sweet," when it appeared thirty odd years ago, were shocked because he made one of his characters moralize over a barrel of corned beef to the effect that the beef might,

"Nerve the toiler at his task,

A soul at prayer."

But, aside from the question of good taste and poetical fitness, we can have no quarrel with the author. Food makes tissue and nerve-force, and the use and expenditure of these are as certainly involved in worship as they are in work. You cannot do, or say, or think, or feel anything without leaving a definite mark on the nervous organism which more or less affects all succeeding action or speech or thought or feeling. Habits may be called the grooves that are worn into the nerves by repeated actions. Memory, while it is a true psychical exercise, has its physical side; remembering is re-reading impressions which past actions of the mind have left on the sensitive brain. Although this is not an exhaustive account of memory, it is probably a true account as far as it goes.

A thoughtful investigation of this subject,

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Habit," must show us the folly and even sin of neglecting or despising the body. Through the susceptibilities of the body we are continually forming those habits, cutting deep those channels which control and guide the larger part of our conduct, and so go far toward determining our future. Surely it was a prophetic insight into our complex nature that led an old writer to exclaim: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made!"

There is immense practical significance in this fact of the physical basis of habit. Clear your minds of the notion that any act of your lives is unimportant. Single acts are the beginnings of habits; every repetition of an act tends to make it habitual, and the forming habit is the registry of emotions and thoughts and deeds in the very substance of your physical organism. You are unconsciously writing a history in your nerves, and this history you cannot wipe out at will, as you may wipe out a scrawl on a blackboard; it endures and it reproduces itself. The thoughts of your mind, the purposes and impulses of your heart, your passions, your affections, your aspirations, and your beliefs stamp themselves indelibly on your nervous system; they cut channels of habit; they re-act upon your soul continually for good

or ill; they shape your characters; and your character is what you are, what you will be always.

You cannot avoid forming habits. The tendency to form them is part of your original endowment; it is given to you only to determine whether your habits shall be evil or good, baleful or beneficent. Have a care, then, over what you do, and what you think and feel. Safety and happiness alike are found only in practising those actions and indulging those tastes which are pure and right. All wrongdoing, whether it be outward or inward, is selfwounding.

Any act once performed is repeated with lessened difficulty. A man who makes a shoe finds it easier to make a second; a study on the piano, thoroughly mastered, gives the player increased facility in mastering another. Ease and skill in any sort of performance attest developed habit; a lesson learned makes all succeeding lessons easier. The same is true of moral actions; every sin prepares the way for another sin. The first conscious lie may be painful to him who utters it, but the second is less painful, and the third still less, until in a little time lying becomes habitual and involuntary. A generous deed promotes a succession