is so great that the marvel is, not our being sometimes ill, but our being ever well. No wonder that we suffer at times; but happily, if pain is excessive, it must needs be short.

The relations of the body and soul are as mysterious, and have given rise to as much controversy, as those between faith and works. St. James tells us that "as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also;" and as the body without the spirit is dead, so, in this world at least, the mind acts through the body. Moreover, we have only one body, and can never have another. The ancient Egyptians believed that after death the soul could visit and occupy any representation of the body, and they provided the spirits of their friends with many "ushabtis" to choose from. Our spirit has no such power of selection.

To lead a happy and useful life, then, we must give reasonable care and attention to the body; and yet how reckless we are! We stuff it with food, poison it with drink, overwork it unnecessarily, let it rust in idleness, abuse it, ill-use it, injure it, neglect it; and suffer terribly, but justly, for our errors.

Though no man can add a cubit to his stature, we

can all make ourselves ill, and most of us can keep ourselves well. Most people will keep fairly well if they eat little; avoid alcohol and tobacco; take plenty of fresh air and exercise; keep the mind at work, and the conscience at rest.

The ideals of different races and centuries have no doubt been very different. With us cleanliness is next to godliness. With our ancestors it was the very reverse, and dearly they paid for their error in plagues and black death. According to the Venerable Bede, St. Etheldreda was so holy that she rarely washed, except perhaps before some great festival of the Church; and Dean Stanley tells us in his Memorials of Canterbury that after the assassination of Becket the bystanders were much impressed, for "the austerity of hair drawers, close fitted as they were to the bare flesh, had hitherto been unknown to English saints, and the marvel was increased by the sight-to our notions so revolting-of the innumerable vermin with which the haircloth abounded-boiling over with them, as one account describes it, like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all the enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double ardour. They looked at each

other in silent wonder, then exclaimed, 'See! see what a true monk he was, and we knew it not,' and burst into alternate fits of weeping and laughter, between the sorrow of having lost such a head, and the joy of having found such a saint."

Yet however good our health may be, however carefully we may regulate our diet and our habits, the body is so powerfully affected by the mind, that, as every skilful physician knows, it is often the mind rather than the body with which he has to deal. We may often say with Macbeth to the physician:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

And yet some, through vice or weakness, still more

We are

through ignorance, sin against their bodies. "fearfully and wonderfully made," our body is so perfectly arranged and adjusted and constructed, so beautifully adapted to its purposes and surroundings, that to spoil and ruin its delicate and complicated mechanism is not only a terrible mistake, but a grievous sin,

We take much pains over breeds of sheep and cattle and horses, but what is most important is to improve the breed of men-bodily, mentally, and spiritually. Prosperity will not do this. Unless well used it is a peril. Comfort, and still more luxury, are dangers: a beautiful climate is apt to relax the fibres; a stern, cool, even cold one braces the nerves and knits the muscles. Madame de Swetchine well said that "La racine de sainteté est santé. Il faut pour devenir sainte qu'un âme soit saine."

*

Moreover, no doubt it is much easier to be good when we are feeling well and strong. If we are in pain or overwrought, things which are comparatively trifling upset us. Small troubles, which under other conditions we should scarcely notice, vex and annoy us.

Wealth and power can give no immunity, but rather multiply temptations and increase anxieties. Dr. Radcliffe is said to have told William III. that he would not have His Majesty's two legs for His Majesty's three kingdoms.

Some people, no doubt, are born with a bad constitution-with the seeds of diseases for which they are

* Quoted by Sir M. E. Grant-Duff, Diary, 1896-1901.

not responsible. But it is probably not an exaggeration to say that for nine-tenths of what we suffer we are ourselves responsible.

Mr. Taylor in his work on golf tells us that "to maintain anything approaching his best form, a golfer must of necessity live a clean, wholesome, and sober life. A man must live plainly, but well, and he must be careful of himself. If he uses up the reserve force, or abuses himself in any way, then he has cast his opportunities aside, and he drops immediately out of the game.

There are no half-measures. You must do one of two things: be careful of yourself in everything, or forsake the game altogether. A man who lives a careless or a vicious life can never succeed in golf, or hope to keep his nerves and his stamina.”

What applies to golf is equally true of life generally. We all know that we can make ourselves ill, but scarcely realise how much we can do to keep ourselves well. Moderation is all-important, moderation in eating as well as in drinking. Probably nine people out of ten eat and drink more than they need-more than is good for them. An occasional feast matters little; it is the continual daily overloading ourselves with food which is