." This has been said by a great
authority, Professor Huxley, but it is only partially true, for many
worthless people fulfil these conditions. They are, as Carlyle calls
them, only "animated patent digesters." (_b_) Great things also have
been done in the world by men whose health has been feeble. Calvin was
a man of sickly body; Pascal was an invalid at eighteen; Pope was weak
and deformed; William of Orange, a martyr to asthma; Hall, the famous
preacher, suffered great paroxysms of pain; Milton was blind; Nelson,
little and lame; St. Paul in bodily presence was weak. On the other
hand, some of these men might have done more if their health had been
better. Health is a splendid possession in the battle of life. The
men of great physical vitality, as a rule, achieve most; other things
being equal, their success in life is sure. Everything shows that the
greatness of great men is almost as much a bodily affair as a mental
one. It has been computed that the average length of life of the most
eminent philosophers, naturalists, artists, jurists, physicians,
musical composers, scholars and authors, including poets, is sixty-five
years. This shows that the most successful men on the whole have had
good bodies and been blessed with great vitality.

III. The care of the body is a religious duty.--(_a_) It is so because
our spiritual feelings are largely dependent upon the state of our
health. "Certain conditions of body undeniably occasion, irritate and
inflame those appetites and inclinations which it is one great end of
Christianity to repress and regulate." The spirit has sometimes to
maintain a terrible struggle against the flesh. Intemperance is
largely the result of bad feeding. "It is easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle," than for a dyspeptic person to be gentle,
meek, long-suffering. Dark views of God often come from the state of
the body. It would largely lift up the moral and spiritual condition
of men if their surroundings were such as tended to keep them in
health. To improve men's dwellings, to give them healthy homes, pure
air to breathe, and pure water to drink, would tend to help them
morally and spiritually, (_b_) God requires of us a certain amount of
service by and through our bodies. We cannot perform the work if we
destroy the machines by which the work is to be done. (_c_) Scripture
especially calls us to make the body the object of our reverent care.
"Your bodies ar