The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-11-18
Morality of Cleanliness.

Ii is OF the first importance to teach
people cleanly habits. Cleanliness is
more than wholesomeness. It furnishes
an atmosphere of self.respect, and iuau
ences the moral condition of the entire
household. 1t is the best exponent of
the spirit of thrift. 1t is to the economy
of the household what hygiene is to the
human body. 1t should preside at every
detail of domestic service. 1t indicates
comfort and well.being. 1t is among the
distinctive attributes Of civilization, and
marks the progress of nations.
DIR. Paley was accustomed to direct
the particular attentions of travellers in
foreign countries to the condition of the
people IS respects cleanliness, and to the
local provisions for the prevention OF
pollution. He was of the opinion that
greater insight might be thus obtained
into their habits of decency, self.respect
and industry, and their moral and social
condition generally, than through facts
of any other description. People are
cIeanly in proportion as they are decent,
industrious, and self.respecting. Un-
clean people are uncivilized. The dirty
classes of great towns areinyariably the
dangerous classes of the towns, and five
would ciylize those classes, we must first
Danish dirt from among them.
Dirt forms no part of our nature. 1t is
parasite, feeding upon the human and
destroying it. 1t is hideous and disgust
ing. There can be no beauty where it is.
The prettiest woman is made tretful, i'm
patient and bad.tempered by it. There
is little modesty where dirt is; for dirt is
indecency. There can be little purity of
mind if the person is impure; for the
body is the temple of. the soul, and must
be clean and pure to be worthy shrine
of that within. Dirt has an affinity with
self.indulgence and intemperance. San.
itary inquiries have clearly made out
that tbe dirty classes are the drunken
classes, and that they are prone to seek
in the stupefaction of beer, gin and
opium, refuge from the miserable de.
preston caused by the foul conditions in
which they live.
We scarcely need refer to the moral as
we'll as the physical beauty of cleanliness
which indicates self-respect, and is the
root of many fine virtues, especially
delicscy and decency. We might even
go farther and say that purity of thought
and feeling results from habitual purity
of body; for the mind and heart of man
are to great extent, influenced by ex-
ternal conditions and circumstances and
habits and CUSTOM, as regards outward
things. stamp Themselves deeply upon
the whole character-upon the moral
feelings and the intellectual powers.
Moses was the most practical of sani-
tary reformers. Among the. Eastern
nations generally, cleanliness is part of
the religion. They esteem it not only as
"nezt to godliness," but as godliness
itself They connect the idea of internal
sanctity with that of external purifca;'
ton. They feel that it would be an in
suit to the Maker they worship to come
into his presence covered with impurity.
Hence the Moharamedans devote almost
as much care to the erection of baths as
to that of mosques alongside the place
of worship is usually found the place of
cleansing, so that the faithful may have
the ready means of publication previous
to their act of worship.
"What worship" says a great writer,
"is there not in mere neutrality-suspicious.
one of the most moral things man, in
common cases, has it in his power to do
Strip thyself, go into the bath, or were it
into the limpid pool of running brook,
and there wash and be clean thou wilt
step out again purer and q better man.
This consciousness of perfect outer
pureness that to thy skin there now ad-
heres no foreign speck Of imperfection-
how it radiates on thee with cunning
symbolic influence to thy very soul
Thou hast an increased tendency toward
all good things whatsoever. The oldest
Eastern sages, with JOY and holy graft
tude, had felt it to be SO, and that it. was
the Makers gift and will."-Sanuel
| Smiles.