The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1893-02-01
The Exercise Of the Spiritual Faculty

That is terribly Significant confes
sion made by the great scientist Oar
win. AS reported by his son in the
latter's biography of his father, Oar
win tells rs how he was lover Of lit.
erature in his early days, delighting
in Shakespeare and the other poets
But after years of scientific activity
and interest, he found, on taking them
up again, that he had not only grown
indifferent to them, but thatthey were
even distasteful to him. He had, as il
We're, suffered a sort of atrophy Of thai
side of b 8 nature, the emotional i'm
aginative, we might call it.
The case of Darwin illustrates law
a principle; to wit, that the spiritual
faculty lives or dies by exercise OF
want of it, even as the body. We are
well aware, as we meet our fellow-mor
tails in the world, that the difference
between them with respect to spiritual
development is enormous; and we in
cline to say, perhaps, that this differ.
ence Is generic one, due to heredity
to birth, although fostered by breeding
and life-habits. 1t is likely, however
that far more than we imagine, the Wig
orous state of the higher nature in
some, the woful lack of it in others,
comes of cultivation on the one hand,
and of neglect on the other. The ma
jority. like Darwin, have the matter
in their own hands to begin with, are
responsive along the ranges of the
pure and ennobling qualities Of the
spirit. All that falls under the head
Of the religious, moral, spiritual, in
them, lies like q fallow field ready for
the plow, but demanding the tiller If
it is ever to become while to the har-
vest. But men are engrossed in prac-
tical affairs before they know It, and,
again like Darwin (save that their in
terests and passions are neither so pure
nor 80 fruitful as his they let the po-
tential grain stay foreNar underground. d.
II is as absurd to expect the soul to
wax and thrive on no exercise as it is
to ask the right arm to show a big BIZ
ceps when always carried in a sling.
We hear a great deal nowadays about
the proper care of the body; this may
almost be called the age OF the exalta-
ton of physique. At heart this is a
wholesome reaction from the monkish
medievalism which saw merit in
scourgings of the flesh and general
modification of the corporeal man.
If not pushed too far, it simply means
a recognition of the value and dignity
of the body as the souls dwelling.
But there is an incidental danger In it :
we are apt to forget that the soul needs
muscle too, and cannot get 1t without
due exercise.
A weekly stipend of spiritual food is
what many good people give them
selves, and even that half grudgingly.
And the Sunday newspaper and other
like secularities have q tendency to en-
croach on this hebdomadal activity.
Buta daily exercise-some bit Of noble
literature read, some meditation on ma
ture, some uplifting talk with one in
terested in higher things-will, by just
so much, make athletic and alive that
principle in man which answers to
stern laws Of use, abuse, and disuse
quite as inevitably and speedily as any
part of us whatsoever, physical, men
tai or moral. Hence the absurdity of
placing death-bed penitence on par
with a life of spiritual -exercise,-the
assumption that the dwarfed starveIIng
of soul is as ready for loftier, more
disencumbered life as that which has
for years been growing stronger and
more symmetrical by the surest Of all
ways, by actual, ever-repeated exer-
citation. The choice Is before every
one, the chance ia given with open
hand. Athletics of the soul are as pos
sible a. athletics of the body, and ex-
ercise is the one road to strength in
the one or the other.