Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-02-23
WHAT IS A LOST SOUL
By Dr.. Frank Crane


WYE use the word Lost" in several
w senses.
Grandmother has lost her spec
taces. They are upon her hair, but she
cannot find them. In this sense lost means
simply misplaced.
We may have lost an opportunity, day,
a bargain in which case we refer to what
we might have had, but missed.
We may lose life of limb or money, signf-
flying that something is no longer in our
possession.
But what is meant when We speak of a
mans losing his own soul?
Ones soul is ones self, and one cannot
lose ones self except in figure of speech.
The little girl spoke accurately who, when
asked if she was lost, replied "No, l am
not lost; mamma is lost"
The real significance of the saying that
one may lose his own soul is that the soul
may lose its health, and consequently it's
happiness; in other words, that it may drop
from normal condition into abnormalty
and peryersion.
In plain English salvation is mental, spir-
itual health; damnation is spiritual sickness.
In the one case the soul is sound, enjoys
good digestion, is vigorous in its emotions,
and joyous in it's world, as are all healthy
beings. In the other case it is full of
fevered fears, sickly nauseas, pains, and
spasms.
Those who find their pleasure in chamber
ing and wantOnness, in drunkenness and
cruelty, in other words all whose end is the
qualification of the physical demands, are
simply i'll. A normal appetite differs from
an abnormal in that it promotes those pleas
ures that are permanently pie 'surable.
All abnormaIities produce those pleasures
that itch, irritate, burn, and torment
What we term moral actions are simply
those which the experience of the race has
demonstrated to result in unreacting pleas
ure. They have no reaction of diseased dis
gust.
Of course the best souls have their suffer-
ing and tragedies, but they are only out
ward, they never affect the inward, essential
peace, poise, and health-joy of the soul.
Jesus was ga man of sorrows" but He
said MY peace give | unto you," and that
He came that our "joy might be full"
SO no soul can be lost by anything the
world can do to it; only by what it can do
to itself.
The Implication in Ibsen. Oscar Wilde and
Bernard Shaw and the whole run of latter
day preachers of unmoralism, to the effect
that quite as much harm may be done by
good as by bad people, is merely confusion
of thought. They do not distinguish be-
tween that pain which is redemptive, puri-
flying and deepening to human nature, and
that pain which is the diseased product of
human nature gone wrong.
Rest assured morality is based on fact,
just as surely as chemistry. Nobody in
vented it. Nobody will explain it away.
Says one OIL CHe cledIeSL LHlIhel0 VI Jul
time: choral duty consists in the obserV-
ance Of those rules of conduct which con-
tribute to the welfare of society and of the
individuals who compose it. These rules.
like the other so-called laws Of nature, are
dscoyerablB by observation and experiment.
Some thousands of years of such experience
have led to the congratulations that stealing
and murder, for instance, are inconsistent
with the ends of society. There is no more
doubt they are so than that unsupported
stones will fall"
The soul that does not believe this is lost.
That is to say he Is as sure to lose his
SOULS health as he would by regularly eat
ing impure food be sure to lose his bodily
health.
(Cnnyrioht 1Q24N