Can Change the World Again
With a Praying People.
| | Can Change the World Again With a Praying People. | |
A Brief Analysis of the Philosophy and Practice
Chapter VII.
Does Hospitality Sanctify Intemperance?
What
would Jesus Do if He were Invited?
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"Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. Let no man deceive himself."
1 Corinthians 2: 16-18
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We have decided to include a chapter from A. H. Hills' Pastoral Theology (1928) that confirms and adds to the importance of these subjects. Hills was a man who saw many revivals in his day, and in his 80th year after many years of successful ministry he tells us just how important health is to a minister and the church.
CHAPTER VI
THE MINISTER'S HEALTH
Beloved, I pray that in all things thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth (3 John 2, R. V.). The aged apostle was concerned about his beloved convert's health of body, as well as health of soul. God has a sanctifying blessing that provides for "spirit, soul, and body"—making all holy. Holiness means wholeness, health. We have called attention to the minister's spiritual nature, and to his mind. Now we would consider the importance and conditions of his health.
I. Christianity does not neglect the body; for "it is the temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 6:19). Piety is not a synonym for invalidism. We have a call to "be perfect," and it means vastly more than many suppose. The body is the home of the soul; and man is wondrously influenced by his dwelling place. We are not shut up to the dreary alternative of being a puny saint, or a robust sinner, a lean wise man or a fat fool. A call to preach is a call to be at our best in the whole range of our being, a standing illustration of what the religion of Christ can make of a man whom God indwells.
We are to represent Christ to a sick and dying humanity, struck through and through with diseases which sin has occasioned. Who can picture Christ as an invalid? His perfect health suggested hope and healing in every invalid's chamber, and so should we. Thus the preacher's body, as well as his soul, is a factor of success in all his ministrations.
Dr. Kern writes: "Ten thousand sermons every Sunday are made feeble by feeble nerves, or heavy by heavy limbs, or repellant by acidity of the stomach. Ten thousand are sweetened and vivified by the pure tone of physical vitality in the preacher. Health is that physical state in which all the organs harmoniously perform their functions. Above all else it is nervous energy, to be prodigal of which is suicidal. Health is painlessness and vitality. We want enough of it not simply to keep us off the sick list, but to make it a joy to live," and to make us an inspiration and an invigoration to others.
What servants God had in the olden days! Moses, inured by forty years of toil in the desert, and called at eighty to shepherd the people of God forty years in the wilderness and bear their chidings and complaints and sins, and at 120 years still a giant warrior for God, "with eye undimmed and natural force unabated!" And there was Samuel, guiding the destinies of a nation from boyhood to ripe old age, carrying the burden of their backslidings and sins on his mind and heart through all the years. And what shall we say of Elijah and Jeremiah and Daniel—heroes all—incarnations of piety and endurance, who could carry colossal burdens of state, and outlive kings and dynasties and empires.
Jesus might have chosen a dozen soft-palmed, lily-fingered sons of priests to be His board of apostles. But, no! He went down to the sea and called some brawny-muscled, horny handed fishermen, used to pulling the oars in the teeth of the storms on Gennesaret. The work of planting the kingdom of God in that first century was too stern a task for soft-handed gentlemen. It was broad-chested, deep-voiced men that Jesus wanted, who could face a stormy Jerusalem mob of ten thousand men and win three thousand or five thousand converts for Christ. It took strength of mind and heart and lungs to win the battles of the Lord in those strenuous times, and then, as always, God had His picked men.
We think of St. Paul as a weak, sickly man. Doubtless he was small like Sir Isaac Newton and John Wesley; and he had "a thorn in the flesh," blear eyes, or whatever it was; but that he was a delicate invalid there is overwhelming evidence against it. Invalids could not say what he said of himself or endure what he endured. "Are they ministers of Christ? I am more: in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often; in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches." This was vastly more than any invalid could endure, and he still had enough vitality left to trudge along the long Appian Way to Rome with fire in his eye and conquest in his soul, and make himself such a terror to evil doers that the devil had to kill him to get rid of his all-conquering personality.
Think of Luther, whose words were half battles, who trod the field of his age like a mailed giant, the sound of whose footfall was heard in Rome, and made popes tremble! No invalid was he. The magnetic influence of his masterful life is still marching on like an army with banners.
Think of Wesley who, after a life of incredible activity and achievement, could write in his journal on his eighty-first birthday that he feels "no such thing as weariness either in traveling or preaching, and that he is able to write sermons as readily as he ever could, and ascribing it in part to his having had so little pain in his life, and having never lost a night's sleep, sick or well, on land or sea, since he was born!" We have already observed that Wesley was below medium size, about five feet, five inches in height; but he had physique enough and voice enough to preach to ten, twenty, even thirty thousand people in the open field, and make them hear. Certainly this is not the task of an invalid.
Fifty-six years ago Henry Ward Beecher, lecturing to the theological students of Yale, said to us, "Who are the men that move the crowd—men after the pattern of Whitefield, what are they? They are almost always men of large physical development, men of strong digestive powers, and whose lungs have great aerating capacity. They are men of great vitality and recuperative force. They are catapults, before whom men go down." Beecher himself was a splendid illustration of what he said to us, and showed the value of perfect, vigorous health. Phillips Brooks and Dr. Richard Storrs, and Talmage, Dr. Joseph Parker of London, and Dwight L. Moody—all coritemporaries of Beecher, were of this class of men—full of radiant health and glowing with vital power and magnetic force. Professor Drummond thought Moody was the greatest human he had ever known.
II. Notice why there is such an intimate connection between good health and ministerial success.
1. The draft on the physical forces of a pulpit orator are greater than most people can realize. I well remember that the most effective preacher in New Haven, when we were in Yale Seminary, could never sleep Sunday night after the strain of his Sunday services. How exhausting this work is, only the initiated can know. Irish Pat, digging in the street, thought "he would like to be a bishop and have a jewel of a job." Pat little realized that the bishop would use up more nervous force making one speech than he would use digging a whole day. Genuine health is a great aid to pulpit oratory, if the preacher expects to have a long ministry, and not be a nervous wreck.
John Angell James, a very worthy English preacher of a past generation, addressing a body of students, named three qualifications for ministerial success, viz., "brains, bowels, and bellows." The brains, by diligent study, and the help of God, could get a message. Bowels (formerly supposed to be the seat of the emotions) would give to the intellectual effort sympathy, pathos and tenderness, without which preaching would not succeed. Bellows—lung power—would produce power of voice and endurance, so supremely important, if one is to be an effective orator.
2. Also, in pastoral work—calling on the sick, praying with the dying, comforting the bereaved and heartbroken, pointing the convicted and the despairing to the only Savior who can save and heal—how important it is to carry about in your own person an example of the health and rest, and peace and joy of a great salvation. The holy touch of the pastor's sympathy and love will interpret Christ to them as nothing else will, and, in going, he will leave behind him the consciousness of the divine presence. But he will find that it will tax the strength of the strongest to thus shepherd the flock of God. Yet that is the minister's appointed task and "of all men, he has most need to be strong and cheerful, for on him alone, under God, many a sad life will depend for its brightness, and many a weary heart for its blessedness."
3. The sedentary life of the preacher makes health peculiarly essential. He must necessarily spend much time in confinement, studying and writing; and it all tends to exhaust the physical resources. They must somehow be recuperated, or a breakdown awaits in the near future.
This is especially true of young preachers. One morning a Yale professor told our class that the records of the theological graduates of Yale Seminary, from its beginning, had just been published. They disclosed two striking facts. First, that young ministers for the first few years of their professional life had a larger death rate than the average of men, and larger than any other profession. Second, that after the first few years of ministry were passed successfully, they had a smaller death rate, and a larger prospect of longevity than any other class of men. "The insurance statistics of England and America show practically the same. The clergy stand at the head of the list, and liquor dealers at the bottom" ("Pattison's Pastoral Theology," page 9). Theological students, therefore, and all young clergymen should form correct habits of living and pay special attention to health.
III. How shall this be done?
1. Do the most of the intellectual work in the morning, when the body is rested and the mind is most vigorous, as we have already suggested. Pattison tersely puts it, "Rise, eat, drink, work and sleep as other men do." Erasmus, the greatest scholar of the Reformation, wrote, "Never work at night; it dulls the brain and hurts the health." Here is where multitudes of clergymen sin grievously. They let the golden hours of the morning be frittered away on trifles, and then work late at night when they ought to be asleep, to make up for lost time. Finally, with excited nerves and congested brain and exhausted body, they try to sleep, but obtain only restless, fitful, unsatisfying slumber. Then some resort to opiates to force sleep, a most dangerous expedient. In this direction lies early breakdown, and premature physical collapse.
We know of a minister who once was in the forefront of his profession. But he would carry about with him a sack of the strongest coffee that money could buy, and make for himself cups of coffee as strong as coffee could be made, to keep him awake by the excitement of it while he wrote. In other words he was nightly drunk on coffee, just as others are drunk on liquor. Now for years he has been in an insane asylum, paying the penalty of sinning against his body. No one can defraud nature without paying the price.
2. The preacher must be careful to exercise. It is absolutely essential to health. Just as our youth in the public schools have a recess in the forenoon and in the afternoon for a brief recreation, so the professional man can have Indian clubs and dumbbells, or rubbers to stretch in his study or office to give him a brief relaxation, change and rest. Then God has given humanity Sunday for a day of rest. But Sunday is the minister's hardest day; he should take Monday for his day of recreation instead.
Furthermore, there is the ministerial vacation which our churches more and more recognize as wise and reasonable. This too should be carefully used to increase the stock of reserved vitality, to be drawn upon only in some unexpected time of need. "Husband your vitality," says Pattison, "for the chief thing that has to be done. This is a grace at times exceedingly difficult to practice; yet it is one main secret of continuance."
3. We must eat and drink to live. But it is a very different thing, to live to eat and drink. That is a crime against both body and soul. It is a trite saying that "multitudes dig their graves with their teeth." It would be more truthful to say, "By overeating they prepare the corpses to fill them." We are not to eat or drink merely to tickle a nerve, or gratify a craving. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31).
It is hard to make either a good preacher or a saint out of a dyspeptic. That physical ailment induces morbidness and spiritual depression and clouds the faith. How can a preacher preach a comforting, uplifting, joy-giving, hope-inspiring sermon while the demon of dyspepsia is growling in his stomach? Napoleon said that armies fought on their stomachs, and Cobbett declared that "the seat of civilization is the stomach." Only God can know how much the success of a minister depends upon this central organ. If he does not watch over it with religious care, it will ring the death-knell of his ministry. I am not a doctor of medicine, but fifty-six years in the ministry have taught me some invaluable lessons which I will impart to the future ministers free of charge.
1. Marry a girl who is as good at cooking as at praying; who can superintend the kitchen as wisely as the prayermeeting; who has religion and conscience and sense enough not to prepare stuff to pamper abnormal appetites, but to prepare wholesome food to keep you and your family well. Blessed is the minister who has such a helpmate. He ought to thank God for her every day.
2. You must learn how to run your own machine. What is one man's meat is another man's poison. Your stomach will faithfully send you a warning protest whenever you eat any thing that is not good for you. After one or two such kindly warnings, let that particular article of food severely alone. People talk about "condiments" and "relishes" and "appetizers" and "spiced pickles" and the like. I hate the sight and names of them all. They should all be labeled "stomach destroyers!" Cultivate a simple diet and "plain living and high thinking" and proper exercise and you will never lack for appetite. I have practiced what I am writing for threescore years, and now at the age of eighty, I have an excellent stomach and such an appetite that I scarcely know what to do with it. I am compelled to keep it in check continually, and I have not had a headache that I can remember in twenty-five years.
Dr. R. W. Dale, lecturing to students at Yale, thought he would like to add to the Ten Commandments of Moses, two more: (1) "Eat enough," (2) "Sleep enough." Dr. Pattison would add, (3) "Chew enough." I would suggest (4) "Do not eat too much." To a man with a healthy appetite that is the real peril.
4. As to the amount of sleep necessary, that depends upon the individual. John Wesley said, "Six hours of sleep for a man; seven for a woman; eight for a fool." By long self-study and experiment, I have found that I belong to the fool class and need eight hours, and from observation I have further learned that my class is very, very large. I am persuaded that a multitude of worthy ministers have shortened their lives by aping Wesley. Only a very few can be at their best on six hours of sleep.
5. Fifty-seven years ago I read a book written by Dr. Dio Lewis, who was proprietor of a water cure establishment in Boston. In it he told us that the healthiest way to bathe was to take a hand bath in cold water every morning, and then rub yourself vigorously with a crash towel. I began at once, though it was in cold weather, and with manifest benefit. I have kept it up all these years, and took such a bath this morning. I have such freshness and vigor that strangers guess me to be sixty. I think this, under God, is one of the causes of my unusual preservation. I will add deep breathing as another cause.
6. It is indispensable to good health to keep the liver and eliminating organs active to carry off the poison and waste of the system. It is not uncommon for men of sedentary habits to neglect themselves in this respect, and greatly lessen the number of their days.
7. A newly elected General Superintendent of ours a few years ago died from the poison of a neglected tooth. I sat on the platform last Sunday with two notable preachers. One of them fell helpless on the floor last summer from the poison of teeth and tonsils, and other toxic poison of his system, which nearly ended his life. The other preacher told us that he had not lived but one day in eight months without severe pain, largely from similar causes. These may seem to be trifles to many; but trifles often kill people, and then they are not trifles, but momentous realities.
8. "Lay aside all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." The minister is supposed to be a man peculiarly dedicated to the service of God. What right has such a man to destroy by an abnormal, deleterious habit, his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit?
Probably one hundred thousand ministers in the United States are using tobacco. Yet scientific testimony of the medical profession assures us that the use of tobacco produces nervousness or nervous debility, dyspepsia, disease of the lungs, smokers' sore throat, injuring the voice, the tobacco heart, tobacco blindness, paralysis and smoker's cancer. Tobacco poisons the blood and affects injuriously every particle of the body. In San Francisco one hundred ninety-five cases of leprosy were reported, traceable to cigarettes manufactured by Chinese lepers.
Nobody using tobacco seems to be able to escape this awful scourge. Think of such men as the Emperor Frederick and General U. S. Grant, and Senator Ben Hill, "Georgia's greatest son," all dying within a short time, snatched from life and usefulness by a premature death of horror from a cancer in the mouth. So also died William Ives Buddington, D. D., of Brooklyn, N. Y. Tobacco also killed the great statesman, judge Kelly of Philadelphia, and Schuyler Colfax, vice president of the United States, and Grant's great friend, Senator Matt Carpenter of Wisconsin, who was so eloquent that he was called the Daniel Webster of the West. Someone asked, "What ails Matt Carpenter?" The laconic reply of a physician was, "Oh, he is dying of twenty cigars a day."
The great Charles Spurgeon was an inveterate tobacco user, a smoker. One evening the noble, Spirit-filled Dr. George Pentecost preached in Spurgeon's pulpit, and dared to suggest that it would be well for preachers to give up tobacco for the glory of God. Spurgeon was indignant and after Pentecost's sermon, rose and made light of it, and slapped his coat tails and said, "I am going home and smoke a good cigar for the glory of God." What a fool the devil made of that great man. In process of time the doctors told him he must stop smoking or die. He wouldn't stop and did die fifteen or twenty years before his time. And that foolish remark was caught up by the devil, printed on slips of paper and circulated by the million in the saloons and tobacco shops of the world. Eternity may reveal that that one insane remark did more harm and damned more souls than all that were ever saved by his preaching in all his life. The devil is desperately wicked, but certainly he is no fool. He can down a big preacher and hold a carnival of rejoicing over it in the bottomless pit.
God calls ministers to be safe examples and moral teachers to their generation. Yet many of them are practicing a vice that is sacrificing their Christian influence and leading the youth around them to their ruin. You say you see no harm in the use of tobacco. Tut! You are a suborned witness. Your lust has clouded your judgment, and stupefied your reason and drugged your conscience till you do not want to see, and are wilfully blind to your moral shame. I have seen ignorant sinners, scores and scores of them, after my preaching, come to the altar, and pull out of their pockets their pouches and plugs of tobacco and pipes and give them to me, and then find God. What made them do it? I had not mentioned tobacco in my preaching. What or who had convicted them of the sin of using it? It was the Holy Spirit, and he would convict you too if you did not make yourself deaf to his voice.
Abraham Lincoln, in his immortal speeches against the evils of slavery used to deliver his argument and then say, "Gentlemen, in this great question between right and wrong, between justice and injustice, between liberty and oppression, there is no other side." So I say, the testimony of science and human experience is overwhelmingly against the use of tobacco as an unmitigated evil, a foul blot on Christian civilization, and a curse to the race. Ministers, there is no other side. And when you follow this habit and defend this vice in this enlightened age, you make yourselves a moral stench in the nostrils of thoughtful people, and a holy God. The harm you are doing and the souls you are damning only the judgment can reveal.
9. The American Magazine for March, 1928, has an article on "That Tired Feeling, and How to Get Rid of It"—an interview with Dr. Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek Sanitarium, the greatest in the world. They have treated fifty thousand people for this very ailment. The doctor tells us that few are tired through overwork. Work has nothing to do with chronic weariness, either of body or mind. It is not nervous exhaustion; it is nerve poisoning from self-intoxication of brain cells, caused by bad habits of living.
He tells us that certain foods produce too much acid in the system, acidosis. "If a person has high blood pressure or diseased kidneys he should eat sparingly of foods producing high acidity. And in passing, let me say that a nonacid diet is the best for people in middle life—it helps to hold old age at bay. Here is a partial list of acid producing food in the order of their acid content: egg yolk, oysters, round beef free from fat, dried beef, salted codfish, chicken, turkey, entire wheat flour, oatmeal.
"Unless these (acid) poisons are rapidly removed they cause exhaustion. In order to prevent the accumulation of acids the blood and tissues are slightly alkaline. It is the function of the kidneys to remove acids and thus maintain this constant alkalinity of the blood stream. The urine of a healthy person should be slightly acid; but I have met with many of these chronically tired persons whose urine was fifty times as acid as it should be. How could they help being tired?
"Now the excess of alkali over acids in the blood is known as the alkaline reserve, and is of vital importance. When there is a normal alkaline reserve, the acid toxins are effectively neutralized; but when the reserve is diminished, we have fatigue, inefficiency, shortness of breath, and other symptoms of autointoxication. The following list of basic or alkaline foods, in the order of their alkaline content should be used freely by persons who desire to maintain a normal chemical balance, and a healthy condition of the system:
Dried Figs Cucumbers
Beans, Dried Lima Potatoes
Beans, Soy Muskmelons
Garbanzos Lettuce
Spinach Sweet Potatoes
Raisins, Dried Orange Juice
Chard Tomatoes
Lima Beans, Fresh Cabbage
Rutabagas Peas, Dried
Almonds Peaches
Parsnips Pears
Dates Milk Carrots
"We now know beyond all doubt or controversy, that in order to keep healthy and efficient, and cure that tired feeling, the alkali reserve must at all times be well maintained. Work has little to do with the tired feeling caused by low alkali reserve. Rest may in many cases even make the tired person worse by increasing poor elimination. The tired man's salvation lies in a diet.
"People who are tired because of the flood of acid toxins [poisons] always floating, always circulating in their blood vessels, get high blood pressure through the irritating effects of these poisons on the walls of the blood vessels.
"A diet in which acid-producing foods predominate and neglect of the colon are probably the two greatest causes of premature old age."
Here I put the question, "Would fasting do the tired man any good?"
"No," he replied emphatically. "People who fast are going without food as they think. They are simply living on an exclusive meat diet; namely, their own flesh. The effect of fasting is not to purify the body and blood, but the very opposite."
"But what about people who want to reduce their weight?" "They should eat good full meals like sensible people. Their diet, however, should be low in fats and carbohydrates, but at the same time rich in iron, lime and vitamins. They should eat cereals very sparingly and without sugar or cream. They should eat liberal quantities of spinach, carrots, beets, string beans, cabbage, lettuce, celery, and an abundance of fruits, especially melons. A reducing diet should consist chiefly of bulky foodstuffs that have low nutritive value.
"Lean people who desire to gain weight need the reverse of the reducing diet and often are benefited by specially fattening foods.
"Another potent cause of weariness is intestinal stasis or chronic constipation. By the use of proper foods such as dates, raisins, bulk vegetables and the like, accompanied by proper exercises, a satisfactory elimination can be maintained. "Another thing that would greatly benefit the tired man would be to learn to sit erect in his chair without a support or cushion behind his back, his abdomen drawn in, his shoulders relaxed and his chest well up. Sitting all crumpled up, compressing the vital organs all day, overloading the liver-circulation, and limiting deep breathing, are national sins. I have seen wonderful transformations worked on tired down-and-out men and women, merely by correcting their bad posture.
"Again, factories and offices and homes are often too hot and too dry, and not half ventilated. A temperature of sixty-eight degrees with a humidity of seventy has been found to be the best temperature for both mental and physical work. If this temperature is not comfortable, more clothes are needed. "For tired and nervous people a bath in water from ninety-two to ninety-five degrees, inclusive, is helpful. The water soothes the nerves and washes out the fatigue poisons. For promoting sleep it is the most restful thing known, and is better than any sleeping powder made."
Now I make no apology for making such extended use of this remarkable interview with this famous specialist on health. If my readers do not like it, they may pass it by, and go on with their weariness and aches and pains and physical debauchery, and weakness and be prematurely gathered to their fathers in middle life. But blessed is the man who brings forth fruit in old age; and of whom God says, "With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
It is easy to tell us that Calvin, Baxter and Tholuck were invalids, and "did their work along the brink of the valley of death," that Bernard of Clairvaugh was the most influential Christian of his day, and yet with health so broken by the asceticism of self-discipline as to be "a wretched invalid all his public life," that Robert Hall "spent most of his life in heroic endurance of disease" and often preached leaning hard against the pulpit to deaden pain; that Fletcher of Madeley was a consumptive; that "Francis Asbury had headaches, toothaches, chills, fevers, and sore throats for his traveling companions;" that "Spurgeon was hardly ever well, and sometimes hobbled in agony to his pulpit." But we answer that each of these men was one in millions in will power and unconquerable determination; and if they could accomplish so much in invalidism, how much more they could have achieved in health! God wants us to yield to Him in consecration and service all our bodily powers—all we have and all we are, and all we may become. That is what He called us into being for, that we may serve and glorify Him. People buy automobiles. One person looks after and cares for his. He listens to the sound of the machinery. If any part is not working right, he knows it and cares for it; and that machine will still be valuable after it has rendered a hundred thousand miles of service. Another machine is mismanaged and ruined the first five thousand miles. Ever after it is an old, worn-out machine.
It is so with human bodies. We are the glory of God's creation, "fearfully and wonderfully made"—to be indwelt by God himself. Some young men drive their bodies at a killing pace by self-indulgence and are ready for the undertaker's junk heap at twenty. Others worry along and are spent and done at thirty. A few sinners manage to last till forty, and drop into a dishonored grave. But the wise live according to the God-given laws of their being. In food, in sleep, in breathing, in exercise, in all physical and mental and spiritual habits, they strive to honor and observe the laws of God. And God honors them with the blessing of health. They discard late hours. They sleep for recuperation, not for self-indulgence. They conscientiously avoid all manner of dissipation and destructive lawlessness. They eat and drink for the glory of God. Consequently He watches over them for good, and sees to it that their leaf shall not wither, that they shall bear fruit in their season, and whatsoever they do shall prosper.
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