IN HEALTH. 
BY 
Dr. A. J. INGERSOLL. 
“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and 
be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”—III. John 2. 
THIRD EDITION—ENLARGED. 
Published and Sold by the Author. 
CORNING, N. Y. 
1884. COPYRIGHT, 1877, 
BY 
A. J. INGERSOLL PREFACE. 
The ideas contained in this book are the 
result of my own experience. I have been 
repeatedly urged by my friends to give them 
to the public; but, while my desire to do so 
has been great, I have been prevented by 
the consciousness of inability as a writer. 
This consideration has been finally overbal- 
anced by the wish that others might be bene- 
fited by the truth which I have experienced. 
Through trust in God to keep my sexual 
nature from temptation I became a Chris- 
tian ; this led me to believe that Christians 
should commit that nature to Christ; and it is 
.this belief, or, in other words, my conviction 4 
PREFACE. 
of the influence Christ will exert over sexual 
life, if it is committed to Him, which has in- 
duced me to present this book to the public. 
Sexual life is universally believed to be 
the life of the sexual organs alone ; with this 
idea, all thoughts and feelings in regard to it 
congest the organs, and result in lust, and 
the conclusion follows that sexual life is 
animal, and must perish with the body. 
In these pages I present an entirely differ- 
ent view of sexual life. I believe it to be not 
only the life which brought us into exist- 
ence, but the life of the whole body ; and al- 
though it now holds a low and despised place, 
I know that Christ is able to redeem it, and 
beget in us Divine love and reverence for it. 
As proofs of the power of Christ to heal 
the body through the commitment of the 
sexual life to Him, a few cases have been 
selected from the thousands of patients who 
have been under my care during the past 
twenty years. 
A book written by one who has the dis- PREFACE. 
5 
position and capacity to express the opinions 
of the majority, will be read with avidity. 
To have ideas thus confirmed is more pleas- 
ing than profitable. It is only by present- 
ing new thoughts to my readers that I can 
hope to be of use to them. 
“Very ready are we to say of a book, 
‘How good this is—that’s exactly what I 
think!’ But the right feeling is, ‘Blow 
strange that is! I never thought of that 
before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do 
not now, I hope I shall some day.’ But 
whether thus submissively or not, at least be 
sure that you go to the author to get at his 
meaning, not to find yours. Judge it after- 
wards, if you think yourself qualified to do 
so, but ascertain it first. And be sure also, 
if the author is worth anything, that you will 
not get at his meaning all at once ;—nay, that 
at his whole meaning you will not for a long 
time arrive in any wise. Not that he does 
not say what he means, and in strong words, 
too ; but he cannot say it all.” * * * 6 
PREFACE. 
“So far as he knows, no one has yet said 
it; so far as he knows, no one else can say 
it. Fie is bound to say it, clearly and me- 
lodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. 
In the sum of his life he finds this to be the 
thing or group of things manifest to him ;— 
this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, 
which his share of sunshine and earth has 
permitted him to seize. He would fain set 
it down forever; engrave it on rock, if he 
could ; saying, ‘ this is the best of me , this 
if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’ 
That is his ‘writing;’ it is, in his small hu- 
man way, and with whatever degree of true 
inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scrip- 
ture.” 1 
I would ask the reader to excuse repeti- 
tions, as I could not avoid them and still 
convey my meaning. 
The truths contained in this book, theo- 
retically considered, will be of no value. 
Spiritual light becomes greater in service, not 
1 "Sesame and Lilies.”—Ruskin. PREFACE. 
7 
in speculation. I hope to serve mankind by 
turning their thoughts to a neglected but 
all-important subject, but they can only 
know the truth of my statements by look- 
ing to “Him who giveth the increase.” 
Corning, N. Y., February, 1877. CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER. 
PAGE. 
I. The Second Birth 11 
II. Religion 27 
III. Woman. 43 
IV. The Relation of the Sexes . . 59 
V. Miracles not Miracles . . .95 
VI. Sexual Abuses, and their Remedy . 109 
VII. Human Life 145 
VIII. God is Love. 151 
IX. Love 159 
X. Illustrations. . . 167 
XI. The Word “Heart” . . . 191 
XII. The Divine Government in Mar- 
riage 199 CHAPTER I. 
THE SECOND BIRTH. 
'Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born 
again.”—John III. 7. I. 
THE SECOND BIRTH. 
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” 
• John III. 7. 
From my earliest recollection a desire to 
comprehend human life possessed me. At 
the age of twenty-four I resolved to be a 
Christian, and entered upon a course of study 
with the intention of preparing for the min- 
istry. In “Paley’s Theology” I found and 
believed the assertion that a design must 
have a designer; as I could not comprehend 
who was the designer of God, my reason op- 
posed God’s revelation of Plimself within 
me and gained control over my feelings, un- 
til the influences of the Holy Spirit were so 
weakened that I came to disbelieve every- 14 
IN HEALTH. 
thing which my unregenerated rational na- 
ture could not understand, and my purpose 
of becoming a minister was abandoned. 
I then became desirous to be of service 
to the sick. When I thought I had suffi- 
cient knowledge for practical use, the fear of 
the temptation to which a physician is liable 
in treating the opposite sex, led me to seek 
for something on which to rely to keep me 
from yielding to it. At this time I was called 
an infidel. I believed in universal salvation, 
and attended church only to criticise. I did 
not believe in Christ, nor that the Bible was 
the word of God, but believed that there 
was a God, and something within seemed to 
assure me that He would protect me, if I 
would trust my sexual nature to his care. I 
did so, and His promise was fulfilled. 
In 1855, I left New York for Virginia, to 
treat the yellow fever. During my journey 
I felt the influence of the Holy Spirit urg- 
ing me to prepare for death. I regarded it 
as a warning from my Creator, but my rea- IN HEALTH. 
15 
son, not being under the control of Christ’s 
love, did not yield to it. 
On my return I stopped in Philadelphia, 
and began to investigate modem spiritual- 
ism, in the hope of releasing people from its 
influence. With this purpose I attended 
spiritualistic meetings, and lectured on the 
means of obtaining health. Investigation 
convinced me that spiritualism is evil; and 
that magnetism and mesmerism, although 
of some use to the body, are very dangerous 
to the soul. 
At the close of my second lecture two 
young men wished to know what was their 
disease. I told them they were spiritual me- 
diums, tormented day and night. They said 
this was true; and one desired me to cure him. 
I assured him I could not. “Why not? you 
know what my trouble is,” he said. I re- 
plied, “I am seeking the remedy, but have 
not found it.” He then asked what he 
should do. I told him he had forsaken God, 
and must seek through the second birth sal- 16 
IN HEALTH. 
vation of Christ, for He alone was able to 
save. I was thoroughly orthodox and sin- 
cere while conversing with the young men, 
and, although I had no hope that their minds 
were changed, felt satisfied that my duty 
was accomplished. After leaving them, I 
reflected on their condition, and on what 1 
had said to them, and was surprised to find 
I had advised a method of cure, which my 
reason had not accepted. In the singleness 
of my desire to rescue them from a perilous 
condition, I had been led by the infallible 
spirit of Love. The voice within, bidding 
me follow the advice I had given, and yield 
to Christ as the only one able to save, could 
not again be silenced. 
The next day two ladies, mother and 
daughter, called. The daughter asked if I 
could tell what ailed her mother. I said her 
mother was a medium; and I gave religious 
admonition similar to that given to the 
young men. I was constrained to give this 
counsel although contrary to my reason. IN II E A L T H. 
17 
The next morning my reason planted it- 
self firmly on the ground of universal salva- 
tion. But I was asked by the Holy Spirit— 
although I had not yet recognized this influ- 
ence—“Are not the two voung men and the 
woman, whom you have been advising to 
yield to Christ, already in a state of torment 
which will be endless, unless they seek His 
power to save?” My reason decided affirm- 
atively, but I did not yield until nearly night. 
Then I saw' that there is One who “shuttetb, 
and no man openeth.”1 I realized that my 
trust in God to keep me from yielding to 
temptation during the previous ten years, 
had led me to Christ; and that as my sexual 
life alone had been committed to God dur- 
ing that time, so all in my spiritual exped- 
ience which had drawn me to Him, must 
have come through that life. I cannot but 
believe that my trust in God to keep my sex- 
ual life, was the origin and order of the new 
birth which the HolySpirit had begotten in me. 
1 Rev. III. 7. 
See note at end of chapter. 18 
IN II E A L T H. 
Since then I have believed that our sexual 
nature, which is our life, must' first yield to 
the influence of the Holy Spirit, in order 
that we may be born again,—born of the will 
of God. What God does for our redemption, 
must be in the same order as that in which 
He brought us into being; but not of the 
“will of the flesh, nor of the will of man.”1 
I saw at once that the second birth of the 
sexual life, is what all the sons and daughters 
of Adam need, and that this might be re- 
ceived by believing that when Christ said, 
“Ye must be born again,” Fie meant the re- 
demption of the life in us that begat us, the 
life through which we inherit the original sin. 
I saw that to be regenerated, we must be re- 
conciled to the order of life in which the 
Lord created us, believing that in the same 
order He sustains us and reveals himself to 
us; and that Christ would cast out all lust if 
we would trust Him, and we could return 
to Paradise. 
1 John I. 18. IN DEALT II. 
19 
The reader should observe that I desired 
my Creator to keep my sexual nature from 
temptation, not in order to be happy here 
or hereafter, but that I might serve others. 
By this experience I have been led to be- 
lieve that happiness consists in eternal service. 
I chink with all Christians that sexual lust 
is sinful, and unless we look to Christ to re- 
deem it, we shall be lost. If lust is sinful, 
does it not need a Saviour ? All desires ex- 
cept sexual desire, are esteemed worthy of 
salvation, and of the control of Christ; this 
is thought to be necessarily low and animal; 
and, therefore, unworthy and incapable of 
redemption, and to be controlled without 
Divine aid. This effort to control is equiv- 
alent to a prayer to God to destroy sexual 
life, and disease is the result. Instead of 
trusting to the so-called higher faculties to 
control that which has been falsely esteemed 
the lower, the prayer should be for the re- 
demption of sexual life, that it may be con- 
trolled by Christ. 20 
IN HEALTH. 
All our faculties are alike good; the sexual 
life is the sustaining life of the mind, as well 
as of every organ of the body; all thoughts 
and deeds proceed from the life in us that 
begat us, and Christ is the light of that life 
in all who are born of the Spirit. When 
man begins to -reason about spiritual things 
without the light of love, he is lost in dark- 
ness, “ for the wisdom of this world is fool- 
ishness with God.”1 
From my experience in ministering to the 
sick, I believe that disease originates in un- 
regenerated sexual life. We are so consti- 
tuted that we cannot look with a condemna- 
tory spirit upon any part of our organiza- 
tion, without creating disease in that part; 
showing clearly, that “a house divided against 
itself cannot stand.” We should not seek 
to suppress sexual life, but should desire 
Christ to redeem it. The mistake of sup- 
pressing it is made by many who seek to 
lead lives of Christian purity, because they 
»1 Cor. Ill 19. IN HEALT H. 
21 
fear the sexual life is unholy. Wonder 
has frequently been expressed to me, that a 
merciful God should give to man anything 
productive of so much misery; and it is the 
prayer of many persons that they may have 
no sexual life. 
A Presbyterian minister was introduced 
to me by a friend as being a man after my 
own heart, that is, a man of great faith. Af- 
terward my friend asked what I thought of 
Mr. and of his faith. I replied that 
it seemed to me more like insanity than faith 
in Christ; that it resulted in condemnation 
of sexual life in himself, and I feared he 
would end his days in a lunatic asylum. 
Several years afterwards the clergyman con- 
sulted me in regard to his health. Nothing 
could be done for him; he was hopelessly in- 
sane. His condemnation of sexual desire had 
extended to his religious experience. He 
said his whole life had been sinful, that 
there was no religion in him, and he believed 
he had committed the unpardonable sin. 22 
IN HEAL T II. 
His friends soon after took him to an insane 
asylum, where he remained but a few months 
before he died. 
A member of the same denomination in- 
quired the cause of this clergyman’s condi- 
tion. My reply was, that his condemnation 
of sexual life had turned it into lust, and 
through the darkness of lust he could see 
no hope for himself; that I believed he had 
sometime in his life, under a bitter condem- 
nation of sexual desire, manifested passion 
toward the opposite sex. His friend then 
told me that he had treated some ladies im- 
properly at a protracted meeting; the cir- 
cumstances had been suppressed by taking 
him to an insane asylum. 
All sensation of sexual feeling should 
be committed or yielded to Christ. To do 
this there should be thankfulness for it, and 
mercy and good will toward it, at the mo- 
ment there is consciousness of it; and not 
only in thought should there be a desire 
that Christ will keep it, but this desire must IN HEALT H. 
23 
be accompanied by resignation of the will 
to Him, and a consequent relaxation of the 
nervous and muscular systems. Many pa- 
tients spend much time with me uselessly, 
because they understand commitment to be 
in thought, without any resignation of the 
will. 
“In such high hour 
Of visitation from the Living God, 
Thought was not.”—Wordsworth. 
Commitment to Christ will give complete 
local quietness, and will keep all men and 
women from the sin of adultery even in 
thought,—the sin of which Christ speaks 
when He says, “Whosoever looketh on a 
woman to lust after her hath committed 
adultery with her already in his heart.”1 
I endeavor to bring my patients into the 
belief that the second birth will create in 
them the spiritual condition of our first par- 
ents before the Fall, in whom the love of 
God was supreme. In that condition every- 
1 Matt. V. 28. 24 
IN HEALTH. 
thing was pure; sexual life-was holy. By 
transgression man broke away from the law 
of Love, and the life of sex became despised. 
When my patients believe for the sake of 
the body, they are restored like the nine le- 
pers who did not return to give glory to 
God. If they believed for their souls’ salva- 
tion, both soul and body would be healed 
The majority of my patients are many weeks 
in‘attaining belief, but a few come rapidly 
into it. I told a young man who consulted 
me in regard to his disease, which physicians 
pronounced congestion of the brain, that if 
he would return thanks to Christ for every 
sexual sensation, he would regain his health. 
He realized the truth of my assertion, fol- 
lowed my advice, and gained nine pounds in 
flesh the first week he was under my care. 
In about three weeks he returned to college, 
from which he had been absent nine 
months; in three months he resumed his 
place in class. He continues well, and is 
now preaching. IN II E A L T II. 
25 
Notwithstanding my success in healing the 
sick, I am not satisfied, because I have not 
been able to lead them to seek the redemp- 
tion of their souls by commitment of sex- 
ual life to Christ. This doctrine has always 
met with opposition, because Christians 
generally believe, that “this infection of na- 
ture doth remain, yea, in them that are re- 
generated.” 1 
I hope the time will come when I shall 
be better fitted to teach, and mankind more 
willing to receive, the truth. Only by the 
power of Christ have I been able to do 
what I have done in the past twenty years; 
I have promised to serve Him during this 
life, and hope to be worthy to do so through- 
out eternity ; I believe He is all in all, I am 
but His unprofitable servant. 
1 See IXth Article of Religion. (Episcopal‘Church.'! NOTE. 
The Eye.—In Dean Alford’s notes on the word “eye,'’ 
Matt, vi, 22, 23 lie says : “ Stier expands it well: ‘As the 
body, of itself a dark mass, has its light from the eye, so 
we have here compared to it the sensuous, bestial life of men, 
their appetites, desires and aversions, which belong to the 
lower creature. This dark region—human nature under the 
gross dominion of the flesh—shall become spiritualized, en- 
lightened, sanctified, by the spiritual light: but if this 
light be darkness, how great must then the darkness of the 
sensuous life be ! ’ ” CHAPTER II. 
RELIGION. 
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall 
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”—John 
XY. 7. II. 
RELIGION. 
"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall 
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”—John 
XY. 7. 
Before my conversion I believed the ob- 
ject of religion was to gain eternal happi- 
ness and avoid eternal misery. I thought by 
becoming a minister, and thus serving hu- 
manity in this life,that I should obtain hap- 
piness in the next. I did not think for a 
moment that heaven consists in the service 
of the Lord. “ And whosoever of you will 
be thechiefest, shall be servant of all.”1 To 
be made a servant is all we should ever ask, 
and that service which is acceptable to 
1 Mark X. 44. 30 
IN HEALT H. 
Christ will form our happiness. The joy of 
serving Him is the “ kingdom of God with- 
in us.” 
In my religious instructions, I endeavor 
to teach that the desire to serve Christ in 
order that His will may be done in and by 
us, is the whole duty of man ; that we should 
desire to keep His spirit which He gives us,— 
which is his name,—hallowed, and give it to 
others as freely and purely as He gives it to 
us; that desire, or prayer, should never be 
for Him to increase His spiritual gifts, “for 
your Father knoweth what things ye have 
need of before ye ask Him.”1 “Ye ask and 
receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye 
may consume it uponyourlusts.”2 We have 
not been faithful over what lie has given 
us; to ask for more is selfishness ; and by so 
doing we place ourselves in the condition of 
the servant, who, having but one talent, 
“ went and digged in the earth, and hid his 
lord’s money.”3 When the prodigal son be- 
1 Matt. VI. 8. 
2 James IY. 8. 
3 Matt. XXV. 18. IN HEALTH. 
31 
came penitent and returned to his father, he 
did not ask his father to give him more, but 
sought to be made as one of his “hired ser- 
vants.” 
The command to “love the Lord thy 
God”—who is within thee—“with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
strength, and with all thy mind;and thy neigh- 
bor as thyself,”1 forbids any plan or purpose 
of our own, in regard to what we would have 
Him do for us. When we seek the salvation 
of our intellects, and the annihilation of sex- 
ual life, we look to Him to do our wills, 
not to have His will done in us. This is 
making Him after our own hearts,—full of 
vengeance, hatred, and all manner of evil. 
Those with whom I have conversed upon 
this subject, seem unconsciously to believe 
in the doctrine of Manes, who taught that 
the upper part of the body was formed by 
God, the lower by the devil. The read- 
er will perceive that I am no believer in 
1 Luke X. 27. 32 
IN HEALTH. 
this doctrine, and unless I fail entirely in my 
purpose, he will realize that my object in 
giving this work to the public, is to offer my 
humble testimony that Christ, through the 
redemption of the sexual life, will make the 
“whole body full of light, having no part 
dark.” He will change the whole nature of 
man, and fill him with life. 
The power of this faith has been mani- 
fested by the restoration to health *of all 
those who have accepted it. I believe “the 
curative power .of the system ” of which 
physiologists speak, is sexual life—the life 
which begat us. God is ail in all; therefore, 
through the commitment of this life to Him, 
He becomes the power in us to heal all dis- 
eases. The suppression of this life by the 
will destroys digestion, and weakens the 
power of all the vital organs. When I tell 
the sick they need to seek the restoration of 
sexual feeling for the healing of any organ 
of the body, they fear it will be sinful, and 
it would be so unless they also sought of IN HEALT II. 
33 
Christ its redemption. The Giver of life 
has power to be its keeper. 
I was told by Miss A. that her physician 
had said that the suppression of her sexual 
feeling had destroyed her health; but he 
did not tell her where to look for its restora- 
tion, nor what to do with it should it return 
I told her to look to Christ for its restora- 
tion, and to commit it to Plim when it was 
restored. She did so, and was soon well. 
Mrs. B., who consulted me for sterility, had 
been under the treatment o.f a very popular 
physician of New York. He used electric- 
ity for the restoration of her sexual life, but 
she received no benefit. I told her to seek 
it of Christ, and at the end of six weeks she 
was well. Her hopes are now realized, as she 
is the happy mother of two children. 
Sexual life, God’s sustaining life in man, is 
not simply the life of the organs to which 
He has assigned the important office of 
bringing into existence immortal souls. It 
is the power which assimilates the food in 34 
IN HEALTH. 
the stomach and bowels, causes respiration 
in the lungs ; circulates the blood through 
the heart, arteries, and veins, and changes it 
into the solids, gives motion to the muscles, 
and life to the nerves, and controls all the 
actions of humanity. If mankind had trust 
and reverence for this life, no man would 
look “ on a woman to lust after her,” and 
there would be no infidelity in marriage. 
Sexual redemption is the only remedy for 
the ruin that is coming upon society under 
the disguise of Free Love,—another name 
for Free Lust. 
If sexual life was under the control of 
God, intemperance is another evil that would 
pass away, for it has its origin in the restless- 
ness of this life, which, dissatisfied and under 
the control of passion, creates an insatiable 
desire that seeks to satisfy its craving in 
stimulants. 
It is hoped the reader will not misunder- 
stand these ideas as referring to the redemp- 
tion of the body, which, being but the instru- IN HEALTH. 
35 
ment of the soul, and having no will except 
that which the soul confers upon it, has no 
need of redemption. St. Paul says: “For 
our conversation is in heaven ; from whence 
also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus 
Christ; who shall change our vile body, that 
il may be fashioned like unto his glorious 
body.”1 As there was no Fall but that of 
the spirit, so there can be no purification 
except that which comes through the soul; 
for the body is moulded by the soul as 
clay by the hands of the potter. 
“So every spirit, as it is most pure, 
And katli in it the more of heavenly light; 
So it the fairer bodie doth procure 
To habit in, and it more fairly diglit, 
With clieerfull grace and amiable sight: 
For of the soule, the bodie form doth take; 
For soule is form, and doth the bodie make.” 2 
What can we do to make our whole body 
receptive of Divine love, that it may be full 
of life ? Love our whole body as the temple 
of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul said : “What! 
'Phil. III. 20-24. 2 Spenser’s “ Hymn in Honor of Beauty.” 36 
IN HEALTH. 
know ye not that your body is the temple 
of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which 
ye have of God, and ye are not your 
own ?”1 
God’s word is a revelation only to that 
being in whom His spirit dwells. “ But this 
poor miserable Me! Is this, then, all the 
book I have got to read about God in ? 
Yes, truly so. No other book, nor frag- 
ment of book, than that, will you ever find; 
no velvet-bound missal, nor frankincensed 
manuscript; nothing hieroglyphic nor cunei- 
form ; papyrus and pyramid are alike silent 
on this matter;—nothing in the clouds above, 
nor in the earth beneath. That flesh-bound 
volume is the only revelation that is, that 
was, or that can be. In that is the image of 
God painted; in that is the law of God 
written ; in that is the promise of God re- 
vealed. Know thyself; for through thyself 
only thou canst know God.” 2 
The belief that the human form is the 
1 Cor. VI. 19. 
2 Ruslan's “Modern Painters,” Vol. V. p. 212 IN HEALT H. 
37 
temple of the Holy Ghost, will make us re- 
ceptive of Christ’s healing power. As my 
patients grow into a realization of this 
truth, which brings them into a love of 
their own forms, they increase in life. 
Wilkinson says truly, that “ loss of faith 
and other inward graces, is the tap-root of 
bodily sickness; and that fears, apathies, 
hatreds, and self seekings are the sowers who 
go forth to sow poison through our frames. 
On the other hand the renewal of faith, even 
when impressed from without, handles 
the organism as the will handles the 
muscles, and, if we may use the expression, 
converts and Christianizes the body—that is 
to say, heals it.”1 There is no miasma which 
comes up from the earth, so productive of 
disease, as a bitter feeling in our hearts 
toward ourselves and others. 
I once met a young man at a water cure, 
who informed me that he expected soon to 
graduate at College, and then pre- 
1 “The Human Body and its Connection vfith Man.” 38 
IN HEALTH. 
pare himself for the ministry. I told him 
that, in reality, he was preparing himself for 
an insane asylum, for if he did not cease con- 
demning his sexual life, he would yet be- 
come a raving maniac. He was astonish- 
ed at my assertion, and for some time denied 
that he condemned his sexual life; finally, 
however, he admitted that he was in great dis- 
tress about its condition, and was seeking 
every means to destroy it; that often his 
desperation was so great, that he could 
scarcely refrain from rushing through the 
streets, and swearing at every leap. 
For two weeks we frequently conversed 
on the subject, and I urged upon him the ne- 
cessity of yielding his sexual nature to Christ, 
that he might be at peace with himself; 
in his present condition his influence over 
others would cause restlessness and insanity, 
rather than peace and love. He admitted 
that during a recent revival at his college, a 
young man whom he had labored to convert, 
was in a strange state of mind, for while IN HEALTH. 
39 
manifesting great religious interest, he un- 
doubtedly showed very decided symptoms 
of insanity. 
Before we parted the young man saw his 
error. Two months afterward he wrote me 
that he had found peace and rest for his 
sexual life, and that he wondered he had not 
been stricken down like Ananias and Sap- 
phira, for having kept back part of his nature. 
His whole letter indicated that he had obtain- 
ed the happiness which is surely received by 
those who come into harmony with their 
Creator, and that he was ruled by Christ’s 
love, instead of his former madness. 
Theological students condemn the sexual 
nature more bitterly than any ether class of 
men, under the mistaken impression that it 
is animal and impure, and that they cannot 
serve God unless it is annihilated. This as- 
sertion is founded upon their own admis- 
sions. 
An orthodox minister wrote to me that 
he had succeeded in casting the devil out of 40 
IN HEALTH. 
every part of his nature except sex. I replied, 
that if he would commit that part to Christ, 
He would give him the victory over the 
devil in that also. 
I wish by this brief work to lead others 
to a reconciliation with sexual life as a 
gift from the Creator, and induce them to 
look to Him for its redemption; thus be- 
coming subject to the will of their Lord and 
Saviour, their souls will be redeemed, and 
their bodies healed. 
In the majority of cases, the minds of my 
patients have been brought into reconcilia- 
tion with their sexual life, and through this 
reconciliation Christ has healed them. I 
have desired more than this, that they might 
surrender their whole nature to Him, and 
thus realize what it is to be born again, 
“ Not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
of man, but of God.” They would then 
know that failure of bodily health is the re- 
sult of disease in the soul, and through be- 
lieving that the Physician of the soul is the IN HEALTH. 
41 
Healer of the body, in sickness they would 
look to Christ to supply their need, and find 
Him their strength. 
The more we are in harmony with Christ’s 
spirit and subject to His will, the greater 
power will the life of the body, which is 
sexual, have for its sustenance, and for the 
overcoming of disease. In order to be fully 
redeemed, the whole nature of man must be 
yielded to Christ; then there will be no more 
strife in the soul, but perfect rest and peace 
in the sexual life ; and there being no schism 
in the body, all its functions will be perfectly 
performed. Then, and only then, will there 
be a realization that the body is the temple 
of the Holy Ghost,— that we are not our 
own. This realization will bring with it 
reverence and love, and the “peace that 
passeth all understanding.” CHAPTER III. 
WOMAN. 
“And Jesus answering saitli unto them, Have faith in 
God.”—Mark XI. 22. III. 
WOMAN. 
" And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in 
God.”—Mark XI. 22. 
Dr. Clarke remarks: “Growth, health, 
and disease are cellular manifestations. With 
every act of life,—the movement of a finger, 
the pulsation of a heart, the uttering of a 
word, the coining of a thought, the thrill of 
an emotion, there is the destruction of a cer- 
tain number of cells. Their destruction 
evolves or sets free the forces that we recog- 
nize as movement, speech, thought, and emo- 
tion. The number of cells destroyed de- 
pends upon the intensity and duration of the 
effort that correlates their destruction. When 46 
IN HEALTH. 
a blacksmith wields a hammer for an hour, 
he uses up the number of cells necessary to 
yield that,amount of muscular force. When 
a girl studies Latin for an hour, she uses up 
the number of brain-cells necessary to yield 
that amount of intellectual force. As fast as 
one cell is destroyed, another is generated. 
The death of one is followed instantly by the 
birth of its successor. This continual pro- 
cess of cellular death and birth, the income 
and outgo of cells, that follow each other 
like the waves of the sea, each different, yet 
each the same, is metamorphosis of tissue. 
This is life.”1 
It is to be hoped the reader will see that 
what Dr. Clarke calls life, is but the effect of 
life. The sexual life which begat us, is the 
life which begets the cells within us, and if 
we would have it healthful, we must commit 
it to Christ for redemption, that He, becom- 
ing its Saviour, may increase its power for the 
generation of these cells ; for all life is of Him, 
1 “ Sex in Education,” pp. 51-52. IN HEALTH. 
47 
and He is the Light of it. Sexual life being 
the sustaining life of the body, all in the soul 
of man that is in obedience, or in opposition 
to God, has its effect upon that life, bestow- 
ing upon it peace or restlessness, health or 
disease. Dissatisfaction with the manner of 
our creation or existence is warfare against 
the Creator, and necessarily weakens the life 
force, so that the cells die faster than they 
are created, and the health declines. 
Fear, disgust, and hatred are the causes of 
the worst cases of dysmenorrhoea. A lady 
suffering from this disease, who had been 
pronounced incurable by her physicians, as a 
last hope placed herself under my care. For 
many years she had suffered intensely during 
the menstrual period, having had violent 
spasms and frequently being delirious. 
I never saw greater anger in any human 
face than in hers, when first called to see 
her in one of these attacks. I told her the 
spasmodic action was caused by her anger 
with God for creating her a woman, and 48 
IN HEALTH. 
thereby subjecting- her to menstruation ; that 
her anger must cease, for she was beyond relief 
until she became reconciled to this function 
She insisted chat she could not control her- 
self, and that she was not angry. Finally, 
however, my convictions of her state pre- 
vailed over her own, her will relaxed, and the 
spasmodic action and pain passed away. In 
about two hours she became angry again, 
and her sufferings returned. The same coun- 
sel was given, with the same effect. During 
the next two periods she needed the same 
advice, for at each return she was in mental 
desperation and physical agony. When she 
came into the full belief that her suffering 
was caused by anger with this function, she 
became reconciled to menstruation, and was 
restored to health. 
Miss C., who at the age of nineteen was 
placed under my care, had not menstruated 
in eighteen months. She suffered no pain, 
but was unable to move, speak, or even 
vvhisper; her form was as undeveloped as a IN HEALTH. 
49 
child’s. I told her she had no disease, but 
that her condition was the effect of her anger 
at the catamenial function. When she re- 
covered so far as to speak, she admitted 
the truth of my assertion. She became recon- 
ciled to menstruation as the Divine will 
in her being, and was soon restored to health. 
The menses appeared at the end of three 
months, and her form became fully developed. 
I advise women to take all the exercise 
they can during menstruation, and good re- 
sults follow,—provided they are not dis- 
gusted, nor angry, with this function, nor con- 
trolled by fear. 
Drs. Clarke, Maudsley, and others, are of 
the opinion that study during menstruation 
produces derangement of the female func- 
tion, and they give satisfactory proof to all 
who accept their premises. While the 
light of physiology is not to be rejected, it 
should not be accepted as the standard by 
which to judge of the effects of study upon 
females. In all cases where women have 50 
IN HEALTH. 
received my religious views of this function, 
they perform physical or mental labor during 
these periods without any inconvenience. 
Study is not the primary cause of the fail- 
ure of health in the young of either sex, but 
the spirit of pride and ambition which rules 
them in its pursuit. The strife to win prizes, 
the desire to triumph over companions, and 
the attending excitement, are the results of 
vain ambition and selfishness, demoralizing 
to the soul, and consequently destructive to 
health. 
The case of Miss D. will illustrate the 
above. Such was her nervous condition that, 
upon her arrival at my house, she requested 
every one to leave the parlor, before she 
would pass through it to her room. I was 
soon afterward called, and found her in a fit 
of hysteria. I told her the attack was the 
result of her anger at being created a woman ; 
that she had always regretted she was not a 
man. When she became quiet, she said that 
overwork at school was ihe cause of her ill- IN HEAL T H. 
51 
ness. I told her it was not the study which 
had affected her health, but that the purpose 
with which she pursued it, was not in har- 
mony with the purpose of her Creator, who 
designed woman to be wife and mother. The 
latter word startled her, and she said with 
emphasis, “she never would be willing to be 
a mother.” When asked if she received that 
idea at school, she replied that she had it be- 
fore going, but it was confirmed there, and 
added, “ All the girls at school said they did 
not intend to have children.” The stories she 
heard had led her to magnify the sufferings 
of childbirth, until she had become tilled with 
terror, and had broken an engagement of 
marriage in consequence. 
Whenever asked if.she had given up the 
wish to be a man, she answered in the nega- 
tive. It was impossible to convince her of 
the wisdom and goodness of God in creating 
her a woman, consequently, she did not re 
cover. 52 
IN HEAL T II. 
The phrase, “sphere of woman” had its 
origin and adoption in the feeling that wo- 
man’s destiny, as appointed by God, is not en- 
nobling, and it is continually used by persons 
who have not felt its sacredness. Many wo- 
men consider their own God-given sphere 
ignoble, the duties entailed upon them de- 
grading, and seek to elevate themselves by 
forsaking their appointed work. It is the 
tendency of the age to make woman think 
that likeness to man should be her ideal. 
The desire of woman to be like man is, in 
her mind, equivalent to the idea that she 
should have been created a mank and is one 
of the many influences of society and school 
which are destructive to her nature. Equal- 
ity exists only when man and woman fill 
their divinely appointed sphere,—each seek- 
ing to become obedient to the Divine 
law ; for the law being Divine, will har- 
monize with the life of the soul and 
body. He who gave us the law, gave IN HEALTH. 
53 
also our existence, and certainly knows to 
what purpose of life we are best adapted. 
Woman’s sphere is not a selfish one, not for 
worldly purposes ; God gave her the queen- 
ship of the affections, that through it she 
might hold humanity in harmony with Him. 
Her education should fit her for this high do- 
minion ;—to be not only, “ the giver of bread,” 
but the giver of spiritual food ; for it was in- 
tended that the spiritual light of the world 
should exist in her. 
Dr. Clarke says: “ The problem of 
« 
woman’s sphere, to use the modern phrase, 
is not to be solved by applying to it abstract 
principles of right and wrong. Its solution 
must be obtained from physiology, not from 
ethics or metaphysics. The question must 
be submitted to Agassiz and Huxley, not to 
Kant or Calvin, to Church or Pope.”1 The 
question of woman’s sphere cannot be solved 
by Agassiz and Huxley, for God has settled 
it in creating her to be wife and mother. 
1 “Sex in Education,” p. 153. 54 
I N II E A L T H. 
The ground for disapproval of a girl’s 
pursuing the same course of study as a boy, 
is not that she lacks the mental and physical 
capacity, but that for the fulfillment of her 
Creator’s purpose in giving her life, a differ' 
ent training is required. At the present time, 
a girl’s education has the tendency to make 
her falsely intellectual and vainly accom- 
plished, but not observing and practical. 
Her ambition is fostered by parents and 
teachers ; she has no rest in attaining her 
object; and the strife to acquire much in a 
short time, keeps her in a state of excite- 
ment which consumes her life. 
A girl should be educated under quiet influ- 
ences; should be taught to be contented and 
happy in herself; seeking the cultivation of 
that which will increase her wisdom. The 
desire to serve humanity will follow ; her aim 
will be to give happiness at home; and, in 
honoring wifehood and motherhood, she will 
exert an influence up.on generations yet un- 
born. IN HEALTH. 
55 
The limits of this work will not allow the 
discussion as to what course of study 
would best fit woman for this noble position ; 
the subject must be left with this remark : 
that all learning which harmonizes with 
the Divine purpose will be no injury to her; 
but any knowledge, however obtained, that 
has a contrary tendency, will be destructive 
to her physical and spiritual health. Her in- 
structors should be guided by God’s Word, 
and educate her to fill the sphere designed 
by His wisdom ; and for this end, she should 
not be removed from the influence of home. 
“ You may see continually girls who have 
never been taught to do a single useful thing 
thoroughly; who cannot sew, who cannot 
cook, who cannot cast an account, nor pre- 
pare a medicine, whose whole life has been 
passed either in play or in pride; you will 
find girls like these, when they are earnest- 
hearted, cast all their innate passion of re- 
ligious spirit, which was meant by God to 
support them through the irksomeness of 56 
IN HEALTH. 
daily toil, into grievous and vain meditation 
over the meaning of the great Book of 
which no syllable was ever yet to be under- 
stood but through a deed; all the instinctive 
wisdom and mercy of their womanhood 
made vain, and the glory of their pure con- 
sciences warped into fruitless agony con- 
cerning questions which the laws of common 
serviceable life would have either solved for 
them in an instant, or kept out of their way. 
Give such a girl any true work that will 
make her active in the dawn, and weary at 
night, with the consciousness that her fellow- 
creatures have indeed been the better for her 
day, and .the powerless sorrow of her enthu- 
siasm will transform itself into a majesty of 
radiant and beneficent peace.”1 
The following quotation, giving pre-emi- 
nence to the soul, expresses the condition 
under which all men and women might pur- 
sue their education to the full extent of their 
opportunities and desires: 
1 “ The Mystery of Life and its Arts,” by Ruskin. IN HEALTH. 
57 
“ And now observe, the first important 
consequence of our fully understanding this 
pre-eminence of the soul, will be the due 
understanding of that subordination of knowl- 
edge respecting which so much has already 
been said. For it must be felt at once, that 
the increase of knowledge, merely as such, 
does not make the soul larger or smaller; 
that, in the sight of God, all the knowledge 
man can gain is as nothing; but that the 
soul, for which the great scheme of redemp- 
tion was laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, is 
all in all; and in the activity, strength, 
health, and well-being of this soul, lies the 
main difference, in His sight, between one 
man and another. And that which is all in 
all in God’s estimate is also, be assured, all in 
all in man’s labor; and to have the heart 
open, and the eyes clear, and the emotions 
and thoughts warm and quick, and not the 
knowing of this or the other fact, is the 
state needed for all mighty doing in this 
world. And, therefore, finally, for this, the 58 
IN HEALTH. 
weightiest of all reasons, let us take no pride 
in our knowledge. We may, in a certain 
sense, be proud of being immortal; we may 
be proud of being God’s children ; we may 
be proud of loving, thinking, seeing, and of 
all that we are by no human teaching: but 
not of what we have been taught by rote, 
not of the ballast and freight of the ship of 
the spirit, but only of its pilotage, without 
which all the freight will only sink it faster 
and strew the sea more richly with its ruin.”1 
1 “ Stones of Venice,” Vol. III. CHAPTER IV. 
THE RELATION OF THE SEXES. 
“They twain shall be one flesh.”—Matt. XIX. 5. IV. 
THE RELATION OF THE SEXES. 
“ They twain shall be one flesh.”—Matt. XIX., 5. 
“ And the Lord God said, It is not 
good that the man should be alone; I will 
make him a help meet for him.”1 
In this verse we find expressed the Divine 
purpose in the creation of woman. A wife 
to come into harmony with this purpose, 
should desire to be helpful to her husband, 
and that in the highest sense,—a spiritual 
help to him. *To become this, she must seek 
strength of the Lord God of Hosts, of Him 
who is ever helpful. 
“ The Maker of all creatures and things, 
1 Gen. II.. 18. 62 
IN HEALTH. 
‘ by whom all creatures live, and all things 
consist,’ is essentially and forever the Help- 
ful One, or, in softer Saxon, the Holy One. 
The word has no other ultimate meaning. 
Helpful, harmless, undefiled; ‘living,’ or 
‘ Lord of life.’ The idea is clear and mighty 
in the cherubim’s cry: ‘ Helpful, helpful, 
helpful, Lord God of Hosts; ’—i. e., of all the 
hosts, armies, and creatures of the earth.”1 
This was the relation of our first parents 
to their Creator before the Fall, and this was 
their divine, holy or helpful relation to each 
other. God’s commands were given to make 
us helpful to one another; and this helpful- 
ness, which is of the Lord, is eternal happi- 
ness, or the state of the redeemed. 
The marginal rendering of the phrase, 
“ meet for him,” is, “ as before him.” It 
signifies that to woman has been given a high- 
ly spiritual nature, by which Christ may lead 
her in the way of salvation, and fit her to go 
before her husband spiritually, without any 
1 “Modern Painters,” Yol. V. IN HEALTH. 
63 
assumption of superiority, to guide him to 
Christ. 
“ And thy desire shall be subject to thy 
husband, and he shall rule over thee.”1 Obe- 
dience to this command was required, to lead 
Adam and Eve back to Paradise ; it was not 
intended as a punishment. There was no 
necessity for this command before the Fall, 
because Eve was under the control of Him 
who rules the universe; but she led in the 
transgression, and, therefore, it was necessary 
for her to lead in the return to obedience. 
The command to obey did not give man any 
authority over her except to bless. By her 
disobedience she fell from the high spiritual 
state of harmony with her Creator, and in 
her darkness it became necessary for her to 
be ruled by her husband as a tangible power, 
to make her receptive of the spiritual light 
which she had lost. 
The man who interprets this command as 
giving him authority to govern his wife for 
•Gen. III., 16.—Marginal rendering. 64 
IN HEALTH. 
any other purpose than her happiness, does 
not understand Divine government, which 
has no other object or effect than the good 
of the governed. Any other aim than this 
fosters in a husband the spirit of a tyrant, 
which without repentance will effect his 
ruin. 
In advising women to obey their husbands, 
I have been guided by this interpretation of 
the command, and in every instance where 
they have followed my advice they have 
been blessed. 
I was called to see Mrs. E., whose disease 
was pronounced paralysis. She was appar- 
ently unable to turn in bed. When she was 
told that her condition was caused by her 
antipathy to having children, she became 
very angry. I informed her husband that it 
would be impossible for me to- do anything, 
but that he could help her; that it was 
necessary to govern her in every way possi- 
ble, so that her will should become subject to 
his, and through a spirit of obedience IN HEALTH. 
65 
Christ would heal her. His affection had 
always led him to indulge her selfishness, not 
knowing it was injurious ; he did not think 
he could do otherwise, until satisfied that it 
would be for her good. Her habit was to 
call some one every few moments to turn 
her in bed. I believed she would be able 
to turn herself, if she became subject to her 
husband in the Divine sense, so I advised 
him not to help her, nor allow any of the 
family to do so. He said he wonld follow 
my advice ; and I succeeded in satisfying his 
daughters, also, that it was for the physical 
and spiritual good of their mother. 
When her husband first undertook to con- 
trol her, there seemed no bounds to her an- 
ger; she would even call to the neighbors 
as they were passing, to come to her assist- 
ance. 
I learned afterward, she was enjoying as 
good health as could be expected for a per- 
son of her years, being able to ride out and 
take whatever exercise she chose, and that 66 
IN HEALTH. 
her exacting disposition was changed to 
one of love and good-will toward all. " 
The explanation of the case is very simple. 
She had had her own selfish way so long, 
that her efforts to move were made with such 
intense will force as to paralyze her; when 
she became obedient to her husband, her 
own will was broken, so that Christ’s will 
could be done within her. This restored the 
equilibrium of the nervous forces, and the 
muscular effort could be made without so 
much intensity as to produce paralysis. 
From my observation of paralytic cases, 
I have been led to conclude that in many 
of them, the paralysis results from this undue 
force thrown by the will on the muscles. 
Another lady was opposed to having her 
form changed during pregnancy lest her situ- 
ation should be known, and exerted so much 
will upon her body as to succeed in conceal- 
ing her condition until the physician was 
called at her confinement The effort of her 
will to contract her form deprived the legs of IN HEALTH. 
67 
life force, and resulted in paralysis. She 
seemed angry with her legs, using bitter 
invectives against them because they would 
not do her bidding. At one time when I 
was trying to teach her to walk, she ex- 
claimed with vengeance, “ Plagued legs! ” 
“ You can never walk while you have such 
a spirit toward them,” I said; “you have bit- 
terness enough toward your body to send 
you to the grave.” She could not be bene- 
fited because she refused to believe. She 
never walked again, and has since died. 
A lady came to me from a water-cure 
where she had been taught that there was a 
physiological incompatibility between her- 
self and husband. She was greatly distress- 
ed because he refused to pay any further 
medical expenses. I told her she would not 
require medical aid if she would forgive her 
husband, that then she would see her own 
fault, for which forgiveness would be granted 
if she sought it of Christ. She was advised 
to return to her husband, and obey him, for 68 
IN HEALTH. 
in that obedience she would become a hap- 
py wife. She accepted the doctrine, and 
after remaining a week, during which I 
talked to her daily on forgiveness and obe- 
dience, she left my house a happy woman. 
On her way home she visited the institution 
from which she came, where her friends 
were astonished at her improvement, think- 
ing her cure almost a miracle. 
Mrs. F. came to me from the same cure, 
under the same delusion in regard to her- 
self and husband. Physically, mentally and 
morally, she was a complete wreck. What 
she ate, though buc a morsel, caused her ex- 
treme suffering. She freely expressed her 
great sorrow that she had a husband. She 
was advised to forgive him, for then she 
would realize the fault was in herself. If 
she came into this perception, and sought 
forgiveness for her sins, Christ would grant 
it, redeeming her soul and healing her body. 
She saw her mistake, and soon began to im- 
prove. Her appetite returned, her digestion IN HEALTH. 
69 
became good, and at the end of four weeks 
she went home. Since that time she has 
lived happily with her husband. 
I was once called to see a lady who had 
been confined to her bed for some years. 
I told her that her prostration resulted from 
rebellion against the will of God in creating 
her to be a wife and mother. She replied 
that before she married, she thought her hus- 
band was too good a man to wish to cohabit 
with her. I said it was that thought which 
produced her disease; and an hour was spent 
in impressing upon her the belief that her 
desire must be subject to her husband, which 
was all that was done for her. I heard about 
two months afterward that she was well, and 
doing her own housework. 
Another patient, without any other usual 
symptoms of fever, had had great heat of the 
body every night for years, and could sleep 
but little. I said she did not obey her hus- 
band. She declared she did, for he enforced 
obedience. I assured her. if she ever under- 70 
IN HEAL T II. 
stood the true meaning of obedience accord- 
ing to God’s word, she would obey without 
compulsion, through love for her husband. 
As soon as she believed this all disease 
passed away, and she slept well throughout 
the night. 
Physicians often advise women not to 
yield to the sexual desires of their husbands, 
lest their disease should be augmented. It 
is the wife’s fear of becoming a mother that 
has created the disease, and though all the 
devices which man’s ingenuity can invent 
be employed to prevent conception, the fear 
will still exist, and have its effect upon the 
health. When the fear is eradicated, the 
life overcomes the disease. 
If woman had reverence for her sexual life, 
and faith in Christ, she would suffer but lit- 
tle in childbirth. St. Paul says, “ Notwith- 
standing, she shall be saved in child-bearing, 
if they continue in faith and charity and holi- 
ness with sobriety.”1 The truth of this has 
*1. Tim. II., 15 IN HEALTH. 
71 
been proved in the experience of those whom 
I have enabled to aceept this promise. 
When Mrs. G. became my patrent, she 
was able to walk but a few steps, and had 
been carried up and down stairs for two 
years. She had chronic inflammation of the 
womb, and her arms were partially paralyzed, 
the muscles of the whole body, and the lungs, 
were very sore, and she experienced much 
difficulty in breathing. She had suffered in- 
tensely in childbirth, and it was the opinion 
of her physicians that she could not live 
through another confinement, and, therefore, 
she ought not to have any more children. 
She possessed a strong sexual nature, and the 
fear of childbirth caused her to fight it des- 
perately. I assured her that the course she 
was pursuing was destroying her health, and 
if she chose to continue it she might as well 
go home at once, for her health could only 
be restored by committing her sexual life to 
Christ, and trusting her future to Him. As 
she grew into this belief she improved rapid- 72 
IN HEALTH. 
ly, and in three weeks was able to go up and 
down stairs without assistance. When she 
left my care at the end of eight weeks, she 
could walk four or five miles in climbing 
mountains. 
A gentleman consulted me in regard to 
the health of his wife, who had been for a 
year under hydropathic treatment for chronic 
inflammation of the womb. Several physi- 
cians after consultation had decided she was 
incurable, and in all probability would soon 
be permanently confined to her bed. This 
opinion was doubtless' correct so far as hu- 
man aid could avail, but I told her husband 
she could be cured if she would believe what 
I should say to her. When she came to me, 
she was told that the fear of becoming a 
mother was the cause of the inflammation ; 
that this fear was a great sin in her soul, and 
she needed to ask forgiveness of Christ for 
having lived in it; He would grant her 
desire, and heal her. She admitted the 
fear, realized the sin, sought forgiveness, and IN HEALTH. 
73 
went home well in four weeks. If she had 
not believed nothing could have cured her, 
for in similar cases unbelief has defeated all 
my attempts to benefit. 
“ Perfect love casteth out fear.” All fear 
is distrust of the power and goodness of God. 
It unfits woman to be a happy wife, and pre- 
pares her to receive the idea that her hus- 
band is brutal. The Creator did not make 
man so unlike woman, that his sexual desire 
cannot be turned into love for her, if she 
loves him. But her fear and hatred of his 
sexual nature has the effect, sooner or later, 
to destroy all her sexual desire; in this state, 
man’s passional nature, not redeemed by 
Christ, is constantly excited, and the wife 
reaps what she has sown. 
Any intense emotion, if continued, pro- 
duces a permanent rigidity of the muscles. 
Fear of conception causes rigidity of the 
constrictor vaginas muscle, and through this 
rigidity all the museles become tense, creat- 
ing more or less soreness in the whole body. 74 
IN HEALTH. 
This contraction of the constrictor vaginae 
muscle produces the suffering of which many 
wives complain. All who thus suffer should 
desire sexual life, and reverence and gratitude 
for every consciousness of it, trusting in 
Christ to overcome their fear. Then the 
muscles will relax, and the suffering cease. 
The unconscious action of the will occa- 
sioned by fear, seems to take complete pos- 
session of the body. The will force of the 
brain, which has not been occupied with the 
object of fear when awake, is turned during 
sleep in the direction of this unconscious 
action, and the individual suffers more when 
asleep. Patients thus suffering often awake 
with the muscles so rigid that it is with 
difficulty they can move. Sometimes the 
breath is almost suppressed. 
A lady who sought to crush out all sexual 
feeling was frequently attacked while asleep 
with suppression of the breath, or hysteria. 
Her family would suppose her to be dying, 
but she would recover so as to attend to her IN HEAL T II. 
75 
household duties the next day. I told her that 
if she did not stop the effort to suppress her 
sexual life, she would die in one of these 
attacks. She insisted that sexual desire was 
wrong, and she would rather die than have 
any such feeling. 
These attacks continued several years. 
One night, after she had attended to her 
duties as usual during the day, I was called 
to see her, and found her struggling for 
breath. It was too late for help, and she 
died in a few minutes. I can give no other 
explanation of her disease, than that it was 
caused by the action of the will as described 
above. Hysteria is frequently caused by the 
voluntary suppression of sexual life. 
The will, acting unconsciously upon the 
voluntary muscles, uses up the vital force, 
causing what is termed general debility. 
Two of my patients were thus affected by 
their bitter condemnation of the men who 
had made impure proposals to them. One 
recovered because she forgave the man who 76 
IN 1IEALT H. 
attempted her injury. As soon as she became 
ruled bv a forgiving spirit all intensity and 
rigidity of the muscles passed away. 
The other would not forgive, and did not 
recover, but died soon after leaving my care. 
A gentleman told me that his brother, 
with whom I was acquainted, had given up 
his business by the advice of his physicians, 
because they thought his brain was softening. 
I said his disease was caused by the fear of 
having too large a family. After hearing 
this he returned to business, his health im- 
proved, and his family has increased. 
Miss H. when placed under my care was 
entirely helpless. She was engaged to be 
married, but was deferring her marriage in 
the hope that her intended would agree that 
she should have no children. I told her that 
her idea of marriage in the sight of God was 
nothing but adultery, that it had already 
adulterated her life, creating an unnatural 
heat1 which was consuming her strength 
1 Tlie burning spoken of by St. Paul. I Cor. VII. 9. IN HEALTH. 
77 
She believed me, saw her error, and through 
accepting a better ideal of the marriage rela- 
tion, and willingly trusting her future to 
Christ, she recovered. 
Another case was that of a young lady 
who had lost her voice, because of the repug- 
nance she felt toward becoming a mother. 
When told that this was the cause of ber 
affliction, she whispered that if she should 
ever marry a good husband, he would not 
wish her to have children. As she could 
not be convinced of the truth, she went 
home not cured, and in a few months died of 
consumption. 
A wife’s fear of child-bearing destroys her 
sexual desire, and chronic inflammation of 
the womb follows, which not only unfits her 
to give rest to her husband, but has the oppo- 
site tendency of increasing his desire. The 
husband under these circumstances would 
find perfect peace and rest for his sexual life, 
if he would look to Christ for its redemption ; 
and if the wife would look to the same source 78 
IN HEALTH. 
for a restoration and redemption of sexual 
feeling, Christ would heal her. Then they 
would become husband and wife from the 
Lord, doing His will in their souls and bodies 
which are His. Children of such a marriage 
would be reeeived as blessings from the Lord, 
and would be born purer in soul and healthier 
in body, than those who are not desired. 
The great mortality of infants has its 
origin in the inability of father and mother 
to transmit fullness of life to their offspring, 
because of their unwillingness to become 
parents. The children of such parents do 
not come into existence with a firm hold on 
life, they have enfeebled moral and religious 
natures, and unhappy dispositions, which mar 
both face and form. A woman should 
realize that every fit of passion, every act of 
willfulness, every unkind thought or feeling, 
leaves its impress on the disposition of her 
unborn child. That children may be born 
with good constitutions and happy disposi- 
tions, the parents must have reverence for IN HEALTH. 
79 
sexual life, and be thankful for the conception 
of every immortal soul. Sexual redemption 
would lift father and mother above sinning 
against sexual life in thought or deed, it would 
give strong physical and moral force to their 
offspring, and is the only remedy for the pre- 
vention of mortality among children. Many 
diseases of my patients can be directly traced 
to their parent’s aversion to their conception. 
A lady inquired of me the cause of her 
daughter’s weak eyes. I informed her 
that she herself was the cause, on account of 
her opposition to bearing children. She 
admitted the truth of my statement, but 
sought to justify herself by all the reasoning 
the Evil One could devise. 
The daughter had been treated by the 
best oculists in Philadelphia who considered 
her incurable, and thought she would be 
obliged to remain in a dark room the rest of 
her life, as she had for the past two years. 
She was reduced almost to a skeleton, and 
every word she uttered manifested her great 80 
IN HEALTH. 
nervous excitement. The mother’s opposi- 
tion had prevented the development of the 
sexual nature in the daughter, rendering her 
unconscious of sexual desire. I advised her 
to look to Christ to give her that desire and 
keep it from temptation. When she was 
conscious of sexual feeling, she was told to 
remove the bandage from her eyes, and 
upon doing so she found she could endure 
the light with but little pain. She was then in- 
structed to return thanks to Christ for sexual 
feeling, that it might be redeemed for the 
salvation of her soul, and the healing of her 
body. Her thankfulness for sexual life dif- 
fused it through her system, and that diffu- 
sion gave increased functional power to all 
the vital organs. Her appetite increased, 
she gained flesh, and in a few weeks her eyes 
became so strong that she could go out of 
doors when the sun was shining on the snow, 
and suffer no pain in consequence. When 
she left my care she was a fully developed 
woman. IN HEALT H. 
81 
The following is another illustration of 
the effect of inheritance, where the opposi- 
tion to having children descended from the 
mother.1 The young lady had no disease 
or pain, but she was very pale, and suf- 
fered from weakness and coldness. Al- 
though it was the month of July, she 
was obliged to sleep under two or three 
comfortables, and even then could not keep 
warm. The previous winter she had almost 
perished with the cold. She wished me to 
tell her the cause of this coldness. I said it 
was caused by the postponement of her mar- 
riage until a time of life too late for concep- 
tion. Upon her admitting the truth of this 
she was assured there was no hope of cure 
while she was ruled by such a purpose, for in 
her heart it was prayer for the annihilation of 
the life which begets children, and that this 
desire had produced the coldness and weak- 
ness from which she suffered. She believed 
what I said, and recovered in a few weeks. 
'See case Mrs. E., p. 04. 82 
IN HEALTH. 
The next winter when we met she was en- 
joying good health, and suffering no incon- 
venience from the cold. 
Every thought or deed in opposition to 
having children is a sin against the soul, and 
is productive of disease. Marriage with such 
feelings is little better than a life of pros- 
titution, and often leads to the terrible sin 
of abortion. 
No adequate remedy can be found in med- 
ical or religious works for the crimes against 
foetal life. In Dr. Storer’s essay, entitled 
“ Why Not ?” there is the following passage : 
“If these wretched women, these married, 
lawful mothers, and these Christian husbands, 
are thus murdering their children by thou- 
sands through ignorance, they must be 
taught the truth ; but if, as there is reason 
to believe is too often the case, they have 
been influenced to do so by fashion, extrav- 
agance of living, or lust, no language of 
condemnation can be too strong.” 
o> 
Faith in Christ is the all sufficient remedy IN HEALTH. 
83 
for the sins of men and nations. If mankind 
would receive the power of Christ for the 
regeneration of sexual life, the sacredness of 
marriage would never be profaned by the 
terrible sin of interference with the Almighty 
in the birth of immortal souls. No person 
ruled by God could ever have such a thought 
or purpose. While in the depths of the 
heart it is acknowledged to be a great sin 
by those who commit it, still they invariably 
seek to justify their murderous designs and 
deeds by the counsel of physicians or friends. 
The darkness in which they live can never 
be dispelled by the wisdom of man,—only by 
Christ, through the redemption of sexual life. 
The Bible asserts that the sin of Onan “ was 
evil in the eyes of the Lord.” It is one of 
the greatest sins a human being can commit, 
and destroys the soul and body of both hus- 
band and wife. To this sin may be traced 
unmistakably cases of rheumatism, paralysis, 
and insanity. Without repentance there is 
neither cure nor salvation. 84 
IN HEALTH. 
I was called to see a gentleman who was an 
active layman in the Baptist Church, and 
found him laboring under great mental de- 
pression caused by self-condemnation. When 
I told him he must forgive himself, he said 
he could not for he had been so wicked, so 
lustful,—he had committed the sin of Onan, 
until he had become impotent, and now he 
was afraid to be left alone, lest he should 
yield to the temptation to commit suicide. 
I acknowledged he could not forgive him- 
self by his own power, but he could desire a 
forgiving spirit of Christ, and He would 
help him. This was a new doctrine of for- 
giveness which he refused to accept. Soon 
after this interview he was taken to an in- 
sane asylum. 
Women marry, professing to believe mar- 
riage a Divine institution, yet in their hearts 
the spirit of the nun rules, and destroys the 
peace and happiness of the marriage relation. 
They drag out a miserable existence, because 
their sense of duty constantly compels them IN HEALTH. 
85 
to violate their own ideal of purity. This 
spirit creates in the husband a craving which 
the wife cannot satisfy, and children conceiv- 
ed under such circumstances inherit passion 
instead of love. This has been a great source 
of lust in all ages of the world, and is the 
hidden cause of the destruction of nations 
and empires, for when the life falls, the fall 
of all human governments is inevitable. 
One of the saddest facts recognized by the 
public is that the mistress, through hersexual 
nature, has a greater influence over a man 
than his wife. There is but one remedy for 
this, and that is sexual redemption. The 
wife’s sexual life, under the control of God, 
becomes quiet and peaceful, she regards that 
life in herself and her husband with rever- 
ence, and through this feeling she will ob- 
tain a stronger influence over .him than any 
other woman. Her Maker through her af- 
fection gives her power to create in her 
husband quietness instead of passion, love 
and devotion to her, and a higher esteem for 86 
IN HEALTH. 
woman; thus she may ennoble his life, and 
lead him in the paths of virtue and holiness. 
Then, truly, will she become a help meet from 
the Lord, and looking upon marriage as pure 
and holy in all its relations, she will perceive 
that in being a wife and mother, she is doing 
the will of her Creator in soul and body. 
If a wife does not love the sexual life of 
her husband, it is no excuse for his lustful 
deeds with other women, for it is equally 
his duty to commit his sexual emotions to 
Christ for redemption, that whatever be the 
condition of his wife he may be at rest. 
In this state he will become an instrument 
in the hands of the Lord for the redemption 
of the sexual life of his wife. 
Married women frequently complain that 
their husband’s love is low and animal. They 
believe purity consists in having no con- 
sciousness of sexual life, and they pray that 
their husbands may be brought to this con- 
dition. When they see their error, they ad- 
mit that their husband’s ideas of sexual life IN HEALTH. 
87 
have been nobler than their own. As soon 
as they believe they need to bestow “ more 
abundant honor on that part which lacked,” 
they improve in health, and become happy 
in the desire of giving their husbands hap- 
piness. Forgiveness, and the desire to serve 
each other, would remove all incompatibility 
between husband and wife. 
A gentleman came to my house to visit 
his wife, vtfho had been my patient for two 
weeks. He was prostrated physically in 
consequence of domestic troubles, and he, 
also, placed himself under my care. Fie told 
me that when his wife left home he had no 
hope that she would ever return ; and he be- 
gan to complain bitterly of her. He was 
told that he must cease to complain, and must 
forgive her; he would then perceive that he, 
too, had been in fault, for which he must 
desire forgiveness, and Christ would give 
him the victory, making him a true hus- 
band. Through this forgiveness he would 
realize that his condemnatory spirit toward 88 
IN HEALTH. 
his wife had so darkened his mind that he 
had misjudged her. His wife had been 
ruled by the same spirit, and to her the 
same advice was given, with the hope of 
effecting a reconciliation between them. At 
the end of three weeks they went home con- 
tented, and are still happily united. 
Such is my advice to all discontented hus- 
bands and wives. While my patients con- 
template breaking their marriage vows, they 
do not improve in health, and unless they can 
be prevailed upon to give up all such inten- 
tions, no benefit can be received. To advise 
husband and wife to separate should be made 
a criminal offense. 
If teachers in our seminaries and colleges 
were sexually redeemed, their pupils would 
feel the influence of this redeemed life, with- 
out any effort on the part of the teachers to 
impress it. My young patients universally 
acknowledge that they have been influenced 
by the disgust of their teachers for sexual 
life. IN HEALTH. 
89 
This pernicious influence is not only felt 
at school, but in all branches of society. I 
know of no source from which a girl can re- 
ceive a pure ideal of the marriage relation ; 
neither in the home circle, at school, in so- 
ciety, nor in the church. So strong is the 
influence of the false ideal, that girls feel in- 
stinctively that even their mothers would 
consider it impure, to show a consciousness 
that the sexual relation exists. Its effect is 
most injurious when a young woman makes 
an engagement of marriage, as will be seen 
in the following case of Mrs. I. 
She had no fear, but thought in common 
with most women, and many men, that no 
wife could be pure if she had any enjoyment 
in sexual intercourse. Shortly before her 
marriage, she began to lose her health with- 
out any apparent cause. She had been fond 
of study all her life, and seemed to thrive on 
it. She never experienced the slightest 
physical discomfort from menstruation, but 
as easily fulfilled her ordinary duties, both 90 
IN HEALTH. 
in class-room and gymnasium, as at other 
times. Her sickness at first seemed trivial, 
and her physician said she needed only a few 
tonics, and plenty of beefsteak; but these 
failed to benefit her, and she continued to 
grow thin and pale. About this time she 
was married, but constantly grew worse. 
She was now thought to have scrofula, and 
this condition increased in severity until one 
of her limbs began to wither, when she was 
pronounced incurable by her physicians. 
She then tried hydropathic treatment and 
mineral waters, but without relief. When 
she came to me she was invariably nauseated 
after taking food, was unable to walk with- 
out a crutch, and frequently fainted in try- 
ing to cross a room. I told her the want of 
sexual life was the cause of her illness, that 
she elevated everything except sexual life 
which she thought low. She admitted the 
truth of my statement, saying, “ That is my 
religion.” “ I see it is, and look to what a 
condition it has brought you.” I told her IN HEALTH. 
91 
she had set up in her heart a false standard 
of purity, sexual life in her husband was 
not animal, but given by God to woman as 
well as to man. This being the first time in 
her life that the subject had been presented 
to her without shame or reproach, she con- 
sidered it seriously, and soon acknowledged 
that God could bestow nothing that was im- 
pure. She then felt that her husband had 
been purer than herself. Her appetite im- 
proved immediately, she soon laid aside her 
crutch, and in a few weeks could walk four 
or five miles over rugged hills without lame- 
ness or fatigue. It is now five years since 
she was cured, and she still appears to enjoy 
perfect health, having never in that time been 
ill a day. 
The cause of her disease was the impres- 
sion she had received from her friends, that 
the sexual relation in marriage was low. 
She said she had determined not to allow 
marriage to create in her any sexual desire, 
and to this determination she had religiously 92 
IN HEALTH. 
adhered with entire success. When she 
learned to love and reverence sexual desire, 
she became receptive of Christ’s healing 
power. 
To the causes mentioned in this chapter 
may be ascribed many of the diseases of wo- 
man. While young her idea of marriage be- 
comes diseased, and she does not perceive in 
the sexual relation any thing nobler than 
the gratification of man’s animal nature, as 
it is termed. If she marries with this idea, her 
influence has the tendency to degrade her 
husband, for she cannot raise him above her 
estimation of him. Many cases of disease 
in unmarried women are caused by their 
condemnation of the deeds of lustful men ; 
through their anger they become as miser- 
able as if they were the wives of such hus- 
bands. I tell them they cannot be cured 
unless they forgive all wicked men.1 
The reader should bear in mind that in 
speaking of forgiveness, there is no intention 
1 See case of two ladies on p. 75. IN HEALTH. 
93 
to convey the impression that forgiveness 
includes the overlooking of faults. De- 
sire to feel the forgiveness granted by 
Christ toward our sinful deeds, fills us with 
H is light, and keeps us from temptation ; 
while self-condemnation turns into darkness 
the light He has given us to show us our 
sinful deeds. To be ruled by Christ we 
must acknowledge our sins, yet in the per- 
ception of them have no feeling of hatred. 
God is love, and to be ruled by Him we 
must be ruled by love, even toward our own 
sins. 
If woman’s spiritual nature was enlight- 
ened through the regeneration of sexual life, 
in making an engagement of marriage she 
would feel a divine love and reverence for 
the sexual life of her intended! Sexual de- 
sire should be implied in the love of a wo- 
man for her husband; she should not 
consent to marry a man for whom she has 
no desire, for if the marriage vows 
are assumed under such conditions, they are 94 
IN HEALTH. 
false; a sin against her own life, against 
her husband, and against her Maker. Sexual 
redemption would, however, make this a 
true marriage. 
A wife’s real happiness will come through 
the obedience which is the result of love 
and reverence for her husband, and which 
is a delight, not a drudgery. In marriage 
the desire to be made happy by the oppo- 
site sex is productive of disease and misery. 
When the sexual life is born again, the 
leading desire of husband and wife will be 
to make each other happy. CHAPTER V. 
MIRACLES NOT MIRACLES. 
"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All 
power is given unto me in lieaven and in earth.”—Matt. 
XXVIII. 18. V. 
MIRACLES NOT MIRACLES. 
“And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All 
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”-—Matt. 
XXVUI. 18. 
“Our pontiffs say, the age of miracles is past, but 
no New Testament ever told them so. Christianity, 
as we read it, was the institution of miracles as in 
the order of nature; and if the age of miracles is 
gone, it is because the age of Christianity is gone.”— 
Wilkinson. 
Webster defines a miracle as, “ an event or 
effect contrary to the established constitu- 
tion and course of things, or a deviation 
from the known laws of nature.” 
Miracles are considered a deviation from 98 
IN HEALTH. 
the laws of nature because man’s knowledge 
is imperfect. Nature is only an effect of 
which God is the cause, and, being God’s 
work, is not a lawgiver, and should not be 
used as a standard by which to judge of Him. 
There can be no material revelation of 
Deity. 
If we believe that God is omnipotent, we 
must believe that nature is in harmony with 
Him,andthat Pie cannot act contrary to Plis 
own “established constitution and course of 
things.” 
This false standard would never have been 
erected had man remained obedient to God, 
receiving every blessing as a gift from Him. 
In assuming this standard man turns away 
from God, and walks in darkness, and in'his 
chaotic state the works of Christ astonish 
him. But the Bible opens a kingdom of 
light, and it is the Father’s good pleasure to 
give this kingdom to him who will forsake 
his own wisdom, which is “foolishness with 
God.” The more we realize our incapacity IN I-IEALT H. 
99 
to understand the Creator, and the more we 
acknowledge that he pervades all things, the 
stronger will be our belief in Him, and the 
more will our souls grow in life,—in the 
deep, hidden life which is of God. 
It is generally believed that the age of 
miracles ended when Christianity became 
firmly established. Is this belief a revela- 
tion from God, or did it originate in the mind 
of man ? The miracles Christ performed 
when on earth were beyond human power, 
but He will do the same now for any one 
who will trust in Him. There is no reason, 
except man’s unbelief, why miracles should 
cease. “ And He did not many mighty 
works there, because of their unbelief.”1 
The healing of the sick by Christ will be 
considered miraculous until all nations 
become thoroughly Christianized ; then the 
faith of man will be so strong, that any mani- 
festation of His power will excite no more 
wonder than the daily rising and setting of 
XIII. 58. 100 
IN HE ALT H. 
the sun. We cannot receive this faith if we 
believe that the age of miracles ended with 
the first century. 
It is indeed astonishing that so many who 
are in need of what Christ can give, have no 
faith in His willingness to help them, and 
because they do not believe, continue to 
suffer. 
The Greeks believed in the power of their 
God of medicine, and this belief brought 
them into a state to receive what they desired, 
and the true God healed them. According 
to Renouard, the priests who officiated in 
the temples erected to this God, were, through 
the faith of the people in the curative power 
of idols, the chief physicians for a period of 
seven hundred years. 
The cause of all failure is in ourselves. 
God is ever ready to do Ilis will in us, ever 
waiting for us to return to Him, the Giver 
of life ; therefore in sickness we should put 
our trust in Him, and not in the skill of man. 
The Creator has not appointed man to devise IN HEALTH. 
101 
a plan of healing for Him to execute. He 
teaches that we must surrender all things to 
Him,, that His will may be done in us. 
While trusting in outward means for cure, 
we' have no perception of the power of 
Christ, who says, “He that followeth me 
shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the 
light of life.” 1 
Although we cannot comprehend God, 
we may believe in Him. If He has the 
first place in our affections, and fills our mind 
and soul, events, which would otherwise ex- 
cite wonder, do not astonish us, for we feel 
that He has but manifested His power. 
Christ will fulfill His promise, “Accord- 
ing to thy faith be it unto thee,” if the New 
Testament is a record of His will; and when 
He heals an individual whose ruling desire 
is to be cured by Him, there is no cause for 
astonishment. Christ’s miracles of healing 
are the fulfillment of His promise, “ What 
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe 
1 John. VIII. 12. 102 
IN HEALTH. 
that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”1 
The desire of the leper who came to 
Christ for healing was for his alone, 
and Christ granted that desire. “ And he 
straitly charged him, and forthwith sent 
him away ; and saith unto him, See thou say 
nothing to any man ; but go thy way, shew 
thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleans- 
ing those things which Moses commanded, 
for a testimony unto them.”2 This com- 
mand was given to the leper, because Christ 
knew that he had no spiritual light, and 
wished to teach him that he should 
not become elated with the change in his 
physical condition, but should render thanks 
to God in the appointed for the gift of 
healing. By obedience to thiscomamnd, he 
would have received spiritual light and sub- 
sequent salvation. “ But he went out, and 
began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad 
the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no 
more openly enter into the city, but was 
without in desert places.”3 
1 Mark. XI. 24. 
2 Mark. I. 43-44. 
3 Mark. I. 45. IN HEALT II. 
103 
It is evident that the man from whom 
Christ cast out the legion of devils, received 
spiritual light through obedience, and was 
sent forth to labor in the Lord’s vineyard. 
“ Now the man out of whom the devils 
were departed besought him that he might 
remain with him ; but Jesus sent him away, 
saying, Return to thine own house, and shew 
how great things God hath done unto thee. 
And he went his way, and published through- 
out the whole city how great things Jesus 
had done unto him.” The result of his obe- 
dience was to draw the people to Jesus. 
“And it came to pass, that when Jesus was 
returned, the people gladly received him, for 
they were all waiting for him.”1 
In these two instances the contrast in the 
spiritual condition of the persons healed, 
will be perceived. There is no evidence 
that the curing of the body secures the re- 
demption of the soul. Those who believe 
that physical healing includes spiritual re- 
demption, do not seem to realize the signi- 
1 Luke. VIII. 38-40. 104 
IN HEALTH. 
ficance of Christ’s inquiry, “ Where are the 
nine ?” Only one of the ten lepers cleansed 
returned to give Him thanks. The others 
went their way, rejoicing that they had re- 
ceived the desire of their hearts. Spiritually, 
they had no perception of the Divine power 
which had healed them. 
After Christ had given power to the twelve 
disciples to heal the sick,1 “ He appointed 
other seventy also, and sent them two and 
two before his face, into every city and place, 
whither he himself would come. Therefore 
said he unto them, * * * Heal the sick 
that are therein, and say unto them, The 
kingdom of God has come nigh unto you.” 2 
“ And the seventy again returned with joy, 
saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto 
us through thy name. And he said unto them, 
I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. 
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on 
serpents and scorpions, and over all the 
power of the enemy: and nothing shall by 
1 Luke. IX. 1. 
2 Luke. X. 1-9. IN HEALTH. 
105 
any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in 
this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject 
unto you; but rather rejoice, because your 
names are written in heaven.”1 
When the seventy returned Christ con- 
firmed their report, and gave them additional 
power. They had been enabled to cast out, 
through His name, the sinner’s false hopes 
of happiness, which constituted the heaven 
from which Christ “ saw Satan as lightning 
fall.” But He foresaw their danger of be- 
coming vain-glorious, and warned them 
against boasting of success. This warning 
should be heeded by all who desire to work 
in the Lord’s vineyard. 
In “ Nature and the Supernatural,” by Dr. 
Bushnell, an account is given of a man who 
possessed power to heal the sick through 
prayer. Farther on the narrative states that 
he lost this influence, and the reason given is 
that Christ withdrew Himself. But an 
Omnipresent Being cannot withdraw from 
1 Luke. X. 17-20. 106 
IN HEALTH. 
any soul; God is unchangeable, His gifts 
neither increase nor decrease ; it is the selfish 
spirit in humanity that darkens the soul, and 
prevents the manifestation of Divine Love- 
When Christ had completed His work on 
earth, and met his disciples among the moun- 
tains of Galilee, He taught them thus: 
“ Observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you : and lo I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world.”1 The 
admonition given to the seventy indicates 
that it is the condition of the individual, 
which unfits him to heal in the name of 
Christ. He becomes vain without merit, 
assuming the power which belongs to Christ, 
and a vain-glorious spirit renders abiding 
with Him impossible. “Jesus rejoiced in 
spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord 
of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid 
these things from the wise and prudent, and 
hast revealed them unto babes.” 2 
The healing of the body by Christ is per- 
1 Matt. XXVIII. 20. 
2 Luke X. 21. IN HEALTH. 
107 
fectly in. harmony with the “ established 
constitution and course of things.” Christ 
being all in all, those events which are con- 
trary to His law are the result of man’s dis- 
obedient spirit,—and this spirit Christ came 
to redeem. CHAPTER VI. 
SEXUAL ABUSES, AND THEIR 
REMEDY. . 
“Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” 
John VIII. 2. VI. 
SEXUAL ABUSES, AND THEIR 
REMEDY. 
“Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” 
John VIII. 2. 
The sins committed against soul and 
body through sexual abuses, have forced 
themselves upon the attention of philan- 
thropists, but it is doubtful whether any 
remedy has been found. The only sufficient 
one is trust in Christ for sexual redemption. 
A lady who introduced herself as a mis- 
sionary for abandoned women, told me that 
she trusted for their reformation to their con- 
version to Christianity. “ Have you taught 
them to look to Christ for the redemption 112 
IN HEALTH. 
of the sexual life which they have abused ?” 
With a look of astonishment, she answered, 
“ I never heard of such a thing! ” and asked 
me how I was led to think of it. I told her 
that it came to me through my religious ex- 
perience. She admitted she had always 
hated sexual feeling in herself, and asked how 
I knew that she did. I replied, “ I can see it in 
your looks.” She said she thought she was 
doing God service in condemning the sexual 
nature. “ I think you have mistaken your 
mission, and have gone forth in your own 
strength to condemn others as you have 
condemned yourself.” I advised her to com- 
mit her sexual life to Christ, and then she 
would be fitted to work for Him ; having 
the light in her own life, she would teach 
others to commit every sexual sensation to 
Christ, that it might be redeemed. 
The restlessness of the sexual nature in 
fallen women is the cause of their degraded 
condition; not desiring Christ for a keeper, 
they fall. The failure to elevate them lies IN HEALT II. 
113 
in the fact that they are not taught to seek 
the redemption of their sexual life; this 
would fill them with a reverence for sex 
which would keep them from temptation ; 
but it cannot be taught by one, who, be- 
lieving his sexual life to be unholy, is at war 
with it, and seeks its destruction instead 
of its redemption. Christ alone can change 
lust to love, and it is Ilis purpose to re- 
deem, not to annihilate, that which He has 
created. He whose sexual life is controlled 
by Christ has no warfare with it,, neither as 
it exists in himself, nor in others, and only 
such a person is prepared to labor for the 
reformation of. degraded humanity. 
In the year 1858, I was requested to visit 
a lady who was in great despair, and not ex- 
pecting to live long. She was being treated 
for uterine disease, and was suffering from 
nervous dyspepsia, which had reduced her 
almost to a skeleton. She ate only four 
crackers daily, but even these caused her 
great pain. After stating her symptoms she 114 
IN HEALTH. 
asked the cause of her disease. I told her 
the cause was self-condemnation for the 
habit of self-abuse. She said she believed 
there was no forgiveness for that sin which 
she had committed. I directed her to de- 
sire of Christ a forgiving spirit toward it, 
assuring her that He would grant forgive- 
ness, for He had said, “ Neither do I con- 
demn thee ; go, and sin no more.’' 
After urging her for two hours to put her 
whole trust in Christ for her soul, leaving 
her body also in His hands, I succeeded in 
convincing her that there was redemption 
for sexual life, and for the abuse of it. Shortly 
after I left she ate a hearty meal, which 
caused her no suffering. I met her one 
week afterward ; she was a happy woman, 
and said she had been enabled to forgive 
herself, and was trusting in Christ for salva- 
tion. In three weeks she was well, and able 
to do her own housework. 
The following statement of Mr. J., who 
was addicted to the habit of self-abuse, has IN II E A L T H. 
115 
been recently published, and is, with the ex- 
ception of a typographical correction, copied 
verbatim; 
“The winter of 1864 witnessed great dis- 
tress in my mind over the involuntary act 
by which I lost the seminal fluid. I no 
more yielded to willfully excite m} sexual 
feeliogs, but commenced a fight for freedom 
and life which lasted for eight years. From 
advertisements which fell in my way I read 
statements to the effect that the habit of 
self-abuse, producing certain symptoms 
which were described, and which I thought 
I saw in myself, would result in loss of 
health, in idiocy, or insanity. I never applied 
for help to any of these advertisers, nor took 
any drug of anykind for my cure. It seem- 
ed a shame for me, a Christian, to have such 
feelings, yet I prayed to God without ceasing, 
and trusted in Him with all my heart. Con- 
vinced that involuntary action of any sort 
was not guilty, I held fast the profession of 
my faith without wavering, and finding my 116 
IN HEALTH. 
intentions pure toward God and men, I 
suffered on in faith. 
“ With intervals of teaching, my student 
life continued from November,. 1862, to 
August, 1866, when I commenced studying 
regularly with reference to the ministry, hav- 
ing preached now and then from February, 
1864, the time of my license as a local 
preacher. 
“ I think few, if any, suspected that I was 
a sufferer from sexual disorder during all 
this time. In the summer of 1868, at a 
camp meeting, I communicated to my oldest 
brother, a devout minister of Jesus Christ, 
the secret of my life, with this object in 
view: that by associated prayer he and I 
might claim the fulfillment of those great 
promises on which I relied for salvation. 
The struggle went on,— a struggle to over- 
come and crush out of me what seemed the 
remains of the carnal nature. ’ Day and 
night the one thought was ever present, and 
my prayers centered on this longed for de- IN HEALTH. 
117 
livcrance. I studied the Scriptures with 
direct reference to the salvation of the body. 
I dwelt on the promises and on the faith 
which was the condition of their fulfillment. 
I collected instances of physical healing in 
answer to prayer, and sought by careful in- 
quiry to discover the law of the faith which 
healed. I set apart days of fasting and 
prayer, and wept bitter tears of sorrow at 
the desolation which seemed to be c'ominsr 
upon me. All the time from August, 1864, 
I reckoned myself wholly the Lord's every 
moment, never witholding when the inquiry 
was put to me: ‘Do you hold all subject to 
the will of God ?’ f consecrated the powers 
of my body especially, was temperate in eat- 
ing, endeavoring to do all to the glory of 
God. I plead with God that he had called 
me to the Gospel ministry, that I longed to 
enter it for His honor and human salvation 
only, that it must be a triumph against 
Christ’s kingdom if Satan ruined my body 
and mind, All the while I was achieving 118 
IN HEALTH. 
unusual success in study,seeking God’s glory 
in the same. I therefore prayed on the 
ground that, inasmuch as men would say I 
had ambitiously studied myself to death, if 
I was suffered to fall, I should cause reproach 
to the cause of God. 
“ Sometimes I would get a great up-lifting, 
and for two or three weeks would not have 
a seminal emission. Then, just as I thought 
deliverance come, again I would be put to 
shame. Strange that never in all these 
years did I think of my sexual powers as 
having any such relation to the atonement 
as I accorded to the powers of my mind. 
Strange that I never asked Christ to save 
them but only to destroy them. 
“During this time, as my powers of mind 
and spirit grew, my sexual feeling asserted 
itself stronger and stronger. Yet it was 
never nourished by indulgence of any sort. 
[ never told impure stories, nor would I 
listen to or tolerate in my presence any re- 
ference to the powers or functions of sex, IN HEALTH. 
119 
nor anything which I regarded as unclean. 
“Many times the thought came to me; 
‘Take these promises of God’s wTord—“ac- 
cording to thy faith so be it unto thee,” and 
stake your faith upon them. Should they 
fail you, know the Bible is not true. Be- 
cause you are not delivered you have proved 
them false.’ To this I replied: ‘These 
promises have proved true in all cases but 
this: “ Let God be true, though every 
man be a liar.” There is a reason, un- 
know to me, why God does not heal me. 
God help me to hold fast!’ So lie did. All 
this time I was experiencing the states and 
conditions of inward peace, growth, and joy 
which distinguished me among my fellow 
believers as a happy, even-tempered Christ- 
ian. I never had the blues, never despaired, 
never doubted God, but determined to die 
fighting, if God willed, but to never give up 
to what seemed to me a siege of the Devil. 
As early as four years after my conversion, 
an assurance commenced to grow up in my 120 
IN HEALTH. 
soul that I should be delivered from sexual 
desire and have health. This promise was a 
sheet anchor, viz : ‘ And the very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly/ etc. But the 
struggle was fearful; the night long. 
“ I was greatly perplexed by this : After 
preaching with a rapture unspeakable, I 
would retire to rest, and awake in the morn- 
ing to find that in the night I had lifted my 
hand against myself, and depressed in body 
and full of wonder, I would throw myself 
upon God and pray and hope again. The 
society of the best women I enjoyed very 
much indeed, but was not often in com- 
pany, for after such association I felt a sen- 
sible weariness of brain, as if it were sore, 
from its strong action in self-control. Yet 
there was not the least desire to violate their 
chastity; from this I was wholly saved ; but 
1 felt that association with them ought to 
be entirely independent of thoughts of sex 
or bodily motions of sexual feeling, an 
association of mind and heart whollv IN HEALT H. 
121 
independent of body and sexual differences 
“ Spiritual inefficiency is the natural pro- 
duct of such a state of warfare, because 
strength that is needed for work is all ex- 
hausted in the desperate efforts at self-con- 
trol. And attending these efforts are fre- 
quent failures, which so dishearten the strug- 
gling one that opportunities are allowed to 
pass unimproved that are full of results if 
only made the most of as they fly. 
“ After eight years of such struggles, I felt 
that a crisis had come in my life. I was 
doing an unusual amount of study, and 
seemed to others quite well in health ; but, 
watching myself closely, I felt assured that 
unless I had help soon I should suddenly go 
to pieces and become a mental wreck, falling 
from the highest point of intellectual activi- 
ty to one of imbecility. My mental powers 
were being forced by my will, and memory 
was less and less reliable. 122 
IN HEALTH. 
“At this juncture I communicated with an 
eminent physician, asking him if there was 
any help for me. I had never before told 
my story except to my brother, and though 
it cost me an effort, I felt that something must 
be done. His cheerful and hopeful reply in- 
duced me co put myself under his care. His 
quiet and assured way of receiving my state- 
ments put me somewhat at my ease, for it 
seemed not new to him, but one of many cases. 
He told me that my trouble, sexually, arose 
from my brain, which was over full of blood. 
The seminal emissions were not my disease, 
but the congested brain. The emissions were 
the work of Nature to relieve the pressure 
on my brain, and unless I had them, I might 
have had apoplexy. The nerves of the back 
brain, governing the sexual functions, being 
stimulated to undue activity by the presence 
of too much blood, must have rest, and as 
all mental work induced the flow of blood 
to the brain, I must stop studying and preach- 
ing until the harmony of the circulation could IN II E A L T M. 
123 
be restored. Then my cold feet and legs 
would become warm, and my hot head would 
lose its excessive heat. 
“So here I was, overwhelmed and com- 
pletely humbled at the thought that God had 
continued my emissions, contrary to my 
prayers, for the purpose of saving my life. 
The very thing I had prayed to be saved 
from had been made the instrumental means 
of my salvation. Now I saw why the emis- 
sions had been more frequent after occasions 
of the greatest brain activity in severe study 
and preaching. 
“I took no medicine whatever, but baths to 
restore a perfect circulation, and pure food 
to make good blood, for of course my blood 
had not only been disturbed in its free flow 
through my body, but also had thereby be- 
come inflamed; the derangement having 
commenced before puberty, and being of so 
long standing my case was considered an 
obstinate one, and the doctor said that hav- 
ing continued so long a time, the structure 124 
IN HEALTH. 
of my back brain had been modified and 
must be changed to its normal state by new 
conditions of living. 
“ With him I remained seven months, ex- 
periencing many kindnesses and some benefit, 
but my emissions still continued at inter- 
vals. I was told by the associate physician 
that when my digestion was so improved 
that I was able to make strength faster than 
I lost it by the seminal emissions, then I 
would not be weakened by them and would 
be practically well. 
“ During these months I constantly waited 
upon God for physical healing, after mak- 
ing the general matter of healing the sick 
by prayer a subject of conversation with 
devout and judicious persons, collecting 
more incidents of answered prayer, and ex- 
pecting added light. 
“In the month of February, 1872, by 
means which I will narrate as briefly as 
possible, I found salvation by Faith to a 
greater degree than I had ever before known. IN HEALTH. 
125 
“The striking providences by which God 
led me to this experience I will not minute- 
ly trace, but will only say that, following 
the plain guidance which He gave, I found 
myself brought into the society of Dr. In- 
gersoll, of Corning, New York, who spoke 
words to me by which I was instructed in 
the way of physical salvation. Several 
pious persons whom I knew, had preceded 
me to him, and had been wonderfully help- 
ed in a very brief time. From information 
which they gave me I was led to seek an 
interview with him. This I did with a mind 
keenly alive to the vagaries of many so- 
called physicians who deal in magnetism, 
animal and chemical, in clairvoyance and 
the like, having less and less disposition to 
put confidence in human opinions, from my 
former experience of their unreliability. 
“In my first interview with the doctor I 
recounted to him briefly my experience dur- 
ing the years past, giving him at the same 
time the opinion of the physicians by whom 126 
IN HEALTH. 
I had been treated. He replied to me some- 
what in this strain : 
“‘Your trouble is spiritual. It arises 
from a wrong conception of the relations of 
your bodily to your spiritual powers. You 
have thought the two hostile to each other, 
and,antagonizing your bodily by your spirit- 
ual power, have lived in a state of stern 
warfare. Into the conflict of your life Christ 
comes as a peace-maker, to save your body 
and soul, that all your powers may co-exist 
in harmony and peace. All your life you 
have been sorely grieved and well nigh 
angry with yourself that you were a man. 
The feelings and powers of sex which make 
you distinctively a man, you have never 
reckoned holy in Christ, nor redeemed by 
Him, nor fit subjects of consecration. In- 
stead of having your whole body full of 
light, you have reckoned the sexual part of 
it dark, have had a horror of the same, have 
hidden it away from your prayers, consecra- 
tions, and thoughts. Christ’s salvation IN HEAL T H. 
127 
makes your sexual power as much a subject 
of grace as your intellectual power. Con- 
sider that through this power in your par- 
ents, you, an immortal being, received life ; 
through it you have the power of reproduc- 
ing the image of God in beings who shall 
live eternally, and in the light of such truth, 
how can you regard it as less than the noblest 
power with which God has endowed you! 
Yet you have despised this gift of God, have 
been ashamed of God’s work, and so 
ashamed of Him. All else in you, the pow- 
er to think and reason, the power to love 
and trust, all other of your physical powers 
you have specifically offered to Christ, and 
devoted to holy uses. But the sexual pow- 
er you have left outside and battled with. 
Bring it to Christ. He created and gave its 
functions. Praise Him for that gift. Trust 
Him that in wisdom He made you thus. 
You give thanks when you have spiritual 
desires and pray that they may be satisfied 
in God; for desires after knowledge also, 128 
I N HEALT H. 
and give praise for all good thoughts; so 
also when you have a good appetite for food 
you thank God and pray for the government 
and satisfaction of that appetite. Now when 
you have sexual feeling and sexual desire, 
do the same. Commit all to Christ for PI is 
government. Praise him for the gift and 
leave all subject to His control. Do not 
fear that you will become lustful and un- 
governable. What Christ governs is not un- 
governed. Because conscious of muscular 
power and rejoicing in your strength, you 
do not feel desirous of beating your neigh- 
bor,—nor can you if governed by Christ’s 
law of love, “ for love worketh no ill to his 
neighbor.” Neither when money, not your 
own, is within your grasp, will you have any 
disposition to steal it,—though you value and 
prize money as a means of power, useful- 
ness, and gratification,—because the law of 
love says “Thou shall not steal.” Again 
you are conscious of sexual power, sensible 
of the desires associated with a healthy scx- IN HEALTH. 
129 
ual nature. While rejoicing in it, you are 
in no clanger of dishonoring yourself or an- 
other, provided you put it with all the other 
desires which Christ controls and trust if to 
His care. You have intense desires after 
knowledge, and often feel the spring of this 
powerful force seeking to know. For this 
you give thanks, yet because you value and 
love this power, are you any the more in 
danger of seeking knowledge of evil, the 
ways of evil men, the society of impure 
minds? By no means. The trouble with 
people is that they put all the rest of the 
powers into one class—the salvable class, and 
put sex by itself as essentially different, un- 
holy and unsalvable. He who made the 
body no doubt controls all its involuntary 
conditions. If your body is given up to 
God, and then you have sexual feeling, either 
the Lord or the Devil causes it. It cannot 
be that what is consigned to God He leaves 
under the power of Satan ; therefore, the mo- 
tions and feelings of life in you are accord- 130 
IN HEALTH. 
ing to the will of God, and of all your pow- 
ers none are to be destroyed, but all to be 
saved. Christ is the Savior of the body. A 
man is told to love his body as Christ also 
loved the Church.1 Again and again is the 
body called an holy temple to the Lord, 
while Rom. XII. 2, exhorts us to present 
our bodies (undoubtedly our whole being) 
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto 
God.’” 
“It needed no very extended reference to 
the relations of the spirit to the body, to 
convince me that the whole secret of my 
sickness had been revealed in the antagon- 
ism which had existed between my soul and 
bodv. As a light from God the truth shined 
into my heart. The newly awakened hope 
of having the peace of God within me, the 
peace which would harmonize all my powers 
in Him, filled me with inexpressible glad- 
ness. I resolved no longer to set my will in 
hostile array against my bodily powers, but 
1 Eph. y IN HEALTH. 
131 
to humbly trust all those powers in the hands 
of my Savior. My redeemed life seemed to 
swell with currents of love. The conscious 
presence of Christ, bringing with Him in- 
effable glory possessed me. At once I felt 
that He healed me of my sicknesss. Before 
this I thought I knew what Rom. VIII. i. 
meant. Now I found that I had interpreted 
it too r irrowly, for all the while that I had 
applied it to God’s relations to me, I had 
been severely condemning my own body. 
My Bdly and ignorance in praying for the 
obliteration of all sexual feeling was mani- 
fested, and I was led to praise God that He 
had not answered the prayers which I had 
offered to that effect. This was the most 
humiliating view of myself that I ever had, 
associated at the same time with a higher es- 
timate of my value as one whom Christ had 
purchased. He seemed to me all in all, 
not only in the conception of my mind, but 
in the feeling of my heart. Toward all hu- 
man beings I felt a degree of tenderness 132 
IN HEALTH. 
hitherto unknown. Just as soon as I ac- 
cepted myself as I was in Christ without 
controversy, my feelings toward humanity 
were softened, my union with them was 
strengthened, for I saw that their powers and 
mine were all subjects of Christ’s salvation. 
“ In Christ abiding, I at once undertook 
to finish the study which had accumulated 
during the months of my sickness. My 
emissions did not cease, but I felt well. My 
old habits of thought did not at once give 
full place to my new convictions, but yielded 
steadily to the renewing power of Christ. 
Now my mind was easy. The dread of in- 
sanity which many times follows the con- 
tinuous strain of mind attendent upon such 
a conflict as I had passed through, was 
wholly removed. A sense of perfect secu- 
rity in Christ filled my mind, and as I am 
writing not only past, .but present experi- 
ence, I may say fills my mind continually. 
“ Before, I used to think that if in time 
of great sexual excitement I was solicited IN HEALTH. 
133 
to evil by one of the opposite sex, I could 
only be safe in virtue by running away as 
fast as possible. Now, and from the first, 
I have felt that no persuasions nor blandish- 
ments could, by any means, seduce me, on 
account of the saving grace which keeps 
me. Do I not have sexual desires? Yes, 
certainly, but in entire subjection to Christ. 
Sexual desire does not control me; Christ 
controls me as a whole, and, therefore, spe- 
cifically. Sexual appetite is removed from 
the pale of selfish desire. It is only one of 
several powers, all Christ’s.” 
It has been deemed desirable to give the 
preceeding statement in full; it is hoped the 
reader will excuse the repetition of some 
parts of it for the purpose of bringing out 
the three following points*: 
First: To show by Mr. J.’s own words 
that, although he had prayed eight years for 
“ physical salvation,”, as he terms it, and an- 
nihilation of sexual feeling, his prayers availed 
nothing. 134 
IN HEALTH. 
He says, “ I no more yielded to wilfully 
excite my sexual feelings, but commenced a 
fight for freedom and life which lasted eight 
years. * * * I never applied for help to 
any advertisers, nor took any drug of any 
kind for my cure. * * * I prayed to 
God without ceasing, and trusted in Him 
with all my heart. * * * I communica- 
ted to my oldest brother, a devout minister 
of Jesus Christ, the secret of my life, with 
this object in view, that by associated prayer 
he and I might claim the fulfillment of those 
great promises on which I relied for salva- 
tion. The struggle went on,—a struggle to 
overcome and crush out of me what seemed 
the remains of the carnal nature. Day and 
night the one thought was ever present, and 
my prayers centered on this longed-for de- 
liverance. I studied the Scriptures with di- 
rect reference to the salvation of the body. I 
dwelt on the promises and on the faith which 
was the condition of their fulfillment. I 
collected instances of physical healing in IN HEALTH. 
135 
answer to prayer, and sought by careful in- 
quiry to discover the law of the faith which 
healed. I set apart days of fasting and 
prayer, and wept bitter tears of sorrow at the 
desolation which seemed to be coming upon 
me. * * * I plead with God that Fie 
had called me to the gospel ministry, that I 
longed to enter it for His honor and human 
salvation only; that it must be a triumph 
against Christ’s kingdom if Satan ruined my 
body and mind. * * * I never doubted 
God, but determined to die fighting, if God 
willed, but to never give up to what seemed 
to me a siege of the Devil. * * * But 
the struggle was fearful; the night long. 
* * * Spiritual inefficiency is the natu- 
ral product of such a state of warfare, be- 
cause strength that is needed for work is all 
exhausted in the desperate efforts of self- 
control. * * * After eight years of such 
struggles I felt that a crisis had come in my 
life. * * * Watching myself closely, I 
felt assured that unless I had help soon, I 136 
IN HEALTH. 
should suddenly go to pieces, and become a 
mental wreck, falling from the highest point 
of intellectual activity to one of imbecility. 
My mental powers were being forced by my 
will, and memory was less and less reliable.” 
Secondly : That after Mr. J. became my 
patient, he desired his body might be healed 
through the salvation of sexual life, and the 
Lord granted the desire of his heart. 
“ Dr. Ingersoll spoke words to me by 
which I was instructed in the way of physi- 
cal salvation. It needed no very extended 
reference to the relations of the spirit to the 
body, to convince me that the whole secret 
of my sickness had been revealed in the an- 
tagonism which had existed between my 
soul and body. The newly awakened hope 
of having the peace of God within me, the 
peace which would harmonize all my pow- 
ers in Him, filled me with inexpressible glad- 
ness. I resolved no longer to set my will in 
hostile array against my bodily powers, but 
to humbly trust all those powers in the hands IN HEALTH. 
137 
of my Savior. * * * At once I felt that 
He healed me of my sickness. * * * My 
folly and ignorance in praying for the ob- 
literation of all sexual feeling was mani- 
fested, and I was led to praise God that He 
had not answered the prayers which I had 
offered to that effect. * * * My emis- 
sions did not cease, but I felt well.* My old 
habits of thought did not at once give full 
place to my new convictions, but yielded 
steadily to the renewing power of Christ. 
Now my mind was easy. The dread of in- 
sanity which many times follows the con- 
tinuous strain of mind attendant upon such 
a conflict as I had passed through, was 
wholly removed.” 
Thirdly: He believed his soul was al- 
ready redeemed, and, therefore, he did not 
commit his sexual life to Christ, that he 
might be born again ; consequently his body 
was healed, but he did not experience the 
second birth as taught by Christ. To prove 
that he felt himself fully redeemed before 138 
IN HEALTH. 
coming to me, the following passage is quot- 
ed from the story of his life previous to our 
acquaintance: 
“ It seemed a shame for me, a Christian, 
to have such feelings, yet I prayed to God 
without ceasing, and trusted in Him with all 
my heart. * * * I held fast the profes- 
sion of my faith without wavering, and find- 
ing my intentions pure toward God and men, 
I suffered on in faith. * * * All the 
time from August, 1864, I reckoned myself 
whollv the Lord’s every moment, 1 never 
withholding when the inquiry was put to 
me, Do you hold all subject to the will of 
God ? ’” I consecrated the powers of my 
body especially, endeavoring to do all to the 
glory of God. * * * All this time I 
’The doctrine of “perfection,” “entire sanctification,’’and 
“the higher life,” cannot be accepted by those in whom the 
light of Christ has been revealed; for if He is the standard 
by which they judge of their state, they will find how far 
they arc from being “wholly the Lord’s every moment.” 
Christ’s words prove this, for He said, “There is none good 
but one, that is God.” IN II E A L T H, 
139 
was experiencing the states and conditions, 
of inward peace, growth and joy, which dis- 
tinguished me among my fellow-believers as 
a happy, even-tempered Christian. I never 
had the blues, never despaired, never doubted 
God.” 
In this account of his spiritual condition 
he represents himself as “ experiencing the 
states and conditions of inward peace, growth 
and joy which distinguished him as a happy, 
even-tempered Christian at the same time, 
only two lines below, he expresses a deter- 
mination “to die fighting”and “to never give 
up to what seemed to him a siege of the 
Devil.” Can there be peace and joy, strug- 
gle and fighting, in the same soul? If Mr. 
J. had committed his sexual desires to Christ 
for his soul’s salvation, he would have real- 
ized that during the eight years in which he 
“reckoned himself wholly the Lord’s ” he was 
laboring under a great delusion. 
“There is therefore now no condemnation 
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who 140 
IN IIEAL T H. 
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”1 
Mr. J. says, “ Before this I thought I knew 
what Rom. VIII. i, meant. Now I found 
that I had interpreted it too narrowly, for 
all the while that I had applied it to God’s 
relations to me, I had been severely con- 
demning my own body.”2 He says he “ inter- 
preted this passage too narrowly,” but he did 
not understand it at all. When he came to 
me he believed he ought to condemn all sins 
that he had ever committed, and that they 
were all destroyed except his sexual powers; 
if, as I advised him, he had desired redemp- 
tion of sexual life that his soul might be 
saved, it would have been granted; then he 
could have said, “Strange that never in all 
these years did I think of my sexual powers 
as having any such relation to the Atone- 
ment as I accorded to the powers of my 
mind. Strange that I never asked Christ to 
‘Rom. VIII. 1. 
2 By “body,” lie must mean sexual desires, because be says 
before, “I consecrated the powers of my body especially.” IN HEALTH. 
141 
save them, but only to destroy them,” be- 
cause he would have understood that he 
had formerly desired the destruction of all 
his sins, and not the forgiveness that works 
by love for their redemption through Christ, 
and that “condemnation remained in him, 
because he was not in Christ Jesus.” 
The condition of all Christians who have 
come to me has been similar to that of Mr. 
J. Before becoming my patients, their 
prayers for healing have been unavailing, be- 
cause at the same time they prayed for the 
annihilation of sexual life. I teach them to 
commit every sexual desire to Christ for the 
redemption of their souls, but believing 
they have previously committed their souls 
to Christ, their only desire is for physical 
healing, and they mould my instructions to 
that desire, and receive accordingly. 
When Mr. J. informed me that an emin- 
ent physician whom he had consulted said 
he had congestion of the brain, I told him 
that the congested state of the brain was 142 
IN HEALTH. 
caused by condemnation and desire for an- 
nihilation of all sexual feeling*, and this had 
brought greater agony of soul and destruc- 
tion of physical power than his former 
habit of self-abuse ; that the mind and the 
feelings were two belligerents, and the body 
was the battle-field. He said this was true, 
and no language could convey the agony he 
had suffered during the conflict. I told him 
if he would seek, Christ would grant, for- 
giveness for the sin of self-abuse. He 
followed my instructions, and his recovery 
was very rapid. 
I find that the great failure in the re- 
covery of health, and in the possession of 
happiness and rest, is due to the fact that 
when man perceives a fault in himself, he is 
at once angry that it exists in him. Christ 
gives him the light to see his fault, but this 
anger, which is self-condemnation, turns that 
light into darkness, and eventually he will 
be lost; for if we turn the light which is 
in us into darkness, how great is that IN HEALT H. 
143 
darkness! We should be thankful for the 
light Christ gives for the perception of our 
sins, and in that thankfulness commit them 
to Him that they may be redeemed; this is 
forgiveness of self, and is necessary for the 
salvation of the soul and the health of the 
body. We can only forgive ourselves by 
desiring of Christ a forgiving spirit toward 
our sins ; He will grant the desire of our 
hearts. “ Forgive and ye shall be forgiven.” CHAPTER VII. 
HUMAN LIFE. 
“ So God created man in Ms own image.”—Gen. I. 27. VII. 
HUMAN LIFE. 
“So God created man in his own image. ”—Gen. I. 27. 
Those who have read the preceding pages 
have had their attention directed to the re- 
generation of sexual life, and a question 
might arise as to the distinction between 
man and the brute creation, as the latter also 
possesses sexual life. 
Metaphysicians have attempted to show 
that the distinction between man and the 
brute is in the capacity of the former to 
reason. Others have said that brutes reason 
shrewdly. Neither assertion has any weight, 
for man’s highest faculty is his affection, not 
his reason. 148 
IN HEALTH. 
As brutes have no capacity to reflect the 
love of God, they do not possess it. Christ 
did not reveal Himself to them; He did not 
tell us they had fallen through sin, or had 
souls to save, or were responsible for their 
deeds. 
Sexual life is in the brute creation, but it 
constitutes in it no individuality. God, in 
His wisdom, created man with an affectional 
nature capable of receiving the light of 
Christ, and of reflecting, or giving it to 
others, thus making him conscious of the 
existence of the true God. This affectional 
nature constitutes his individuality, and gives 
him the capacity to choose between good 
and evil; without this he would have been 
an irresponsible being. Our first parents 
chose evil, and their descendants have done 
the same. Christ came as our Redeemer, 
and salvation depends upon our own choice 
Sexual feeling is admitted by nearly all 
Christians to be the most powerful faculty 
man possesses, yet they never think of com- £ N HEALTH. 
149 
mitting it to Christ for redemption, be 
cause they believe it is the animal nature, 
which cannot be born again. They say 
Christ did not mention the redemption of 
sexual life. He did not mention any part 
of our nature, nor did He reject any, when 
He said, “Ye must be born again.” 
Our sexual nature is our very essence, be- 
ing the life in us that begat us, through which 
we inherited the original sin, and, therefore, 
must be born again. The second birth is 
of the spirit, in which the love of Christ 
triumphs over selfishness and lust. If we 
are seeking to control sexual life by our own 
strength, His love does not reign in us, 
neither are we at peace with ourselves, nor 
with our Creator. 
We should love all our faculties that 
they may be redeemed by Christ. The sec- 
ond birth should include our whole nature, 
and lift us out of the degrading, but popular 
belief, that part of our nature is animal. This 
belief is a weak point in theology, and pre- 150 
IN HEALTH. 
pares the mind to receive the idea that man 
originated in an animal. Darwin will fail to 
establish his theory of evolution, unless he 
can show the beginning of Divine affection 
which makes man the only temple of God 
on earth. “ What! know ye not that your 
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which 
is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are 
not your own?” 1 If our whole nature were 
subject to Christ, we would not be disturbed 
by the researches of science, nor accept any 
doctrine which teaches that human life origi- 
nated otherwise than in Divine love. 
11 Cor. VI. 19. CHAPTER VIII. 
GOD IS LOVE. 
“God is love; and lie that dwelleth in love dwelleth in 
God, and God in him.”—I. John IV. 16. VIII. 
GOD IS LOVE. 
“God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in 
God, and God in him.”—I. John IV. 16. 
The following extract from a sermon 
contains the idea of God’s love and hatred: 
which is often expressed bv clergymen and 
members of orthodox churches. 
“I contend that every man who reads the 
Bible will find out that God loves the sinner, 
not that he loves sin, for he hates it, but 
that he loves the sinner. Man’s sin and 
fall brought out Christ’s love.” 
If, as we are told, by reading the Bible we 
shall find that God loves the sinner, but hates 
sin, why did not man’s sin and fall bring out 154 
IN HEALTH. 
Christ’s hatred, instead of Plis love ? If God 
hates all the sin there is in a sinner, and still 
loves him, He loves that which is good 
only, and therefore does not love the sinner. 
Hatred of sin, and love for the sinner, are im- 
possible, unless sin exists outside of the 
soul of man ; but a man cannot be separated 
from his sins. 
“ For God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.”1 The world which God 
loved, and sent his only begotten Son to 
save, was man’s sin. All who believe on Him 
will have the witness within that the power 
of FI is love has redeemed them, and changed 
their deeds of sin to righteousness ; for “ in 
Christ shall all be made alive.”2 
The love of Christ in the redeemed soul 
permeates every sinful deed, giving it eter- 
nal life. This love is the new heart that 
He will give to all who believe on Him, and 
I John. III. 16. 
21. Cor. XV. 23. r N HEALTH. 
155 
“they shall not perish, but have eternal life.” 
The cause of illness in professing Chris- 
tians is that they have sought the annihila- 
tion of their evil deeds, instead of their re- 
demption. A deed cannot be called a sin 
unless there is a purpose or motive in it. 
Motive is the active principle which consti- 
tutes the sin. The deed includes the motive, 
and the effect of that motive in the soul, 
which effect, if not redeemed, is eternal. 
If we believe in the redemption through 
Christ of all our past sinful deeds, we receive 
of Him an inheritance of spiritual power 
which works for the overcoming of bodily 
disease. 
True conversion of soul consists in the 
restoration to life through Christ of all our 
past sinful deeds. If we hate our past deeds 
we do not seek their redemption. We 
should in love desire their forgiveness, and 
Christ will grant it, giving us peace and hap- 
piness, “ having abolished in his flesh the en- 
mity.”1 What is this enmity? It is not 
i Eph. II. 15. 156 
IN HEALTH. 
the warfare of evil against good; and does 
not self-eondemnation prevent the good 
from overcoming the evil ? In the Anglo 
Saxon “God” and “good” are the same, and 
“ God is love ; ” therefore when Paul said, 
“ Be not overcome of evil, but overcome 
evil with good,”1 he meant that evil should 
be overcome with love. 
Belief in Divine things is a revelation of 
God’s love within us; “ Charity (love) be- 
lieveth all things.” We shall understand the 
mystery of Christ’s will, when we realize that 
He comes in the power of love to all that 
believe on Him, to make alive in them all 
that was before “ dead in tresspasses and 
sins.” “For God sent not his Son into the 
world to condemn the world, but that the 
world through him might be saved.”2 
“ And we have known and believed the 
love God hath to us. God is love; and he 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and 
God in him.”3 “God is love,” the apostle 
1 Rom. XIL 21. 
2 John. III. 17. 
81 John. IV. 16. IN HEALTH. 
157 
asserts; can hatred be an attribute of a Being 
whose essence is love ? 
* Love is the root of creation; God’s essence; worlds without 
number 
Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this pur- 
pose only.* 
Only to love and to be loved again, he breathed forth his 
Spirit 
Into the slumbering dust, and upright standing, it laid its 
Hand on its heart, and felt it was warm with a flame out of 
heaven. 
Quench, O quench not that flame! It is the breath of your 
being. 
Love is life, but hatred is death. Not father nor mother 
Loved you as God has loved you; for ’twas that you may be 
happy 
Gave he his only Son. When he bowed down his head in the 
death-hour 
Solemnized Love its triumph; the sacrifice then was com- 
pleted. 
Lo! then was rent on a sudden the vail of the temple, dividing 
Earth and heaven apart, and the dead from their sepulchres 
rising, 
Whispered with pallid lips and low in the ears of each other 
Tli’ answer, but dreamed of before, to creation’s enigma— 
Atonement! 
Depths of Love are Atonement’s depths, for Love is Atone- 
ment.” 1 
1 “The Children of The Lord’s Supper,” by Bishop Tegner; 
translated by Longfellow. 158 
IN HEALTH. 
The spiritual meaning of partaking 
worthily of the Lord’s supper is being ruled 
by His love. It is always ready, “ Behold, 
I stand at the door, and knock: if any man 
hear my voice, and open the. door, I will 
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he 
with me.”1 ‘Opening the door,’is receiving 
Him ; ‘supping,’ is partaking of His love,— 
an eternal feast. 
“For this is my blood of the New Testa- 
ment, which is shed for many for the remis- 
sion of sins,”2 The spiritual meaning of 
“blood” is Christ’s Love, which is Atone- 
ment. 
Christ declares there is a spiritual mean- 
ing in all His words when He says: “It is 
the spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth 
nothing; the words that I speak unto you, 
they are spirit and they are life.”3 
1 Rev. III. 20. 
2 Matt. XXVI. 28. 
8 John. VI. 03. CHAPTER IX. 
LOVE. 
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself.”—Matt. XXII. 39. IX. 
LOVE. 
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neigh 
bor as thyself.”—Matt. XXII. 39. 
In the command to love our neighbor as 
ourselves our love for ourselves is given as 
the standard of our love for others ; it should 
be the same as Christ’s love for us,—a love 
which seeks the redemption of sin. 
By not observing this command, man has 
reached the condition which Pope thus ex- 
presses : 
“Yet to be just to these poor men of pelf, 
Each does hut hate his neighbor as himself.” 
He hates himself as though some other 
power than that which is Divine gave him 162 
IN HEALTH. 
existence. While in this spirit Love cannot 
If he comes to the light of Christ 
he will realize this state of hatred, and that 
the remedy is given in the words, “Ye must 
be born again.” 
“ If we love one another, God dwelleth in 
us, and his love is perfected in us.” 1 It is 
not of ourselves that we love our neighbor, 
but through Christ’s spirit which he gives 
us ; as purely as He gives it, so purely should 
we give of the same spirit to all mankind. 
“ Seeing ye have purified your souls in obey- 
ing the truth through the spirit unto unfeign- 
ed love of the brethern, see that ye love one 
another with a pure heart fervently; being 
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of 
incorruptible, by the word of God, which 
liveth and abideth forever.” 2 
All love is of God, but much that is called 
love is really selfishness or lust. “ Love not 
the world, neither the things that are in the 
world. If any man love the world, the love 
11. John. IY. 12. 
21. Peter. I, 22-23. IN HEALTH. 
163 
of the Father is not in him. For all that 
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the 
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not 
of the Father, but is of the world.” 1 The 
fallen affection here referred to leads man to 
trust in earthly instead of heavenly things; 
in that state his love is false, and he delights 
in sin. Through the disobedience of Adam 
and Eve he became lost in selfishness, and 
only by obedience to Christ’s commands can 
he know God, who is Love. 
“God is just.” If Divine justice rule us 
we shall love all mankind alike, and realize 
that what we previously called degrees of 
love for others, were but degrees of indebted- 
ness for what we had received from them. 
The more we permit the Divine love to con- 
trol us, the more we shall understand that our 
affectional state is, and must be, the same 
toward all. God is unchangeable; therefore 
when His kingdom, which is Love, is estab- 
lished within us, we shall not love some and 
11. John. 15-16. 164 
IN HEALTH. 
hate others, for we cannot serve two masters. 
If the love of God rules us, we shall give it 
to all mankind without respect of persons; 
then shall we be His servants. “ Freely ye 
have received, freely give.” 
From man’s darkened state, in which the 
soul is warped by selfishness, comes that per- 
verted affection which makes him desirous 
of receiving rather than of giving happiness* 
If he expects happiness to depend upon 
what is received here or hereafter disappoint- 
ment must follow, for Divine love, which 
gives without expectation of return, is not 
in him. If this love rules him, his hopes of 
happiness will consist in the desire of service; 
“ His servants shall serve Him.” 
“ Charity (love) seeketh not her own ; ” 
that soul is in harmony with God frpm which 
the- rays of FI is love are reflected toward 
humanity. Christ said, “ Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto to me.”1 
1 Matt. XXY. 40. IN HEALTH. 
165 
To be the sons of God we must be ruled 
by the truth of love, that is, by a desire to 
give to others with no expectation of return ; 
then shall we receive power to labor for their 
salvation. “ For if ye love them that love 
you, what reward have ye ? do not even the 
publicans the same?”1 
1 Matt. V. 46. CHAPTER X. 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
“Thy faith hath made the whole.”—Matt. IX. 23. X. 
ILLUSTRATIONS* 
“Thy faith hath made the whole.”—Matt. IX. 22. 
When Miss K. who had been an invalid 
for many years, became my patient, her legs 
were so paralyzed that for five years she had 
been unable to walk. She was told that her 
disease was caused by the condemnation of 
sexual desire. She admitted that while under 
an engagement of marriage, becoming con- 
*The following illustrations of the healing of the body are 
not given with the assumption that the souls also have been 
redeemed. The physical change is evident, but that of the 
soul is known only to Him who “searcheth the reins and 
hearts” of all men. 170 
IN HEALTH. 
scious of sexual desire, she had condemned 
it, thinking it wrong, and had prayed for its 
annihilation. Her prayer was granted, and 
the life force of the body became so en- 
feebled that it could not move the lower 
limbs. The upper part of the body alone 
possessed sufficient life to be active, because 
she had bestowed upon that part “ more 
abundant honor.” I told her she needed a 
physician who believed in Christ. She said 
she had employed twenty-eight physicians, 
that several of them were Christians, and 
that all her religious instructors had told her 
to look to Christ for health—but He had not 
seen fit to restore it. I assured her the want 
of fitness was in herself, that she had looked 
to Christ to bless the means used for the 
restoration of health, which was putting 
faith in medicine, not in Christ; if He is 
not first,He is nothing; that a condemnatory 
spirit turned the gift of life into death, and 
disease would be her lot, until she should 
desire the forgiveness that works by love for I N H- EALT II. 
171 
all her sinful desires and deeds. She thought 
sexual desire in the unmarried was sinful. I 
told her it was so in both the married and 
the unmarried, until Christ redeemed and 
cleansed it from lust; and that she must ask 
of Him its restoration. She wished to know 
what she should do with it. “ Return thanks 
to Christ for it, and desire Him to keep it 
from temptation.” 
She had been troubled for several years 
with leucorrhoea caused by her condemnation 
of sexual life ; this had turned the healthy 
moisture of the vagina into a diseased secre- 
tion. She was told that she must desire for- 
giveness for having condemned the moisture 
which accompanied sexual feeling. She be- 
lieved this, and the leucorrhoea was cured in a 
few days. Depending on Christ for forgive- 
ness, with the desire to be in harmony with 
His spirit in regard to sexual life and its ef- 
fects, has been the means of the cure of this 
disease in hundreds of similar cases. 
Through looking to Christ her sexual life 172 
IN HEALTH. 
was restored, and in three weeks she was 
able to walk; but she remained with me for 
more than a year, to be cured of a pain in 
her side and back, which physicians had told 
her was caused by an internal tumor, which, 
however, I believe did not exist. Her friends 
at last became discouraged, and her brother 
wrote that he did not believe any physician 
could cure her entirely. This I told her was 
true ; that she needed to bestow more abun- 
dant honor, love, and reverence upon her sex- 
ual life. She replied, as she had repeatedly, 
that she did reverence and love that life, and I 
as often affirmed that she did not. She beg- 
ged me to write to her brother, and request 
him to allow her to remain with me longer. 
I would not accede to her wish, but told 
her she had already remained too long, 
with her unbelief; and that if she 
would commit her sexual life to Christ 
in love and reverence, for its redemption, she 
would be healed. For three days she was 
very unhappy, weeping most of the time, IN HEALTH. 
173 
and imploring me to plead with her brother 
to allow her to prolong her stay. After the 
third day she gave up all hope of persuading 
me to yield to her request, and retired at 
night in perfect despair. She soon fell asleep, 
and did not awake until morning, when she 
was astonished to find herself well. She 
then acknowledged that she never loved and 
reverenced her sexual life before. 
The leading desire of her heart was for 
the healing of her body, and when she sur- 
rendered her whole will, Christ granted her 
desire. If she had desired the salvation of 
her soul, as well as the healing of her body, 
both would have been granted. She re- 
mained six weeks to be satisfied that her 
cure was permanent, and enjoyed perfect 
health,—which still continues. 
After her recovery she heard a bishop 
preach upon the cross of Christ, which for 
some, he said, was to live in a diseased body. 
According to this doctrine, a very sinful deed 
had been committed in teaching her to seek 174 
IN HEALTH. 
the restoration of her sexual life, and the 
forgiveness of her sinful thoughts and deeds, 
that Christ might heal her,—thus taking 
His cross from her. But she said she now 
believed the cause of her disease was her 
condemnatory spirit toward the sexual life 
which her Creator had given her, and that 
if she had reverenced and loved it, she 
would never have been sick. She could 
no longer believe that to live in a diseased 
body had been the cross of Christ for her to 
bear. 
The cross of Christ is love for our enemies, 
that is, love in its Divine sense, which is of 
God, and possesses Almighty power, so that 
no contact with evil can contaminate it. 
The command to love our enemies,—the 
worst enemy we have being sin within our- 
selves,—implies that we have also forgiveness 
for ourselves, accompanied by love for our 
past sinful deeds, that they may be redeemed. 
Miss L. came to me from a water-cure at IN II E A L T H. 
175 
which she had been treated for uterine disease, 
and a slight paralysis of the right arm. She 
said she had gone to the water-cure without 
the approbation of her parents. I told her 
there was no hope for her while she had the 
disposition to disobey her parents; that dis- 
obedience from early childhood was the 
cause of her disease, and while controlled 
by that spirit no power could heal her. She 
wished to remain with me, and was very 
anxious that I should assist her in writing 
a letter to her father, which would induce 
him to allow her to do so. I consented on 
the condition that she should write accord- 
ing to my dictation ;—she must ask the for- 
giveness of her parents for having disobeyed 
them, and say that she was now ready and 
anxious to do their bidding. She was fearful 
if she wrote in this manner, her parents would 
require her to return home. I assured her 
that I should not permit her to remain 
unless they consented, but she might say she 
would like to do so, with their approbation, 176 
IN HEALTH. 
not otherwise. She wrote as directed, and 
received permission to remain until cured. 
She was filled with condemnation toward 
the opposite sex, and was taught the neces- 
sity of forgiveness before she could be healed. 
The paralysis was caused by bad temper, 
which would be aroused by very slight pro- 
vocations. She had no uterine disease, and 
could ride and walk a long distance. The 
more she exercised the stronger she became, 
because she did it in a spirit of obedience, 
and in three weeks she went home well. 
This was the first time in her life she had 
ever willingly obeyed. 
This case is given to show parents the 
necessity of obedience, and the importance 
of maintaining good government in the 
family. 
Miss M., when placed under my care, had 
been treated eight years for spinal disease, by 
the best physicians in her vicinity. I told 
her that her spine was not diseased, but that IN HEALTH. 
177 
the pain was caused by the action of her will 
to suppress sexual life. She said she had 
tried to suppress her sexual life because 
of the disgust she felt on reading in a reli- 
gious paper that it was not safe for any clergy- 
man to attempt to reform abandoned women, 
for in association with them he would be 
liable to fall. The thought that humanity 
possessed an evil propensity of such strength 
that even clergymen were liable to fall, was 
terrible to her ; she thought sexual life was 
such a curse that no one was safe who pos- 
sessed it, and that it should be resisted to the 
very last. Her bitter feeling had a crushing 
effect upon her system, and was the insidious 
cause of what was termed spinal disease. 
She was told that if she would look to Christ 
to restore and redeem her sexual life, she 
would have sufficient strength to walk up the 
neighboring mountain. She saw she had not 
regarded sexual life, as a gift from her 
Creator, and through a reconciliation to it 
her health was soon restored. 178 
IN II E A L T H. 
A few months afterward she consulted me 
in regard to leucorrhoea. I told her that she 
was vexed with herself again. This she 
denied, saying she was very thankful for her 
sexual life, and trusted it to Christ; but was 
afraid she would • lose it, and become sick 
once more. “ What! you trust your life to 
the Lord, and are afraid He cannot keep it 
for you ?” She saw that her fear was dis- 
trust, and in two weeks wrote to me that 
she was well. 
I have had many cases of persons who have 
been treated for spinal disease by eminent 
physicians. Their sufferings are caused by 
disgust for, and the effort to suppress sexual 
life. When the patient becomes thankful 
for the gift of life, and trusts Christ as its 
keeper, the warfare ceases, and all symptoms 
of spinal disease pass away. 
Miss N. was a delicate child, and by the 
advice of physicians was kepf much in the 
open air, and practised gymnastics and other IN HEALTH. 
179 
exercises,—but without apparent benefit to 
her strength. At the age of seventeen, while 
attending school, she was attacked with pain 
in her back and head. Soon after reaching 
home she had congestion of the lungs; from 
this time she was unable to sit up, and lost 
the use of her limbs. 
The pain in her back was called spinal irri 
tation. Many eminent physicians were con- 
sulted, but none of them gave any en- 
couragement ; some thought she had spina) 
curvature, and would never be able to 
walk. During the following four months 
she grew weaker, and lost all power to move 
or to speak, even in a whisper. She had taken 
no nourishment for twelve days previous to 
the time I visited her. I saw that her pros- 
tration was caused by the suppression of 
sexual life by the will, and advdsed that she 
should be placed under my care, because 
there seemed hope that she could be led to 
look to Christ for the restoration of that life. 
Soon after she left home her aunt met one 180 
IN HEALTH. 
of her physicians, who asked how the young 
lady was. The aunt replied, “ She is gone.” 
The doctor said he did not think she would 
live long, but had not expected her to die so 
soon. 
I told Miss N. that she had con- 
sidered her intellect God-given, but had 
despised her sexual nature; that God had 
made all parts of the body equally pure, and 
she sinned every time she thought of sex 
with shame ; and that the cause of her illness 
was the false feeling in which she had been 
educated. She had thought her condition 
the effect of excessive study, but admitted 
that the influence attending her education 
had led her to despise everything pertain- 
ing to her sexual nature. 
When she realized the truth of what I 
taught her, and gave “ more abundant honor 
to that part which lacked,” looking to Christ 
for the redemption of sexual life, she began 
to recover. She has been well for the past 
six years. . IN HEALTH. 
181 
Miss O. inherited a delicate constitution, 
and suffered much during childhood from 
headache, sleeplessness, and nervous fears. 
At the age of four she taught herself to read, 
and at sixteen graduated from school with 
honor. She gloried in her intellectual ability 
as it developed, and neglecting the usual oc- 
cupations of youth, pursued her studies with 
an intensity which consumed her physical 
strength ; the result was severe pain in the 
back, which her physicians defined as “ spinal 
irritation.” Subsequently her disease was 
called “ spinal neuralgia,” and with this she 
had chronic inflammation and displacement 
of the uterus. 
For several years she received homeopathic, 
hydropathic and allopathic treatment, but 
with constantly increasing suffering. At 
length she submitted to an operation for the 
removal of the coccygeal vertebrae ; but even 
this afforded no relief. During the three 
following years, she was constantly confined 
to her bed with augmented pain. At the 182 
IN HEALTH. 
end of this time she was placed under my 
care in an extremely emaciated condition. 
Her physicians had all acknowledged their 
inability to help her, and her friends said 
they brought her to me as the last resort. 
I told her that her physical condition 
was the direct result of her mistaken 
ideas ; that she had all her life gloried in 
intellect, had felt only disgust for her body, 
and, as a consequence, had no sexual life ; 
that her only hope of health was in seeking 
the restoration of sexual life from Christ. 
She would not believe, until, humbled by 
the prospect of failure in finding health, she 
became willing to receive Christ’s teach- 
ings. She then began to recover, and be- 
came entirely well. She said that through 
this change in her feelings, came her first 
experience of light and peace, although she 
had previously thought herself a Christian. 
It is now several years since this change 
occurred, and she has gained steadily in phy- 
sical strength. IN II E A L T H. 
183 
The following case of Miss P. illustrates 
the healing influence of looking to Christ 
for sexual redemption. 
At seventeen she was attacked with dys- 
pepsia, and grew thin, pale, and weak. Uter- 
ine disease supervened, and lasted thirteen 
years. During that time she had the usual 
medical treatment, but with less and less 
benefit, until finally it ceased to afford any 
relief. 
When she became my patient, she was 
told that her prayer for the annihilation of 
sexual feeling was the cause of her long ill- 
ness, that unless she changed her desire, and 
sought the restoration of sexual life from its 
Giver, all human efforts to restore her would 
fail. She said she had prided herself on 
being free from all consciousness of sexual 
life, and admitted that her whole nature had 
rebelled against having children. For three 
months, although most of the time she 
realized she was wrong, she retained this 
spirit of opposition, which I think was in- 184 
IN HEALTH. 
herited. When she yielded to her convic- 
tions, she was astonished to find herself well. 
I objected to her going home at once, be- 
cause I thought she did not yet truly love 
and reverence her sexual life, but she would 
not heed my counsel. 
Two years afterward she returned in a 
worse condition than at first. She then 
remained six months, and was exhorted to 
commit herself to Christ for the salvation of 
soul and body, yet she received no benefit. 
After leaving me, she was encouraged by a 
lady who had recovered while under my 
care, to put her trust in Christ. This lady 
believed that no human power could help 
the sick woman, but if she would come into 
harmony with Christ, and fully trust Him, 
He would heal her. 
Nearly another year passed, when, being 
very sick, she yielded in a degree, and com- 
menced to improve slowly until she fully 
believed Christ would heal her, then she 
recovered as suddenly as when first under IN HEALTH. 
185 
my care. She visited me soon afterward, 
and said she had again been healed through 
believing Christ to be the Giver of life. She 
is still in the enjoyment of health. 
Miss O. was never vigorous, and during 
early childhood was easily fatigued. Excite- 
ment invariably produced sick-headache. 
When about eight years of age, she began to 
suffer from pain in side and back. The pain 
increased, and was attributed to her growth, 
but did not disappear when she attained it. 
After suffering many years from neuralgia, 
and finding the usual remedies give but 
temporary relief, she consulted an eminent 
physician, who treated her for inflammation 
of the uterus and ovary. After having been 
pronounced cured, she was surprised to find 
that the neuralgic pains continued. Upon 
asking for an explanation, she was informed 
that she would probably suffer from neu- 
ralgia all through life, and that her constitu- 
tion required an occasional tonic. 186 
IN HEALTH. 
Four years after this time she became my 
patient She told me she had been vainly 
endeavoring to believe her suffering was ap- 
pointed by God to teach her patience, but 
that she had no submission to His will, hav- 
ing used every means possible for the restor- 
ation of health. She was shown the incon- 
sistency in the belief that she could learn 
patience by illness, while making an unceas- 
ing effort to gain health. She was also told 
that her will was in opposition to God’s, for 
she had rebelled against His manner of 
creating the human race, and especially 
against the functions of womanhood; her 
mind had suppressed sexual feeling, and her 
body had become enfeebled in consequence. 
When she asked if any organs were dis- 
placed, I told her there would be no dis- 
placement when there was sexual life, and 
reverence for it. I also assured her that 
menstruation was not an exhaustive process, 
and that exercise was beneficial, rather than 
injurious, during the performance of that IN II E A L T II. 
187 
function, if the wisdom of God in creating 
it was gratefully acknowledged. 
She at length perceived that He whose 
wisdom had created all the functions had 
power to preserve them, and realized that 
her efforts to repress sexual feeling had been 
distrust of its Creator. A grateful acknow- 
ledgcdment of His gift, and a belief that it 
could be redeemed, gave an increase of its 
power. She soon found that the pain in 
her side and back was lessening, and the 
neuralgia disappearing. The fear which had 
been instilled in regard to exercise dur- 
ing menstruation was overcome, and she 
could walk five miles with as much ease as 
at any other time. 
Wishing to show the conflict through 
which many patients pass, before accepting 
the belief that Christ will heal them through 
the restoration of sexual feeling, the con- 
clusion of this statement is given as Miss 
Q. expresses it: 
“ My nature being intense, I was greatly 188 
I N HEALT H. 
affected by the circumstances surrounding 
my life. At times my nervousness seemed 
to be overcome, then something would occur 
in opposition to my desires,—it might be 
but the expression of some sentiment that 
differed from mine,—and I again became 
restless and unhappy. When the fault was 
discovered in myself, I prayed in agony of 
soul for faith and forgiveness, but, as I after- 
ward saw, without trust, and in a self-con- 
demnatory spirit. At length I realized that, 
though nominally a Christian, I lacked the 
spirit of a disciple of Christ in being excited 
by opposition to my views. I saw also that 
I had limited His power, by disbelieving He 
would heal the sick now, as while on earth; 
and that my intensely emotional nature was 
the result of rebellion against my Creator’s 
will in giving me sexual life, and caused the 
restlessness and feverishness from which I 
suffered. I desired peace, but did not obtain 
it, and my nervousness continued. I was 
frequently much distressed, and very impa- IN HEALTH. 
189 
ticnt, because of my emotional tendency. 
The doctor taught me to desire of Christ a 
forgiving spirit toward myself, to be patient 
with my faults, and trust them to Christ for 
redemption. I had before attained the belief 
that my Creator could take care of every 
part of my organization, but I failed to trust 
my soul to Him. 
“ The doctor, having become discouraged, 
advised me to leave him, as he thought 
in the performance of active duties, I might 
be kept from dwelling upon my failures, and 
in serving others, be led to trust myself more 
fully to Christ. After hearing this opinion 
I wept almost constantly for two days and 
nights. I was aware that my wilfulness in 
some way was the only hindrance to my re- 
ception of Christ. His promises I mentally 
believed were for me, as for others, but in 
my soul there was no response. I was in 
spiritual dearth, and hungered for that which 
would satisfy the craving of my soul. 
“ On the following Sunday, while listening 190 
IN HEALTH. 
to the doctor’s exposition of the first ten 
verses of the seventeenth chapter of Luke, 
I was led to realize that increase of faith is 
granted only after faithful service, and that 
instead of obeying Christ, I had erected a 
spiritual and physical standard which I had 
determined to attain. I saw clearly that I 
should desire only to know Christ’s will, and 
gladly obey it, leaving all the results with 
Him. With this belief came peace and 
health. 
“ For several years I have been engaged in 
duties involving much physical exertion, and 
I am happy in the ability to perform them.” CHAPTER XI. 
THE WORD “HEART.” 
DR. JENNINGS’ BIBLICAL EXPLANATIONS OF ITS FUNCTIONS 
CONSIDERED. XI. 
THE WORD “HEART.” 
DR. JENNINGS’ BIBLICAL EXPLANATIONS OF ITS FUNCTIONS 
CONSIDERED. 
In your columns of January 15 I find an 
account of the sermon delivered in the First 
Presbyterian Church of your city by the 
Rev. Isaac Jefinings, Jr., wherein he claims 
the heart to be the seat of life, as well as 
origin of all the issues of life, taking as his 
text Prov. 4:23. “ Keep thy heart with all 
diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” 
You inform us that: “The speaker, in treat- 
ing the subject, first spoke of the heart ana- 
tomically, as one of the seats of life, if not 
the seat thereof.” * * * * “It was the 
heart which directed a man’s course of 
action and his faith through life.” * * 194 
IN HEALTH. 
“Out of it were the issues of life,” &c., 
&c., he ascribing- to the word heart, evi- 
dently, the meaning attached to it in the 
19th century. 
Permit me to remind Mr. Jennings that 
this proverb of Solomon’s was written about 
a thousand years B. C., fully twenty-six 
hundred years before anything whatever 
was known as to the heart he refers to, 
or its functions. It was not until 1619 A, 
D. that Idarvey made his important dis- 
covery of the circulation of the blood by 
the heart. Clearly then the word, since it 
was in use prior to that time, must have 
had a different meaning attached. This 
fact necessitates some thorough and care- 
ful study, if we would arrive at an accurate 
definition for ourselves. 
First. Let us determine about this word 
“issue,” relating to the heart, or life. Take 
up Webster, and see Issue, 4th definition, 
where he defines the word evidently, in this 
connection. What is it? Offspring—“prog- IN HEALTH 
195 
eny,” and he sustains himself iu this posi- 
tion by reference to II Kings 20:18. “And 
of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which 
thou shalt beget.” Here is at once a com- 
plete overthrow of Mr. Jennings’ theory 
that it is the heart that circulates the blood 
out of which come the issues of life. 
Refer next to Deut. 10:16. “ Circum- 
cise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart.” 
Deut. 30:6. “And the Lord thy God will 
circumcise thy heart.” Jer. 4:4. “Circum- 
cise yourselves to the Lord and take away 
the foreskin of your heart,” In Matt. 15:19, 
Christ tells us that “ out of the heart proceed 
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, forni- 
cations,” etc. In Matt. 5:27, 28, He says: 
“Ye have heard that it was said by them 
of old time, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ 
But I say unto you that whosoever looketh 
on a woman to lust after her, hath committed 
adultery with her already in his heart.” 
Now, as to keeping this heart pure, St. 
Paul tells us in I Cor. 12:23, 24 : “Those 196 
IN HEALTH. 
members of the body which we think to be 
less honorable, upon these we bestow more 
abundant honor, and our uncomely parts 
have more abundant comeliness. For our 
comely parts have no need; but God hath 
tempered the body together, having given 
more abundant honor to that part which 
lacked.” In keeping the heart “ with dili- 
gence,” by loving and reverencing sexual 
life, kingdoms and empires have ascended. 
It was only when they lost that love and 
reverence, and went down in lust, that 
Greece and Rome fell. It was 500 years 
after the foundation of Rome before the 
first divorce was obtained. They must in- 
deed, have kept their hearts “with dili- 
gence,” and there must have been many 
true-hearted Cornelias whose children were 
their “jewels and ornaments,” 
If Mr. Jennings’ “anatomical” explan- 
ation of the heart and its functions, as de- 
duced from his text, be the true exposition 
of the heart and issues of life, the revelation IN HEALTH. 
197 
of the rite of circumcision by God to Abra- 
ham, was in direct violation of his own com- 
mand, “Thou shalt not kill.” The words of 
man may change their meaning, but “the 
word of our God shall stand forever.” CHAPTER XII. 
THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT IN 
MARRIAGE. XII. 
THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT IN 
MARRIAGE. 
In thinking of this all-important subject 
—The Divine Government in Marriage— 
there seems so much for me to say that one 
idea almost crowds out the other. 
During the past twenty-seven years I 
have realized, most deeply, that the wife’s 
false ideas of marriage have been the source 
of her woes, her tribulations, and her di- 
seases; I have also realized that a true idea 
of marriage, the holiest appointment of her 
Creator, would bring her back again to 
peace, to joy, and to health. As it now is, 
whatever goes wrong between husband and 
wife, is usually attributed by each to be the 202 
IN HEALTH. 
fault of the other, and in that spirit of con- 
demnation! there surely is nothing but suf- 
fering. In Bryant’s Homer’s Iliad (Book I) 
we find an illustration of the obedience of 
Juno to Jupiter, through which she became 
“ the mistress of the golden throne,” from 
which we can learn a valuable lesson. Ho- 
mer lived 850 B. C., and in that age a poet 
was regarded as a prophet and a wise man ; 
and certainly in this poem there is a deep 
lesson for us if we will but heed it. He 
represents the silver-footed Thetis, the 
daughter of “ the gray Ancient of the Deep,” 
pleading with Jupiter for the life of her son, 
and Juno, believing they are plotting some- 
thing of which she has no knowledge, com- 
plains to Jupiter. He tells her that whatever 
plans he can make known to Gods or mor- 
tals she shall know, but when he forms 
designs apart from all the Gods, she must 
not presume to question him nor pry into 
his plans. She expresses fear that the sil- 
ver-footed Thetis has overpersuaded him, IN HEALTH. 
203 
at which Jupiter commands her to sit down 
in silence and obey. The poet then intro- 
duces Vulcan, Juno’s son, who pleads with 
her to obey his father, lest the feast be spoiled 
and trouble come upon them all ; referring 
also to a former time when he had sympa- 
thized with her and so angered Jupiter that 
he had flung him o’er the battlements of 
heaven. Juno yielded to the pleadings 
of Vulcan and drank of “the round cup 
of double form sweet nectar from the jar.” 
The feast went on until the all-glorious sun 
was down, then “ Each to his sleeping place 
betook himself; Jupiter went also to his 
couch, 
“And there, beside him, slept the white-armed queen 
Juno, the mistress of the golden throne.” 
“ All other deities, all mortal men, 
Tamers of war-steeds, slept the whole night through.” 
The golden throne is of a mythological 
origin. On the coast of Coromandel, in 
Hindoostan, there was in the beginning of 
this century, and for aught I know may still 204 
IN HEALTH. 
be, the ruins of a most beautiful temple. In 
the smallest of its chapels was a chair plated 
with gold, screened by a curtain of purple 
silk ; on this chair the pious Brahmins be- 
lieved was seated the omnipresent immaterial 
Brahm, the supreme god of the Hindoos, 
although as invisible as the air itself. The 
golden throne represents the highest spiritual 
purity attainable in this world or the next. 
The pious Brahmin expects to be absorbed 
into this almighty good when he dies. 
There is no evil in his idea of Brahm as 
there is in the Greek idea of God—Theos, 
(according to the definition of that word by 
Homer), the author of all good and evil 
events of life. The golden throne well rep- 
resents the gift of the Holy Spirit of 
obedient wives, making them spiritual help- 
mates to their husbands ; when the wife be- 
comes mistress of the golden throne she 
always rules her husband with Divine power. 
What is this rule or government ? Its in- 
fluence is a thousand times greater than the IN HEALTH. 
205 
husband’s. It is appointed of God that 
through her obedience to her husband she 
may attain to the liberty of love, even as 
He appointed that the husband should rule 
by decision. Ruskin, in speaking of the 
marriage relation, says of the wife, “In his 
house shall be servant, but in his heart she 
is queen.” There is no servitude if in her 
heart she loves him. According to Ruskin, 
her husband by his judgment should be the 
ruling power, and the wife through submis- 
sion to him becomes the recipient of Divine 
wisdom, thus becoming his spiritual guide. 
The moment a wife in judgment begins to 
rule over her husband she gets into dark- 
ness, and cannot lead in that which is 
spiritual. A gentleman once said to me 
that “ wives wanted to have their own way, 
and have their husbands give into them in 
everything”—adding, “ if a man does not 
rule his own household, he cannot rule any- 
where, and when he undertakes to transact 206 
IN HEALTH. 
business with other men they just clean 
him out.” 
When Jupiter commanded Juno to sit in 
silence, “all the gods were inly grieved.” 
If such a thing should happen in these days 
there would be enough tears shed to put out 
the fire which the Adventists think will 
destroy the world. Think of the power 
Juno obtained over Jupiter in being silent— 
she drank of “the cup of double form.” 
This symbolizes the wife’s being filled with 
Divine power and her influence over her 
husband to be by Divine appointment his 
joyous service, and in that service is found 
his greatest happiness. He will be a noble 
man among men. Why ? Because he has 
a loyal wife at home, and he will be as loyal 
and fight as nobly and gallantly for her as 
ever a knight of old fought for his lady love. 
The influence of such a wife is divine. 
Woman is spoken of as wisdom—that is, she 
receives Divine wisdom more than man, 
and if she gives this to him it will bring IN HEALTH. 
207 
forth fruit sixty fold—an hundred fold ; yes, 
a thousand fold, to her own good. When a 
wife yields to her husband Christ rules him 
through her spirit of obedience. Why is 
this ? It is one of the mysteries we know 
but little about. It is the Holy Spirit ruling 
in the wife, and diffused from her to him ; it 
will be so manifest that he will be known of 
all men. The superiority of the government 
of the wife over the husband’s is given to 
the wife by the Holy Spirit, and is therefore 
a spiritual government. I will illustrate this 
by an incident: A young man, who spent 
much of his time in gambling, was married, 
and for a time he and his wife led a gay life. 
The wife became converted, while he kept 
on in his evil ways. One night, after gam- 
bling with several of his companions until 
two o’clock, he proposed going home, one 
of his companions said: “I shall have no 
peace when I get home, for my wife will do 
nothing but scold.” “Then,” said the first, “I 
can go home and take you all with me, and 208 
IN HEALTH. 
my wife will get up and prepare supper for us 
without one unkind word.” They all doubted 
him, but he offered a wager that it could be 
done, which was accepted,they going home 
with him, first stipulating that he should not 
go into the room where she was, but that 
the conversation should be carried on where 
all might hear it. To this he agreed, going 
to the house and walking in, the door being 
unlocked. He called to his wife that he had 
brought some friends home with him, and 
they would like some supper. She immed- 
iately arose and prepared supper for them 
as expeditiously as possible, without one 
cross word or look. One of the company 
asked her how she could do such a thing so 
pleasantly, to which she replied that once 
she had been as gay as her husband, but 
had found there was a better way to live, 
and that if she wished to have any influence 
for good over him, she must ever be obedient 
to his wishes. The desired affect was at- 
tained, for he afterward reformed and be- IN HEALTH. 
209 
came an earnest Christian, a good husband 
and citizen. Now this women did ascend the 
golden throne; the victory was given her, 
not because she was wiser than her hus- 
band, but because she drank of the “ cup of 
double form ” of Divine wisdom. 
Allow me to bring before your imagina- 
tion the way lovers keep their accounts with 
each other, and I refer as much to the mar- 
ried as to the unmarried. If I am correct, 
it is a very large book, and full of charges 
of the one against the other. It reads: 
My wife, or my husband, or my intended is 
indebted to me for thousands, perhaps mil- 
lions on millions of love. The amount 
which each feels is due them by the other is 
very large, and full pay and compound 
interest are expected to be given them. 
They marry expecting to get it all. Sup- 
pose the accounts balance, what is there for 
either to expect ? I once asked a young 
lady who had just finished a letter to her 
intended, if she had “ sent lots of love in 210 
IN HEALTH. 
that letter ?” “ Oh,” said she, “ I do not 
send him any more than he sends me.” 
“Well,” I said, “if you send him just what 
he sends you where is there any love of your 
own in the matter ? If he sends you his 
love, and you use what you want of it and 
then send it back to him, I should think it 
would be rather stale.” This is the way in 
which the best men and women lay the 
foundation for domestic ruin and misery 
which I cannot describe. This is not love 
at all, but selfishness of the deepest dye, 
for it extends only to our own happiness ; 
the idea of happiness should be to give hap- 
piness, instead of seeking to receive all that 
we can. In spiritual things we should give 
all we possess ; this is the side on which we 
fail, and why ? Because inherited selfishness 
rules in us. When a couple are ruled by 
this selfishness they become dissatisfied with 
each other, and often appeal to the court for 
the money value of their loss, or for a di- 
vorce. We often read about broken hearts IN HEALTH. 
211 
because of disappointments in love; love 
never breaks any hearts ; selfishness does 
that, because it cannot get what it wants. 
It is this love of getting great things that 
hurts us so ; the idea of giving happiness to 
any human soul should make us happy ; the 
desire to make another happy makes us 
strong instead of weak. 
The book of love should read : I am in- 
debted to my intended, or to my husband, 
or to my wife, a thousand million fold, and 
I will give all that is in my power to give, 
expecting nothing in return. When we feel 
indebted to each other we will think of 
heaven as a state where we give that Divine 
love to all humanity. In Christ, love is 
boundless and endless ; freely it is given to 
us. All that is required of us is to give it 
away, “a pure river of water of life, clear 
as crystal.” 
The true theory of love is that each should 
feel indebted to the other, and to pay the 
debt each should do all in his or her power 212 
IN HEALTH. 
to add to the happiness of the other. Each 
should seek to fill well his or her own sphere, 
neither desiring to fill the place of the other. 
Woman is the most ennobling gift of God 
to man, and so is man to woman. A hus- 
band must feel that all he has will be re- 
quired to pay the debt of love which his 
wife has kindled in him ; he is indebted to 
her, and she to him, if they keep their 
accounts as they ought, and each will desire 
to pay the debt of love. 
I do not believe that the Almighty in- 
tended that wives should make all the 
sacrifices. “Sacrifice for love’s sake” can 
never exist in thought or feeling where there 
is Divine government in marriage. After 
its attainment there is no sacrifice, slavery 
or bondage for either. Then the wife will 
obey her husband because she loves him, 
and she will become his spiritual helpmate. 
This she cannot reach except through Di- 
vine government in the Apostolic sense IN HEALTH. 
213 
when both “ will stand fast in the liberty 
wherewith Christ has made” them “free.” 
Where Divine government is, each lives 
to make the other happy, not “ for love’s 
sake,” in the usual acceptation of the term, 
which is to get and not to give. 
Pope says “ Love on earth is an endless 
sigh.” So it is, as “love” is generally un- 
derstood. 
The Divine command, “ Wives obey your 
husbands,” if kept in love would make them 
both recipients of that love of Christ which 
expects nothing in return, and the more they 
give each other the more will they both 
receive from Him. 
I have treated chronic diseases of women 
for thirty-six years ; consequently I have 
heard much, both from the married and un- 
married, of what women had to sacrifice in 
marriage. The truth of this I do not deny, 
as marriage now is. The recovery of their 
health depends upon their belief that mar- 214 
IN HEALTH. 
riage is a Divine institution, in which there 
is no sacrifice, because “love never faileth.” 
Marriage is often spoken of in the Bible 
as the type of heaven. Where love reigns 
between husband and wife there is peace 
and happiness ; the husband in love, exer- 
cising his judgment for both, nothing adds 
more to his happiness than seeking to add 
to the happiness of his wife ; and through 
the wife’s obedience he becomes her willing- 
o 
servant, feeling it is no bondage for him. He 
is happy in doing to the utmost all that he 
can do for her, because she has sown in 
him love. Man will always follow where 
woman leads in love, she was first in the 
transgression, so she must be first in the re- 
turn. 
A few months since I read an article from 
“The Continent,” entitled “The Statute of 
Limitation,” in which the excesses in the 
marital relation were deplored, and the wish 
expressed that there might be a statute of 
limitation to prevent all such excesses. The IN HEALTH. 
215 
true remedy is found in' the words of St. 
Paul, “ Wives, submit yourselves unto your 
husbands as unto the Lord.” Should every 
wife, in essence and in heart, follow these 
words of St. Paul, she would become the 
queen and “mistress of the golden throne” 
in her husband’s affection. If a wife yields 
her sexual nature to her husband, with deep 
reverence for that life in herself and in him, 
believing it is God-given and holy, she will 
have no disgust for him in this respect, and 
the Lord will give unto her and her husband 
rest and peace. , I know from the testimony 
of those who have been ruled by this belief 
that this is true ; but it is difficult to make 
others believe it, for most wives and many 
husbands seem by their own condition to be 
prepared to join in the wish expressed by the 
writer of the article referred td, that there 
might be a statute of limitation that would 
subject the baser part of our natures to the 
better part. 
A lady who had been my patient, and to 216 
IN HEALTH. 
whom I had taught the doctrine that a wife 
should yield herself unto her husband as un- 
to the Lord, was told by her husband shortly 
after her return home that she had cured 
him of all lustful thoughts toward woman. 
Her yielding to him had wrought this great 
change in him. The deep-spiritual change 
in her had made a Divine statute of limita- 
tion. Another lady complained of the ex- 
cessive demands of her husband. I told her 
through Divine submission to her husband 
the Lord would give her power over all his 
excesses. Through her he would receive 
o 
rest, and her body would be full of health. 
The first time I met her after her return 
home she told me he was greatly changed, 
and that when she asked him what had come 
over him, “ Oh,” he replied, “ I know now 
that you are all mine, what you are is better 
than anything' you can do for me, I am 
happy and contented.” His happiness came 
from his Creator, because his wife submitted 
herself to him, “as unto the LojcI.” IN HEALTH. 
217 
A widower, a clergyman, was deploring 
his own high state of passion, saying he did 
not believe a wife could satisfy his desires. 
I said to him : “You had a wife who de- 
spised that nature in you,” which he said 
was true. I told him I hoped the one he 
soon expected to marry would be a true 
wife unto him as unto the Lord. Soon after 
he was married he told me that my hopes 
for him had been fulfilled, that he was at rest, 
and happy, and acknowledged it all as the 
work of the Lord. 
A lady told me that a friend had com- 
plained to her of her husband’s excesses 
and crabbedness. I told her to tell this 
wife that if in the earnest purpose of her 
heart she yielded to her husband, she would 
cure him of these traits. She gave her my 
advice, and one day soon after, was surprised 
by the sudden exclamation of her friend, 
“Where did Dr. Ingersoll get his wisdom ? 
You know how he advised me through you 
to submit myself unto my husband as unto 218 
IN HEALTH. 
the Lord, and now that I have followed his 
advice, no better husband than mine can be 
found. I dare not express a wish for only 
what I positively need, for I no sooner do 
so than it is gratified, no matter how trivial 
it may be.” Yes, through her submission 
there was a great change wrought in her 
husband. 
St. Paul knew the truth contained in this 
divinely appointed law : “ Wives submit 
yourselves unto your husbands as unto the 
Lord.” 
The greatest obstacle in the way of Divine 
government is the spirit of condemnation in 
husband and wife for the short'comings and 
faults of the other. This dust of ill feeling 
that creeps into the social life makes mar- 
riage a torment instead of a heaven—it is 
the little foxes which steal in and'spoil the 
vines. 
The Romans had a goddess, Viriplaca, 
“ who presided over the peace of families, 
whence her name, (virum placare.) If any IN HEALTH. 
219 
quarrel happened between a man and his 
wife, they generally repaired to the temple 
of the goddess, which was erected on the 
Palatine mount, and came back reconciled.” 
[Lempriere’s Class. Diet.] Here it was that 
Plutarch and his wife after domestic trouble 
sacrificed a goat, and returned to their home 
in peace. There was something Divine in 
this faith which brought about a reconcilia- 
tion, closed up their troubles, shutting down 
upon the past. It would seem that the for- 
giveness that works by love, was the essence 
of this faith which brought peace and har- 
mony into the household. 
Judgment and condemnation cannot exist 
together, for true judgment is forgiveness, 
having for. its essence or living principle, 
love. The only judgment Christ has for us 
is that which works by love for the redemp- 
tion of our sins. If the judgment a husband 
or wife has for the other is of forgiveness, 
there will be for them a heaven on earth, a 
heaven begun here that will never end. In 220 
IN HEALTH. 
the desire to be forgiving to each other, 
Christ will ever be present with them, “ for 
there is now no condemnation to them which 
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit.