that we are under no such necessity. Why, the old prophets of Judaism Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest-seem to have gone beyond that! It may be a narrowness into which we were born, and to which we have been bred, a proof of our very partial recognition of the manifold necessities of this large, complex, strange human nature of ours, a failure to perceive the influence of the body upon the soul, a cheat put upon us by a secret spirit of self-indulgence; and yet the fact that fasting is still a common religious practice seems to us but added evidence that the peculiar leaven of the Gospel pervades our world with the extremest slowness. The oldest things linger long after the newest are established, just as the rough wall by the road-side in the most cultivated and garden-like region reminds one of Cyclopean architecture; but somehow in religion the most superannu ated is the most prominent. It is sad, for example, to read of a mind like that of Dr. Samuel Johnson exercised a few times in the year upon some trivial change in his diet, and making a religion of it. If any one asks, "Does not the fact that so robust an intellect could treat fasting as important, prove that it is important?" the reply must needs be, that his fasting was little better than the offset to his gluttony,that it was a part of a slavish, coarse, mechanical view of the penitence and service to be rendered to God, akin to an error which led him to set a high value upon the mere say ing of prayers and going to church, a value proportioned, it would seem, to the uncomfortableness which they caused him, and the little satisfaction he derived from them. Low and superstitious views of religion are often found in connection with a large measure of intellect. There is no safety where there is not a pure moral sensibility; and is it arrogant and uncharitable to say, that the austerities of modern times, the slight interruptions in the round of pleasure, the delicate shades of mourning, the faintest touches in sombre hues, the transition from the good things of the earth to the good things of the sea, looks very much like - playing at religion? Is it a sort of thing which one can plead for boldly before plain men? Is it not rather one of those old things which are passing away? Is the cause of Christ to be promoted by any sentimental attempt to revive in the Church usages which never truly expressed its highest life? But there is "I fast twice in the week." Let us make an end of negations. They are never very profitable, and we can scarcely suppose that many of our readers are inclined to return to any old practice of this sort. The fancy that evil is inherent in matter, that there is a merit in mortifying the flesh, that sackcloth is more moral than broadcloth, or that the gnawings of hunger quicken the action of the conscience, strong as its hold has been and is upon the mind of the world and of the Church, has ceased to be of much account with us. We may safely pass it by. a positive side to the lesson, and for the sake of this we have brought the subject to notice. Every favorite error contains its great truth, which it should be our care to extract and present as forcibly as we may. What men do may be very unwise; what they mean to do may be wisdom itself. "I fast twice in the week," and it is a good example, and answers a good purpose, when it serves as the symbol of a protest against the tyranny of the senses, against that allowance of their power which degrades the man to the level of the brute; it is a good example when it testifies, ever so indirectly, for that daily temperance which is so much harder and better than occasional abstinence, and gives us all the time a sound mind in a sound body. We fear that it is a lesson especially needed just now, when a reaction from a temporary fit of asceticism that seized upon our community has hurried many into an opposite direction of habitual and heedless self-indulgence. "I fast twice in the week," and self-denial as to things inward and outward, not only twice in the week, but every day in the week, is a good thing, and fair occasions for it are continually presenting themselves to him who is on the watch for them and knows how to use them. If we fast in any way that others may feast; if, when a burden must fall upon myself or upon my fellow, I choose to take it; if I give the time which might be spent for my own culture or amusement in satisfying the claims of Christian benevolence; if I take from my luxuries to supply what is lacking to others in things essential; if I meet fairly whatever of this sort comes in my way, remembering always that to fast from strife and debate, from a gloomy sourness, a selfish melancholy, a frown or a sneer, may be much more difficult than to go hungry, — it shall go hard with me if I need any special austerities; the lines must have fallen to me in very pleasant places, if I require any rubric of abstinences save that which one day of labor and self-discipline utters to another. "I fast twice in the week." Yes, we would go still further in the positive direction. We would take times, seeking and appointing them, if they did not come unsought and unappointed, to enter into the awful solemnities, the deep tragedy of human life, its relation to God and truth and the eternal world. We would strive to be in sympathy, not only with the hopeful Master proclaiming his glad tidings, but with Him whose soul was troubled, the "Man of sorsows and acquainted with grief," the Captain of our salvation made perfect by sufferings. We would go with him his forty days into the wilderness to battle with the tempter, to weigh God's true promises against the lying offers of the Devil. We would receive with tender emotions the memorials of the body broken and the blood poured out for us. We would follow him into the garden, and strive to learn what was the burden that weighed so heavily upon his pure and loving heart. We would watch with him, as he so earnestly besought his followers to do. We would be crucified with Christ, dying unto sin that we might live unto God. It is a blessed thing for any man, though it may give him small entertainment for the time, to face the truth of things, the facts of his own soul, of his own life. and of the world's life, to hear his conscience out, to reckon with himself as the prudent man of business examines his ledgers and catalogues his goods. Some persons are inclined by temperament to look at this stern side. Others must bring themselves by an effort to such considerations. They will not amuse us; they are tragic, not comic; but is life worth much, can it be called a man's life, does it prophesy with much distinctness of a grander life to come, when it does not contain a large element of tragedy? Are we not drawn in reverent sympathy to the portraits in which the painter by his marvellous touches has recorded the unselfish anxieties and struggles of the heroic soul, pressed by the iron conditions of an evil world, but striving all the while to shape earthly things after heavenly patterns? When men are engaged in the real battle of life; when God has so spoken, and they have so heard, that moral indifference is possible for them no longer; when they have seen his kingdom in all its awful loveliness, and have been born into it; when they have learned that souls as well as bodies may perish, and that only the spirit of murderous Cain in them can put the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" when the divine face of Christ haunts them in the crowd and in the closet, the image of what ought to be and may be; when they have learned to set the poor actual world side by side with what the Gospel proposes; when the crown of life is clearly seen, and it is just as evident that the way to it is the way of the cross, there is small need then of any humanly devised austerities. The body then becomes but an accident. We can be at no pains either to feast or to fast. The life which is not fed upon bread is in the ascendant, and whether such believers shall abstain or not will be determined rather by the religious custom of the time and place, than by any law of the soul or of the Scriptures. Gladly will we welcome and use whatsoever occasions promise to bring us home to ourselves. It is good to keep times and seasons, if so we can learn to look upon God. It was said of old that the soul which looks upon him must die; and so it must, but the death will be followed by a resurrection to a diviner life. We will pause from our common duties, and give ourselves to any exercises which shall impress the lesson of the cross, and teach us that the best feasts are those which Christians keep with their suffering Lord, showing forth that death, so sad and yet so full of hope, for the soul and for the world. "I fast twice in the week." We shall fast at least as often as that if we get much below the surface of life, and if we keep such a true Lent, it will serve some better purpose than to restore the tone of body and mind for the world's work and joy; it will help to establish us in that high spiritual estate which is the end of all discipline, in which the whole being, body, soul, and spirit is a temple unto the Lord, and fast-days and feast-days alike holy unto him. E. THE SLOWNESS OF BELIEF IN A SPIRITUAL WORLD. THE astronomer with patient, searching gaze Reveals a world by man unseen before. Justly the world rewards his arduous toil, And claims to share the glory of his fame; Beyond the boundaries of his native soil From land to land the breezes bear his name. But he who doth a Spirit-world reveal, Not far in space, but near to every soul; Which naught but mists of sense and sin conceal, (Would from men's sight those mists at length might roll!) He is with incredulity received, Or with a slow, reluctant faith believed. J. V. |