A diseased body is the product of a process development that began with its birth, for every symptom in its finality is cumulative. The colds and fevers of infancy and adolescence, the causes of which are imperfectly eliminated, leave their residue to accumulate until the eventual crisis occurs. And, as in the physical so in the mental realm, disease of the mind, and in it we include crime as well as insanity, are symptoms of unbalance, often produced because of physical reaction. Crime begins in small acts, develops like a cancer, and in reality it is to be regarded as a cancer of the conscious mind, and hence should be treated as is disease. Instead, society punishes the discovered victim. Insanity is but another form of unbalance that in many instances arises from functional physical disturbance, yet it, too, is handled as is crime, its sufferers being subjected to police authority in ways that are reminders of the dark ages.

And since brain troubles in great part arise from functional physical derangement, their alleviation and cure is to be sought in systemic bodily purification. The text fully covers the manner in which the latter process may best be accomplished, in fact the only way in which it can be done. And, could the fast and its hygienic accessories be introduced and scientifically administered in all asylums, insane as well as criminal, of the land, numbers of their inmates would be restored both in mind and in body. And further, in those in whom mental incapacity is due to organic structural defects that hamper normal function, the form and degree of the latter would at once be revealed, and the knowledge thus gained would determine to what extent treatment should be carried. And it is probable that among even these severely afflicted sufferers there might be many who could be brought to mental responsibility. Apart from its therapeutic worth, a trial of the method in public institutions offers two other points of merit, viz., it would ameliorate much of the suffering now undergone by stimulated unruly patients who need restraint, and it would lower by many thousands of dollars the expense of caring for these wards of the state. But, if not for the sake of those who pay taxes, at least for the salvation of those detained in asylums for the insane and criminal, the method is entitled to a thorough investigation and trial at the hands of government.

To many minds the thought that human life is in any way connected with or dependent upon ordinary natural agencies carries with it denial of faith in the divine. Reasoning thus, these intellects segregate in toto spirituality from materiality, refusing to recognize their manifest interdependence. A calm retrospect of the history of the Christ causes one to know that Jesus, apart from his spiritual endowment, was a man in the flesh and of the flesh; that he was subject to the laws of the body, to its necessities and to its temptations. It is written, "Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered."

The application of this fragment of sacred history to the subject matter of the text may not be obvious, but brief explanation will serve to show that the related incident is distinctly pertinent. Fasting the body for the sake of health was understood and followed by the older civilizations; and fasting for the attainment of that higher mentality which borders upon spirituality is still employed by the members of that system of philosophy known as Yoga, in which meditation upon the supreme spirit is inculcated as the way to final beatitude. That the Christ acquainted with and was learned in these practices is fully substantiated by the evident purpose and scientific completion of a period of forty days and nights of abstinence from food. Jesus never overturned natural law; he worked with it always, and his statement concerning prayer and fasting in disease is easy of analysis. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." And fasting, physical in application, conduces to the highest degree of mental clarity. The body, purified of its dross, approaches more nearly the spiritual vehicle it is intended to be. Successfully conducted to the point of the return of hunger, the body and its brain are enhanced in substance and in function. In this condition difficulties are solved, decisions are made, and conclusions are reached with marvelous clearness and despatch.

The Gospel relates that Jesus was led up into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted--a test through which mere man passes daily, and ofttimes daily fails to meet. But Jesus, before temptation assailed, fasted for the approximate time needful for physiological purification of the adult body, and the fast concluded, we are specifically told, with its physiologically correct symptom, the return of hunger. We do not err, we think, in attributing to the Christ in the flesh the experiences of the flesh. Why else should he have been subjected to temptation? And physically there must have been need for regeneration, for the incident occurred just before the beginning of his active ministry, when all of his power of endurance was to be called forth, and mental acuity more than normal was to be commanded at every future moment of his physical life. And in addition the divine plan embodied further proof of its all-embracing wisdom in that it held up to the world divinity clothed in a material body, endowed with physical attributes, and subjected to the test of physical desire--a test that could perfectly be withstood only by a mind functioning in a body physiologically pure.

The Christ invariably worked through the material, the physical, to the mental and spiritual. And perfect spirituality in man requires its vehicle, the material body, to be physically excellent. Purity of body, purity of mind, purity of heart--these alone may commune with the divine.