FOOD
AND
MORALS;
A SERMON PREACHED BY
Rev. J. F. CLYMER,
IN
THE FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AT
AUBURN, NEW YORK.
SIXTH EDITION: 110TH THOUSAND.
NEW YORK:
FOWLER & WELLS CO.,
775 BROADWAY.
1888
For a Sample number of the Phrenological Journal, and our large listof works on Phrenology, Physiognomy, Health, Hygiene, Dietetics,Heredity, Children, &c., send your address on a Postal Card. F.& W.
[From Rev. Dr. Deems, Church of the Strangers, New York.]
Messrs. Fowler & Wells:
Gentlemen:—I have read with great interest a sermon by Rev. Mr.Clymer, of Auburn, on “The Relation of Food to Morals,” as itappeared in the Auburn Daily Advertiser of June 20th, 1880. Certainlyeverything stands related to morals; and all men, women,and children should be made to see and feel this.
I suppose I am considered an old-fashioned preacher. I believein “original sin,” and I believe in a great deal of sin that is notoriginal. I believe that every man is so corrupt that he can neverbe made pure without supernatural influence; and I believe thathe must take advantage, at the same time, of all the natural helps.Even the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot make the saint whois in the flesh, feel alert and happy, so long as he has any seriousobstruction of the biliary duct. When I was a younger pastor in aSouthern city, I was called by a mother to see her daughter, a girlof eighteen, who was in a dreadful way, inconsolably laboring underthe oppressive feeling that there was no mercy for her. I prescribedfor her torpid liver as my knowledge of the healing artenabled me to do, promising to call again soon. When I did call,the young lady was relieved, and I was able to secure her attentionto the comfortable truths of our most holy faith. It is first the natural,and then the spiritual; St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 46: “Howbeit thatwas not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterwardthat which is spiritual.”We must always feel our dependence on the spirit of God forour regeneration and sanctification, but not in such a way as tomake fools of us. The man whose faith in the supernatural makeshim depreciate the natural, has no more sense than he whose faithin the natural utterly excludes super-nature.
I think you would do a good work to issue Mr. Clymer’s discourseas one of a series of tracts proclaiming the gospel of hygiene. Willyou not do it?
With kindest regards, yours truly,
CHARLES F. DEEMS.
New York, February 1, 1881.
Rev. Dr. Deems:
Dear Sir: Yours of February 1 received, and contents noted.Thanks for your suggestion. Yes; we will do it. We will publishMr. Clymer’s sermon in so cheap a pamphlet form that we can giveit an almost universal circulation.
We do this because we believe with you most fully in the gospelof hygiene.
Yours very truly,
FOWLER & WELLS.