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Show THE BENEFITS OF . LENTEN ABSTINENCE Is it not surprising how Lent sharpens the appetite ap-petite and develops the weaknesses and infirmities infirmi-ties which were before latent in our constitution 1 Hp to Ash - Wednesday we were perhaps hardly aware whether we had an appetite or not. We often sat down to table with indifference perhaps, sometimes, even with disgust. - Then, too, how often, when the exigencies of business or the accidents of travel required it. have we gone without our regular meals for half a day or more, without serious inconvenience, certainly cer-tainly with no damage to our health. We took it all as a matter of course and made the best ofit. But the moment Lent commenced we immediately became conscious of an intolerable gnawing at the stomach which was well-nigh irresistible. We had not listened to the kindly premonitory warning of Septuagesima Sunday, and, like loving, obedient children, began "to make preparation for the coming holy season by gradually cutting off our daily allowance, limiting our indulgence of the pleasures of the table and putting ourselves on a more rigid discipline generally. We waited till the solemn admonitions of Ash Wednesday brought us face to face with the obligations which the Church imposes. The first attempt convinced us we could not fast. Fasting makes us faint; gives us a headache and disagreeable feelings generally, and unfits us for business. We must ask for a dis-' dis-' pensation. What is better, perhaps, we will go to our doctor and get his opinion. He is a sensible, kind man. He will appreciate the circumstances of the case and 'insist, as he always has, that a man in health should eat heartily in order to fit him for his duties. As for assisting at daily Mass and the special Lenten services well, it is, no doubt, a very good thing for those common people who are able to do it, but, really, it is too much to expect of us in our delicate state of health. We must not expose ourselves our-selves in this changeable weather. After all, it is not so very important. There is such a thing as being righteous overmuch. One must not be a devotee. There is reason in all things; and it is evidently very absurd to suppose that, in our days, people could go to the bad place, because they do not observe the Lenten spirit. By such reasoning many lull themselves into the belief that Lent is obsolete. The "Etudes' (Paris) urges upon all Catholics the duty of abstinence during the Lenten season, if not as a token of their devotion to the teachings of the Church, at least as an experiment going to show that the mind works most harmoniously with the body that is temperately provided for. The Church is founded in all her conditions and phases upon the rock of true reason, and her care for the souls of men has never prevented her from caring for their bodies. And so it is that modern science is now going to her to find in her methods the secrets of happiness. First among them it has discovered that the reason of the all-pervading calm that marks the true believer in his faith and the practical follower of Catholic truths, as well as the endurance both of body and intellect, is to be found in the submission sub-mission to a regime which tends in every way towards to-wards the cultivation of a healthy mind in a healthy body. Fasting during the Lenten season is regarded by many as an unnecessary penance. Yet, if the spirit of the penance be really entered into, it will be found that -not only arc the soul and mind invigorated invigo-rated by the hardship and made keener for the opportunities op-portunities of life, but the body itself is invigorated invigo-rated by the process of abstaining. The late Lord Kelvin, one of the greatest thinkers think-ers the world has produced, was accustomed to say that "the feeding man" or the near-glutton was never really good at heart or efficient in his life-work, life-work, the bulk of the twenty-four hours of the day being taken up with the travail and the trouble of digesting the surplus of food. The "consequence .(Continued on Page 4.) ' , n. , , , ' mi 1 ' """ 1 LENTEN ABSTINENCE. (Continued from page 1.) was that his life really afforded him no leisure for thoughtf ulness for others, a virtue which grows with practice and contracts with desuetude. "4 1 Xor can the mind be expected to work with all Jjj its lucidity in play, when the body is laboring in discomfort. ,'' ' Lord Kelvin reached the patriarchal age of St as a rcsidt ot a life of temperance, and though not a Catholic, it was known that he observed the Lenten Len-ten fasts of our Church, and abstained when his engagements permitted it on every Friday. The late Sir Henry Thompson, a surgeon of European note, was accustomed to recommend high- 1 living patients to spend the Lenten season in Italy I or France in out-of-the-way villages, where he was morally certain they would willingly have to submit sub-mit to a fish regime. ; Though he was confessedly an atheist, and abused most systems of religion, it ' was hid custom to say that the Catholic' Church was tho only one which took charge of man's body and soul by giving each the diet which was especially es-pecially suited to it. He was on terms of intimaev 1 with the Carthiiians of Asminstcr. -who, he paid, by their treatment of ?nrnc of the patients he frc- qucntly rusticated to their monastery in Sussex brought about recoveries which he. with all his science, sci-ence, could not have effected. He held that m man could long remain healthy who did not usual- ly arise from tabic t:Il somewhat hungry, lie recommended rec-ommended all who st-?diod, or who led sedentary lives, to abstain from meat at least three days in J the week, substituting for flesh-meat a diet of J eggs or fish. ' f M. Baron points out that the beginnings of all sound character lie in the overcoming ofjhe ap- V petite, f.nd that though tlu early stages of absti- ncnee fco-u what is known it? a hearty regime aro undoubtedly hard upon tb- beginner, the result more than compensate for the hardships at first undergone. Where there i- i tendency to gout, rheumatism, neuralgia corny'- ints or other chronic indispositions, says Doctor Vlberg, high living i.i not only to be avoided, but fasting is the only-method only-method of effecting a cure. There is little doubt that the ordinary allow- 1 ancc of food is far too liberal, end that the regime prescribed by. the Catholic Church in Lent is what is best suited to the average normal individual. , ,., , , ; i ' - '.- in - ' |