ABSTRACT
The handiwork of God, it is worthy of all care and reverence. It is the temple, too, of the soul, and some of the sanctity of the indwelling spirit is imparted and clings to the enclosing shrine. Thus even man's physical frame deserves to be honoured. Every act that maintains and strengthens the physical powers is a virtuous act. Health-culture far from being trivial or optional is a positive obligation. Even the physical life is worth living, and we hold it in trust for noble uses. Eating and drinking, the observance of personal cleanliness—all the acts, indeed, which preserve and perpetuate life—safeguard God's gift and show respect for the physical frame He has made. If asceticism too often spurns the commonplace duties of life, excessive self-indulgence unfits us for them. All the familiar acts that tend to preserve the physical life are to be performed reverently and in the name of God, under a solemn sense of obligation to Him.
