Article April 30, 1904 Issue

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with contributions from John H. Vincent, G. Campbell Morgan

We are just beginning to emerge from the cloud of pessimism which the scientific doctrine of heredity, because of its narrowness, cast over the mind of the last generation. Even in the case of disease, where a few years ago it was supposed that heredity was a fate against which one might strive in vain, we are now learning that the heredity is more in the mind than in the blood, more in the infections which persist in the household and in household associations than in any persistence of the disease itself. Tuberculosis is now proved to be not hereditary, while even insanity, it is suspected, runs in families, not because the taint is in the blood, but because it is in the mind, in habits of thought, in the talk, the fears, the superstitions, the influence of foreboding, and many a baneful thought which can be warded off, met with an antidote, and made harmless. Moral diseases are even more amenable to the healing forces of sympathy, wisdom, good training, and a total change of mental and moral atmosphere.

The Christian Register.

The Sermon on the Mount closed with the emphatic requirement of all who had listened to the words of Jesus to go and fulfil them. His doctrine, like all truth, must be made practical or it will lose definiteness in the mind. The hearer of the word goes away and forgets what manner of man he is. It is easy to deceive oneself with the fancy that in hearing a good sermon and according with its sentiment one is sufficiently benefited. The effect is superficial and has no practical result unless truth is wrought into deeds and character. In photography the sensitive plate which has received the impression of an object must be "fixed" in a suitable chemical bath, or the image will fade out on exposure to light.

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