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xii
preface to the

But further,—a moment's reflection on the influence of cerebral disease upon the mind, would remove any remaining impression unfavorable to the author. If you would form a just estimate of her piety, you should think what the effect would be in your own case, to have all the sources of pleasurable sensation dried up, and all the powers of thought disturbed by its oppressed organ. If the brain, the medium through which the mind acts, be diseased, of course all the operations of the mind are impeded, or imperfectly and painfully performed.—Christianity, we know, does not directly remove those evils which have their origin in physical causes; though undoubtedly it has in it a tendency, as Baxter remarks, to remove all evil, inasmuch as it strikes at the root of all sin. "For those whose melancholy arises from corporeal causes," he says, "I would give this advice: Expect not that rational, spiritual remedies should suffice for this cure; for you may as well expect a good sermon, or comfortable words, should cure palsy, as to be a sufficient cure to your melancholy fears, for this is as real a bodily disease as the other." Baxter was no superficial thinker. He knew well that the reciprocal influences of mind and body do not cease in those who have their hearts and hopes in Heaven. No,—though its contemplation rest on God, on eternity, and its own moral nature and destiny,—while the soul is in the body, it is subject to the laws which govern both, and to the mysterious action and reaction established by them; and the faith of a Christian, though it may sustain the sufferer in the painful exercise of thought, feeling, and volition consequent upon a diseased organization, yet will