SMALL ASCETICISMS.
THE Protestant world has never taken kindly to asceticism. It has never accepted, even if it has ever considered, the Asiatic doctrine that the only approach to a higher life must be through self-suppression, and has rejected, without con- temning, the Roman Catholic idea that the mortification of the flesh is of itself an offering grateful to the Lord. It regards St. Simeon Stylites, as, on the whole, a presumptuous idiot, and receives the pathetic remark of the American missionary—a woman, by the way, not only of the deepest piety, but of the keenest intellect—that she found it "need- ful to resist her impulse towards cleanliness as a worldly snare," with most irreverent laughter. Nevertheless, there lingers among Protestant Englishmen and Scotchmen, a feeling that pious men, especially if ordained, should not praise innocent pleasures too cordially, that they had better condemn than extol the use of wine, that they should not say much, if anything, about the pleasure of eating, and that if they smoke, they should plead in excuse that tobacco is, with their constitutions, good for the health. The hearty commendation which the Very Rev. Dr. Cameron Lees, Edinburgh, recently bestowed at a smoking con- cert upon the use of tobacco, comes upon them with a certain shock, and while they respect his outspokenness, they had rather that he had tolerated or even approved the pipes or cigars in silence. The root of that feeling, which is mani- fested by the newspapers reporting the incident at some length, is not, we think, as the Dailg Telegraph evidently imagines, a lingering doubt whether indulgence in tobacco is consistent with virtue. A similar doubt exists among a large section of Christian mankind, among all Americans, for example, in connection with alcohol—no ministers being per- mitted by opinion to drink wine—but about tobacco it has been finally given up. Even the strictest have convinced themselves that the only evil in tobacco is its costliness, and although, like tea, it is very dangerous to some con- stitutions, and although, like most other things, it is harmful in excess, yet among the vast majority its use is rather bene- ficial than injurious. The impression, which lingered very long, that smokers tend to become drunkards, has disap- peared under the evidence of facts, all the teetotal races smoking furiously, and the plant has come to be regarded in its true light as a sedative with little perceptible reaction. No one commits crimes because he smokes, no one loses his temper because be indulges in a cigar—though we are bound to say the want of one does not in a smoker conduce to serenity—and no one thinks the less keenly or strenuously because he enjoys tobacco. It might be contended, indeed, on both historical and physiological evidence, that snuffing rather tends to rapid thought; but as the educated have abandoned snuffing—very wisely, for the practice spoiled good clothes— the remark is not worth making. The objection to Dr. Cameron Lees's speech, so far as there is any, is rather that it tended to discredit one of the small asceticisms, and that small asceticisma are still considered helps to the Christian life. That idea was almost dominant in religions society sixty years ago, and sometimes assumed forms which, if not ridiculous, were at least quaint. It was, for instance, held to be wrong for any but the aged to sit in easy-chairs, not, as is now vainly imagined, from any ignorant idea as to the injury done to the figure, but because " lolloping " betrayed a blameworthy ten- dency to ease and self-indulgence. That was the origin also of the extraordinary prejudice against taking any extra sleep. The old knew well that sleep, when sleep is not needed, is to the young the most wearisome of all obediences, but nevertheless they believed that to wish to sleep more than a strictly regulated time, which, according to modern hygeists, was too short, was a mark of sluggish self- indulgence, and it was visited, therefore, with moral repro- bation. Early rising was extravagantly praised, not because it lengthened the day, for the early risers went to bed early, but because it was disagreeable ; and some curious rules of diet—for example, abstinence from sugar—were defended in part upon the same principle. We have known girls cut off their curls avowedly because they were proud of them, and men go about in shabby clothes because, as they averred and believed, it was well by diminishing comfort to promote serious reflection.
It has nearly all disappeared now, and one wonders some- times whether the way of the present generation is the wiser, or the way of the last generation but one. Does sitting always in an upright chair tend to virtue and self-control, as our grandfathers vehemently believed, or does it only cause a totally useless waste of the reserve of energy which in most people is never too great for their serious ends P Is it, that is to say, really beneficial to the character to do without innocent pleasures when there is no object in doing withoutcexcept the training? We declare that we do not quite certainly know. It would seem a priori that such ‘. givings up," as they are now called—a curious alteration of phrase indicating that the normal habit is indulgence—mast be beneficial, because with- out the capacity of self-denial no character can be strong ; and unless the capacity is cultivated in small things how, under modern conditions, is it to be cultivated at all P Nobody stands on a pillar now, or lives his life upon bread and water, or does his work or eats his dinner clothed in a hair-shirt, which, by the way, must, one would think, have gradually become to the habitual wearer at least as bearable as Jager-flannel is to skins accustomed to the touch of linen garments. We have to deny ourselves, if at all, in little things, and if we never do it, how is the habit, which is by no means instinctive with the natural man, ever to be generated P That seems sound, and yet it is by no means clear that our grandfathers, who cultivated small self-denials, were less selfish than ourselves, and they wt re decidedly less philanthropic. Monks of the stricter orders are very little better, if at all, than English clergy- men, and men who go periodically into training, which involves much severe self-denial, do not emerge from that discipline models either of character or of conduct.
There are classes both of men and women—it is quite a large class among the latter—who deliberately torment themselves in trifles for their own improvement, and who do not seem to the outer world, at least, to improve themselves greatly thereby, while they often lose the cheerfulness and the calm tolerance of others which should be—and so often are not—marks of the chastened spirit. We have known a man steadily refuse for years from excellent motives to kill the mosquitoes which settled on him, but he was very like other men when all was done, only a little more cantankerous. People who get up very early with an idea of self-suppres- sion are, it has long ago been noticed, exceedingly vain of their habit, and the vengeance of Nature on the self- suppressing, is often revealed in intolerable spiritual pride. We are inclined therefore to believe that the evidence is about equal, and that the true rule of life as to innocent or indifferent indulgences is not to worry about them perpetually, but to take care that no habit finally enslaves you. If you want to smoke, smoke, but retain the ability to give up smoking. A doctor of eminence thirty years ago declared that the best recipe he knew against any patient acquiring a habit of drinking was to order him to abstain absolutely for some one day in seven ; and we suspect that there was wisdom in that advice, as well as pathological know- ledge. We might utilise the Sunday in that way to a much greater extent than we do, and learn something from the experience of all mankind on the subject of fasting. There is no spiritual good whatever in fasting on fixed days ; but there is good to the character in learning to be able to fast. Dr. Cameron Lees wanted his audience to make a habit of music, and was quite right in encouraging their pipes; but to make his counsel perfectly " human " he should have recommended them to abstain from tobacco on some day of the week, or even of the month. To raise the use of tobacco into a moral question is to make oneself a slave to trivial duties in the way of abstinence, just as the Jews made themselves slaves to ceremonial ; but the slavery to the pleasant should be almost as carefully avoided. We have known a Scotchman almost miserable because he could not get sweets for breakfast, and though marmalade is utterly innocent, or probably to those who can eat it beneficial, there is surely something abject in a slavery of that kind. Most of the habits which master us are in- different, having no effects whatever except habitude, and a few, like the custom of eating at " regular " hours, are dis- tinctly beneficial, but we ought to be able to break them if we are to feel really free. Nine times out of ten the exertion is not worth the trouble as regards the habit itself, but as regards vigour of character, a habit of insisting on intervals in one's habit, is a preservative of spiritual health.
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