Christianity requires some sort of self-denial as the condition of
true Christian discipleship. Self-love is to yield to a love of others.
In some sense, the Christian is to become dead to the world and its
demoralizing pleasures. But this primal demand upon the soul needs to
be interpreted. What is it to love the world? What is it to keep the
body in subjection? What are harmful indulgences? To give wrong answers
to these questions is to set up a false ideal; the more strenuously
such false ideal is followed, the more disastrous are the consequences.
One's struggle for moral purity may end in failure, and one's
efficiency for good may be seriously impaired by a perversion of the
principle of self-abnegation. Unnatural severity and excessive
abstinence often produce the opposite effect from that intended.
Instead of a peaceful mind there is delirium, and instead of freedom
from temptation there are a thousand horrible fiends hovering in the
air and ready, at any moment, to pounce upon their prey. “The history
of ascetics,” says Martensen, “teaches us that by such overdone fasting
the fancy is often excited to an amazing degree, and in its airy domain
affords the very things that one thought to have buried, by means of
mortification, a magical resurrection.” In attempting to subdue the
body, many necessary requirements of the physical organism were totally
ignored. The body rebelled against such unnatural treatment, and the
mind, so closely related to it, in its distraction, gave birth to the
wildest fancies. Men, who would have possessed an ordinarily pure mind
in some useful occupation of life, became the prey of the most lewd and
obnoxious imaginations. Then they fancied themselves vile above their
fellows, and laid on more stripes, put more thorns upon their pillows,
and fasted more hours, only to find that instead of fleeing, the devils
became blacker and more numerous.
Self-forgetfulness is the key to happiness. The monk thought
otherwise, and slew himself in his vain attempt to fight against
nature. He never lifted his eyes from his own soul. He was always
feeling his spiritual pulse, staring at his lean spiritual visage, and
tearfully watching his growth in grace. An interest in others and a
strong mind in a strong body are the best antidotes to religious
despair and the temptations of the soul. Life in the monastery was
generally less severe than in the desert's solitude. There was more and
better food, shelter, and comfort, but there were many unnecessary and
unnatural restrictions, even in the best days of monasticism. There
were too many hours of prayer, too many needless regulations for
silence, fasting and penance, to produce a healthy, vigorous type of
religious life.