nestles upon his heart as he lies down to his nightly rest. He
feels in his soul the influx of spiritual life from the Great
Source of all life, as he opens it in worship and in prayer. But
at length there comes a change. A strange sadness creeps into his
heart. The sky that was once so bright has become dark. The prayer
that once rose as easily as incense upon the still morning air,
straight toward heaven, will not rise at all, but settles like
smoke upon him, and fills his eyes with tears. Something seems to
have come between him and his God. Strange, accusing voices are
heard within him. However deep the agony that moves him, he cannot
rend the cloud that interposes between him and his Maker. This,
now, is simply a mood produced by ill health; and I hope that
everybody who reads this will remember it. Remember that God never
changes, that a man's moods are constantly changing, and that when
a man earnestly seeks for spiritual peace, and cannot find it, and
thinks that he has committed the unpardonable sin without knowing
it, he is bilious, and needs medical treatment. Alas! what
multitudes of sad souls have walked out of this hopeless mood into
a life-long insanity, when all they needed in the first place,
perhaps, was a dose of blue pills, or half a dozen strings of
tenpins, or a sea-voyage sufficiently rough for "practical
purposes."

This subject I find to be abundantly prolific, and I see that I
have been able to do hardly more than to hint at its more
prominent aspects. It seems to me that moods only need to be
studied more, and to be better understood, to bring them very much
under the domain of our wills. A great deal is learned when we
know what a mood is, and know that we are subject to varying
frames of mind, resulting from causes which affect our health. If