Spiritual Inertia

SPIRITUAL INERTIA.

BY GEORGE W. CROCHERON.

This may be classed under the name of spiritual laziness, or inaptitude of making a practical application of the principles which

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670 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

govern the laws of spiritual progression. Viewing the subject from a medical standpoint, a person afflicted with this peculiar form of disease not only gives evidence of the symptoms of the complaint, but the actual presence of the disease itself. It be-

comes no less necessary that a person should guard against physi- cal ills, by carefully observing the laws which govern good health, than it is to neglect those special duties which govern the spirit- ual betterment of the soul. Teachers in a ward, acting in their official capacity in the Priesthood, as doctors of divinity, should be able to prescribe a remedial antidote, befitting the nature of the case presented. When it becomes necessary to perform a surgical operation on the human body, it requires the most consummate skill, in the exercise of that highly important function, lest direful re- sults follow from malpractice. And so in the spiritual economy, great care must be exercised in treating a case where a person has become "run down," so to speak, by neglecting to provide those essential safe- guards which tend to promote spiritual advancement. In order to develop a vigorous spiritual constitution, there are certain definite rules necessary to be observed, by which a person can be in a position to receive the greatest amount of good — close observance of the Word of Wisdom, a strict adherence to the payment of a full tithing, attendance at fast meetings, supple- mented with a generous offering for the poor, attending ward and quorum meetings, the payment of our honest debts, and keeping oneself unspotted from the world, secret prayer, visiting the sick, etc. Non-compliance with the above formula will reduce a person to spiritual prostration, and if persisted in will produce spiritual death, or, in other words, apostasy from The Church of the living God. Occasionally we find persons of the latter class who, by long neglect of their spiritual duties, become chronically diseased, spiritually, and pass out of the world in that dreadful condition.

0, what a sad ending of life!

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