But whence comes this disgust of life? We answer,...

But whence comes this disgust of life? We answer, From the comparative absence of life. No man feels it who feels the abounding reality of spiritual existence glowing within him. But this disgust of life comes with the decay of vitality; it comes with the experience that the inward strength is weak before the outward obstacle; it comes with the cares, perplexities, sorrows, failures, disappointments, deceptions, and ennui of the world. How — and here is the essential question — how is this vitality to be preserved and increased? The answer is. Activity for an object. Men exercise actively for objects, but the objects belong to the class of things which allure in the pursuit, but do not satisfy in the possession. Hence dissatisfaction, discontent, disbelief, mental weariness, moral disgust. Now the Christian religion, when it becomes the object of the mind's activity, overcomes disgust of life by the positive communication of life. But what if your Christian teaching is lifeless? What if the Christian books you read are not reservoirs of spiritual vitality, but receptacles of juiceless commonplaces? You will then be Buddhists, your religion a religion of death, though you may boast of sending missionaries to Burmah. — E. P. Whipple