Description
Soul Food
CHAPTER 1: “SOUL FOOD”
The soul has its appropriate food, and its mystical way of eating and digesting, just as the body. The soul feeds on truth and love, and the Divine personalities. It feeds on truth through the intellect; it feeds on love through the affections; and it feeds on Divine personalities through the choices and appropriations of the will.
1- THE CONDITIONS OF SOUL-FEEDING:
These are, first, life; second, health; third, zest. In regeneration, the Christ-life is imparted to the soul. This life, like all other kinds, is known by its characteristics. All life is invisible and inscrutable. We may search all living substances, but no microscope has ever yet found what life is. It is a fathomless mystery, whether in vegetable, animal or spirit, and known only to God.
But we know that Christ can and does impart His life to the penitent, believing soul; and we know that this Christ-life can feed and grow and manifest itself similar to other kinds of life. It is not only needful to have this life, but to have it in a state of good soul-health. This implies the being cleansed from all moral disease, from all evil tempers and evil desires, from all self-will, and every principal of the carnal mind. Until the spiritual nature is thoroughly sanctified, its appetite is poor, its digestion is weak, and it craves a very light diet of religious food, made up largely of human intellectuality. For the soul to feed well, it not only needs life and health, but a lively zest of the faculties. This zest is acquired by practice, and by the quality of the food the soul takes in.
2- THE MANNER OF SOUL-FEEDING:
In the mystical process of feeding the soul, perception of truth corresponds to eating, by which truth is taken into the mind. The more rapidly and clearly we apprehend all kinds of spiritual truth, the more largely do we eat; for just what taking f