Cleansing

“ Probably a weekly soap-and-water bath is all that is absolutely essential for cleanliness if one follows a daily regimen which will maintain a condition of internal cleanliness. In fact, the cleansing of the external body is not required with such frequency if one secures sufficient muscular exercise and follows a dietetic and general regimen that will guarantee sufficient activity of all the eliminative functions; but if one neglects to employ other measures that help to maintain the purity of the blood and the activity of the skin, then more frequent baths are required to insure cleanliness. ”

“ What is wanted is a clean body with clean clothes. Rinsing the mouth, cleansing the teeth and all that must be done—but in private. The dwelling-houses must be kept clean, as well as the streets and thoroughfares and all outlying places. The cook must keep his clothes clean as well as his body. ”

“ The progress of the modern pilgrim is toward a City of Sanitation rather than Holiness, but sanitation is interpreted so widely as to include the soul also in the cleansing process. For this work Common-Sense and Hate-Cant are our efficiency experts ”

“ Not the least benefit of the latter class is the opportunity for a thorough cleansing of the whole body every morning, which is almost as indispensable to purity of morals as cleanliness of body. The same suggestion is fully as applicable to the sleeping arrangements of girls. ”

“ The living tissues are just as literally soiled and dirtied by their life action and their poisonous excretions, as is the skin soiled by its excretions of sweat and poisonous solids. Thus the regular drinking of water is absolutely necessary to enable the body to enjoy its internal bath, and this internal cleansing is just as grateful and refreshing to the cells and tissues, as is the external bath to the nerves which exist in the skin. ”

“ Aside from their other physiological functions, the menses are for the woman a monthly cleansing crisis through which Nature eliminates from her system considerable amounts of waste and morbid matter which, under a natural regime of life, would be discharged by means of the organs of depuration, that is, the lungs, skin, kidneys and bowels. ”

“ Don't let one day pass without a thorough cleansing of your person.
Don't sit down to your evening meal before a complete toilet if you have company.
Don't cleanse your nails, your nose or your ears in public. ”

“ That external physical cleanliness is next to godliness is an apt proverb. That internal physical cleanliness is nearer to godliness no one will deny.
Water is a universal solvent and therapeutic agent and is therefore indispensable in the cleansing and purifying of the integument and mucous membrane of the body. A large quantity of water is necessary to carry on the functions of the animal economy. Water enters every cell and fibre of the living organism, aiding in nutrition and in the elimination of worn-out tissues which if retained turn into poisons. ”

“ With the hands, as with almost everything else in the strife toward beauty culture, cleanliness is the first great essential. You cannot keep your hands smooth and pretty without an occasional hard scrubbing. Unless the hands are unusually moist naturally, hot water should not be used. Have the bath tepid—just warm enough to be cleansing. ”

“ But it should not be forgotten, that although frequent bathing and cleansing are indispensable to those whose employments expose them to a great deal of dust, yet they are scarcely less necessary to the sedentary ”

“ Care should be taken in all these operations of sponging, washing, and cleansing the skin, not to expose too great a surface at once, so as to check the perspiration, which would renew the evil in another form. ”

“ If any man smite thee on the cheek, turn to him the other also. If any man judge to take away thy cloak, give him thy coat also.” The apostle, tracing out how the work of cleansing should be done, little by little with patience and perseverance, teaches at large, first feeding with milk, like babes, then carrying on to growth and to full age. ”

“ The first cleansing is the natural outcome of His righteous indignation in beholding for the first time the holiest place in the world given up to common traffic, the second cleansing is appropriate in Him who had then openly proclaimed His divine authority and Messiahship. ”

“ I could but think how many a lesson we may learn from the small as well as the great creations of God's hand—habits such as this little animal possessed might, in the way of cleanliness, lead to the prevention of endless diseases, if imitated by those who never dream of daily cleansings as being necessary to health and life. ”

“ but the blood of Christ thoroughly cleanses from all sin, and after it there needs no cleansing. ”

“ If half the care bestowed on hygiene were given to the study of metaphysics and the moral elevation of thought, it would usher in the millennium.
Bathing and brushing to correct the secretions, or remove unhealthy exhalations from the cuticle, receive a useful rebuke from Christian healing, that makes not clean the outside of the platter, and a hint from the Irish emigrant, whose filth has not affected his health because of the correspondence of mind and body. To the mind equally gross, dirt gives less uneasiness. ”

“ One may be clean superficially, that is one may scrub enough and yet vitally be very far from clean. We know, although it is of the greatest assistance to keep the skin free and vigorous so that it is able to do its part of the house-cleaning work for our systems, that vital cleanliness, clean, strong, internal organs performing their work with the vigor of well-constructed engines, uninjured [150] by foolish clothing, unharmed by impure food, keen for opportunity to grow and be vigorous—we know, I say that that cleanliness is more important than skin cleanliness. ”

“ Bathing.—The solid material from the perspiration, which is left on the skin, together with the oil from the oil glands and the dirt from the outside, tends to close up the pores and develop offensive odors. Keeping the skin clean is, for these reasons, necessary from both a health and a social standpoint. While one should always keep clean, the frequency of the bath will depend upon the season, the occupation of the individual, and the nature and amount of the perspiration. ”

“ At any rate, the man or woman who demands cleanliness without and within, this cleanliness meaning pure air, pure water, pure food, must of necessity have a stronger body and therefore a clearer mind (both being nearer what God meant for body and mind) than the one who has cared little for law, and so lived oblivious to the consequences of breaking it. ”

“ XI. CLEANLINESS. Both the health and comfort of a family depend, to a great extent, on cleanliness of the person and the family surroundings. True cleanliness of person involves the scientific treatment of the skin. This is the most complicated organ of the body, and one through which the health is affected more than through any other; and no persons can or will he be so likely to take proper care of it as those by whom its construction and functions are understood. ”

“ The bath with water from the well or from the fountain, the bodily and ritual bath, does not take the place of the essential inner purification, and it is better to eat with hands soiled with sweat than to repel a hungry brother with hands washed in three waters. Filth issues from the body, disappears into the vaults and enriches orchards and fields. But there are many finely dressed gentlemen so full to the throat with another sort of filth that the stench of it comes out with the words from their mouths, vainly washed and rinsed. ”

“ I cannot but admire them for their courage in doing it, but, certainly, from the point of view of cleanliness my view is quite different; for, really and truly, I have always failed to see where the "cleanliness" comes in. Persons belonging to the wealthier classes have small baths of their own, in the steaming hot liquid of which bask in turns the family itself, their friends, the children and servants; and probably the same water is used again and again for two or three days in succession. ”

“ When the unnatural habits of life alluded to have lowered the vitality and favored the accumulation of waste matter and poisons to such an extent that the sluggish bowels, kidneys, skin and the other organs of elimination are unable to keep a clean house, Nature has to resort to other, more radical means of purification or we should choke in our own impurities. These forcible housecleanings of Nature are colds, catarrh, skin eruptions, diarrheas, boils, ulcers, abnormal perspiration, hemorrhages and many other forms of inflammatory febrile diseases. ”

“ But I do claim that we can and should aid Nature's healing efforts not only by the right mental attitude and the prayer of faith, but also by natural living and many different methods of physical treatment.
Mental attitude alone will not clean the watch. To concentrate on the work of housecleaning without using broom, soap and water is not sufficient. Reason and common sense teach us that the removal of physical, material encumbrances can be, to say the least, accelerated by the use of physical or physiological agents. ”

“ Farmers and miners, perhaps more than any other class of laborers, who are continually in contact with the earth, need the elevating influence, physical and spiritual, of a daily bath.
From a moral and hygienic standpoint the matter of cleanliness, which is next to godliness, is of great importance, and it is fine evidence of intellectual progress and spiritual growth when men use more water and soap at the end of the day’s work. ”

“ And you can really keep yourself cleaner with a tumbler of hot water and a rough towel and rubbing, than with a whole apparatus of bath and soap and sponge, without rubbing. It is quite nonsense to say that anybody need be dirty. Patients have been kept as clean by these means on a long voyage, when a basin full of water could not be afforded, and when they could not be moved out of their berths, as if all the appurtenances of home had been at hand.
Washing, however, with a large quantity of water has quite other effects than those of mere cleanliness. ”

“ From this it appears that persons attentive to the cleanliness of their bodies and habitations are, in general, more healthy, and less subject to disease, than those who live in filth and nastiness; and it is further remarked, that cleanliness carries with it, throughout all the branches of domestic administration, habits of order and arrangement, which are the chief means and first elements of happiness. ”

“ Many houses stink so bad, that a clean man could not live in them, nor hardly breathe in them. Some men were raised in stink, and so were their fathers before them. I would not, attempt to bless any body in such places. You may inquire why I talk so. Can you talk in a better style about dirt, nastiness, and filth? If you can, I cannot, and at the same time make people feel enough upon the subject to put away their filth and be clean. ”

“ It is only logical that we must pay special attention to cleanliness in those parts that have the greatest number of sudorific glands, such as for example the axillæ and the toes of the feet. Circumstances often, as when on a journey, do not allow of the luxury of a complete bath, and in such cases we must be content to wash the body with water and soap, and to rub down with a rough towel and brush, paying particular attention to the axillæ and feet. ”

“ This, being visible, appeals to the sense of sight; but gives no evidence of the gaseous and liquid refuse matter which was deposited in the material, and has been allowed to evaporate by the removal of the clothing. Thus we may see how many so-called cleanly people fall hopelessly short of true cleanliness. If the individual keeps the surface of the body clean, by frequent ablutions, the evil is lessened; but how many people bathe the body daily? ”

“ We should therefore always insist upon the degree of cleanliness which we understand to promote the greatest possible prevention and dilution of filth, as our hygienic aim; and we shall furthermore do well, if we remove not only from our houses, but from the neighborhood, and keep removed, all that seems to us to be dirt, and offends our innate æsthetic feelings. ”

“ Frequent washings with cold water, with the occasional use of warm water and soap, are absolutely necessary to cleanliness.
4. Change of Linen.
A frequent change of linen is another essential of cleanliness. It avails little to wash the body if we inclose it the next minute in soiled garments. It is not in the power of every one to wear fine and elegant clothes, but we can all, under ordinary circumstances, afford clean shirts, drawers, and stockings. Never sleep in any garment worn during the day; and your night-dress should be well aired every morning. ”

“ All that such a waste-encumbered watch or body needs, in order to restore normal functions, is a good cleaning. Pure food diet, fasting, systematic exercise, deep breathing, cold bathing and the right mental attitude are usually sufficient to perform this physical housecleaning and to restore perfect health. ”

“ The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural nor necessary than would be the process of taking a fish Ablutions for cleanliness out of water every day and covering it with dirt in order to make it thrive more vigorously in its own element. “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” but washing should be only for the purpose of keeping the body clean, and this can be effected without scrubbing the is whole surface daily. Water is not the natural habitat of humanity. ”

“ As a sign of a changed life I cleanse you in water, but as well as that bathing you must also be cleansed with the spirit. The spirit will cleanse you as a master cleanses his threshing-floor when he gathers the wheat and burns the chaff. ”