It is commonly assumed that one may lay aside the spiritual, make his fortune or have his fling, then pick up the spiritual where he left if and live a spiritual life. It is true that many an individ-ual has returned to godliness from ungodliness. It is also true that any individual who determines to do it can do so. But, it is often the case that an individual so kills the spiritual within him that he finds it well-nigh impossible to revive it.
     But, says an individual, I do not oppose the spiritual, I am not antagonistic to it; I simply don’t have time for it now. That the end of such a road is spiritual  death—whether  or  not  every individualtravels the road to its end—may be illustrated by something that happened in the life of Charles Darwin in regard to appreciation of beauty. He said that:
     Up to the age  of thirty or beyond it, poetry of many kinds gave me great pleasure; and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that pictures formerly gave me considerable, and music every great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste for pictures or music...My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive...If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the part of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the motional part of our nature.
     Most members of the church do not rush into apostasy and spiritual suicide. Of those who do depart from the faith very few of them started out with that purpose in mind. They simply neglected the study of the Bible, prayer, gathering around the Lord’s table, and personal work in the kingdom. They became so interested in other things that they failed to supply the inward man with spiritual sustenance. Gradually they drift to destruction.
     The Bible warns us against such carelessness. Let us follow its admonition.
     “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (Hebrews 2:1-3).
     Are you indifferent to that which builds the spiritual? Are you attempting to live mentally and spiritually upon a diet of secular reading and meditation? Think well and act wisely or a worse fate than physical death will befall you. (20th Century Christian, April 1948).