Chapter 72—Safeguarding the Health
Health is a blessing of which few appreciate the value; yet upon it
the efficiency of our mental and physical powers largely depends. Our
impulses and passions have their seat in the body, and it must be kept
in the best condition physically and under the most spiritual influences
in order that our talents may be put to the highest use. Anything that
lessens physical strength enfeebles the mind, and makes it less capable
of discriminating between right and wrong.
The misuse of our physical powers shortens the time in which our
lives can be used for the glory of God, and it unfits us to accomplish
the work God has given us to do. By allowing ourselves to form wrong
habits, by keeping late hours, by gratifying appetite at the expense of
health, we lay the foundation for feebleness....
Those who thus shorten their lives and unfit themselves for service
by disregarding nature’s laws, are guilty of robbery toward God. And
they are robbing their fellow men also. The opportunity of blessing
others, the very work for which God sent them into the world, has
by their own course of action been cut short. And they have unfitted
themselves to do even that which in a briefer period of time they might
have accomplished. The Lord holds us guilty when by our injurious
habits we thus deprive the world of good.—
The Review and Herald,
June 20, 1912
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