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Neglect of Health Reform
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Providence has thus ordained it. If you could have your eyes opened
and could see the steps taken in your lifetime to walk right into your
present condition of poor health you would be astonished at your
blindness in not seeing the real state of the case before. You have
created unnatural appetites, and do not derive half that enjoyment
from your food which you would if you had not used your appetites
wrongfully. You have perverted nature, and have been suffering the
consequences, and painful has it been.
Nature bears abuse as long as she can without resisting, then
she arouses and makes a mighty effort to rid herself of the encum-
brances and evil treatment she has suffered. Then come headache,
chills, fevers, nervousness, paralysis, and other evils too numerous
to mention. A wrong course of eating or drinking destroys health,
and with it the sweetness of life. Oh, how many times have you
purchased what you called a good meal at the expense of a fevered
system, loss of appetite, and loss of sleep! Inability to enjoy food, a
sleepless night, hours of suffering—all for a meal in which taste was
gratified! Thousands have indulged their perverted appetites, have
eaten a good meal, as they called it, and as the result, have brought
on a fever, or some other acute disease, and certain death. That was
enjoyment purchased at immense cost. Yet many have done this,
and these self-murderers have been eulogized by their friends and
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the minister, and carried directly to heaven at their death. What
a thought! Gluttons in heaven! No, no; such will never enter the
pearly gates of the golden city of God. Such will never be exalted
to the right hand of Jesus the precious Saviour, the suffering Man
of Calvary, whose life was one of constant self-denial and sacrifice.
There is a place appointed for all such among the unworthy, who
can have no part in the better life, the immortal inheritance.
God requires all men to render their bodies to Him a living
sacrifice, not a dead or a dying sacrifice, a sacrifice which their own
course of action is debilitating, filling with impurities and disease.
God calls for a living sacrifice. The body, He tells us, is the temple
of the Holy Ghost, the habitation of His Spirit, and He requires all
who bear His image to take care of their bodies for the purpose of
His service and His glory. “Ye are not your own,” says the inspired
apostle, “ye are bought with a price;” wherefore “glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” In order to do this, add to