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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4a
Many die of disease caused wholly by meat-eating, yet the world
does not seem to be the wiser. Animals are frequently killed that have
been driven quite a distance for the slaughter. Their blood has become
heated. They are full of flesh, and have been deprived of healthy
exercise, and when they have to travel far, they become surfeited, and
exhausted, and in that condition are killed for market. Their blood is
highly inflamed, and those who eat of their meat, eat poison. Some are
not immediately affected, while others are attacked with severe pain,
and die from fever, cholera, or some unknown disease. Very many
animals are sold for the city market known to be diseased by those
who have sold them, and those who buy them are not always ignorant
of the matter. Especially in larger cities this is practiced to a great
extent, and meat-eaters know not that they are eating diseased animals.
Some animals that are brought to the slaughter seem to realize by
instinct what is to take place, and they become furious, and literally
mad. They are killed while in that state, and their flesh prepared for
market. Their meat is poison, and has produced, in those who have
eaten it, cramp, convulsions, apoplexy, and sudden death. Yet the
cause of all this suffering is not attributed to the meat. Some animals
are inhumanly treated while being brought to the slaughter. They are
literally tortured, and after they have endured many hours of extreme
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suffering, are butchered. Swine have been prepared for market even
while the plague was upon them, and their poisonous flesh has spread
contagious diseases, and great mortality has followed.
The body, which God calls his temple, should be preserved in
as healthy a condition as possible. Many act as though they had a
right to treat their own bodies as they please. They do not realize
that God has claims upon them. They are required to glorify him in
their bodies and spirits, which are his. While they give themselves
up to the gratification of unhealthy appetites, and thus bring disease
upon themselves, they cannot render to God acceptable service. None
should remain in ignorance of God’s claims. All his promises are on
conditions of obedience. All should work for themselves. They should
do that which God requires them to do, and not leave God to do for
them that which he has left for them to do. It is a sacred duty which
God has enjoined upon reasonable beings, formed in his image, to keep
that image in as perfect a state as possible. Those who bring disease
upon themselves, by self-gratification, have not healthy bodies and