Knowledge of First Principles
51
Every mother should acquaint herself with the laws that govern
physical life. She should teach her children that the indulgence of
animal appetites produces a morbid action in the system and weakens
their moral sensibilities. Parents should seek for light and truth, as for
hid treasures. To parents is committed the sacred charge of forming
the characters of their children in childhood. They should be to their
children both teacher and physician. They should understand nature’s
wants and nature’s laws. A careful conformity to the laws God has
implanted in our being will ensure health, and there will not be a
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breaking of the constitution which will tempt the afflicted to call for a
physician to patch them up again.
Many seem to think they have a right to treat their own bodies as
they please, but they forget that their bodies are not their own. Their
Creator, who formed them, has claims upon them that they cannot
rightly throw off. Every needless transgression of the laws which
God has established in our being is virtually a violation of the law of
God, and is as great a sin in the sight of Heaven as to break the Ten
Commandments. Ignorance upon this important subject is sin; the
light is now beaming upon us, and we are without excuse if we do
not cherish the light and become intelligent in regard to these things,
which it is our highest earthly interest to understand.