620
Counsels on Health
Where Intemperance Begins
We repeat, intemperance commences at our tables. The appetite is
indulged until its indulgence becomes second nature. By the use of
tea and coffee an appetite is formed for tobacco, and this encourages
the appetite for liquors.
Many parents, to avoid the task of patiently educating their children
to habits of self-denial, and teaching them how to make a right use of
all the blessings of God, indulge them in eating and drinking whenever
they please. Appetite and selfish indulgence, unless positively re-
strained, grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength. When
these children commence life for themselves and take their place in
society, they are powerless to resist temptation. Moral impurity and
gross iniquity abound everywhere. The temptation to indulge taste and
to gratify inclination has not lessened with the increase of years, and
youth in general are governed by impulse and are slaves to appetite.
In the glutton, the tobacco devotee, the winebibber, and the inebriate,
we see the evil results of defective education.
When we hear the sad lamentations of Christian men and women
over the terrible evils of intemperance, the questions at once arise in
the mind: Who have educated the youth and given them their stamp
of character? Who have fostered in them the appetites they have
acquired? ...
[608]
I saw that Satan, through his temptations, is instituting ever-
changing fashions and attractive parties and amusements, that mothers
may be led to devote their God-given probationary time to frivolous
matters, so that they can have but little opportunity to educate and
properly train their children. Our youth want mothers who will teach
them from their very cradles to control passion, to deny appetite, and
to overcome selfishness. They need line upon line and precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little.
Direction was given to the Hebrews how to train their children to
avoid the idolatry and wickedness of the heathen nations: “Therefore
shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul, and bind
them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between
your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way,