Relation of Diet to Health and Morals
39
reverence God and honor the right, learned that lesson before there
was time for the world to stamp its images of sin upon the soul. Those
of mature age are generally as insensible to new impressions as is the
hardened rock; but youth is impressible. Youth is the time to acquire
knowledge for daily practice through life; a right character may then
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be easily formed. It is the time to establish good habits, to gain and to
hold the power of self-control. Youth is the sowing time, and the seed
sown determines the harvest, both for this life and the life to come.
Parents should make it their first object to become intelligent in
regard to the proper manner of dealing with their children, that they
may secure to them sound minds in sound bodies. The principles
of temperance should be carried out in all the details of home life.
Self-denial should be taught to children, and enforced upon them, so
far as consistent, from babyhood. Teach the little ones that they should
eat to live, not live to eat; that appetite must be held in abeyance to the
will; and that the will must be governed by calm, intelligent reason.
If parents have transmitted to their children tendencies which will
make more difficult the work of educating them to be strictly tem-
perate, and of cultivating pure and virtuous habits, what a solemn
responsibility rests upon the parents to counteract that influence by
every means in their power! How diligently and earnestly should they
strive to do their duty by their unfortunate offspring! To parents is
committed the sacred trust of guarding the physical and moral con-
stitution of their children. Those who indulge a child’s appetite, and
do not teach him to control his passions, may afterward see, in the
tobacco-loving, liquor-drinking slave, whose senses are benumbed,
and whose lips utter falsehood and profanity, the terrible mistake they
have made.
It is impossible for those who give the reins to appetite to attain to
Christian perfection. The moral sensibilities of your children cannot
be easily aroused, unless you are careful in the selection of their food.
Many a mother sets a table that is a snare to her family. Flesh-meats,
butter, cheese, rich pastry, spiced foods, and condiments are freely
partaken of by both old and young. These things do their work in
deranging the stomach, exciting the nerves, and enfeebling the intellect.
The blood-making organs cannot convert such things into good blood.
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The grease cooked in the food renders it difficult of digestion. The
effect of cheese is deleterious. Fine-flour bread does not impart to the