42
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene
not take the trouble to do this. I say to such, It is time for you to
rouse your dormant energies, and inform yourselves. Do not think the
time wasted which is devoted to obtaining a thorough knowledge and
experience in the preparation of healthful, palatable food. No matter
how long an experience you have had in cooking, if you still have the
responsibilities of a family, it is your duty to learn how to care for
them properly. If necessary, go to some good cook, and put yourself
under her instruction until you are mistress of the art.
A wrong course of eating or drinking destroys health, and with
it the sweetness of life. O, how many times has a good meal, as
it is called, been purchased at the expense of sleep and quiet rest!
Thousands, by indulging a perverted appetite, have brought on fever
or some other acute disease, which has resulted in death. That was
enjoyment purchased at an immense cost.
Because it is wrong to eat merely to gratify a perverted taste, it
does not follow that we should be indifferent in regard to our food. It
is a matter of the highest importance. No one should adopt an impov-
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erished diet. Many are debilitated from disease, and need nourishing,
well-cooked food. Health reformers, above all others, should be care-
ful to avoid extremes. The body must have sufficient nourishment.
The God who gives his beloved sleep has furnished them also suitable
food to sustain the physical system in a healthy condition.
Many turn from light and knowledge, and sacrifice principle to
taste. They eat when the system needs no food, and at irregular inter-
vals, because they have no moral stamina to resist inclination. As the
result, the abused stomach rebels, and suffering follows. Regularity
in eating is very important for health of body and serenity of mind.
Never should a morsel of food pass the lips between meals.
Many indulge in the pernicious habit of eating just before retiring.
They may have taken their regular meals, yet because they feel a sense
of faintness, they think they must have a lunch. By indulging this
wrong practice it becomes a habit, and they feel as though they could
not sleep without food. In many cases this faintness comes because
the digestive organs have been too severely taxed through the day
in disposing of the great quantities of food forced upon them. These
organs need a period of entire rest from labor, to recover their exhausted
energies. A second meal should never be eaten until the stomach has
had time to recover from the labor of digesting the preceding meal.