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Education
his lungs properly he will suffer the results of imperfect respiration. So
the necessity of cleanliness may be understood, and needful facilities
may be supplied; but all will be without avail unless put to use. The
great requisite in teaching these principles is to impress the pupil with
their importance so that he will conscientiously put them in practice.
By a most beautiful and impressive figure, God’s word shows the
regard He places upon our physical organism and the responsibility
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resting on us to preserve it in the best condition: “Know ye not that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have
from God? and ye are not your own.” “If any man defile the temple
of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which
temple ye are.”
1 Corinthians 6:19
, R.V., margin;
3:17
.
Let pupils be impressed with the thought that the body is a temple
in which God desires to dwell, that it must be kept pure, the abiding
place of high and noble thoughts. As in the study of physiology
they see that they are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made” (
Psalm
139:14
), they will be inspired with reverence. Instead of marring God’s
handiwork, they will have an ambition to make all that is possible of
themselves, in order to fulfill the Creator’s glorious plan. Thus they
will come to regard obedience to the laws of health, not as a matter of
sacrifice or self-denial, but as it really is, an inestimable privilege and
blessing.
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