16
Fundamentals of Christian Education
did not create the race in its present feeble condition. This state of
things is not the work of Providence, but the work of man; it has been
brought about by wrong habits and abuses, by violating the laws that
God has made to govern man’s existence. Through the temptation to
indulge appetite, Adam and Eve first fell from their high, holy, and
happy estate. And it is through the same temptation that the race have
become enfeebled. They have permitted appetite and passion to take
the throne, and to bring into subjection reason and intellect.
The violation of physical law, and the consequence, human suf-
fering, have so long prevailed that men and women look upon the
present state of sickness, suffering, debility, and premature death as
the appointed lot of humanity. Man came from the hand of his Creator,
perfect and beautiful in form, and so filled with vital force that it was
more than a thousand years before his corrupt appetites and passions,
and general violations of physical law, were sensibly felt upon the
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race. More recent generations have felt the pressure of infirmity and
disease still more rapidly and heavily with every generation. The vital
forces have been greatly weakened by the indulgence of appetite and
lustful passion.
The patriarchs from Adam to Noah, with but few exceptions, lived
nearly a thousand years. Since the days of Noah, the length of life has
been tapering. Those suffering with disease were brought to Christ
from every city, town, and village for Him to heal; for they were
afflicted with all manner of diseases. And disease has been steadily on
the increase through successive generations since that period. Because
of the continued violation of the laws of life, mortality has increased
to a fearful extent. The years of man have been shortened, so that the
present generation pass to the grave, even before the age at which the
generations that lived the first few thousand years after the creation
came upon the stage of action.
Disease has been transmitted from parents to children, from gen-
eration to generation. Infants in the cradle are miserably afflicted
because of the sins of their parents, which have lessened their vital
force. Their wrong habits of eating and dressing, and their general dis-
sipation, are transmitted as an inheritance to their children. Many are
born insane, deformed, blind, deaf, and a very large class are deficient
in intellect. The strange absence of principle which characterizes this
generation, and which is shown in their disregard of the laws of life