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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
irritating influence of fiery spices. With the stomach in such a state,
there is a craving for something more to meet the demands of the
appetite, something stronger, and still stronger. Next you find your
sons out in the street learning to smoke.
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 23
Daniel’s parents had trained him in his childhood to habits of strict
temperance. They had taught him that he must conform to nature’s laws
in all his habits; that his eating and drinking had a direct influence upon
his physical, mental, and moral nature, and that he was accountable
to God for his capabilities; for he held them all as a gift from God,
and must not, by any course of action, dwarf or cripple them. As the
result of this teaching, the law of God was exalted in his mind, and
reverenced in his heart.
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 46-47
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.