120
Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
as they grow up, are governed by impulse, slaves to appetite. When
they take their place in society, and begin life for themselves, they are
powerless to resist temptation. In the glutton, the tobacco-devotee,
the wine-bibber, and the inebriate, we see the evil results of erroneous
education and of self-indulgence.
When we hear the sad lamentation of Christian men and women
over the terrible evils of intemperance, the questions at once arise:
Who have educated the youth? who have fostered in them these unruly
appetites? who have neglected the solemn responsibility of forming
their character for usefulness in this life, and for the society of heavenly
angels in the next?
When parents and children meet at the final reckoning, what a
scene will be presented! Thousands of children who have been slaves
to appetite and debasing vice, whose lives are moral wrecks, will stand
face to face with the parents who made them what they are. Who but
the parents must bear this fearful responsibility? Did the Lord make
these youth corrupt?—Oh, no! Who, then, has done this fearful work?
Were not the sins of the parents transmitted to the children in perverted
appetites and passions? and was not the work completed by those who
neglected to train them according to the pattern which God has given?
Just as surely as they exist, all these parents will pass in review before
God.
Testimonies for the Church 3:563
Many mothers who deplore the intemperance which exists every-
where, do not look deep enough to see the cause. They are daily
preparing a variety of dishes and highly-seasoned food, which tempt
the appetite and encourage overeating. The tables of our American
people are generally prepared in a manner to make drunkards. Appetite
is the ruling principle with a large class. Whoever will indulge appetite
in eating too often, and food not of a healthful quality, is weakening his
power to resist the clamors of appetite and passion in other respects in
proportion as he has strengthened the propensity to incorrect habits of
eating, Mothers need to be impressed with their obligation to God and
to the world to furnish society with children having well-developed
characters. Men and women who come upon the stage of action with
firm principles will be fitted to stand unsullied amid the moral pol-