Flesh Foods
149
and He gave them the bread of heaven. Men did eat angels’ food, but
they craved the flesh-pots of Egypt, and mourned and cried for flesh,
notwithstanding that the Lord had promised them if they would submit
to His will, He would carry them into the land of Canaan and establish
them there, a pure, holy, happy people, and there should not be a feeble
one in all their tribes, for He would take away all sickness from among
them. But, although they had a plain thus saith the Lord, they mourned
and wept and murmured and complained until the Lord was wroth
with them, and because they were so determined to have the flesh of
dead animals, He gave them the very diet He had withheld from them.
The Lord would have given them flesh if it had been essential for
their health; but He created and redeemed them, and led them a long
journey in the wilderness to educate and discipline and train them into
correct habits. The Lord understood what the influence of flesh-eating
is upon the human system. He would have a people that would, in
their physical appearance, bear the divine credentials notwithstanding
their long journey.
When I read your letter, I was forcibly reminded of the complain-
ings of the children of Israel because they were not favored with a meat
diet. The diet of animals is vegetables and grains; must the vegetables
be animalized? Must they be incorporated into the system before you
can get them? Must we obtain our vegetable diet by eating the flesh of
dead creatures?
God provided fruit in its natural state for our first parents. He gave
Adam charge of the garden to dress it, and to care for it, saying, “To
you it shall be for meat“: one animal shall not destroy another for food.
After the fall, the eating of flesh was suffered, in order to shorten the
period of the existence of the long-lived race. It was allowed because
of the hardness of the hearts of men.
One of the great errors that many insist upon is, that muscular
strength is dependent upon animal food. But the simple grains, fruits
of the trees and vegetables have all the nutritive properties necessary
to make good blood. This a flesh diet can not do.
When a limb is broken, physicians recommend their patients not
to eat meat, as there will be danger of inflammation setting in.
My brother, after all the light that has been given on the diet
question, your lamentations because you can not exercise freedom in