Flesh Foods
153
Testimonies for the Church 1:206-207
I saw that your views concerning swine’s flesh [
This remarkable
testimony was written October 21, 1858, nearly five years before the
great vision of 1863, in which the light upon health reform was given.
When the right time came, the subject was given in a manner to move
all our people. How wonderful are the wisdom and goodness of God!
It might be as wrong to crowd the milk, salt, and sugar question now,
as the pork question in 1858.—J. W., note to second edition.
] would
prove no injury if you have them to yourselves; but in your judgment
and opinion you have made this question a test, and your actions have
plainly shown your faith in this matter. If God requires His people to
abstain from swine’s flesh, He will convict them on the matter. He
is just as willing to show His honest children their duty, as to show
their duty to individuals upon whom He has not laid the burden of His
work. If it is the duty of the church to abstain from swine’s flesh, God
will discover it to more than two or three. He will teach His church
their duty.
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 47-48
Those who use flesh-meats freely, do not always have an unclouded
brain and an active intellect, because the use of the flesh of animals
[70]
tends to cause a grossness of body, and to benumb the finer sensibilities
of the mind. The liability to disease is increased by flesh-eating. We
do not hesitate to say that meat is not essential to the maintenance of
health and strength.
Those who subsist largely upon meat can not avoid sometimes
eating flesh which is more or less diseased. In many cases, the process
of fitting animals for market produces an unhealthy condition. Shut
away from light and pure air, inhaling the atmosphere of filthy stables,
the entire body soon becomes contaminated with foul matter; and
when such flesh is received into the human body, it corrupts the blood,
and disease is produced. If the person already has impure blood, this
unhealthful condition will be greatly aggravated. But few can be made
to believe that it is the meat they have eaten which has poisoned their
blood and caused their suffering. Many die of diseases wholly due to
meat-eating, when the real cause is scarcely suspected by themselves
or others. Some do not immediately feel its effects, but this is no