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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
several small restaurants in different parts of our large cities. The
smaller restaurants will recommend the principles of health reform
just as well as the larger establishment, and will be much more easily
managed. We are not commissioned to feed the world, but we are
instructed to educate the people. In the smaller restaurants there will
not be so much work to do, and the helpers will have more time to
devote to the study of the Word, more time to learn how to do their
work well, and more time to answer the inquiries of the patrons who
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are desirous of learning about the principles of health reform.
If we fulfill the purpose of God in this work, the righteousness of
Christ will go before us, and the glory of the Lord will be our rereward.
But if there is no ingathering of souls, if the helpers themselves are
not spiritually benefited, if they are not glorifying God in word and
deed, why should we open and maintain such establishments? If we
can not conduct our restaurants to God’s glory, if we can not exert
through them a strong religious influence, it would be better for us to
close them up, and use the talents of our youth in other lines of work.
But our restaurants can be so conducted that they will be the means
of saving souls. Let us seek the Lord earnestly for humility of heart,
that He may teach us how to walk in the light of His counsel, how to
understand His word, how to accept it, and how to put it into practice.
There is danger that our restaurants will be conducted in such a
way that our helpers will work very hard day after day and week after
week, and yet not be able to point to any good accomplished. This
matter needs careful consideration. We have no right to bind our young
people up in a work that yields no fruit to the glory of God.
There is danger that the restaurant work, though regarded as a
wonderfully successfully way of doing good, will be so conducted that
it will promote merely the physical well-being of those whom it serves.
A work may apparently bear the features of supreme excellence, but it
is not good in God’s sight unless it is performed with an earnest desire
to do His will and fulfill His purpose. If God is not recognized as the
author and end of our actions, they are weighed in the balances of the
sanctuary and found wanting.