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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
self-control. Tired nerves need rest and quiet. Nature needs time to
recuperate her exhausted energies. But if her forces are goaded on by
the use of stimulants, there is, whenever this process is repeated, a
lessening of real force. For a time more may be accomplished under
the unnatural stimulus, but gradually it becomes more difficult to rouse
the energies to the desired point, and at last exhausted nature can no
longer respond.
The habit of drinking tea and coffee is a greater evil than is often
suspected. Many who have accustomed themselves to the use of
stimulating drinks, suffer from headache and nervous prostration, and
lose much time on account of sickness. They imagine they can not
live without the stimulus, and are ignorant of its effect upon health.
What makes it the more dangerous is, that its evil effects are so often
attributed to other causes.
Through the use of stimulants, the whole system suffers. The
nerves are unbalanced, the liver is morbid in its action, the quality and
circulation of the blood are affected, and the skin becomes inactive
and sallow. The mind, too, is injured. The immediate influence of
these stimulants is to excite the brain to undue activity, only to leave
it weaker and less capable of exertion. The after-effect is prostration,
not only mental and physical, but moral. As a result we see nervous
men and women, of unsound judgment and unbalanced mind. They
often manifest a hasty, impatient, accusing spirit, viewing the faults
of others as through a magnifying glass, and utterly unable to discern
their own defects.
When these tea and coffee users meet together for special enter-
tainment, the effects of their pernicious habit are manifest. All partake
freely of the favorite beverages, and as the stimulating influence is
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felt, their tongues are loosened, and they begin the wicked work of
talking against others. Their words are not few or well chosen. The
tid-bits of gossip are passed around, too often the poison of scandal as
well. These thoughtless gossipers forget that they have a witness. An
unseen Watcher is writing their words in the books of heaven. All these
unkind criticisms, these exaggerated reports, these envious feelings,
expressed under the excitement of the cup of tea, Jesus registers as
against Himself. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”