432
Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
is disobedient to the law of God and to the laws of health. Appetite
conquers him; inclination carries him away. It is easier for him to allow
the powers of evil, which are always active, to drag him backward,
than to struggle against them, and go forward. Dissipation, disease,
and death follow. This is the history of many lives that might have
been useful in the cause of God and humanity.
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 44-45
Against every transgression of the laws of life, nature will utter her
protest. She bears abuse as long as she can; but finally the retribution
comes, and it falls upon the mental as well as the physical powers. Nor
does it end with the transgressor; the effects of his indulgence are seen
in his offspring, and thus the evil is passed down from generation to
generation.
The youth of today are a sure index to the future of society; and
as we view them, what can we hope for that future? The majority are
fond of amusement and averse to work. They lack moral courage to
deny self and to respond to the claims of duty. They have but little
self-control, and become excited and angry on the slightest occasion.
Very many in every age and station of life are without principle or
conscience; and with their idle, spendthrift habits they are rushing into
vice and are corrupting society, until our world is becoming a second
Sodom. If the appetites and passions were under the control of reason
and religion, society would present a widely different aspect. God
never designed that the present woeful condition of things should exist;
it has been brought about through the gross violation of nature’s laws.
Unpublished Testimonies, January 11, 1897 (Healthful Living, 20)
Every law governing the human machinery is to be considered just
as truly divine in origin, in character, and in importance as the word of
God. Every careless action, any abuse put upon the wonderful mecha-
nism, by disregarding His specified laws of the human habitation, is a
violation of God’s law. This law embraces the treatment of the entire
being.