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Chapter 5—A Public-Health Problem
They Have Sold Their Will Power
—There is in the world a
multitude of degraded human beings, who have, by yielding in their
youth to the temptation to use tobacco and alcohol, poisoned the
tissues of the human structure, and perverted their reasoning powers,
until the result is just as Satan meant it to be. The faculties of thought
are clouded. The victims yield to the temptation for alcohol, and
they sell what reason they have for a glass of liquor.
See that man bereft of reason. What is he? He is a slave to the
will of Satan. The arch apostate imbues him with his own attributes.
He is a slave to licentiousness and violence. There is no crime that
he will not commit; for he has put into his mouth that which has
intoxicated him, and made him, while under its influence, a demon.
Look at our young men. And I write now what causes my heart
to ache. They have lost their will power. Their nerves are enfeebled,
because their power is exhausted. The ruddy glow of health is not
upon their countenances. The healthy sparkle of the eye is gone. Its
luster is lost. The wine they have drunk has enfeebled the memory.
They are like persons aged in years. The brain is no longer able to
produce its rich treasures when required.—
Manuscript 17, 1898
.
A Moral Sin and a Physical Disease
—Among the victims of
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intemperance are men of all classes and all professions. Men of high
station, of eminent talents, of great attainments, have yielded to the
indulgence of appetite, until they are helpless to resist temptation.
Some of them who were once in the possession of wealth are without
home, without friends, in suffering, misery, disease, and degradation.
They have lost their self-control. Unless a helping hand is held out
to them, they will sink lower and lower. With these self-indulgence
is not only a moral sin, but a physical disease.—
The Ministry of
Healing, 172
.
In a Desperate Situation
—The man who has formed the habit
of using intoxicants is in a desperate situation. His brain is diseased,
his will power is weakened. So far as any power in himself is
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