184
Counsels on Diet and Foods
and against their children, and God will hold them accountable.—
Testimonies for the Church 3:141, 1873
359. When parents and children meet at the final reckoning, what a
scene will be presented! Thousands of children who have been slaves
to appetite and debasing vice, whose lives are moral wrecks, will stand
face to face with the parents who made them what they are. Who but
the parents must bear this fearful responsibility? Did the Lord make
these youth corrupt? Oh, no! Who, then, has done this fearful work?
Were not the sins of the parents transmitted to the children in perverted
appetites and passions? and was not the work completed by those who
neglected to train them according to the pattern which God has given?
Just as surely as they exist, all these parents will pass in review before
God.—
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 76, 77, 1890
[239]
Observations While Traveling
360. While upon the cars, I heard parents remark that the appetites
of their children were delicate, and unless they had meat and cake, they
could not eat. When the noon meal was taken, I observed the quality
of food given to these children. It was fine wheaten bread, sliced ham
coated with black pepper, spiced pickles, cake, and preserves. The
pale, sallow complexion of these children plainly indicated the abuses
the stomach was suffering. Two of these children observed another
family of children eating cheese with their food, and they lost their
appetite for what was before them until their indulgent mother begged
a piece of the cheese to give to her children, fearing the dear children
would fail to make out their meal. The mother remarked, My children
love this or that, so much, and I let them have what they want; for the
appetite craves the kinds of food the system requires.
This might be correct if the appetite had never been perverted.
There is a natural and a depraved appetite. Parents who have taught
their children to eat unhealthful, stimulating food, all their lives, until
the taste is perverted, and they crave clay, slate pencils, burned cof-
fee, tea grounds, cinnamon, cloves, and spices, cannot claim that the
appetite demands what the system requires. The appetite has been
falsely educated, until it is depraved. The fine organs of the stomach
have been stimulated and burned, until they have lost their delicate
sensitiveness. Simple, healthful food seems to them insipid. The