Teaching Health Principles
367
Many of our people had lost their interest in the Reformer, and
letters were daily received with this discouraging request, “Please
discontinue my Reformer.” ... We could not raise an interest anywhere
in the West to obtain subscribers for the Health Reformer. We saw
that the writers in the Reformer were going away from the people,
and leaving them behind. If we take positions that conscientious
Christians, who are indeed reformers, cannot adopt, how can we expect
to benefit the class whom we can reach only from a health standpoint.—
Testimonies for the Church 3:18-21, 1870
[468]
Patience, Caution, and Consistency Necessary in Reform Movements
We must go no faster than we can take those with us whose con-
sciences and intellects are convinced of the truths we advocate. We
must meet the people where they are. Some of us have been many
years in arriving at our present position in health reform. It is slow
work to obtain a reform in diet. We have powerful appetites to meet;
for the world is given to gluttony. If we should allow the people as
much time as we have required to come up to the present advanced
state in reform, we would be very patient with them, and allow them
to advance step by step, as we have done, until their feet are firmly
established upon the health reform platform. But we should be very
cautious not to advance too fast, lest we be obliged to retrace our steps.
In reforms, we would better come one step short of the mark than to
go one step beyond it. And if there is error at all, let it be on the side
next to the people.
Above all things, we should not with our pens advocate positions
that we do not put to a practical test in our own families, upon our own
tables. This is a dissimulation, a species of hypocrisy. In Michigan
we can get along better without salt, sugar, and milk, than can many
who are situated in the Far West or in the Far East, where there is a
scarcity of fruit.... We know that a free use of these things is positively
injurious to health, and in many cases we think that if they were not
used at all, a much better state of health would be enjoyed.
But at present our burden is not upon these things. The people
are so far behind that we see it is all they can bear to have us draw
the line upon their injurious indulgences and stimulating narcotics.
We bear positive testimony against tobacco, spirituous liquors, snuff,