44
Counsels on Diet and Foods
sick and do not know that their own wrong habits are causing them
immense suffering.
There are but few as yet who are aroused sufficiently to understand
how much their habits of diet have to do with their health, their char-
acters, their usefulness in this world, and their eternal destiny. I saw
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that it is the duty of those who have received the light from heaven,
and have realized the benefit of walking in it, to manifest a greater
interest for those who are still suffering for want of knowledge. Sab-
bathkeepers who are looking for the soon appearing of their Saviour
should be the last to manifest a lack of interest in this great work of
reform. Men and women must be instructed, and ministers and people
should feel that the burden of the work rests upon them to agitate the
subject, and urge it home upon others.—
Testimonies for the Church
1:487-489, 1867
68. Physical habits have a great deal to do with the success of every
individual. The more careful you are in your diet, the more simple and
unstimulating the food that sustains the body in its harmonious action,
the more clear will be your conception of duty. There needs to be a
careful review of every habit, every practice, lest a morbid condition
of the body shall cast a cloud upon everything.—
Letter 93, 1898
69. Our physical health is maintained by that which we eat; if our
appetites are not under the control of a sanctified mind, if we are not
temperate in all our eating and drinking, we shall not be in a state
of mental and physical soundness to study the word with a purpose
to learn what saith the Scripture—what shall I do to inherit eternal
life? Any unhealthful habit will produce an unhealthful condition in
the system, and the delicate, living machinery of the stomach will be
injured, and will not be able to do its work properly. The diet has
much to do with the disposition to enter into temptation and commit
sin.—
Manuscript 129, 1901
70. If the Saviour of men, with His divine strength, felt the need of
prayer, how much more should feeble, sinful mortals feel the necessity
of prayer—fervent, constant prayer! When Christ was the most fiercely
beset by temptation, He ate nothing. He committed Himself to God,
and through earnest prayer, and perfect submission to the will of His
Father, came off conqueror. Those who profess the truth for these last
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days, above every other class of professed Christians, should imitate
the great Exemplar in prayer.