94
Counsels on Diet and Foods
vigor. Again the apostle says, “Be not conformed to this world; but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”—[
Christian
Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 7-11
]
Counsels on Health, 19-23,
1890
Willing Ignorance of the Laws of Life
195. The strange absence of principle which characterizes this
generation, and which is shown in their disregard of the laws of life
and health, is astonishing. Ignorance prevails upon this subject, while
light is shining all round them. With the majority, their principal
anxiety is, What shall I eat? what shall I drink? and wherewith shall
I be clothed? Notwithstanding all that is said and written in regard
to how we should treat our bodies, appetite is the great law which
governs men and women generally.
The moral powers are weakened, because men and women will not
live in obedience to the laws of health, and make this great subject a
personal duty. Parents bequeath to their offspring their own perverted
habits, and loathsome diseases corrupt the blood and enervate the brain.
The majority of men and women remain in ignorance of the laws of
their being, and indulge appetite and passion at the expense of intellect
and morals, and seem willing to remain in ignorance of the result of
their violation of nature’s laws. They indulge the depraved appetite in
the use of slow poisons, which corrupt the blood, and undermine the
nervous forces, and in consequence bring upon themselves sickness
[120]
and death. Their friends call the result of this course the dispensation
of Providence. In this they insult Heaven. They rebelled against the
laws of nature, and suffered the punishment of thus abusing her laws.
Suffering and mortality now prevail everywhere, especially among
children. How great is the contrast between this generation and those
who lived during the first two thousand years!—
Testimonies for the
Church 3:140, 141, 1872
Social Results of Uncontrolled Appetite
196. 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