Religion and Health by Henry Ward Beecher

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 3, 1866

Religion and Health

By Henry Ward Beecher

RELIGION AND HEALTH.—Henry Ward Beecher, in his Lecture Room Talks in the Independent, thinks that health is the first step towards a healthy religious experience. He says:

“You will say, perhaps, ‘What, then, is there no religion for the infirm and sick?’ Yes; but that does not alter the fact that in their religious experiences they are more or less gloomy and desponding. It is not always the effect of disease to produce gloom and despondency; sometimes it hightens the sensibilities; but as a general thing religious experiences are sounder and more rational in a healthy mind and a healthy body. So, I say that, as the first step, you must be healthy, if you expect to have broad and deep and sweet experiences. Health is a Christian duty. I have heard persons praying, and praying, and praying for the presence of God; and I have thought that if they would eat less, and work more, and spend twice as much time in the open air, they would not need to pray so much. What they wanted was not answer to prayer, but simple obedience to the laws of God in nature.”