The Real Basis of Health Reform by G. H. HEALD, M. D.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 15, 1910

The Real Basis of Health Reform

By G. H. HEALD, M. D.

G. H. HEALD, M. D.

“God . . . giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” Acts 17:24, 25.

Of all God’s blessings to man, none is equal to life; for without life none of the other things would be possible. God also gave life to the animals; but to man he gave the cardinal promise of eternal life, and the power to distinguish between right and wrong.

The life God has given, man has used for various ends; so we have “beastly” lives (a slander on the beast, by the way, for beasts never misuse themselves as man does); sordid, or covetous, lives; butterfly, or pleasure-seeking, lives; ambitious lives; and useful, purposeful lives.

Every one has tendencies, perhaps, that draw him to these various forms of life; but the Christian, if he follows his Master, leads the purposeful, useful life, without ambition, without pleasure-seeking, without covetousness, and without “beastliness.”

But in all these forms of life one thing is needful to make it a success,—using the word “success” in the sense of attaining the end sought,—and that is health. Even the beastly man can get more out of life if he has comparatively good health; and some of the men who regularly live such lives go to sanitariums, baths, physical trainers, etc., to get straightened up. They need a certain amount of health in order to enjoy the life they have chosen as their ideal.

Even the sordid man needs health in order to be happy. A Rockefeller offers a million dollars to any one who can give him a new stomach, (vain offer!) and a Harriman dies in the prime of life, and in the midst of the greatest of his gigantic moves. The highest skill of America and Europe could not save him. Many others go down in failure, or do not meet with the success they might have, because of ill health.

The man of ambition, the grasper of power, political or financial, the man of affairs, the captain of industry, is at his best when he has good health. The most-talked-of man the world has ever known, our ex-president, is a man of superb health. In his most busy times he lets not a day pass without some physical exercise, on horseback, on the tennis-court, or in some other diversion. Yet at the end of the seven years’ extreme activity and anxiety and turmoil, he felt the need of a year’s vacation, and took it in the African wilds, away from reporters, office-seekers, and curiosity-mongers.

If for all these forms of life, health is needed, how about the Christian? Go to any employer of men,—in clerking, shipping, bookkeeping, digging trenches, engineering,—and, other things being equal, the employer will chose men of sound health. Think you the Ruler of the universe desires less in his service?

Some have adopted what may be called a ceremonial hygiene, as distinguished from a hygiene based on physiology. It is a system of prohibitions, such as the Saviour met in the Pharisees. When they complained because the disciples ate with unwashed hands, the Saviour laid down the principle that man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out. Matt. 15:11. Not that man may not be harmed in health by what he eats,—that was not his contention,—but that, so far as the gospel is

concerned, there is no such thing as ceremonial defilement. Such defilement is a part of the heathen religions, such as the Hindu, in which a man is defiled if he touches a flesh-eater or even if the shadow of a flesh-eater falls upon him.

God did not establish diet as a test of religion. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness.” Rom. 14:17. In Rom. 14:1-4 God expressly forbids any to quarrel over and to criticize one another’s diet.

So, then, neither the indifferent attitude nor the disposition to make of diet a test, is right. God’s way for his followers is that each one, for himself, conscientiously adopt that mode of living which, according to the best light he has, will make him an efficient, healthy workman. What you have found to hurt you, let alone, once and forever. A headache or “a bad stomach” is apparently over in a few hours, but probably the body is never quite as sound afterward as it would have been but for the autointoxication. Never indulge in some pet dietetic sin “just for this once.” Give respectful attention to what the Lord has said about certain foods being harmful; and make sure you have a good reason for disregarding any of the directions given regarding diet.

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

Takoma Park, D. C.