SEVERAL correspondents have asked an exposition of 1 Tim. 4: 1-5. We answer briefly, 1. It is shown by this text that there should be a departure from the faith in the latter times, an expression not identical in meaning with last days; for it indicates that this apostasy would not be deferred till the close of the dispensation, but would display itself at a time somewhat later than Paul's. 2. This departure from the faith we understand to be the same as the great Romish apostasy described in 2 Thess. 2, which developed itself not very much subsequent to the time of Paul. 3. The lies in hypocrisy and the doctrines of demons, have been most notorious in the Romish church, and have been sustained by miracles wrought by the same agency as those of modern Spiritualism. 4. Romanism has forbidden marriage to all its priests, and monks, and nuns. It has also forbidden, as a mortal sin, the use of flesh-meats at certain seasons of the year, and on one day of each week. 5. Modern Spiritualism has done worse than Romanism against the institution of marriage, and has taken a very strong stand in many cases touching the use of flesh meats. But do not those who adopt the health reform fulfil this scripture also? 1. They do not forbid to marry; for they hold the institution of marriage as constituting, with the Sabbatic institution, which is one day younger than it, all that is left to us of lost Eden. 2. They do not command to abstain from meats, using the term meats here as equivalent to flesh meats. They do not enjoin upon any person abstinence therefrom as a necessary condition of eternal life. 3. But they do hold that that which God primarily created for man's use, viz., the fruits and grains (see Gen. 1: 29, 30), are the better food. 4. They do not deny that God gave permission to Noah and his posterity to use animal food. But they do hold that this only proves that in a secondary sense God has created animal food for men's use. 5. For it was not thus in the beginning, when God created men and animals. Nor was it ever allowed for the whole period before the flood. 6. And certainly when it is said that every creature of God is good, i. e., for food, it can only signify that every creature which God has rendered such by its nature; for many creatures are filthy, repulsive, and poisonous. 7. But we do hold that God's original appointment of food is that which best promotes man's highest good. We also hold that, with the present alarming increase of diseases among domestic animals, with the certainty that these things are not to be diminished, but extended in our land, prudence, reason, and enlightened judgment, pronounce in favor of abstinence from such kinds of food. 8. We do not say that we may never at any time be so situated as to see fit from the necessities of the case to use the flesh of animals as food. Yet to use this when no necessity exists other than that created by an ungoverned appetite, seems to us to indicate an unfeeling heart in the slaughter of the brute creation. When our appetites are governed by Christian temperance, our food will be sanctified by the word of God and prayer.