HOW SHALL WE ESTIMATE THE VALUE OF HEALTH REFORM?
By L. A. Hansen
THERE is danger of our underestimating the real blessing of the truth as it pertains to healthful living. Many temporal advantages and benefits are brought to us through the study and practice of health principles. That these benefits are of no small value is evidenced in the manner in which people of the world are relating themselves to the subject. Almost any good newspaper nowadays has numerous articles on various phases of healthful living. Some leading magazines devote entire columns or pages to these things, employing persons to give their special attention to that department, and making this feature a matter of special inducement in securing subscribers. There are a number of magazines, with large subscription lists, whose entire work is the discussion of temperance, vegetarianism, physical culture, and like questions. The question columns in the various papers show an increasing interest on the part of the public to know what is the proper thing in eating, drinking, bathing, exercising, etc. The scientific world is hard at work in its endeavor to solve these questions. A glance at the advertising columns shows that the market is full of health supplies, such as hygienic clothing, cooking utensils, water filters and stills, bathing appliances, exercisers, "home treatment methods," and the like, until one would almost expect every home to be a small sanitarium. In the making of intended health foods there seems to be no end. Large sanitariums are now a very common thing. Almost anything about health receives attention. So we can see that if we get nothing more from the truth of health reform than its provisional blessings, we have nothing more than the general world may have. We should appreciate it for greater reasons than that it brings to us nut butter and granola, or that we can get sanitary supplies or health literature at a discount or as premiums, or that it opens a way for our young people to find an occupation as nurses, or that it gives to us institutions where we can get rational treatment, or even that it brings to us physical health. These are all good, and are to be received with thankfulness, but they are by no means the fullness of blessing that is intended for us. Neither should we make the mistake of thinking that health reform has its origin at Battle Creek, or with certain men. It is not a distinct something of itself, added, or attached, to our message. It is not a side issue nor an afterthought. But it is a part of the truth for this time, just as much as is the truth of Christ's second coming or of the true Sabbath, and it has its place to fill in the spiritual development of God's people. It is given us of God, with the rest of His truth, and must be accepted by faith in order to receive its designed blessing. We believe that the Third Angel's Message is preparing a people for translation. It is developing a people to come up to the full standard of God's law. In its work of bringing spiritual healing to souls that are diseased with sin it must of necessity include healing for the body. The effects of physical transgression are so far reaching and deep seated that it requires more than membership in a health club or the adoption of rules and regulations of hygiene from a worldly standpoint, to do that complete work which God promises us in the gospel of healing.