p. 500 | SOWING FOR PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 7, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 32.

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SOWING FOR PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

David Paulson ✠ W. S. Sadler

STRUCTURE BUILDERS, OR THE PROTEIDS.

(Continued.)

THE DIGESTION OF PROTEIDS.

Most of the ordinary foods are furnished us by the hand of nature in a solid or semisolid state. When they have finally been transformed into human structure, they again become solid, such as bone; semisolid, as muscle; or liquid, as blood. The principal function of digestion, therefore, seems to be to change the solid food into a fluid, so that it can be passed through the intestinal walls, and then be carried by the blood to various parts of the body, there to be deposited to become a part of the bodily structure.

The chemical composition of starch is very simple, consisting of six parts of carbon, ten parts of hydrogen, and five parts of oxygen. The digestive elements can readily transform it into a solution, which can easily be passed through the intestinal membrane; while the chemical composition of the proteids, although not definitely known, is extremely complicated. One author has given it as six hundred parts of carbon, nine hundred and sixty parts of hydrogen, one hundred and fifty-four parts of nitrogen, one part of iron, three parts of sulphur, and one hundred and seventy-nine parts of oxygen. See Verworn’s General Physiology, page 104.

GASTRIC JUICE.

Nature has made thorough provision for the digestion of proteids by arranging that they should be subjected for several hours to the continuous action of the gastric juice, whose only function seems to be to act upon the proteids. The change which takes place in the digestion of proteids might be illustrated by the unlinking of a long chain into shorter sections. When this change has been accomplished, it is then in a soluble condition, known as peptone, and can be passed through the intestinal walls into the blood. It appears that this change is only effected to enable it to pass through the intestinal walls, for as it circulates in the blood, it appears as if these links had again united; for in the blood we find the proteids in practically their original condition. See Schäfer’s Physiology, page 25.

PANCREATIC JUICE.

If, for any reason, there are some proteids that have not been fully acted upon in the stomach, they still have another opportunity after they have passed into the small intestine; for here they meet a very active digestive fluid, manufactured by the pancreas, which lays hold in a thorough manner upon any particles that have not already been digested, and completes the process.

INTESTINAL JUICE.

Along the entire length of the small intestine there is manufactured a weak digestive fluid, which has a slight transforming action on any food substance that may have escaped the attention of either the saliva, gastric juice, or pancreatic juice. The almost infinite care and provision that nature has made to give every particle of food an opportunity to be thoroughly digested, so that it may do its appointed work in the human system, should be a constant lesson to us that God will spare no means to give us the necessary opportunities to be subjected to that spiritual transformation which is so essential to the work of preparing us to become a part of his body on earth.

SPIRITUAL TRUTHS AND LESSONS DRAWN

FROM THE DIGESTION OF PROTEIDS.

The proteids are the structure builders in the physical realm; and in the spiritual realm we have the Bible doctrines, which serve the purpose of forming the spiritual framework, as it were, of our moral being or Christian experience. If we should abstain from physical food, would we not still continue to break down tissue by our thoughts and actions?—Most certainly. If we should forget to take spiritual food or moral nourishment, would we not also be called upon to suffer from our neglect or failure to provide the soul with food? As the promises of the Bible and their relation to the soul were compared to starch and its use in the body, so the underlying doctrines, the great cardinal truths of the word of God, being the spiritual structure builders, may most fittingly be compared to the proteids, and, like them, are of little use to the spiritual economy unless they are properly masticated, digested, and assimilated by the soul.

Unused proteids become the source of the most serious and deadly poison to the body; and just so with unused doctrines. These doctrines which do not become a part of the soul, a part of the real Christian experience,—these unassimilated doctrines,—however vital and important to begin with, under such conditions of spiritual indigestion become the source of a most serious spiritual disorder, and produce a most distressing form of moral darkness and spiritual lethargy.

The proteids, after being acted upon by the gastric juice in the stomach, next come in contact with the pancreatic juice, the all-round and most complete digestive agent in the body; for it acts upon all the important food elements. So living faith lays hold of moral nourishment, whether in the form of Bible truth, present duty, or missionary opportunities, and prepares it to enter into the formation of the moral character without further delay. Thus it is that “the just shall live by faith,” and “without faith it is impossible to please him.”

As the new-born babe is unprepared to take into its stomach all forms of physical proteids, just so the new convert, or new-born Christian, is entirely unprepared to at once receive into his moral being all forms of the spiritual proteids—the doctrines—the strong meat. But as the teeth soon put in their appearance in the infant, and the digestive juices begin to be more active, so with the young convert: he soon begins to acquire an appetite for still stronger meat, which is indicated by the inquiries he makes concerning the doctrines and deep teachings of the word of God. The same

all-wise Creator presides over both the physical and spiritual appetites and digestive processes. The young convert, like the infant, must be fed upon milk,—the sincere milk of the Word,—but the growth that is thereby induced will soon prepare him for the reception of the deeper things of God. It is just as great a mistake, and indicates the same great error of judgment, to undertake to feed the young Christian with the strong doctrines of the Bible, as it would be to feed an infant with solid food. The results in either instance are anything but satisfactory; and the lesson learned in either case should effectually admonish us not to attempt to repeat the experiment.

ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PROTEIDS.

Neither men nor the lower animals have the power to subsist upon inorganic, earthy substances. So God, through the plants, lays hold of the earth, and by a marvelous transformation changes these substances into wholesome and palatable food, as found in the grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. The flesh of both man and animals represents these food substances as they are being torn down—they are one step nearer the earth. This accounts for the large amount of waste products that always accompanies flesh foods. The natural products of the earth—grains, fruits, etc.—need no eliminating organs to carry off waste products; for they simply build up, and do not in any sense tear down: while man and the lower animals tear down that which has been previously constructed by the plant; and it is this tearing-down process that results in the production of poisonous waste material. When it is possible for us to secure our nourishment in the original form in which God has prepared it, why should we suppose that good food could be improved by becoming a part of an animal for a time, when in eating it we are compelled to take with it a portion of the sewage that is always seeping through animal tissue?

EATING FOR STRENGTH, OR FOR DRUNKENNESS.

The structure of the human body is made up largely of proteids. Animals’ bodies are also made up largely of the same substance. There are two ways in which we may obtain these proteids for our nourishment: first, from plants, or the vegetable world, where we may get them first-hand in all their purity and nutrition; second, from flesh foods, which contain proteids; but along with this latter source we are compelled to eat both the animal and the waste products found in its muscles at the time of death. And so such proteids, while furnishing us nourishment for the development of the body, must also produce, as they did in the children of Israel, “leanness of soul.” Ps. 106: 15.

Inspiration bids man eat for strength, and not for drunkenness. Eccl. 10: 17. Things that are alive and nutritious may be converted into strength; but things that are dying, dead, and poisonous must, to a certain extent, serve to cause drunkenness. Every man, woman, and child must settle this question: Shall I eat for strength instead of drunkenness, or for drunkenness instead of strength? The stomach of a dog has such digestive powers that if it is fed decomposing meat, and then is killed an hour later, it will be found that this meat has been thoroughly disinfected in the dog’s stomach. When man descends to the dog’s level, in eating the scavengers of both earth and sea, even though he has thus dragged his physical nature to these low depths, nevertheless, he finds himself minus the dog’s digestive ability.

SOURCES OF SPIRITUAL FOOD.

Just as the flesh-food diet provides substances that may be utilized by the body, but along with them compels the user to partake of large quantities of poisonous waste matter, so the man who chooses to forsake true Bible sources of truth,—the snow-waters of Lebanon,—and goes to the polluted streams of the valley, may there get some things that will in a measure feed his soul; but along with this inferior spiritual food he must take much spiritual poison. One of Satan’s master policies is that of perversion and adulteration. He does not always seek to convince you that you need no moral food. He is satisfied with contaminating your moral food supply, so as continually to benumb the sensibilities of the soul and wither its aspirations. Spiritual adulteration, in its sphere, has kept pace with the physical adulteration, in its sphere. Persons go off after this movement and that ism, and secure some truth. So-called Christian science, theosophy, Spiritualism, etc., all have some things in them that are either truth or once were truth, just as the proteids of the animal were once the pure and ideal proteids of the plant-world. But why should intelligent human beings, either physically or spiritually, forsake the bounties of nature and the pure truth of revelation, to go after these second-hand, polluted, dead, and dying things?