Is Sickness a Necessity?
By W. T. Currie
What would you think of a man who should make a machine which could not do its work? You would say that he had made a failure, and was a poor workman. Now, do you think the Almighty makes failures, and is a poor workman? The idea is absurd, and yet most people act as if they thought so. How so? In this way: The human body is a machine. It was made to do a certain work. The work constitutes the business of life. Can the machine, that is, the human body, do this work? It cannot when it is sick. If then, it be impossible to keep well, this machine cannot do its work, and the contriver of this machine—the Almighty—has made a failure, and is a bad workman. I repeat it, the idea is absurd; it is preposterous—supremely ridiculous. If, on the other hand, He does not make failures, and the machine works well, and can be kept in good repair, then there is no need of being sick. If it be impossible to keep well, then the Creator has made a failure, either in making man to live in the world, or in making the world for man to live in, or both. I say again, the idea is absurd. The Creator does not make failures. He is a good workman. Whatever machine he constructs, works well. It can be kept in repair. Apply this principle to the human body. It is a machine. God made it; therefore it is a good machine. It works well, and may be kept in repair. What is it to be sick? To be sick, only means that the machinery of the body is out of order, and does not work. Now, I ask, whose fault is it? Is it the fault of the Divine Artificer who made the machine, or of the human workman who runs it? Or is it because the world is not a fit place for this machine to work in? Now, other people may charge the blame upon the Creator, and say that the fault lies with him; but I say, that man alone is responsible. Each one of us has a machine given him—his own body—with which to do a certain work. Now, if the machine does not do its work, the reason is this: We are ignorant of this machine, and do not know how to use it, or else we willfully persist in using it wrongly, and for purposes for which the Creator never designed it. People are very fond of charging their sins upon the Almighty. Hence, when they are sick, they say it is his fault, and not their own. However comforting this notion may be to people who are sick, it nevertheless is not true. The fault lies with themselves. They are responsible. The only rational plan of action, then, is to find out in what way the fault lies with us that we get sick, take the blame ourselves, study to amend our bad habits, and learn to keep well.—W. T. CURRIE, in Health Reformer.