Sowing for Physical and Spiritual Health by David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 11, 1900

Sowing for Physical and Spiritual Health

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

David Paulson W. S. Sadler

A COMPREHENSIVE VIEW OF THE DIGESTIVE PROCESS

That mysterious process by which solid food substances are transformed into soluble elements so that they may become a part of the human body, is certainly deserving of the closest study. It is a most wonderful process, whereby pure food may be transformed into brain cells, capable of thinking God's thoughts after Him. To accomplish this, there is provided a series of digestive organs, with their respective fluids, to act, a certain length of time, upon the food substances. As the usefulness of these digestive organs depends so largely upon securing certain favorable conditions, it is of the utmost importance that we know how to provide these necessary conditions.

THE DIGESTIVE FLUIDS

The activity of nearly all the digestive fluids depends chiefly upon certain enzymes, or digestive ferments. These digestive principles have a wonderful transforming influence upon the food elements; in fact, this activity is so great that a minute quantity of these digestive fluids seems to have the power of digesting an almost unlimited quantity of food substance, provided the medium in which they act is of the right quality, and the digested portions of food are promptly removed. One part of rennet (the milk-curdling ferment) will curdle from four hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand times its own weight of milk. See Schafer's Physiology, 317. Pepsin, another ferment that is found in the gastric juice, will digest, provided there is sufficient hydrochloric acid present, half a million times its own weight of proteids. Another remarkable property of these digestive ferments is revealed in the fact that they seem to act merely by their presence; that is, apparently, they do not seem to be used up by their activity.

THE ACTION OF FERMENTS—AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

As has just been observed, the pepsin and other ferments in the digestive juices seem to possess the remarkable property of acting by their very presence; that is, they are not used up, or consumed, by the work they perform. These digestive ferments are a beautiful illustration of the work of the Spirit of God upon the human heart; the mysterious power by which He acts is due to His presence. We may recognize truth with the intellect, and by faith we may lay hold of it; and, as it were, digest it, and appropriate it to the nourishment of the soul; but, nevertheless, it is due to the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit that we are able even to recognize truth, much less to lay hold of it by faith, so as to enable it to exert a sanctifying influence upon the character.

From the Holy Spirit emanates an influence of unlimited power, infinite power, and if we do not grieve Him away by creating a wrong atmosphere about ourselves, He will, as do the ferments of the digestive fluids, silently carry on the work of transforming our characters from the earthly to the heavenly. The pepsin requires certain definite conditions to be supplied in order to enable it to carry forward its mysterious work of transformation; and so with the Holy Spirit: there must be a willing mind, a sincere heart, and a determined purpose to live a life in harmony with the fruits of the Spirit, if we would daily experience the transforming influence of this divine presence.

DIGESTIVE JUICES STIMULATED BY NATURAL FOOD FLAVORS

Among the most important stimulants to the flow of the digestive juices are the natural food flavors. Even the odor, or fragrance, of certain foods will stimulate the flow of saliva, which furnishes a basis for the saying that certain things “make the mouth water.” So we see there is a real physiological necessity for preserving the natural characteristic flavors which the Lord has put into every food. Just as every flower has its own characteristic odor, so every food possesses an individual flavor, which has a tendency to arouse the particular digestive activity that is required to effect its transformation. But this arrangement of nature, in common with nearly everything else in this world, has been grossly perverted; to the extent that the cook, instead of endeavoring to preserve the natural flavors of the food, ignores them altogether by adding such coarse and artificial flavors as condiments, spices, etc. And these, instead of stimulating the natural physiological flow of digestive fluids, both hinder their production and retard their influence. Experiments have demonstrated that the taking of mustard, pepper, etc., by its irritation, will cause the pouring out of a large amount of fluid in the stomach, but it is of an inferior quality, consisting largely of mucus, which the stomach glands produce in self-defense. By the use of these artificial stimulants, the quantity of the digestive fluid is increased at the expense of the quality. An abundance of saliva will serve little or no purpose unless it has in it the requisite amount of ptyalin,—the ferment that changes starch to sugar.

TRUTH KNOWN BY ITS FLAVOR

Just as the Creator has put into every separate food a distinct and characteristic flavor which distinguishes it from every other food; just as He has put flavors in foods, good and bad, which would, to the unperverted taste, be sufficient to rightly guide man in the selection of his daily food; so also the Lord has placed a spiritual flavor in every divine truth. Eternal truth is flavored with the divine Spirit, and by such it may always be recognized. To the soul whose spiritual appetite is unperverted, the great evidence of the reality of truth will not lie so much in any signs and wonders which the truth may produce, as in the flavor of the spirit which invariably accompanies the preaching of the everlasting gospel and the presentation of unadulterated truth. The individual who really desires food has his appetite for it aroused by recognizing its flavor; and so in our spiritual experience, the one who is hungering and thirsting for righteousness will be eager to lay hold of every truth he discovers. The flavor of the truth itself will be sufficient to stir up his spiritual appetite, and lead his soul to lay hold of the spiritual nourishment which the Lord has provided in the shape of living principles and precious gems of truth.

These digestive fluids are also stimulated by properly prepared foods. To illustrate: dry food encourages the flow of saliva; and the saliva, when swallowed with the food, encourages the flow of the gastric juice; and the gastric juice, when passed into the intestines, stimulates their digestive fluids. So nature has made it possible for us to start aright the digestive process; and, if this is done, the liability to subsequent digestive failure is very slight. From this standpoint it is clear that the mouth is, after all, one of the most important of the digestive organs. But when the proper function of the saliva is materially interfered with, by drinking large quantities of fluids at meals, and by the use of such foods as require but little mastication, thus allowing the food to pass into the stomach before the saliva has had an opportunity to mingle with it, the digestion of starch is greatly hindered. By endeavoring to subsist upon soft and liquid foods, we give the teeth little or nothing to do; and so nature very kindly takes them away, as the experience of thousands will verify. We are fast becoming a toothless race.

CONDITION OF FOOD ELEMENTS IN THE BLOOD STREAM

Man has been compared to a double sack, the inner walls being the alimentary canal, the outer the skin. Food which is simply in the alimentary tract is, from a nutrient standpoint, no more inside of a man than if he had placed it in his coat pocket. It is the one duty of the several digestive fluids to so transform the food that it can readily pass from this inner cavity into the human system proper. It is an interesting fact that much of the work of digestion is apparently undone as soon as the food substances are absorbed into the blood stream. The starch, which has been changed to sugar in the digestive process, is to a large extent temporarily stored up in the liver as glycogen—a form of starch. The proteids, or albumens, which have been dissolved into peptones in the process of passing through the intestinal wall, are again changed back to practically their original condition. Nature deals with digested fats upon the same principle.

Copyrighted, 1900, by David Paulson and W. S. Sadler