WHY HAVE WE BEEN SO BLESSED?
By Ammy W. Welsh
While reading in a recent number of a popular journal on cookery, which is clubbing this year with many of the leading periodicals in the United States, I felt impressed to copy the following paragraph, which I hope will increase our thankfulness for the light we have received. It was on a page which was filled with recipes for dishes, the majority of which we should call “dietetic abominations:” — “How is it that these poor, who are always with us, are generally so much richer in rude health, and perhaps in common sense, than the rich? How is it that the so-called pauper laborers of European lands sustain their health, strength, and vigor on a diet as costless as it is plain? How is it that the native laborer in India does more hard work than the well-fed American, though his only food is three-cents’ worth of rice a day? These things are mysteries to most of us, who are out-and-out fools when it comes to a battle between our health and our appetites. At school we learn pretty nearly every useless thing in the books, only to find out, on leaving, that we know nothing about the ‘one thing needful’ to a live man, namely, how to live.” Dear sisters, does not this pertinent inquiry, and frank confession of ignorance and weakness, on the part of those schooled in all the learning and wisdom of the world, seem pitiful to you? Should not our hearts be stirred to give them the desired knowledge? Many of us have had but meager advantages in school education; but we have been wonderfully blessed and honored in having the advantages of the “school of Christ,” in these last days, when the fullness of the light of the gospel of Christ is shining into the moral darkness of this “land of the shadow of death.” If we realize, as did our Pattern Missionary, that of our own selves we can do nothing, we shall be taught of God how to use the one or more talents with which He has intrusted us. We have taken satisfaction in the thought that we “are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar [purchased] people;” but I wonder if we do not often forget our exalted privileges and high calling in Christ Jesus; or else, in self-exaltation and pride, imagine they are ours because of worth or merit in ourselves, and so lose sight of the fact that they are given us that we should show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Not because He selfishly desires praise, as do we; but because, as He is the source of all light and life, He desires us to show forth His praises (virtues, marginal reading), so that others may be “called out of darkness into His marvelous light,” till all who will accept the call shall become children of light. The message He bids us show forth in life and word, He says is His power to save from sin and its consequences (Rom. 1:16); and so it must contain all truth necessary to restore man spiritually and physically. Do we appreciate it? have we received the love of it into our hearts? and are our own lives being transformed by it? If so, we cannot rest content to enjoy its benefits ourselves alone, but will desire the good of others also. In proportion as we value it, will be our desire to give it to others. Satan is working with the energy of desperation hopelessly to enslave man in the bondage to fleshly lusts and appetites. But we can proclaim liberty to the captives, for we are not debtors to the flesh. “The power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” is still the same as when Jesus was here in person, and still operates miraculously whenever God sees best. Great light has come to us on healthful living, hygienic treatment, etc., and if we accept and make use of this light, Christ will bless us physically. These truths He expects us to become acquainted with, not only for our own good, but also that we may teach them to others; nor can we neglect or despise them except at our soul’s peril. In 1 Peter 2:9, 11, we read, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. . . . Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” It is our blessed privilege in Christ to keep our bodies “under.”