p. 23 | GOOD HEALTH by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 11, 1877

GOOD HEALTH.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

Did He Mean Anything?

We have been taught to believe that every act of our Saviour had a meaning, that he did not do anything by a mere happen-so; and this is very evident from a careful study of his life. Every act was done with forethought and with a design.

One fact stands prominent in all his ministry. He was very careful not to destroy or waste anything needlessly. On both those remarkable occasions when he fed several thousand miraculously with a few loaves and fishes, at the conclusion of the meal he gave special directions that all the fragments should be taken up, that nothing should be lost.

He was very careful to be just in everything, even to a penny's worth, and he directed others to do so. And yet there was one act in his life that seems to be the reverse of this. To this we wish to call the reader's attention. At one time he met a man possessed with devils. It was a very bad case; there was a legion of devils. Out of compassion to the man, he commanded the devils to come out of him. When they besought him not to send them into torment, he commanded them to go into a herd of swine which was feeding near by.

These swine were the property of some man, because they were being carefully fed and watched by their owners, for so it says. See Mark 5:1-14. There were about two thousand of them. This was an immense herd. A large amount of money was invested in them. If they were worth anywhere near what they are now, they must have been valued at eight or ten thousand dollars, perhaps more. But now notice the significant fact that the Son of God commanded the devils to go into these swine, and the swine immediately rushed into the sea and all perished. Certainly, Christ knew beforehand what would be the consequences. He knew that those hogs would perish, but nevertheless this was what he did.

Was not that a terrible thing, to destroy two thousand hogs, several thousand dollars worth of property? but this is the only case in all the history of Christ where he ever destroyed so much as a little lamb or turtle-dove. He himself said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without his Father's notice; but here, by the direct command of Christ himself, two thousand swine were destroyed. Their carcasses were not even saved for soap-grease! What millions of trichina must have perished on that occasion! What barrels of solid scrofula went to the bottom of the sea! We will not positively affirm it, but it certainly does look very much as though Christ did this on purpose to show his abhorrence of the swine, and to teach their owners that they ought not to deal in such questionable property.

In the old law, his Father had said, “Ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass.” Dent. 14:8. Yes; the swine was unclean. They were neither to eat of it, nor to touch its dead carcass. In direct violation of this commandment, these men were feeding, rearing, and dealing in these swine. This action of Christ seems plainly to correspond in the New Testament with the teachings of the Father in the Old concerning this unclean, abominable creature.

In Isa. 66:17, in harmony with the action of Christ with reference to the swine, and the scripture before quoted, is a text to the point. “They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens, behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord.” Here we see the company among whom these users of swine's flesh are reckoned; and their end is declared, that together they shall be consumed.

Christ referred to it on one other occasion, in the parable of the prodigal son. After this young prodigal had spent all his substance with harlots and in riotous living, he is found following the most degrading of all occupations, that of tending the swine. Thus not one word of good can be found in the whole Bible concerning the dirty scavenger. It seems as though Christians ought to learn something by this, and leave that creature where God placed him, to wallow in the mud, and devour rotten and decaying refuse from the face of the earth.—D. M. CANRIGHT in Health Reformer.