p. 11 | The Right Foundation by G. H. Heald

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 6, 1904

The Right Foundation

By G. H. Heald

EDITOR REVIEW: I have recently received a letter from a friend, in criticism of some of my articles in the REVIEW, from which I make the following quotation:— “I am afraid that your last article in the REVIEW will remove the scruples of many, and that they will henceforth have excuse for indulging in the fleshpots of Egypt and various things. I am sure many will think you have given up the idea of a non-flesh diet, and how glad they may be too! Our ministers will no longer feel remiss when they indulge in chicken and juicy beefsteak, and will fail to teach the necessity of a return to antediluvian diet in these last days.”

Lest others may have misunderstood, I shall try to make myself plain. I eat no fish, flesh, or fowl. I do not think they are, by any means, the best food for man, and I prefer the best. Should I be wrecked on an uninhabited island, where these foods were the best I could get, I would still eat the best, and not feel sneaking about it as though I had committed a crime.

Why should the report that I had given up the idea of a non-flesh diet be cause for rejoicing? Suppose I should turn squarely around and advocate the free use of meat; would that make the way of others any clearer?—It might, if they pin their faith to me. But one principle I contend for, perhaps more than any other, is that a man should be taught of God. He can not come up to the pearly gates, and plead that Dr. A. or Elder B. told him so and so. If he has no better excuse than that, he will be “speechless.”

Does an intelligent man, interested in politics, take some paper, expecting it to tell him for whom to vote? He expects it to tell him what the platforms of the different parties are, who the leading candidates are in each party, and what their political record has been. He may have one paper which he prefers, but he is apt to study other papers as well, and finally draw his own conclusions, and vote accordingly. That is what he will do if he is a MAN.

So a man must do in religion; so he must do in the matter of diet. He may read what other men think, and what they do, but he must think and act for himself, according to the dictates of his God-given conscience.

Suppose there are some who want—as is suggested by the preceding letter—“an excuse for indulging in the fleshpots of Egypt.” They had better have the excuse, and indulge; for they will do so sooner or later. It is only a question of time.

What did the Lord do in the wilderness when the people craved the fleshpots?—He just gave them all they wanted, and allowed them to gorge themselves until the hankerers were all killed off. He knew it would be no use to try to educate all that multitude up to health reform.

So now, if there are any who are abstaining from flesh because some man or men have told them to, and are still looking longingly back toward the fleshpots, they had better have their flesh.

“Whatsoever is not of faith is SIN.” It does no good for one to believe one way and act another. People who are not vegetarians because they believe it is right had better be the other thing, out and out, and maintain their self-respect.

We can respect the man who lives up to his belief,—whether he believes in a meat diet or a non-meat diet,—provided he himself refrains from bigotry, and from narrow intolerance of those who differ from him; but the man who believes in meat, or has no convictions in the matter, and acts as though he believed in vegetarianism because somebody else believes that way, “is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed”—what James calls a “double-minded man.” “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

If one who has conscientiously studied what the Lord has said regarding flesh eating, and then, after careful trial, finds that a non-meat diet is not so well adapted to the wants of his system as a mixed diet, it is a matter between him and his God alone (see the first part of Romans 14), and should by no means be made the basis of a petty persecution, as is sometimes done. “To his own Master he standeth or falleth.” In fact, so far as I am concerned, it is none of my business whether he has conscientiously studied the matter or not; that is, I can not impugn his motives. So far as he is concerned, he should be sure that he does not allow his old abnormal appetite to warp his judgment in deciding the matter. G. H. HEALD.