IN my study of the lives of men who have given much attention to the subject of healthful living, I have been led to ask myself why we as a people have been so indifferent regarding this important topic.
Professing to have special light on this point, we are permitting other reformers to push far ahead of us in health lines, both in the matter of zeal in teaching others and in the real results of the system in improved health.
To quote the words of another: “Guilt rests upon us as a people, because we have not appreciated nor improved the light given upon health reform.”
No doubt it is the failure on our own part to reap the benefits of true health reform in increased vigor of muscle and mind that has dampened our ardor in presenting this truth to others.
I would hesitate to go to Neighbor Brown with instruction on health lines, if my family were about as sickly as his. The most sensible course for me to pursue would be to keep silent regarding health principles until I understood them well enough to get results in my own family. The next thing in order would be to go at it in earnest, to learn the real causes of the sickness (for causes there are, you may be sure), and get rid of them. Then I would be in a better position to help my neighbor.
Especially should our light shine in the direction of helpfulness, and not in the direction of unfriendly criticism. As we are admonished: “Do not catch hold in a of isolated ideas, and make them a test, criticizing others whose practise may not agree with your opinion, but study the subject broadly and deeply.”—“Christian Temperance,” page 19. The more thoroughly and completely we master the underlying principles, the less disposition we shall have to criticize others.
We are told that “much of the prejudice that prevents the truth of the third angel’s message from reaching the hearts of the people might be removed if more attention were given to health reform.” “This branch of the Lord’s work has not received due attention, and through this neglect, much has been lost.”
The quotation does not say that much of the prejudice would be removed if we were more vigorous in pushing our views on our neighbors, but “if more attention were given [by us] to health reform”—more study of the real principles, more earnest effort to carry them out in our own lives, and get improved health as a result, and possibly less preaching to our neighbors of things not borne out by our lives.
As we know from experience, health reform as it is often taught increases prejudice. As it should be taught, after proper study by ourselves to master the principles, it will remove prejudice.
Before we can enter this work consistently and heartily and intelligently, before we can carry a message that will go with the influence and power that it ought to go, we must first make a practical application of the health principles to our own lives, and demonstrate in ourselves, to our own satisfaction and that of our neighbors, that “there is real common sense in health reform.”
Then, having ourselves proved in our own bodies the correctness of the principles, “we should be very cautious not to advance too fast, lest we be obliged to retrace our steps. In reforms, we would better come one step short of the mark than go one step beyond it. And if there is error at all, let it be on the side next the people.”
We should avoid, on the one hand, that “zeal which is not according to knowledge,” which always accompanies a hasty and superficial adoption of the health principles, and, on the other hand, we should avoid that indifference to the principles which have been growing upon us.
If we were carrying out real health reform by example, showing the results in sounder health, better brain power, etc., the health reform would indeed prove to be as it was designed, the right arm of the message,