Temperance by W. N. Glenn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 29, 1883

Temperance.

By W. N. Glenn

Beef and Alcohol.

RATHER an astounding editorial appeared in the San Francisco Bulletin of the 17th inst., entitled "Beef, Brawn and Victory." Referring to an address of Prof. Hilgard, of the State University, who "seems inclined to the vegetarian theory," and to the fact that "a vegetarian colony had recently settled down in California," the premise is laid down that "the physical forces which have conquered the world, and which will conquer it hereafter, have not and will not be nurtured on an exclusive vegetable diet." It is further represented that the fighting qualities of the German army are maintained by bacon, beef, and beer; and that the British soldier is kept in fighting trim by a diet of beef, mutton, ale, and port. Now, people who desire to have savage dogs around their premises, or keep such animals for fighting purposes, usually feed them on raw meat, and as the lecture referred to by the Bulletin was upon the subject of cookery, the editor, to be consistent in his theory, should have advocated an uncooked flesh diet.

Admitting that the ferocious propensities claimed for the conquerors of the world are engendered and sustained by a diet of flesh and malt and alcohol, it is very questionable if it be better to have the world conquered and held in subjection by such a power. If this is the element that is goading the dominant powers of the earth to vie with each other in the production of munitions for the destruction of human life, is not this fact a sufficient reason to call for reform in diet? If it is better to feed the human race upon such food as will, from generation to generation, tend to the propagation of combativeness, then many good men have mistaken the design of the Creator. To argue that flesh and alcohol are the proper articles of food for man, in view of his welfare and happiness, is to impugn the wisdom of Providence, which the Christian editor of the Bulletin would not wittingly do. We have only to turn to the book of Genesis (which many Christians still hold to be good authority) to learn the original design of the Creator in this regard. That he permitted them to become meat-eaters, and even designated what should be clean and unclean unto them, is not more surprising than his permitting Israel to have kings over them, against his will, even pointing out the men whom his prophets should anoint—and often very bad men.

As to the question of physical endurance, a notable example is found in the exode of Israel from Egypt. When the Lord started his people across a wilderness country, upon a journey requiring both endurance and faith, intending that they should conquer a land densely populated with meat-eaters, he gave them a simple diet and purposely kept flesh from them. When they wickedly lusted for it, he gave it to them, but they would have been better off without it.

With reference to intellectual power, as well as physical, no better example could be found than that of Daniel. The story is too familiar to need repeating. Suffice it to say that, when carried to Babylon a captive in his youth, he, with three others, was selected by the king to be educated and fed at Government expense. These captives refused to take any food excepting a purely vegetable diet, and they came out not only fairer in flesh, but intellectually superior to all their fellow students. Daniel rose to be head of the wise men of the nation, and prime minister of the Government—the grandest that ever existed upon the earth, embracing 127 provinces.

The Bulletin alludes to the Franco-German war, and asserts that the result of that conflict could not have been as it was had the Germans been vegetarians. Inasmuch as the French are also great flesh-eaters and wine-drinkers, we can with fully as much show of logic, assume that had Napoleon's army been vegetarians, the result would have been different. But on this point of physical endurance, the following extracts from Health and Long Life are to the point:—

"The animal kingdom depends for support on the vegetable kingdom, and that is the reason both animal and vegetable food contain the same life sustaining properties; hence it is that man can live on vegetable food alone, or wholly on animal food. The vegetable-eater gets his nourishment in all its purity from the original source, and converts it for the first time into his own flesh and blood; whereas the flesh-eater gets his from a second-hand source, and reconverts into his own flesh that which has been used by another animal."

"The brave Spartans, who, for muscular power, physical energy, and ability to endure hardships, perhaps stand unequaled in the history of nations, were vegetarians. The departure from their simple diet was soon followed by their decline. The armies of Greece and Rome, in the times of their unparalleled conquests, subsisted on vegetable productions. In the training for the public games in Greece, where muscular strength was to be exhibited in all its varied forms, vegetable food was adhered to; but when flesh meat was adopted afterward, those hitherto athletic men became sluggish and stupid."

The Bulletin further avers: "All great reforms involve an element of radicalism. Speech and action go to extremes. It is the excess of another kind of intemperance set over against that which is felt to be a great evil." This is a severe thrust at reform, but all reforms have had to stand such opposition. It is a well-known fact, though, that nothing short of the most radical radicalism ever effectually reformed anything, or ever will. Logically, to ignore the only means of a reformation, is to discourage the reformation itself.

Again: "The noblest kind of temperance is that which can use every good thing without abusing it." This is the grand argument of the liquor traffic, and it is sad to see Christian men attaching it to the use of beer and ale and port, and lauding as "victory" the results of their use. It is not exactly abusing a good thing, it is using a bad thing. The use of the argument might have passed, in connection with beef alone, unnoticed; but it does seem a pity that such an influential journal should use a defense of beef as an excuse for ringing in a plea for alcohol. If the two are inseparable, there is certainly a call for more radicalism.