p. 311 | Right Use of Things

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1875

Right Use of Things.

FROM the absence of health, and the prevalence of sickness and suffering, it is evident that there is a great disregard of the principles that underlie health. It is as true in physical as in spiritual things that every transgression receives a just recompense of reward. If the principle of obedience were recognized, and people would cease to do evil and learn to do well, hearts that now are dreary like the desert would blossom as the rose. Common sense is defined, "good sense in little things."

The manner in which men, women, and children are related to the few, simple, health-giving agents, air, food, light, sleep, clothing, exercise, rest, water, temperature, and the condition of the mind, are chiefly the things that procure to them the blessing of health, or its opposite, disease. Good sense manifested in attention to these things so little considered makes, in a great measure, the joy of life. No person is actually happy when sick; though, through grace, he may be enabled to rejoice in hope. Nor is there actual wretchedness, under ordinary circumstances of life, when in the possession of a sound body and a sound mind. Man, created upright, has sought out many inventions which mar his joy, in the misuse and abuse of things that God pronounced good. — Health Reformer.