Neglecting our Bodies by Jennie E. Goff

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 9, 1875

Neglecting our Bodies.

By Jennie E. Goff

"Ah," says one, there is little danger of our doing that in this fashionable era." We are neglecting our bodies in more ways than one. The wheels of truth move more slowly on toward conquest. Among the most common of these ways are, neglecting to clothe and feed our bodies properly, and denying them nature's most effective antidotes against disease—pure air and pure water.

Most of us wear clothing enough, but somehow we do not succeed in making our bodies comfortable. A tight waist, or a tight shoe, impedes the free circulation of the blood, and so torments us for the time, besides working all the while at nature's fortifications until some point is sufficiently weakened to be easily captured, and forever after held a prisoner by disease. If fashion so decrees, we expose our bodies to imminent danger and innumerable evils by wearing too much or too little clothing, and even if we avoid extremes, and try to dress sensibly, or as conscience requires, we do not dress as health and comfort demand.

With regard to eating, we are just as guilty, or ignorant, as the case may be. We turn away from simple, healthy, food, to gorge ourselves with unwholesome mixtures, invented by those who do not understand nature's laws, or the evils resulting from transgression; and then if our intellects are weak, our dispositions unpleasant, we lay the blame at nature's door, and attribute our bodily suffering to providence, instead of to the irritating, unhealthy food, with which we are crowding our stomachs.

We spend money for something to quench our thirst, and that something, if nothing worse than tea or coffee, is an injury to us, when pure cold water, the beverage God intended us to use, is, or might be, within the reach of all. Only those who use it freely and wisely know how to prize its invigorating, health-giving qualities.

We spend money too, some of us a great many dollars, in fitting up our homes, and we consider them comfortable only when we have succeeded in shutting out one of God's choicest blessings—pure, fresh air. We shut ourselves up, night after night, in poorly ventilated rooms, and when morning comes, we do not allow our lungs to throw out the foul, and drink in the pure air; and then we wonder why we feel so dull and weak. We see that we are growing old very fast, and somehow the world looks so dark, so full of trouble, that we feel discouraged, and we cannot help looking sober, and the young say, "Well if Christians have reason for looking so gloomy, I don't want to be one."

I tell you, friends, we are putting a great stumbling-block in the way of sinners, just by neglecting to care for our bodies properly. Who does not know that a healthy, happy Christian will do more good than a gloomy, sickly one?

Can we expect to reach the heights and depths of Christian joy and peace, unless we keep our bodies, the Holy Spirit's temple, as pure as God intended them to be?

By-and-by there will come a time when we shall see what we might have been, what we might have done, if we had only taken better care of our bodies. We shall see how many more souls we might have been instrumental in saving, how many more stars we might have won for our crown; but then it will be too late. It is not too late now. There is time to work, time to get more wisdom. Shall we improve it?—JENNIE E. GOFF, in Earnest Christian.

MANY who are troubled with weak eyes, by avoiding the use of them in reading, sewing, and the like until after breakfast, will be able to use them with greater comfort for the remainder of the day, the reason being that in the digestion of the food the blood is called in from all parts of the system, to a certain extent, to aid the stomach in that important process; besides, the food eaten gives general strength, imparts a stimulus to the whole man, and the eyes partake of their share.