Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 12, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 18.

Health and Temperance.

A CLEAR, ACTIVE BRAIN.

To succeed as a student, or in any department of business life, it is as necessary to have a clear and active brain as to have health of body. The latter is secured by taking sufficient nourishing food—just enough—at proper times and under proper circumstances, and sufficient exercise, followed by rest and sleep, breathing an abundance of pure air. There is no danger of having too much, if the temperature is right. We should obey all of the laws made by the great and good Father to aid us in taking the best possible care of ourselves, without which we are unable to be happy in this life or useful to the greatest extent. To have a clear and active brain, active in the right direction, requires due activity and rest, with friendly relations to the rest of the body, more especially the stomach and the digestive organs as a whole. If unwholesome food is taken, that difficult of digestion, if taken between meals,—even fruits being objectionable if not taken as part of meals, the dried fruit being particularly difficult of digestion,—if the stomach in any way is disturbed or becomes contaminated, cloudiness, weakness of the brain, with a corresponding derangement of the mind, naturally follow. If the student would make progress in study, it is as necessary to take proper food, such as will feed the brain, as it is for the laborer to strengthen the muscles by food adapted for that purpose.

It is a fortunate circumstance, a merciful fact, that plain and simple food—the grains furnishing the best of simple food—is the most nourishing, the easiest of digestion, as a whole, the most palatable to the unvitiated taste, and the cheapest, being in reach of those in humble circumstances, and the most favorable to health, as illustrated by the fact that the food which Daniel persisted in taking, without the king's wine, was better than that taken in the royal family. . . . Those students who have but little of this world's goods, who are compelled to live abstemiously, are the ones who will make their mark in the world, who will be "heard from."—Spelman Messenger, Atlanta, Ga.