THE POWER OF APPETITE by Christian Temperance; Bible Hygiene

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 17, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 24.

THE POWER OF APPETITE.

By Christian Temperance; Bible Hygiene

God designed that the appetite should be man's servant. When controlled by the moral and intellectual powers, it is one of God's blessed gifts; but when it becomes master, it is a debasing tyrant, crushing out of man that which is noble and godlike.

We go back in imagination over long ages, until we stand amid the glories of Eden before sin entered, and there we meet the painful fact that one of the weakest points in the character of Adam and Eve, while in all the perfection of manhood and womanhood, was the appetite. Their failure to exercise self-control upon this point—together with their curiosity and ambition—led to their fall. As the consequent moral darkness and downward tendency increased with each successive generation, the reign of appetite became more debasing and supreme. If appetite could move our first parents to an act of base disobedience, what must be its power over men and women of the nineteenth century, in whose physical, mental, and moral nature the taint of the fall still exists, with all the aggravations which have been acquired since Adam and Eve passed out of the gate of Paradise?

It is true that among the patriarchs and prophets were men who walked with God, and were the masters, not the slaves, of appetite,—like Daniel and his friends, who refused to defile themselves with the king's meat and wine. The apostles treat of Christian temperance in a most pointed manner. The apostle Paul says that "every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things," and then adds, by way of application to the Christian life, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

We live in an age remarkable for Bibles, the Sacred Scriptures now being read in two hundred and sixty-seven languages and dialects; and yet there has probably never been a time when the people of Christian lands have been more completely under the rule of appetite. The gospel is preached everywhere. The present is said to be an age of wonderful light and gospel liberty; but unfortunately, the gospel as too often preached in our time hardly touches the appetites and passions of men. And why should it, when so many of the teachers of religion do not feel called upon to renounce wine and tobacco or to restrain appetite?

Many temperance men, with the waning cause of temperance as it relates to intoxicating drinks on their hands, are feeling that but little can be done in reforming drunkards, or in restraining young men from becoming such, while they indulge in the use of tobacco. The only way to cure men of the love of whisky is to restore the appetite to its natural state. And this can never be done while the common and free use of tobacco, tea, and coffee is continued. The only way to make real temperance men is to teach the people to abandon all unnatural habits, and to use only those things which God designed for the use of man, and these in their natural state, as far as possible.

One has only to reflect a moment in order to be overwhelmed with astonishment at the unnatural, expensive, debasing habit of tobacco using. We need not say that it is a filthy habit. If tobacco chewers would only swallow that which is so sweet in their mouths, instead of spitting it out, to the annoyance of cleaner people, their path would be less offensive; but instead they eject on the street, in public places, and on the cars, that which is extremely odious to all who are not initiated in the disgusting habit.