The Secret of Life

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 23, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 50.

The Secret of Life.

Dr. Virchow, one of the greatest of the world's physicians, is reported to have said that he firmly believes that the time will soon come when man will have obtained the key to the prolonging of life. Dr. Cyrus Edson says:—

Any physician can enormously lengthen the life of any physically perfect man who will agree to abstain entirely from intemperate and vicious habits. The difficulty is to find the man who is willing to sacrifice his inclination for vice to his mere wish to live a long life. But, given a man and woman who are willing to devote themselves to such purely hygienic lives, and whom these appliances show to be minutely physically and mentally perfect, their offspring will be healthier than the average man, and consequently longer lived.

The secret of life is with God, tho Dr. Edson hints at it. But God has not kept the secret to himself. He has revealed it in his Word. "In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof, there is no death." On the contrary, "The wages of sin is death." Sinful tho mortal man may be, if he is willing to conform his physical life to the laws of health and hygiene, he will greatly prolong it. Vice, sin, transgression of law, shortens it. But God proposes by the mighty power of the law of his love in Christ Jesus to transform man's character from sin to righteousness, and so to life, even to life forevermore through a resurrection of the dead. In God is the secret of righteousness and life, and he will bestow the gracious gifts upon all who will come to him by faith.