Relations of Diet, Morals, and Health
By David Paulson, M.D.
Exercise and Sanitation—He Received a New Impulse—The Power to Surmount Obstacles
Our forefathers earned their bread by the sweat of their face, while the majority of their children are to-day earning theirs by the sweat of their brains; and while our diet is becoming richer and more luxurious, and is partaken of more freely, our habits have become more and more sedentary. Hence the activities of life are not only blocked on one hand by overeating, but are stifled on the other hand by lack of physical activity. During vigorous exercise, five or six times as much carbon dioxide gas is eliminated from the lungs as when sitting still. Again, during a brisk walk, two thirds of the entire volume of blood in the body is circulating through the muscles. When inactive, two thirds of the blood is passing through the internal organs. This furnishes a hint why sedentary people are so likely to suffer of various internal congestions. A Pestilential Spot Becomes a Health Resort
We are making tremendous advancement in securing health by law. Sanitary and quarantine regulations have enormously diminished epidemics and contagious diseases. They have transformed Panama from a pestilential spot into a veritable health resort. They have banished yellow fever from our fair land. But such diseases as are due to intemperance, dietetic errors, the use of tobacco, and other enslaving habits, and various excesses, are increasing by leaps and by bounds. It can not be denied that cancer, Bright's disease, heart-disease, apoplexy, neurasthenia, and a number of other chronic disorders, are largely due to personal violations of the laws of health; and these are enormously on the increase. The prevention of these diseases requires self-denial; and that means, in nine cases out of ten, a new impulse from Heaven. A New Impulse While Intoxicated
As a capital illustration of just what thousands need, I will tell of what a drunken man received. One night I was in the Life Boat Mission that we used to maintain on State Street in Chicago. A man in the audience was so intoxicated that he kept trying to break up the meeting. I finally took him by the arm and persuaded him to accompany me up-stairs. I tried to impress upon him the importance of becoming delivered from the liquor habit. He said something about being a drunkard for forty years, and that it was no use. I felt impressed that the Lord could do something for the poor fellow that I could not do. So in spite of his vigorous objections, I succeeded in getting him down on his knees, and then I earnestly prayed the Lord to deliver him, and I told him he must pray. He said he couldn't, he didn't know how. I told him just to ask the Lord to deliver him from the liquor habit, and finally he blurted out these very words: "Lord, if You can do anything for a poor broken-down bum like me, I wish You would. Amen." That was not a very eloquent prayer, but evidently God saw a bigger prayer in the poor man's soul, for he arose practically sober. Got a New Power in His Life
I took him down again to the mission meeting, intending to see him afterward, but he slipped out unobserved. Six weeks later he came back, well dressed and clothed in his right mind. He wanted to see the doctor, but I was not there that night. When opportunity came to testify, he arose, and said that six weeks before, he had come into that mission a drunken outcast. His wife had left him in sheer despair, his employer had discharged him, his tools had been pawned for drink, but the doctor took him up-stairs and got him down on his knees to pray, and something happened to him. He knew that he went out with a new power in his life. He hunted up his wife, and told her that if she would live with him, he would give her no further trouble. He told his employer that he could keep sober now. He said that from the hour when he prayed, he lost his appetite for drink. In other words, he received some "pollen" from another world, and it had fertilized his soul. That represents what every man needs who is a victim of an enslaving habit. He does not need merely talk. He needs a new impulse, and that from a higher source. The Devil Will Be on Hand
The reason the perpetual motion dream never materializes is because we can not entirely eliminate the friction; and the man who starts out to be delivered from soul-and-body-destroying habits, and who adopts health reform principles, and is determined to cultivate healthy habits, will find that the devil will put plenty of obstacles in his way for the purpose of disheartening and discouraging him. A genuine Christian experience does not necessarily remove all these obstacles. Sometimes for the time being it seems to increase them, but it does give power to surmount them. I am firmly convinced that if we resolutely resolve to live up to all the light God has sent and is sending to us, and endeavor to make intelligent use of all the helpful means that are within our reach, God will give us all the health He sees we will make good use of; and furthermore, what is equally important, He will bless to our good, not only here, but hereafter, the amount of ill health He permits us to struggle with. Sickness May Prove a Blessing
While sickness on the whole is an awful curse, it can, in individual cases, be transformed into a lifelong blessing. For the benefit of some discouraged and disheartened invalid, I will add my personal experience. Just as I was entering manhood, I was stricken down with a terrible attack of diphtheria in its most deadly form. An older brother had just passed away of the same disease. In a few days I was brought to the very brink of the grave. I knew that I was dying and had but a few hours to live. It Would Not Reach the Other Side
Although I had been brought up in a Christian home, and was a member of the church, it would have been as easy to make a plank extend across Lake Michigan as for my Christian experience to reach over to the other shore. The future outlook was black despair to me. In the agony of my soul I pleaded with God to spare my life, and I promised in return that I would dedicate my life to His service. God marvelously heard my prayer, and that attack of sickness was the means in the hands of God of saving my soul. Some years ago I visited the home of my childhood. There I met some of my childhood friends who had an outlook similar to what my own had been. Some of them had buried both their talents and their souls in the earth. Then I thanked God that He had permitted me to learn through sickness what I had failed to learn during health, and what these boyhood friends of mine had equally failed to learn since then. If we are determined not to be disobedient to the heavenly vision, we shall be able to know that all things, including attacks of sickness, may work together for good to those who love the Lord.