“11 cans of preserved sweet peaches.
“6 cans of sweet grapes.
“Strawberries preserved and dried.
“Quince and grape jelly.
“Tomatoes by the jug.
“20 pounds of dried sweet peaches.
“Box of Isabella grapes, almost consumed.
“Three varieties of apples and quinces.
“But the people say, and think they know what they say, that he refuses to furnish his table with tea and coffee. That’s true! They are poison. Some thirty-five years ago I was using both tea and coffee. After retiring from a tea-party at midnight, my companion said, ‘What is the matter? Can’t you lie quiet and sleep?’ ‘Sleep! no,’ I said. ‘Why not?’ was the next question. ‘Oh! I wish Mrs. Bunker’s tea had been in the East Indies. It’s poison.’ Here I forever bade adieu to tea and coffee. After awhile my wife joined me, and we banished them from our table and dwelling. That’s the reason they are not on my table.
“They say, too, that this man does not allow any ardent spirits or strong drink in his house. That’s true. Please hear my reason: Fifty years ago I was by myself on the boundless ocean. My thoughts troubled me. Said257I to Him who always hears, ‘I’ll never drink another glass of grog or strong drink while I live.’ That’s why I have no intoxicating drink on or about my premises.
“Well, there is another thing that he is fanatical about, and differs from more than half his country-men. What is that?—He will not have about him nor use any tobacco. Guilty! My reason: Forty-eight years ago I was away toward the setting sun; our gallant ship was plowing her way through the great Pacific. During the nightwatch we were called to take some refreshment. I then tossed my chew of tobacco into the ocean, never, no, never, to touch, taste, or handle any more. And allow me to say that when I had gained the victory over this deadening, besotting, benumbing vice, I went on deck the next morning a better man than ever I was in all my former life. Why?—I was free. I could appreciate God’s handiwork in sea and sky, even in the tumbling, rolling waves. I could breathe freely, inhaling the pure air of heaven, and shout. I was a free man.
“Therefore, if any demand is ever made on me for tobacco, tea, coffee, or strong drink of any kind that intoxicates, they must present an order from the Court above.”
“Here comes half a barrel of graham crackers, and a lot of farina, a national breadstuff of the native South Americans. I think I am now well supplied with good, nutritious food. And if there is any lack, I have some good, faithful brethren who seem to be waiting to serve me.”
“I am your brother, now on retired pay in Monterey, Mich. “JOSEPH BATES.
“Feb. 14, 1872.”
Elder Joseph Bates died at Battle Creek, Mich., March 19, 1872, in the eightieth year of his age. His last hours, though characterized by pain such as few men have been called upon to pass through, afforded marked evidence of the superiority of faith in Christ over bodily suffering and the prospect of certain and rapidly approaching death.258Having in early manhood chosen the service of God, and having for many years faithfully endeavored to live the life of the righteous, his last end was such as those alone can expect who have sedulously endeavored to preserve a conscience void of offense toward God and man.
As we close this sketch, we are impressed with the words of Paul, prompted by a review of his own past life, and the reward of the glorious future: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
ELDER J. N. ANDREWS.
John Nevins Andrews was born at Poland, Maine, July 22, 1829. His paternal ancestors were among the early colonists of this country, having landed at Plymouth eighteen years after the arrival of the Mayflower, and settled at Taunton, Mass. In the Indian wars that followed, nearly the entire family were massacred. As the male members of the family, with the exception of one sick boy, who remained at home, were at work in a field, the Indians surprised them, and got between them and their guns. They were men of high stature, and of great physical strength; and in their determination to sell their lives as dearly as possible, they tore up trees of considerable size, and used them as weapons. But the contest was unequal, and the well-armed Indians killed them all.
“Both my grandfathers,” says Elder Andrews, in a sketch from his own pen, “served in the Revolutionary War. Their names were David Andrews and John Nevins. The name of the latter was given to me. Grandfather Nevins was a man remarkable for his piety and kindness of heart. He lived to be very aged.
“My earliest religious conviction was at the age of five years, when I heard a discourse by Daniel B. Randall from these words: ‘And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away.’ So vivid was the impression made upon my mind that I have rarely read the passage without remembering that discourse. But it was not until I was thirteen years old that I found the Saviour. This was in January, 1843. I then became deeply interested in the doctrine of Christ’s near coming, and I have ever since cherished this faith.”
Elder Andrews entered upon the work of the Christian ministry in 1850, at the age of twenty-one, and for twenty-seven years has been a close fellow-laborer and an intimate friend of the writer. He is tall, with slender chest and massive brain. When he entered the ministry, he was afflicted with sore throat and a cough, and it was the general opinion among his friends that consumption would terminate his life in a few years. His thirst for education was great, yet he could spare neither the time nor the means to take a regular course in school.
His labors as a preacher and writer have been excessive, and he has taxed his strength severely by continuous study. Yet his health has been improving since 1864, when his attention was called to the subject of health reform. As we have before stated, his prospects for life and health, when he entered the ministry in 1850, were most gloomy. And that he should recover health while laboring intensely hard, depriving himself of seasons of recreation, and frequently cutting short the proper periods of sleep, furnishes the strongest proof of the benefits of hygienic reform.
In 1871 a personal friend requested him to write his experience for another friend in Providence, R. I. Of this request Elder Andrews says:—
“In asking me to write directly to his friend, my correspondent truthfully remarks that ‘many people will not believe what appears in papers or periodicals, but a260personal account will always suffice to remove old prejudices.’ Now there is a reason for this unbelief and distrust that is certainly very weighty. The press teems with accounts of wonderful cures wrought by such and such medicines; and the point of each statement is this: ‘If you would have health, buy this marvelous remedy.’ Sensible people long ago decided that these certificates were in the great majority of cases entirely unreliable, and that they were formed for the manifest purpose of enriching the proprietor of ‘the matchless sanative’ that they respectively extol.
“Now, why should not health reformers be as generally and as promptly discredited as should the venders of the various ‘magic cordials’ and ‘healing balsams’ everywhere offered ‘for the relief of suffering humanity’? They should, if they can be justly classed together. And if the same principle governs the action of each, then let them share in the same condemnation.
“But observe the contrast: The advocates of the hygienic system declare, as a fundamental principle, that health can be regained or preserved only upon condition that we ‘cease to do evil and learn to do well;’ while the dealers in the aforesaid wonderful preparations severally state, as one of the most convincing reasons for the use of their respective medicines, that ‘no change of diet or of habits of life is required in order to be benefited by this wonderful remedy.’
“The first party declares that the restorative power exists only in the vital forces which God has given us; the other, that it is to be found in drugs. The one affirms that the restorative power within ourselves can alone give us health, but will do it only upon condition of abstinence from wrong habits, and of simple obedience to the laws of our being. But the other replies in derision, ‘This is all humbug; you may eat, drink, and act as you will, without any danger of evil consequences, provided you freely use my healing balm.’
“Which of these parties is entitled to our confidence?261One of them asks no money, but insists that we govern ourselves by the laws which the Author of our being has established within our own organization. The other bids us freely disobey, and promises us immunity from evil consequences on condition that we use the medicines which they desire us to buy at their hands.
“We know which of these two kinds of teaching is the more enticing to the multitudes; but would it not be well to ask which is the more reasonable? One of them declares that obedience to the laws of life is the one condition upon which we can have health. The other asserts that God has provided means whereby men may deliberately disobey those laws, and yet escape the consequences of that disobedience; and that that means is something known only to the ones who say this, and to be had only on condition that you pay them well for it. On which side are reason and common sense? on that of self-control, or on that of self-indulgence? And which of these two classes is attempting to get your money upon false pretenses?
“I am a firm believer in the principles of health reform. I have cause to be such. My judgment is convinced that its principles are reasonable, and just, and true. Moreover, I have proved them true by the test of actual experience. In this thing, therefore, I speak not merely that which I have heard, but I also testify that which I know. I believed in the health reform when I first learned its principles, because to me they were self-evident truths. But there is no teacher like experience. Ever after I was first instructed in this system, I believed it to be true; but the experience of seven years enables me to speak now as one who knows whereof he affirms.
“I do not attempt to instruct the people in physiological and hygienic science. There are plenty to do this who are fully competent to the task. I speak rather as members of the church bear testimony after the sermon of their pastor, not to give instruction in the doctrines set forth, but to declare that I have proved these very things262to be true, and to testify that I know the certainty of that wherein we have been instructed.
“And why should I not speak with much assurance? I know what were the difficulties under which I labored eight years ago, and I well understand that my present condition is in marked contrast to my state at that time. Then I was a feeble man from head to foot. Now I have found entire relief from all the difficulties under which I suffered, and in God’s merciful providence have excellent health.
“I can hardly recall any period of my early life in which I was a possessor of firm health. In boyhood, my growth was rapid, but I never saw the time when my physical strength was fully equal to that of most of those of my years. I loved severe study much more ardently than I did any of the sports and pastimes of my associates. From my earliest childhood I was taught to shun evil associates, and was warned against intemperance in every form in which my parents understood it to exist; but I was not instructed in the principles of hygiene, for neither my father nor my mother had any just knowledge of these.
“I was kept from the use of tobacco, and from even tasting strong drink; but I learned almost nothing of the evils of unwholesome food—at least, of such as was common in our own family. I did not know that late suppers, and ‘hearty’ ones at that, were serious evils. I had no idea of any special transgression in eating between meals; and though this was mostly confined to fruit, I did herein ignorantly transgress to a very considerable extent. I supposed old cheese was good to aid digestion! Do not smile at my folly; unless my memory is at fault, I had learned this out of ‘standard medical works.’ As to mince-pie and sausage, I had no thought that these were unwholesome, unless too highly seasoned, or, as it was termed, ‘made too rich.’ Hot biscuit and butter, doughnuts, pork in every form, pickles, preserves, tea, coffee, etc., etc., were all in common use. Of ventilation I understood263almost nothing. And I might continue to enumerate the particulars of my ignorance of vital hygienic truth, but it would be easier to tell what I knew than to attempt to mention that which I ought to have known but did not.
“But I must also expose my ignorance, by confessing that I had little other idea of headache, dyspepsia, nausea, fevers, etc., than that these were, for the most part, wholly beyond our control, and that, like the various phenomena of nature, they were ordered by God’s hand, and man had generally no agency therein. Do not smile at this strange notion. It is strange, indeed, that such ideas should prevail; but that they do prevail, even now, you may satisfy yourself by calling out the ideas of the very next person you meet.”
“When I entered the Christian ministry, at the age of twenty-one, I did not enjoy firm health. Though in no sense an intemperate man, as the word is commonly used, I did, nevertheless, have no just idea of Christian temperance. However much I lacked in other respects, I did not lack in zeal to labor in the work I had undertaken; and I think I may say in truth that I felt in some degree the responsibility of my calling. My anxiety of mind was constant, and oftentimes extreme. Associated with a few others in the defense, or rather in the attempt to advance, an unpopular truth, there fell to my lot a heavy burden of anxious care, and the necessity of much overtaxing labor, oftentimes requiring not the day merely, but much, or even all, of the night.
“But one cannot violate the laws of his being, even in the best of causes, without suffering the consequences; and so I found, to my own cost. Had I understood the laws of life in the right use of food, and in the principles of hygiene generally, I could have gone longer than I did in the exhausting labor which I attempted to sustain. But, in short, my story is this: In less than five years I was utterly prostrated. My voice was destroyed, I supposed permanently; my eyesight was considerably injured; I could not rest by day, and I could not sleep well at night;264I was a serious sufferer from dyspepsia; and as to that mental depression which attends this disease, I think I have a sufficient acquaintance with it to dispense with it in time to come, if right habits of life will enable one to do so. On arising in the morning it was very generally the case that the sensation in my stomach was as though a living creature were devouring it. Often, without apparent reason, very great prostration would come over me. My brain, from severe taxation and from ignorance on my part of the proper manner of performing brain labor, had become much diseased, and seemed to be undergoing the process called ‘softening.’ It was only at times that I could perform mental labor to any extent. I was considerably troubled with salt-rheum, which made the middle finger of each hand raw on both sides much of the time. I had plenty of headache, though I thought little of that. But I had one difficulty which made life a heavy burden to me. I had catarrh to such an extent that my head seemed to be incurably diseased. I will not describe its disagreeable peculiarities, but will simply say that I have not often seen persons who have it in so very bad a form as mine. No other ill of life ever gave me such trouble as this. My general strength was prostrated; I was a burden to myself, and could not but be such to others.”
“Some nine years of my life elapsed after my general prostration, before I learned anything of consequence respecting the subject of health reform. During this time, from laying aside mental labor to a large extent, and working in the open air, I had received considerable benefit so far as my general strength was concerned. But I need not further state my own troubles in the past. Thank God that I can say ‘in the *past.’ For the opportunity to say this, I am indebted to the health reform.”
In the Health Reformer for 1872, Elder Andrews related his own experience and that of his family in adopting health reform. From his narrative we quote:—
My attention was especially called to this subject in the early part of 1864. At that time my son Charles, who265was then six years of age, was in a very critical condition. His left leg was withered its entire length, and was much smaller than his right one. Fortunately, however, it was not shorter than the other. His left ankle was greatly enlarged from a scrofulous deposit, which was almost as hard as bone. The ankle joint was therefore almost entirely stiff. In hobbling along, for he could not be said to walk, he turned his foot as far round as the foot can be turned, so that the toe was something more than at a right angle with the other foot, and actually pointed back. His general health was much impaired. He complained much at night of pain in his back. His difficulties began when he was about two years of age, and gradually reached the state which I have described. My wife and I were deeply distressed. We often prayed God to teach us what to do. We had our son examined by physicians and surgeons, but they were quite at a loss what to say to us.”
It was finally decided to place the child where he could receive hygienic treatment. Elder Andrews continues:—
“Fifteen weeks of strict hygienic living and of judicious water treatment wrought in my son a change little short of miraculous. He walked in a natural manner, the enlargement of the ankle joint had nearly disappeared, and the withered leg had begun to grow. He continued to gain in health and strength, for his mode of life at home was the same as that under which such great changes had been wrought. His health became firm, and his left leg became equal in size and strength to the right. He has possessed vigorous health to the present time. When we placed him under hygienic treatment, his mother and myself determined to fully adopt the principles of health reform, and this we did in serious earnest, not with any particular expectation of benefit to ourselves, but because it seemed plainly right. I certainly had no idea of any manifest personal advantage in the recovery of my own health.
“We adopted the two-meal system, and have strictly adhered to it till the present time. We put away from our table, spice, pepper, vinegar, etc. We also put away butter, meat, and fish, and substituted graham for fine flour. But we endeavored to secure plenty of good fruit, and, with our vegetables and grains, we have always used some milk and a very little salt. We have strictly abstained from eating anything except in connection with our meals, and have taught our children to act on this plan. For a space of time we took a brief season for rest each day, before the second meal. This plan of rest-hour, however, we have not regularly followed for several years past, but have occasionally regarded it, as necessity has demanded. But we have tried faithfully to follow the hygienic system in every essential point. And now to state its consequences in my own case:—
“1. One of the first results which I observed upon the change made in my diet, was that my food had once more the keen relish which I can remember it possessed in my childhood, but which it had long since lost.
“2. Headache, dizziness, nausea, and the like, were gone.
3. But several months elapsed before I found any increase of strength. Nor is this strange when I state that, though I made so great a change in my living, and withal omitted the third meal, I did, nevertheless, continue my labors as before the change. But after some months I became sensible of an increase of strength, and this continued to be the case till I could say in strict truth that I possessed greater strength and power of endurance than at any former period of my life.
4. One of the immediate consequences of omitting my third meal was entire freedom from morning faintness. When I dispensed with suppers, I also closed my acquaintance with what seemed to be a living creature gnawing in my stomach each morning before breakfast. I thus found that it was not the lack of food of which my stomach complained, but quite the reverse. It had toiled all night to dispose of the supper, when it should have had rest.
“5. And as to the strength derived from a hygienic diet, I have this testimony to bear, that whereas I often suffered from faintness under the common method of living, I have no recollection of one case of this kind in my own experience for the whole period of my present course of life. I have often remarked that I can omit one of my two meals with less inconvenience than formerly I could one of the three.”
“6. As the direct consequence of omitting unhygienic articles from my diet, my salt-rheum has wholly disappeared. Boils used to be frequent with me, but I have not had one in eight years. And the painful sores which came upon my under lip every few weeks in former years, have absolutely discontinued their visitations. These things I attribute largely to the entire disuse of butter.
“7. When I adopted the health reform, I had, as I supposed, an incurable catarrh. I was ignorant of the fact that it was caused by an inability of the liver to keep up with its work while its owner was continually taking into the stomach substances which would vastly increase its work beyond the design of the Creator. But after some months of correct living, especially in the matter of diet, I found some intervals of relief from the terrible scourge. Then it seemed as bad as ever. Then after a time there came a longer period of relief. Then again a relapse, and then a still longer season of freedom. So it continued for nearly two years, when to my great joy it ceased to come back at all.
“I owe to God a debt of gratitude for the health reform, which I can never repay or even fully express. It is to me something sacred, constituting, as Christian temperance, an essential part of true religion. In one respect only do I knowingly allow myself to transgress, and that is in the endeavor to discharge the responsibilities which devolve upon me, which sometimes requires a large part of the twenty-four hours. Yet with the strength derived from correct living in other respects, I hope not to destroy myself by thus laboring at times beyond what I would approve in secular business.”
[Some years after the paragraphs above quoted were written, Elder Andrews went to Switzerland, where he labored most arduously for many years in the establishment of the Central European Mission, located at Basle. While he lived, almost the entire burden of this important work rested upon his shoulders; and under the pressure of great responsibility, cares, and duties to which he had not been accustomed, and of the new and perplexing difficulties incident to pioneer work in a foreign field, the disposition to labor far beyond his strength, which for many years had led him to deprive himself of proper opportunity for sleep and recreation, was indulged even to a greater extent than in previous years. In addition to this extraordinary strain upon his physical powers, he was in a new country, where health principles were little known, and was surrounded with most unfavorable conditions as regards diet, ventilation, and the disposal of waste. For years the house in which he lived was thoroughly permeated with sewer-gas. Surrounded thus with conditions most inimical to health, it is not surprising that Elder Andrews finally succumbed to the pressure of untoward circumstances. Oct. 21, 1883, at the age of fifty-five years, he died of consumption, after battling for more than three years with the disease. He continued his labors almost to the very close of his life. Few men have left behind them a record of greater purity of life, or of more earnest effort for Christ and humanity. His indefatigable labors did more, perhaps, than those of any other man, to develop the Bible evidence of the views advocated by this people; and the debt of gratitude which we owe him should lead us to study earnestly the principles that he loved so well, and to emulate his noble example in a life of temperance and self-sacrifice, and of devotion to the good of others.]