Influence of Diet on the Drink Habit — Men Rescued from the Lowest Depths
By DAVID PAULSON, M. D.
The influential, self-possessed moderate drinker may argue convincingly in favor of the reasonable and legitimate use of alcoholic stimulants. He is at the beginning of a way which may seem right to him; but I have had abundant opportunities to see the other end of that same road, and I know that it is death—and an awful death at that. Prov. 14:12.
My Bible declares that “every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Matt. 3:10. I know, from personal observation, that the liquor traffic does not bear good fruit. Hence I know that sooner or later it will be hewn down by God and cast into the fire. So while I live, I purpose to cooperate with Him by the use of my voice, my pen, and my vote, in hewing down this tree.
"AT THE LAST IT BITETH LIKE A SERPENT"
Again and again I have sat at the bedside of a delirium tremens maniac, and heard his piercing, blood-curdling shriek as he vainly endeavored to escape from his imaginary foes.
I have seen, over and over again, what had been a keen, clear-headed business man reduced to a driveling fool by constantly poisoning his nervous system with this toxic substance.
I have seen our lunatic asylums, our almshouses, yea, even our great prisons, filled to overflowing with the legitimate product of this awful poison.
But each of these human wrecks began his downward career by moderate drinking, and thought he knew when to stop, and sincerely despised the poor drunken sot who had reached the stage where he had lost his own self-control.
The Scriptures have pronounced an awful woe on this dreadful curse in all its stages, from first to last; and no human being can change that verdict, any more than he can reverse the laws of gravitation, or alter the course of the seasons.
An extensive experience in dealing with drug slaves and the victims of the drink habit, has developed some definite convictions regarding their deliverance and permanent cure.
THE ALL-ROUND CURE
There are many so-called "cures" for the liquor habit, but there is only one cure that also delivers from the sin habit; and that is why I always recommend the gospel cure. But that includes intelligent physical cooperation; for the prayer of him "that turneth away his ear from hearing the law" is an "abomination." Prov. 28:9. To ask God to save a drunkard from his thirst, when his dietetic habits are constantly creating a thirst for liquor is a mockery.
I remember a young man who had been with Lord Wolseley in his famous military expedition into Egypt. Afterwards he became so cursed by the drink evil that when he finally dropped into our Life Boat Mission in Chicago, he had been drinking steadily for eight days. During that time, he had not had his clothes off, nor had he sat down to eat a meal.
FROM AN EIGHT-DAY DEBAUCH
At the end of this terrible debauch, he found himself homeless, without a penny in his pocket, his body all shaking and trembling, and every nerve crying out for alcohol.
The strains of the sweet gospel music were wafted into the street through the open door, and reached his benumbed brain. Some one invited him in. He thought it would be a chance at least to sit down in a chair and rest.
He accepted the invitation to give his heart to God. The Spirit of God impressed him that he must also give up tobacco, to which he was as much a slave as to liquor. This poor degraded wanderer said, "Yes, Lord, if You will help me I will give it up." Then he began to pray, and a new peace and assurance came into his life.
As he walked out of the mission, he threw his pipe and tobacco into the gutter, saying, "That is where you belong." His soul was saved, but his body was yet full of poisons.
The next day, with a prayer in his heart, he started out to hunt for work. After searching in vain all the forenoon, the overwhelming temptation came to him that what he had accepted the night before was a myth, and that God was not providing for him. Then he took out the little Testament the mission workers had given him, and the first verse that met his eyes was Luke 11:9: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find."
PERSPIRATION AFTER INSPIRATION
An hour later, he had an opportunity to unload nine tons of coal into a cellar under the sidewalk. He had to get into that warm underground place and shovel the coal back. It was a severe Turkish bath, but just what he needed to eliminate the poisons that saturated his body.
With the dollar and sixty-five cents that he earned, he went to our Workingmen’s Home, had a good bath, some wholesome, simple, non-stimulating food, and a good night’s rest. Then Providence opened the way for him to go out and work during the summer in a Dakota wheat field. When he returned, we accepted him into our Chicago medical missionary training class. He soon became a faithful missionary nurse, led many other men to the foot of the cross, and to-day is a conscientious Christian man, loved and respected by all who know him.
One day, in our Chicago medical missionary work, a policeman brought to us a man who had been ten days in the gutter and was apparently at the point of death. However, physiological remedies and careful nursing soon wrought a marvelous transformation.
“THE OVERWHELMING TEMPTATION CAME TO HIM”
I then learned from him that he had stood up in one of the Chicago missions again and again and asked for prayers, and yet had always gone back to drink. I assured him that God was not only willing but anxious to deliver him from his bondage; that he must be manufacturing the chains for his own slavery.
FIERY FOODS UNDOING HIM
I soon discovered that he had an abnormal appetite for mustard, pepper, fiery spices, condiments, juicy beefsteaks, and tea and coffee, all of which produce a thirst that water cannot satisfy, and really were constantly arousing the awful craving for liquor which was sweeping him from his feet in spite of the prayers of the mission workers—just as certainly as a hot stove would produce blisters on the one who should persist in laying his hands on it.
I advised him to go to our Workingmen’s Home, and eat rice, well cooked grains, juicy fruits, refreshing vegetables, and nourishing dairy products, and abandon those artificial, thirst-producing foods. He did not seem to appreciate the importance of my advice, but promised, nevertheless, to carry out my suggestions.
FELL BY EATING
For a few days, everything went well. He had absolutely no desire for liquor. Then he visited friends on the North Side who invited him to dine with them. The meal consisted of pork chops, and all those other wretched things that are really the devil’s toboggan slide to the saloon door for all those who have inherited the liquor appetite.
He told me afterward that before he had finished the meal, the craving for liquor so overpowered him that he would if necessary have walked into the mouth of hell for it to quench his thirst.
He went to the nearest saloon. Then he was ten days in the gutter. The officers of the law again brought him to us. He was so dropsical that his skin had burst in several places, and the fluid was oozing out. To all appearances, he had only a few hours to live; but God, in answer to our prayers, blessed the simple remedies we administered, and in a short time he was practically restored.
Then he told me he had discovered the difference between eating for strength and eating for drunkenness (Eccl. 10:17), and henceforth would carry out my dietetic advice to the letter.
THE PATENT MEDICINE DELUSION
This man was soon filling a good position, and in a few weeks was well and strong, with126absolutely no craving for liquor. But a year and a half later, when suffering from a fit of indigestion, he went to a drug store for something to "settle his stomach." A patent medicine containing alcohol was given him. The very first dose aroused the old drink demon, which led him directly to a saloon, and the result was a debauch so serious that it ended his career.
From hundreds of cases where I have had an opportunity to observe the close relation between diet and drunkenness, I have selected this one as most typical. And furthermore, it illustrates the danger of doping with patent medicines, which are also likely to contain alcohol, morphine, and other unknown dangerous and demoralizing drugs.
DIET SUGGESTIONS FOR THE DRUNKARD
First of all, the drink victim should be pointed to the Source of all strength. He should be admonished to cooperate intelligently by discontinuing at the same time the use of tobacco, tea and coffee, meat, mustard and pepper, and other exciting and irritating foods.
For a few days, until the craving is completely smothered, it is well to live exclusively on fruit, using it abundantly in its various forms three or four times a day, adding to this plenty of water drinking, and spending the time as far as possible away from all sources of temptation.
Almost everywhere there are sad victims of the drink habit who sincerely desire to be delivered, but they know no way of escape. The priests and Levites of the same communities are passing by on the other side, simply because they consider them hopeless cases.
I earnestly pray that this article may be used of God to create a new determination in the hearts of tens of thousands of Christian people to rise to their heretofore overlooked privilege "to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Isa. 61:1.
Revival and Religious Politics
The church cannot expect any great revival in spiritual things so long as it prays toward heaven, and votes toward hell.
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"Shiloh, the Man of Sorrows"
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Back in December, announcement was made that the Signs of the Times Magazine for March would be an Exposition Number. The idea was enthusiastically received, and served as an inspiration to writers and artist, who have produced a most attractive issue.
Among the articles are: Westward the Course of Empire; The Circle Almost Circled; An Exposition of Our Times; Then Shall the End Come; Sun Worship and the Sabbath; Grand Finale of Armageddon.
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The Earth's Interior
By A. Smith
Is It Water or Fire?
By A. SMITH
SOME scientists have asserted that the earth in the beginning was an intensely heated molten mass, thrown off from the substance of the sun by the rapid rotation of that luminary, and that the earth's interior is now a molten mass.
But the Bible declares of the earth that God "spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast" (Ps. 33:9), and that "He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." Ps. 24:2.
At the time of the Deluge, the rocky foundation of the earth's superstructure, enveloping the vast internal reservoir of water, was broken up by the power of God, and the waters rushed to the surface with overwhelming force. See Gen. 7:11-24. This, united with the water rained down from heaven, covered the whole earth. The event was certainly a supernatural one. At the subsidence of the Flood, much of the water returned to the interior of the earth; but three fourths of the earth remained covered.
In the beginning only one seventh of the earth's surface was covered with water, beautifully diversified and distributed, as the following quotation shows: "Upon the third day Thou didst command that the waters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth: six parts hast Thou dried up, and kept them, to the intent that of these some being planted of God, and tilled, might serve Thee. . . . Upon the fifth day Thou saidst unto the seventh part where the waters were gathered, that it should bring forth living creatures, fowls and fishes: and so it came to pass." 2 Esdras 6:42, 47.
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Soldiers of Napoleon Excavated in Egypt
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WHILE engaged in building operations at the Mustapha barracks, near Alexandria, workmen excavated human remains that were finally identified as those of Napoleon's army which had fought the English troops during the campaign of 1798, and had fallen near Sidi Gaber.
The remains were inclosed in a coffin and taken to Cairo for burial in the Catholic cemetery, escorted by detachments of all the British regiments, and by the French diplomatic agent, his staff, and British and French Boy Scouts. The ceremony was witnessed by large crowds. W. C. ISING.
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Temperance, Disarmament, and War
By Editor
A BILL has been introduced in the Colorado legislature, to provide for the enforcement of the prohibition amendment carried in their last election. Under the terms of the proposed measure, the use of intoxicating liquor will be permitted “only for medicinal and sacramental purposes.” It seems a shame that our churches, which should be the strongest in advocating prohibitory measures, and that should lead the way in practical temperance, should want an exception made in their favor, in a law prohibiting the use of liquor. The use of fermented wine in the Lord’s Supper or “sacrament” has no foundation in Scripture, and churches should get beyond the place where they use anything of that sort. Unfermented wine is the only thing the Bible authorizes, and most of the Protestant churches recognize this.
“THE armed peace” which able men thought would forever prevent war resulted in the present awful strife. Armed and equipped for conflict, is always provocative of war. Dr. James Bryce, historian and diplomat, prays, “Deliver us from another armed peace.” That armed peace cost the nations three billion dollars a year. It is costing billions more in this war’s fearful loss. Some men are working for disarmament after this war, and think it will come. If it does not, as the New York World remarks, “another war of similar character and consequences is as inevitable as the rising of the sun.” And that is Armageddon.
AN official of the Department of Agriculture is reported through the Wall Street Journal to have said, “This country faces the possibility of beefsteak at fifty cents a pound.” The most advanced physicians, including some of the leaders in the American Medical Association itself, are telling us that meat is not an essential; that there are other foods that are even more nourishing and in many respects more desirable than flesh meat. There are thousands of us who have learned this through experience, and to all such there is no anxiety whatever over the prospect of “beefsteak at fifty cents a pound.”
THE saloon interests of San Francisco have caused to be introduced in the California legislature a bill providing for the keeping open of all the saloons in that city for the entire twenty-four hours of the day. The object is to reap the benefit that would come through the drinking crowds that may come to the Panama-Pacific Exposition. We are satisfied that no such measure can be passed. If the saloon men succeed, however, it will certainly cause the temperance forces to redouble their efforts to destroy such an influence.
OUR periodical department informs us that the Signs of the Times Magazine subscription list keeps mounting higher and higher. An increase of 1,400 in December and 1,600 in January is reported. For the past five months, the circulation has averaged 48,000 copies. A record-breaking sale of the beautiful Exposition Number is expected. It is now ready.
Sunday Law Activities
By Editor
We can count on it, in these times, that whenever a legislature meets—either state or national—then invariably a Sunday law of some kind or other will be introduced. There is a growing sentiment that among the things needed to cure the social ills of this time is a "one-day-in-seven rest law." Oregon and California—to mention only a few of the states—have laws of this kind before their legislatures at the present time. The good sense of the legislators in both of these states, however, seems to have placed these bills to one side—at least for the present.
It is a rule which has but very few exceptions, that the church people are the ones responsible for the introduction of this class of legislation. And these church people claim to have the Bible as the foundation of their faith and practice. But why do they not study the Bible enough to learn that it nowhere teaches that Sunday is a sacred day? Why do they not learn, from the divine Book, that the seventh day, commonly called Saturday, is the only weekly Sabbath recognized by Jehovah and commanded to be observed?
And if our good friends who are so vigorously pushing the enactment of Sunday laws would call to mind some of the facts of history, they would remember that the universal Sunday law of Constantine was the preface to the Dark Ages. Constantine has been denominated the "first Christian emperor."
Previous to his time, it had been the rule that Christians were persecuted by the pagan world when persecuted at all, the principal exception being the persecutions that were inflicted by the Jewish church in places where it had sufficient power to do so. But after Constantine began to favor Christianity and to enact laws designed to support it, the world beholds the spectacle of professing Christians persecuting other professing Christians to the death.
The individual who has read the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters of Revelation, as well as other portions of that book, must have been impressed with the fact that God predicts a great religious controversy right at the very close of time. He issues a thrilling warning against "the beast" and his "image" and his "worship"; and on the other hand, the beast and his image, according to this prophecy, demand worship, and threaten with the death penalty those who will not submit. This condition must be brought about through the enactment of religious laws. Persecution does not stand upon any other foundation than religious laws and the decrees of despotic monarchs.
History has ever showed a tendency to repeat itself; and since God has taken pains to predict so carefully, through His word, this religious despotism, it is well for those who believe the sacred Book to think carefully before they favor legislation that introduced the persecution of the Dark Ages.
The Freedom of the Press—Shall It Be Preserved?
By M. C. W.
IT is certainly in danger. Repeated attacks have been made upon this time-honored palladium of our rights. Congressman Fitzgerald, of New York, sought to do this in an amendment, to the post office appropriation bill, December 31, 1914. This was defeated. Then he introduced a bill of the same import, which is still pending. Another congressman, Mr. Gallivan, of Boston, Massachusetts, has introduced a more drastic measure than the Fitzgerald bill. It is as follows:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever it shall be established to the satisfaction of the postmaster-general that any person is engaged in the business of publishing any scandalous, scurrilous, indecent, or immoral books, pamphlets, pictures, prints, engravings, lithographs, photographs, or other publications which are, or are represented to be, a reflection on any form of religious worship practiced or held sacred by any citizens of the United States, it is hereby declared that the postmaster-general shall make the necessary rules and regulations to exclude such matter from the mails."
The design of the bill is to strike against the aggressive Protestant press. There are many honest, patriotic American citizens who believe that Roman Catholicism is a political menace to free institutions, but who have naught against Roman Catholics as individuals. This is equally true regarding Mormonism. Not a few believe that Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Buddhism, theosophy, spiritism, Christian Science, are antagonistic to the gospel of Christ; and they say it. Now whether their convictions are true or not, they have the constitutional and indefeasible right to speak them. And the devotees of each of these named isms have the same right. If a religious system cannot stand the fullest, most searching investigation and freest criticism, it deserves to go down. The man who feels he has the truth, can afford to be fair; and he who does not have the truth, or is not disposed to be fair, ought not to be permitted to muzzle others. Then, too, no one man, however high his position, ought to be made a religious censor of the press, or be permitted to decide as to whether any publication is "a reflection on any form of religious worship practiced or held sacred by any citizens of the United States." What then would some of our Catholic papers do which seem to delight to reflect on the mistake (to use the mildest term) of Protestantism? The man who slanders his neighbor is subject to the law, but there is no law to protect a religious ism. Wherever isms or institutions are thus exalted, man is correspondingly degraded. The fullest, freest liberty under present laws, with redress at common courts, is all that the liberty-loving will ask, and all that the intolerant deserve.
