Daily Devotional

Health is essential, not only to our own happiness, but to the happiness, of those with whom we associate. Health, strength and longevity depend upon immutable laws. The woes and sufferings of humanity are charged upon Providence, when Providence would have men peaceful, healthful and happy. Our first parents by their disobedience opened the floodgates of woe to the race, and notwithstanding we have before us their sad experience in transgression, and the terrible result, we do not cease to sin; but while we deplore the sin of Adam, which was attended with such fearful consequences, we follow in the same course and realize the penalty of our own sins; for which suffering we alone are accountable. The providence of God is not responsible for the woes of man; his own course of action brings the sure result.

The Christian world are insensible to the result of their course. It is sinful indulgence that has produced degeneracy of the race, until at the present time, as we look upon the pale, sickly, deformed and imbecile specimens of humanity, they seem almost valueless. And yet Christ has died to redeem them from the thralldom of sin, and the oppressive power of Satan. By His own example He has shown us how to overcome the power of appetite.

Man may, through the merits of Jesus Christ, become elevated and noble; he may possess moral value with God. It is difficult to conceive what a man may be and what he may do through the power and grace of God. The law of God requires that he should love the Lord with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, and his neighbor as himself. How important, then, that he preserve himself in the very best condition of health, that he may have physical, mental and moral power with which to glorify his Creator. God has given to us a habitation to care for and keep pure and holy, to be devoted to His service.

Many greatly abuse the body in transgressing nature's laws by their pet indulgences, the use of tobacco and liquor. Even professed Christians indulge in what they call the social glass, and in the use of tobacco. This class, many of them, claim to love God with the whole heart, might, mind and strength; but their works speak louder than words, and testify that the noxious weed, or the stimulating draught, comes first; they love it better than the hour of prayer, better than religious service. It is, in short, their idol.

To this shrine, physical, mental and moral health is sacrificed. It is impossible for a tobacco devotee to love God supremely, or his neighbor as himself. While indulging in either the use of liquor or tobacco he is debilitating his powers, both physically and mentally, so that he has but a limited ability to give to God; whereas, if he, through denial of perverted appetite, would enthrone God in his heart, loving Him supremely and serving Him with his entire being, he would have continually increasing powers with which to serve his Creator. While the animal part of our nature controls the moral and spiritual, man cannot serve God acceptably.