WITHOUT the Bible the true principles of health and temperance can no more be taught than can the true principles of anything else that pertains to man’s greatest good.ARSH January 14, 1902, page 21.1

God has made man that He may be glorified. He made man in His own image. He made him to be immortal, in body as well as in spirit. he has promised that the bodies of those who trust Him shall be brought from the dead, or, if living when He comes in His glory, they shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and made immortal, even like the glorious body of the Son of God. “Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.” Philippians 3:20, 21.ARSH January 14, 1902, page 21.2

Christ has bought us bodily. His salvation is a salvation of the whole man. We do not believe in that religion that looks only to the salvation of the soul separated from the body, and even at the expense of the body. In the early monasticism it was thought most meritorious to despise, to neglect, to degrade the body. He who would do this was regarded the greatest saint, because it was evidence of the supremacy of the soul. The hair went uncombed, the nails untrimmed, the body unwashed, made as filthy as possible, and tortured in different ways. All this was the way to saintship, and to the exaltation and salvation of the soul, But such is not the way of the follower of Christ; for He says, “Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”ARSH January 14, 1902, page 21.3

In harmony with this view, another scripture says, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” God does not want anybody to be weak and sickly; He does not want any one to be sick, even. No; He wishes “above all things” that we may “be in health.” But above all things, temperance is most conducive to health—not temperance in the generally accepted meaning of the term, not simply abstinence from strong drink. There are thousands of people who might be considered strictly temperate so far as strong drink is concerned, but who at the same time are sadly intemperate in other things. There are thousands of intemperate temperance people. That sort of temperance which is most conducive to health is temperance in all things; and this is the temperance that the Bible demands. The Lord’s wish that we may be in health is supported by the Lord’s command to be temperate in all things. The Bible doctrine of health goes hand in hand with the Bible doctrine of temperance. We cannot have either without the other.ARSH January 14, 1902, page 21.4

The Bible is ahead of the world on the subject of health and temperance, as it is on every other subject; and it always will be ahead. Every genuine advance that the science of temperance, hygiene, or medicine shall ever make will only be to approach nearer to the principles of health and temperance laid down in the Bible. We know that some may think this a hard saying, and herpahs may not be prepared to believe it, but it is the truth, whether or not anybody believes it. God made man, and He knows what is best for him; and in the Bible God has told man what is best for him. The closer man conforms to the directions laid down in the Bible, the more nearly he acts in accordance with his own best interests, whether moral, physical, spiritual, or intellectual.ARSH January 14, 1902, page 21.5

A. T. JONES.

March 4, 1902