Cause and Effect*

Satan is the originator of disease....
There is a divinely appointed connection between sin and disease....
Sin and disease bear to each other the relationship of
cause and effect.

Disease never comes without a cause.
The way is first prepared, and disease invited by disregarding the laws of health.

The majority of diseases which the human family have been and are still suffering under,
​have been created by ignorance of their own organic law.

Nutrition

​The free use of sugar in any form tends to clog the system, and is not unfrequently a cause of disease.

The liability to take disease is increased tenfold by meat eating.

The eating of flesh meats has made a poor quality of blood and flesh. Your systems are in a state of inflammation, prepared to take on disease. You are liable to acute attacks of disease, and to sudden death, because you do not possess the strength of constitution to rally and resist disease.

When we feed on flesh, the juices of what we eat pass into the circulation. A feverish condition is created, because the animals are diseased, and by partaking of their flesh, we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood. Then, when exposed to the changes in a malarious atmosphere, to prevailing epidemics and contagious diseases, these are more sensibly felt, for the system is not in a condition to resist disease.

Rich and complicated mixtures of food are health destroying. Highly seasoned meats and rich pastry are wearing out the digestive organs.

Simple grains, fruits, and vegetables have all the nutrient properties necessary to make good blood. This a flesh diet cannot do.

Exercise

The human body may be compared to nicely adjusted machinery, which needs care to keep it in running order. One part should not be subjected to constant wear and pressure, while another part is rusting from inaction. While the mind is taxed, the muscles also should have their proportion of exercise. Every person should learn how many hours may be spent in study, and how much time should be given to physical exercise.

Morning exercise, in walking in the free, invigorating air of heaven, or cultivating flowers, small fruits, and vegetables, is necessary to a healthful circulation of the blood. It is the surest safeguard against colds, coughs, congestions of the brain and lungs, inflammation of the liver, the kidneys, and the lungs, and a hundred other diseases.

Water

If anything is needed to quench thirst, pure water, drunk some little time before or after a meal, is all that nature requires.... Water is the best liquid possible to cleanse the tissues.
 
Taken with meals, water diminishes the flow of the salivary glands; and the colder the water the greater the injury to the stomach. Ice water, drunk with meals, will arrest digestion until the system has imparted sufficient warmth to the stomach to enable it to take up its work again.

If you feel that you must eat at night, take a drink of cold water, and in the morning you will feel much better for not having eaten.

Sunlight

​This is one of nature’s most healing agents.
 
If you would have your homes sweet and inviting, make them bright with air and sunshine, remove your heavy curtains, open the windows, throw back the blinds, and enjoy the rich sunlight, even if it be at the expense of the colours of your carpets.
 
Every room in our dwellings should be daily thrown open to the healthful rays of the sun, and the purifying air should be invited in. This will be a preventive of disease.

Exercise, and a free and abundant use of the air and sunlight, ... would give life and strength to the emaciated.

Temperance

Indulging in eating too frequently, and in too large quantities, overtaxes the digestive organs, and produces a feverish state of the system. The blood becomes impure, and then diseases of various kinds occur.

And the dyspeptic—what has made him dyspeptic is taking this course. Instead of observing regularity, he has let appetite control him, and has eaten between meals.

Scanty, impoverished, ill-cooked food is constantly depraving the blood, by weakening the bloodmaking organs.

Women especially are the victims of various maladies which might be lessened, if not entirely prevented, by right habits of life. Half their sufferings may be attributed to their manner of dress, and the insane desire to conform to the fashions of the world.

Air

The effects produced by living in close, ill-ventilated rooms are these: The system becomes weak and unhealthy, the circulation is depressed, the blood moves sluggishly through the system because it is not purified and vitalized by the pure, invigorating air of heaven. The mind becomes depressed and gloomy, while the whole system is enervated; and fevers and other acute diseases are liable to be generated.... The system is peculiarly sensitive to the influence of cold. A slight exposure produces serious diseases.

Stomach, liver, lungs, and brain are suffering for want of deep, full inspirations of air.

Rest

Nature will restore their vigor and strength in their sleeping hours, if her laws are not violated.
 
Those who make great exertions to accomplish just so much work in a given time, and continue to labor when their judgment tells them they should rest, are never gainers. They are living on borrowed capital. They are expending the vital force which they will need at a future time. And when the energy they have so recklessly used, is demanded, they fail for want of it. If all the hours of the day are well improved, the work extended into the evening is so much extra, and the overtaxed system will suffer from the burden imposed upon it. Those who do this often lose much more than they gain, for their energies are exhausted, and they labor on nervous excitement. They may not realize any immediate injury, but they are surely undermining their constitution.

Trust in God

​God designed that the living machinery should be in daily activity; for in this activity or motion is its preserving power.

Healthy, active exercise is what you need. This will invigorate the mind.
 
The proper use of their physical strength, as well as of the mental powers, will equalize the circulation of the blood, and keep every organ of the living machinery in running order.

The burden of sin,
with its unrest and unsatisfied desires,
lies at the very foundation of a large share of the maladies the sinner suffers.
 
Let all examine their own hearts,
to see if they are not cherishing that which is a positive injury to them,
and in the place of opening the door of the heart to let Jesus,
the Sun of Righteousness, in, are complaining of the dearth of the Spirit of God.
Let these search for their idols, and cast them out.
Let them cut away from every unhealthful indulgence in eating and drinking.
Let them bring their daily practise into harmony with nature’s laws.
By doing, as well as believing,
an atmosphere will be created about the soul that will be
​a savor of life unto life.

* the content of this post (excluding the Scripture image) are all  excerpts from the book 'Healthful Living' (read more)