No one should overlook the fact that the human body is made up of certain minerals, all of which are found in foodstuffs, and by these Nature is well able to keep the body in perfect condition provided that its master supplies the materials, and provided that no “monkey wrenches,” so to speak, are ever dropped in to its delicate but long-enduring mechanism. Plainly, then, if we fail by the food we eat to supply Nature with the proper building materials, Nature will consequently be unable to perform her work, and though the result of the deficiency may not be felt immediately, it will nevertheless be felt as life continues and the years go on.
And if the transgressor fails to awake and amend his ways on time, then even the most careful observance of the laws of health will fail to repair the damage done. Obviously, one should endeavor to live right, not because he is becoming sickly, but because he is determined ever to keep well. Moreover, a machine that has been broken down and repaired is never so good as the one that has never been damaged.
Neither is the man who makes himself sickly and then well. His best is never let his health be impaired. Each one should realize that his health is his wealth; that without it all else is as good as lost; and that he can never enjoy all his God-given rights and privileges if he does not carefully attend to both his physical and spiritual welfare.
Drugs have their own place, but do not expect them to do that which you yourself must do.
Many are like Asa, the king. He was “diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.” 2 Chron. 16:12. (See Prophets and Kings, p. 113.)
A TIME FOR DRUGS RATHER THAN FOR FOOD
There are diseases which attack even the healthiest and best-cared for plants. For example, when a tree that is planted in the best of soils and is well cared for, becomes infested with insects or disease, then no matter what one does with the soil, he cannot thereby cause the pestilence to disappear: and if the tree is not sprayed with drugs that will exterminate the disease, the tree dies. In like manner, if one’s morals, diet, and hygiene, have been faultless and still are when he takes sick, and if his ailment is not hereditary, then no matter what more he does with his diet, he will realize no healing virtues from it. Drugs are his best remedy if prayer fails.
Again, if a healthy and well-cared-for horse takes sick, drugs of some kind are obviously the only possible cure. Thus if the daily living of a human being is faultless, and yet he takes sick, then outside of prayer, what can he do but resort to drugs?
For example, is it not true that one starving for food cannot be spared by taking in water, air or something other than food? And is it not also true that one’s broken and distorted arm cannot be set in place and healed right by dieting, poulticing, massaging, or by anything of the like? Nothing will do the trick, of course, but a competent physician to set the broken bones in place.