The Story of our Health Message

The Testimony

A few quotations from the testimony referred to indicates the tenor of its message deploring a disregard of the principles of health reform on the part of many, both ministers and laymen. Speaking of the assemblage she had seen in vision, which included physicians, editors, publishers, and ministers, Mrs. White said: SHM 288.2

“The matters of exercise and reformatory methods in regard to the foods we eat were under discussion. Some were advocating a flesh-meat diet. Speaking in support of this diet, they said that without it they were weak in physical strength. But the words of our Teacher to us were, ‘As a man thinketh, so is he.’ The flesh of dead animals was not the original food for man. ... SHM 288.3

“The educational work in the medical missionary line is a great advance step toward awakening man to his moral responsibilities. Had the ministers taken hold of this work in accordance with the light that God has given them in various lines, there would have been a most decided reformation in eating, in drinking, and in dressing. But there are those who have stood directly in the way of the advance of health reform. They have held the people back by their indifference or depreciatory remarks and their supposed pleasantries and jokes. They themselves and a large number of others have been sufferers, even unto death, but all have not yet learned wisdom. SHM 288.4

“The Lord would vindicate the word He has given to His servants. Had all united to walk in the light from the time the light was first given on this subject, there would have been an army of sensible arguments employed to vindicate the work of God. But it has been by the most aggressive warfare that any advance has been made.”—Ibid. SHM 288.5

The ministers were urged anew to become acquainted with the “laws that govern physical life, and their bearings upon the health of mind and soul.” “All who claim to be teachers should urge, both by precept and example, the necessity of abstaining from fleshly lusts, that war against the soul.”—Ibid., March 2, 1897. SHM 289.1