Healthful Living

Chapter 33—Moral Maladies

General Statements

923. Immorality abounds everywhere. Licentiousness is the special sin of the age. Never did vice lift its deformed head with such boldness as now.—Testimonies for the Church 2:346. HL 216.1

924. A lethargy of unconscious sensualism, through indulgence of a perverted appetite, a constant submitting of soul and body and spirit to moral defilement, is upon the people.... And these lustful appetites, with their destroying power, have been transmitted from parents to children, and so intensified that the names of those who bear them are recorded in the books of heaven as transgressors of God's law.—Unpublished Testimonies, January 11, 1897. HL 216.2

925. Moral pollution has done more than every other evil to cause the race to degenerate. It is practised to an alarming extent, and brings on disease of almost every description. Even very small children, infants, being born with natural irritability of the sexual organs, find momentary relief in handling them, which only increases the irritation, and leads to a repetition of the act, until a habit is established which increases with their growth. These children, generally puny and dwarfed, are prescribed for by physicians, and drugged; but the evil is not removed. The cause still exists.—Testimonies for the Church 2:391. HL 216.3

926. Many might have been saved if they had been carefully instructed in regard to the influence of this practise upon their health. They were ignorant of the fact that they were bringing much suffering upon themselves.—A Solemn Appeal, 55. HL 217.1