While some church organizations are laboring earnestly for the reform of
men and women addicted to evils, and are striving to guard the innocent and
young; and while in many of the churches in England they are organizing
their temperance societies and "Bands of Hope," many of our organizations
are as silent as the grave in regard to these evils. Can our churches
prosper without teachers who are able to point out the evils of life which
are so destructive to our race, and who are sufficiently free themselves to
be able earnestly and consistently to call men to repentance, and to lead
them to live orderly lives?
Various denominations of Christians, in sending forth missionaries to
distant lands, have, of late years, been sending, among others, some
well-educated physicians as missionaries, and have found them very
efficient in reaching and influencing the people among whom they labor. May
not all take a hint when some of the religious organizations around us are
beginning to see the advantages of sending out medical missionaries? If we
would reach the Gentiles, or non-church goers, in our midst, should we not
follow their example? A vast number of children and young people are
growing up in our country, who are more ignorant of the spiritual and
natural laws of health and life than many in Gentile lands; many of them
rarely read or hear the Sacred Scriptures read, and do not even know the
Ten Commandments.
CHAPTER VIII.
METHODS FOR RESTRAINING AND CURING SPIRITUAL AND NATURAL DISEASES.
As there is a correspondence between the natural and spiritual causes of
disease, so there must be a correspondence between the methods of
restraining and curing natural and spiritual diseases.
First: Spiritual diseases or evils are restrained by punishments which, by
force, as it were, counteract the inclination to do evil; corresponding to
this method we have the Antipathic method of restraining natural diseases,
which is one of the prevailing methods; for instance, for constipation
cathartics are given, for a diarrhoea astringents, and opiates are given to
forcibly relieve or restrain the symptoms of disease. Every one can but see
that such remedies for the cure of natural diseases, like punishments for
the cure of spiritual diseases or evils, are but palliative; for the
reaction, if reaction ensue, is not in the right direction. It is true that
a cure sometimes results in spite of the treatment, especially in transient
cases, the vital forces restoring health during the temporary restraint of
the diseased action; but in many cases the constipation is only aggravated
by cathartics, and diarrhoeas are not benefited by astringents; and the
evil man often becomes more vicious after punishment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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