786 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1.5. 



our people at large, but still further in regard 

 to the matter of suppressing crime. We have 

 been told by eminent physicians and clergymen 

 that sexual vices may be productive of more 

 evil in this world of ours than even a taste for 

 intoxicants. The oldpr readers of Gleanings 

 will remember that I have at different times 

 alluded to my own temptations in this line, espe- 

 cially during my early lif*^. I have prayed long 

 and earnestly over the matter since I became a 

 Christian, and have many times wondered if it 

 were not my " thorn in the flesh " that God 

 thought best not to remove, but to give me 

 grace to bear. Through correspondence and 

 through personal intercourse in my travels and 

 during mv wheelridrs. I have found many an- 

 other good brother who has confessed to me his 

 trials along this very line. It is. without ques- 

 tion, one of Satan's greatest weapons: and it is 

 a work that he carries on, not only among the 

 lower classes, but it comes clear up through all 

 grades of society. We have but to glance over 

 the newspapers and notice the startling ac- 

 counts of crime, often revealing the fall of 

 those who stood in high places. Well, there is 

 a remedy. One who secures perfect and com- 

 plete digestion not only finds himself free from 

 unnatural cravings in the line of beverages, 

 but this strange, restless, uneasy feeling that 

 comes of itself, many times so unexpectedly — 

 these phantoms of the imagination that we all 

 ought to be ashamed of. and many of us are 

 ashamed of everv day of our lives — these, too. 

 give way and disappear when the blood flows 

 evenly through the veins, without being dis- 

 turbed or wrought up by a disordered digestion 

 and conseouent unnatural cravings. 



It would seem as if a great part of the 

 crime abroad in the world were the result, not 

 alone of a bad state of the heart, but as a con- 

 sequence of the bad state of the stomach and 

 intestines. Over-eating has for ages been rec- 

 ognized as a promulgator of unnatural longings 

 and consequent crime. Now. it is not only 

 over-eating and ovpr-drinking. but T am satis- 

 fied it is the wrong kind of eating and wrong 

 kind of drinking that pave the way for Satan's 

 work. 



Some little time ago I quoted to vou a part of 

 a talk from Anthony Comstock in regard to 

 "evil imaginations;" and I have wondered 

 why God permitted good men — devout. Chris- 

 tian men— to be haunted with imaginations 

 that evidently must come from the evil one 

 himself; yea. verily it seems at times as if thev 

 must come from the bottomless pit. I have 

 prayed over the matter, and answer seems to 

 have come with the prayer. For many weeks 

 I have been entirely free from any thing of the 

 sort. Pardon me if I be frank enon^h to tell 

 vou that, for the first time in almost fiffi/ years. 

 I have enjoyed perfect freedom and immitnitii 

 from suggestions of the imagination that T 

 should be ashamed to have my wife, mother, or 

 grown-up daughters know all about; that is. if 

 they could read my verv thoughts for the past 

 few weeks there would be nothing in that line 

 to be ashamed of or to fear to have them see. 

 Now, from mv acquaintance with mankind I 

 know that this is. at least a* a rule, something 

 remarkable. In a recent issue I suggested that 

 wholesome dieestion might be more than the 

 Keeley cure has ever eln.lmed to be. in the wav 

 of preventing intemperance. It would stop the 

 mischief at the fountain-head. I ought to sav 

 more — that perfect natural digestion, such as 

 God intended we should have — would stop at 

 the fountain-head this other twin evil, or twin 

 demon, of the evil one. It would be a most 

 perfect cure for licentiousness. No. you need 

 not be afraid that there would not be 'people 



enough born into the world. We might have a 

 less number, but we should have a better sort 

 of people. What there would be lacking in 

 quantity would be made up in (inality. There is 

 many a man so honest in dollars and cents 

 that he is never tempted to touch, or even 

 covet the gold tluit belongs to his neighbor and 

 not to himself. So far as money or property is 

 concerned, he could live up to the golden rule; 

 but when it comes to that part of the tenth 

 commandment where he is commanded not to 

 covet his neighbor's wife nor maid-servant, it 

 may be a different thing with that person. 

 When a man can look upon all womankind as 

 he would upon the daughters of his own house- 

 bold, then he may be said to be truly born again. 

 He is a child of the new birth; and I am firmly 

 convinced that so simple and prosy a matter as 

 the choice of his food and drink may prove to 

 be a great factor in perfect emancipation from 

 this form of evil. This thing alone may lift 

 him from the " house of bondage." 



There seems to be an impression very wide- 

 spread, that the use of meat as a diet tends to 

 develop the animal passions. This may possi- 

 bly be true when taken with large quantities of 

 vegetable food, sweets, etc. But it certainly is 

 not true on an exclusively lean-meat diet. It 

 can not be that meat conduces to the accumu- 

 lation of flesh or fat. for the Salisbury patients 

 invariably lose flesh for at least quite a time, 

 say perhaps for several months. And, by the 

 way, it seems that, where it is desirable to re- 

 duce one's weight, there can be no safer or sim- 

 pler remedy than the lean-meat diet. If it is 

 not meat. then, that makes people fat and 

 heavy, and develops the coarse animal nature, 

 to what part of our food should we attribute 

 this result? After having given the matter 

 considerable thought, my impression is that 

 the excessive use of sugar or other sweets has 

 much to do with it. On page 711 I quoted from 

 Prof. Atwater in one of the United States Agri- 

 cultural Reports. Let me quote again, for I 

 think a part of one of the quotations will hear 

 repeating: 



We consume relatively too much of the fuel in- 

 gredients of food — those which arc burned in the 

 hndy Rnd yield lieat and muscular power. Such are 

 the fats of meat and bntter, the starch which makes 

 up the larger iiart of the nutritive material of flour, 

 potatoes, and sug-nr. of which such enormous quan- 

 ties are eaten in the United States. 



P'ease notice the concluding sentence. Sta- 

 tistics have told us again and again that the 

 consumption of sugar, especially the amount per 

 individual, is constantly on the increase. The 

 low price of sugar has probably had much to do 

 with it. and a fondness for sweet things. It is 

 not only at meal-times; but our ice-cream soda- 

 fountains, our temperance or summer drinks, 

 are largely composed of syrups, and everybody 

 seems to want them as sweet as possible. On 

 the fairgrounds during this season of the year, 

 great quantities of sugar are u«ed in making 

 different kinds of cream candy. I have many 

 times wondered why people would shower down 

 their nickels for a little piece of hot melted 

 sugar. whe7i a moment's reflection should tell 

 them that the nickel would buy ever so much 

 more pure sugar right at any corner grocery. 

 There is plentv of sugar in the sugar bowls at 

 home, to be used at meal-times: yet all through 

 the day our children are spoiling their teeth, 

 spoiling their digestion, and may be spoiling 

 their moral and spiritual natures, by this ex- 

 cessive use of sweets. Prof. Atwater may well 

 say, " In such enormous quantites." Of course, 

 sugar has its use as an article of food; but after 

 being without a particle of it for many weeks, 

 I experienced no particular inconvenience. On 

 tasting a little a few days ago, by experiment, 



