National Health. 59 



drink were put under lawful inspection, and nothing impure, 

 unwholesome or liable to cause disease was allowed to be used. 

 Every case of epidemic disease was isolated, the house purified, 

 the clothing burned, and every person in contact with the 

 disease isolated until cleansed and purified. In the treatment of 

 such diseases Moses in many respects had anticipated modern 

 sanitary science by about thirty centuries. The first lesson to 

 be learned from the history of the Jews was that no civilization 

 could kill a nation which elected to live according to the laws of 

 God and Nature, and that it was not the civilization which 

 destroyed the human race, but the lawless lives led by people 

 who lived under civilized influences. Modern civilization would 

 not perish because of its scientific triumphs, or its laws, or its 

 literature, or its religion ; it could only perish in consequence 

 of the lawless and unhealthy lives led by multitudes of so-called 

 Christian people. The great hope of modern civilization was 

 that in one form or another all Governments were beginning to 

 realize the great eternal principle that the national health was 

 the supreme law, but the efforts made in this direction were as 

 yet very fitful and elementary, and could not for a moment be 

 compared to the sanitary code voluntarily adopted by the Jewish 

 people. No Government could stand for a year that would 

 dare to propose a thorough sanitary reformation, interfering at 

 every step with the Englishman's much-boasted liberty of 

 the subject, which in plain language meant liberty to be as 

 drunk as they liked, liberty to be as immoral as they liked, 

 and liberty to propagate as much disease as they liked. As 

 long as the public opinion of Britain endorsed such ideas no 

 great improvement could be looked for in their national health, 

 but the moment public opinion determined that the highest 

 liberty was to live according to the laws of God and nature then, 

 and not till then, could they have a marked improvement in 

 their national health. If but for fifty years the Christian public 

 would elect to live in that way they could not estimate the 

 improvement which would take place, and their successors 

 would thank them in a new and improved world, and in order 



