A certain statement has remained on the Divine Scroll through two thousand long years to meet its fulfillment in this, our day : "As the days of Noah were, . . . they were eating and drinking, „ . so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
The corrupting habits of the antediluvian world, so vicious as to make necessary the submersion and destruction of practically the entire human family in a great flood, find an exaggerated counterpart in the body and soul destroying practices of this present day. By reason of these habits and practices, the physical, mental, and moral decline of the human family is so great as to make imperative the soon coming of the Redeemer, lest if He tarry, He find no sane or sound humans to greet Him.
This may sound like a very pessimistic statement. It is, and it is so intended. In spite of all the marvelous advance in medicine and surgery and the successful reduction of sickness and death from infectious and contagious diseases in the world, a high annual mortality rate still obtains through death from ,diseases representing tissue degeneracy, largely due to pernicious and vicious habits of living. Heart disease, Bright's disease, diabetes, apoplexy, cancer, insanity, and social diseases, as is so well known, are increasing at such an appalling rate as to more than offset the benefits of lifesaving measures in acute diseases. Such give rise to the greatest anxiety regarding the physical future of the human race.
The nocturnal cocktail parties, the doubling of the annual consumption of tobacco in re-..cent years, the use of the cigarette by a large majority of the youth and adults of both sexes, the almost universal abandonment of moral restraint, overeating, and many other features of surfeiting and drunkenness which might be mentioned, are each and all destructive elements undermining the foundation of the bodies of men and women. These will most surely eventuate in the final decay and crumbling of the entire social structure.
The only ray of hope in this dismal picture is our lifesaving message. We have in our possession the only panacea for a perishing world. It is complete and efficacious. We were not left in darkness that this day should have taken us unawares. How our hearts ought to thrill at the thought that since God has always provided protective means to meet every world crisis, so in this our day—the world's last and greatest of all crises—He has chosen us and entrusted us with the knowledge of His glorious gospel of salvation for both soul and body.
What a tremendous responsibility this places upon us! It is a law of life that any one in possession of helpful knowledge is first of all to espouse it in theory and everyday personal practice, and then is dutybound to give it to others. We are to be living epistles, known and read of all men, ready always to give an answer to him that asketh for a reason for the hope that is within us. Indeed, we are not always to wait to be asked. But right principles should so energize our beings, as a fire in our bones, that we shall go abroad to cry aloud and spare not. We shall lift up our voices as a trumpet, to show men and women everywhere the way of the truth and the life.
It is a glorious work in which practically every one can engage to promulgate both in public and in private, in a clear and unobtrusive way, the principles of right living, to emphasize the evil effects of tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, and overeating, and to impress upon our fellow men the sacredness of the body temple and the importance of keeping it undefiled and unpolluted, a fit habitation for divine indwelling. These features can be taught and emphasized to the physical and spiritual saving of many souls.
Our endeavors are not to be governed or influenced by results. We are not to be elated by apparent success or depressed by seeming failure. We are to sow beside all waters, depending upon God to give the increase. "As it was in the days of Noah"—Noah's results for all the many years of earnest labor were very meager. But a remnant was saved.
So in a special way, the word to us is, "Go, . . . and teach." How wonderful to reflect upon the Inspired Word: "And they that be teachers [margin] shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." The efforts of the Medical Department to promulgate, in an educational way, the great principles which have been given to us, should meet the approval and receive the heartiest cooperation of every one to whom these principles have been revealed.