As we can live only by breathing, it certainly follows that we can live rightly only when we breathe rightly; our physical life will be full, bright, and strong only when we breathe fully, brightly, and strongly. And when, physically, we live fully, brightly, and strongly, we can also live a spiritual life that is full, bright, and strong. Read this:
By giving heed to proper instruction, by following health principles in regard to the expansion of the lungs and the culture of the voice, our young men and women may become speakers that can be heard, and the exercise necessary to this accomplishment will prolong life.[1]
This touches the point; yea, it tells the whole story. And again we may say, It is not enough simply to expand the lungs. You can expand the lungs in such a way as to make them only an invitation to consumption; yet in the right way, you can also expand the lungs so that it will be impossible for consumption to get hold of you.
When this is done, then even if you should take cold, and it should even reach and settle upon your lungs or in your throat, you need not be afraid; it cannot stay, neither can it stop you in your work. The life and living vigor of the whole system will drive it speedily away. O, the Lord wants us to live!
There is need that among our ministers careful attention should be given to the culture of the voice, or many will lie down in untimely graves. The Lord is not glorified by the reflections that are cast upon Him, when men attribute to Him their sufferings; for the Lord has no pleasure in the suffering and death of His people. He would have them pursue a right course of action, carefully looking after their bodies that they may be in health, and know how to keep the habitation in order.[2]
Now, do not get the idea that this is an intricate thing, hard to understand, and difficult to get hold of, so that you must have a whole lot of unscientific instruction to get it. It is not that at all. It is all as simply as any other part of the religion of Christ. Listen to this:
If we neglect to heed the simple laws by which we may preserve health, and fail to cultivate right habits, the Lord will not work a miracle to heal our disorders, while we continue to transgress His laws. Men are sleeping in their graves that the Lord would have had live. They destroyed themselves through lack of knowledge.[3]
What kind of laws are these? Simple laws. That is just what they are. Do not allow yourself, nor allow anybody else for you, to make them anything else than simple. You will see this more fully as we follow this subject further:
Some of our most talented ministers are doing themselves great injury by their defective manner of speaking. While teaching the people their duty to obey God's moral law, they should not be found violating the laws of God in regard to health and life. Ministers should stand erect, and speak slowly, firmly, and distinctly, taking a full inspiration of air at every sentence, and throwing out the words by exercising the abdominal muscles.
If they will observe this simple rule, giving attention to the laws of health in other respects, they may preserve their life and usefulness much longer than men in any other profession.[4]
Well, then, is it not almost a disgrace for any Seventh-day Adventist minister, except the oldest, to die, especially to die of lung or throat troubles? And he professing to be a health reformer, too!
If we did not have these things, if God had not spoken on these subjects, and set them so plainly before us, and so repeatedly, too, it would not be so bad. But with all these things made so plain, and these good wishes of the Lord so fully expressed, it is awful to have our ministers dying, when to take the Lord's way, the ministers may "preserve their life and usefulness much longer than men in any other profession."
Then let us quite dying. This expression is not out of place, either; for men often think they are all right, and not dying, when the truth is that they are dying all the time. Read again:
The chest will become broader. ...[5]
What? The chest become broader by exercising the abdominal muscles? Yes, of course. That is the only way the chest can become broader in the right way, in the way to have health.
Now there is no contradiction nor inconsistency here. I am not explaining, yet, just how this will be. It is all true, though. You believe it, and practice it, and you will find it so. However, we are searching now for what is the right way to breathe; how to practice it we shall study afterward.
The chest will become broader, and by educating the voice, the speaker need seldom become hoarse, even by constant speaking.[6]
The throat is the place in the body to become weary from speaking; the lungs, never. The abdominal muscles may become tired sometimes, and the back also, and even other parts of the body, with long or strong speaking, but the lungs and throat will be all right. Only use them as God intended them to be used, and they will outlast all the rest of the system.
Instead of becoming consumptives by speaking, our ministers may, by care, overcome all tendency to consumption.[7]
Good. Then why should any Seventh-day Adventist minister have any tendency to consumption, much less have consumption itself? And even some of our doctors have tendency to consumption; yea, some have actually died of consumption, in the face of this direct instruction from the Lord, too! How long shall these things be?
Instead of being delicate, and sunken-chested, and weak-lunged, the Lord wants us to be healthy, full-chested, strong-lunged, and proof against disease instead of being subject to it. And why is not this true of all the people as well as of the ministers? Why should our sisters be sunken-chested, stoop-shouldered, and weak-lunged, and subject to lung troubles, any more than our brethren or our ministers? They should not.
The Lord wants women to have as good health as He wants men to have. And these excellent things that we have been reading are just as much for women as for men, and are just as true of women as they are of men. Then, sisters, you stand erect, and use the abdominal muscles in deep breathing and in expanding the chest. You, too, can throw out your words by exercising the abdominal muscles.
Then, if you have any tendency to consumption, you will soon be all right,--in more ways than simply your lung troubles, too,--you will "overcome all tendency to consumption." This is a great deal; it is a blessed promise.
I would say to my ministering brethren, Unless ministers educate themselves to speak in accordance with physical law, they will sacrifice life, and many will mourn the loss of "those martyrs to the cause of truth;" when the facts in the case are, that by indulging in wrong habits, they did injustice to themselves and to the truth which they represented, and robbed God and the world of the service they might have rendered. God would have been pleased to have them live, but they slowly committed suicide.[8]
That is to Seventh-day Adventists who die of consumption. It is an awful thing when a person, in very desperation, commits suicide by a sudden act. But how much more awful it is for a person--and of all people a Seventh-day Adventist, too--slowly to commit suicide,--to keep it up, and follow it up persistently for years, till it is finally accomplished? That is terrible.
Who, then, will continue to do it? O, rather, who will not cease entirely to do it, by choosing now, and diligently following, the right way?--Advent Review, February 22, 1898.
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