How to Live by John Nevins Andrews

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 12, 1865

How to Live.

By John Nevins Andrews

I WISH to speak in behalf of this series of excellent tracts now offered in one bound volume for $1.25. The information here embodied, is of more value than thousands of gold and silver. Most people, however well informed in other matters, are quite ignorant concerning the laws of life and health. To them disease and death are the result of causes over which they have no control. In their minds there is not one idea of personal responsibility concerning their own health or that of those who are under their care. The mass of our fellow-men live as though there were no such thing as natural laws governing our being; or if any have a dim consciousness of the fact that such laws exist, they act as though they could violate them without any injurious effect upon themselves. Even many of those who acknowledge the authority of every jot and tittle of the moral law, seem to attach no importance to a knowledge of the laws of their own being, and no guilt to a violation of those laws. But the author of the moral law is the Creator of mankind. The highest creative wisdom is exhibited in the organization of man. His frame may be compared to the most wonderful piece of machinery, and one adapted to the greatest possible variety of purposes. The owner of any valuable machinery, takes great care to understand the nature of that machinery, and to be sure that it is used according to the design of its author. But man, whose own being is the most wonderful mechanism, seems to suppose that he may with impunity, disregard the laws of his being which the Creator has ordained as the conditions of life and health. And when sickness follows, as sooner or later it must, then man in his ignorance lays it all to God's mysterious providence, when his own bad habits of life have been the direct cause.

Thank God that with us as a people, this is being changed. Light has begun to shine upon us. We begin to understand not only that temperance is a Christian virtue, but also that it is the real foundation of good health, and we are learning something of what it is. The idea that we may live as we please, eating everything that a depraved appetite may crave, and then may resort to medicines (most of which are active poisons) to recover from diseases which we thus bring upon ourselves, is being superseded, I am happy to say, by the plain common-sense truth that medicine does not and cannot cure disease; and that there is one way, and but one, for us to secure and preserve health, viz., that we live according to the laws which the Author of our being has implanted within us.

But how shall we conduct ourselves in order to render obedience to these vital laws? Where shall we obtain the needed instruction on this important subject? I am happy to be able to point you to a single volume, moderate in size, unexceptionable in character, and full of the choicest information on this interesting topic. "How to Live" is precisely what its title imparts. If my advice could have weight, I would have this volume in every family of our people; and I would have it read and re-read till all the family from eldest to youngest understood its straight-forward common-sense teachings. The cost of the volume is such that it is within the reach of all, and it will pay for itself many times over to those who will obey its words of wisdom. J. N. ANDREWS. Norridgewock, Maine, Aug. 30, 1865.