The Influence of Food on Spiritual Growth
J. Halsey. 1 Peter 2:1-3 Why laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, all evil speakings,… Spiritual growth and development are required of us, and spiritual growth and development are a matter of spiritual diet. Buckle, in his "History of Civilisation," shows how the characters and dispositions of the various races of men are affected by the food they eat. The broad general truth of this is obvious. The gross feeders are slow thinkers, and the difference in the intellectual qualities between the Eskimo with his blubber and the Frenchman with his cutlets and claret is as great as the difference between the foods themselves. We are what we are — physically, mentally, and to a great extent even morally — mainly in virtue of our diet. If we were to be always subsisting on babies' food, farinaceous powders and sopped rusks, we should never grow into a stalwart manhood. At the same time you do not expect elevation and refinement of thought from the gourmand and the epicure. The man who con fines himself to the elements of thinking limits himself to the infantile stages of growth, to their helplessness and dependency. (J. Halsey.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, WEB: Putting away therefore all wickedness, all deceit, hypocrisies, envies, and all evil speaking,