What Tobacco Can Do by ETHAN LAMPHEAR

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 9, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 35.

What Tobacco Can Do.

By ETHAN LAMPHEAR

Years ago, when I lived in Eastern New York, this sad occurrence happened in my county: There lived some miles away from my home, two young men of respectable families, with whom I was acquainted. They were naturally fine young men, but, like many others, they got to thinking that to smoke was manly and smart. These young men started out for a ride and a jolly good time; filled their pockets with cigars, and commenced to smoke. They came into the village where I resided, smoking as they came; stopped for a time, bought a new supply and passed on to the next village, keeping up their continual smoking. They returned in the evening, having kept up their smoking through the day, arriving at their homes late in the evening. What was the result? The next morning one of these young men was a corpse; and the other's life was saved only by the skilled effort of an able physician.

I have a neighbor who is an inveterate smoker, and he has three sons. They became smokers also. The wife and mother, though rather delicate, was compelled to live and breathe in the midst of their smoke, besides inhaling the stench of the clothing of her family. She grew feeble and pale; but no one seemed to know what was the trouble. The elder son married a beautiful young lady, and brought her into the family; but both the mother and her daughter-in-law (good Christians I believe) now lie in their graves, while the remainder of the family look pale in countenance, and are an offense, from the smell of tobacco smoke and the scented garments they wear, at church, or wherever they go; and neither preacher nor physician dare tell them the cause, lest they may be offended.

Another case in point: On the same street on which I live resides a man who always has a pipe or cigar in his mouth when about the house. He also has two sons, and they have the same habit, and keep the house filled with tobacco smoke. The father has a tobacco and cigar store, and when he is not in the house he is in the store amid the fumes of the tobacco poison. When father and sons meet at the house it is the same old story, smoke, smoke. The wife and mother, naturally a smart and hardy woman, who doubtless earned the largest part of the family's living, began to grow feeble and look haggard in countenance, but no one seemed to know the nature of her disease; and all hope of her recovery seemed to disappear; then she was sent to the sea-shore as the last hope of her recovery. But she is pickled through and through with this narcotic poison, and nobody dare tell them the trouble, because it is the fashion to smoke, and they might be offended!

The elder son, though lean and haggard in look, married a young wife and they lived in the house with her father, he being an inveterate smoker; he and the son-in-law kept things blue morning, noon, and night with smoke. A child was born unto the young couple; but it partook of the haggard look of its parents, and died before it was three years old.

These are fair samples of what this tobacco habit is doing all over our land; and this is taking place daily among professed Christian men. When will men learn wisdom, and learn not to "defile the temple of God."

Plainfield, N. J. ETHAN LAMPHEAR.