What It Cost by Dr. Talmage

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 1, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 17.

What It Cost.

By Dr. Talmage

BETWEEN seventeen and twenty-three there are thousands of young men damaging themselves irretrievably by tobacco. You either use very good or cheap tobacco. If you use cheap tobacco, I want to tell you why it is cheap. It is a mixture of burdock, lampblack, sawdust, colt's-foot, plantain leaves, fuller's earth, lime, salt, alum, and a little tobacco. You cannot afford, my young brother, to take such a mess as that between your lips. If, on the other hand, you use costly tobacco, let me say I do not think you can afford it. You take that which you expend and will expend, if you keep the habit all your life, and put it aside, and it will buy you a house, and it will buy you a farm, to make you comfortable in the afternoon of your life.

A merchant of New York gave this testimony: "In early life I smoked six cigars a day, at six and a half cents each; they averaged that. I thought to myself one day, 'I'll just put aside all the money I am consuming in cigars, and all I would consume if I kept on in the habit, and I will see what it will come to by compound interest.' And he gives this tremendous statistic: 'Last July completed thirty-nine years since, by the grace of God, I was emancipated from the filthy habit, and the saving amounted to the enormous sum of $29,102.03 by compound interest. We lived in the city, but the children, who had learned something of the enjoyment of country life from their annual visits to their grandparents, longed for a home among the green fields. I found a very pleasant place in the country for sale. The cigar money now came into requisition, and I found that it amounted to a sum sufficient to purchase the place, and it is mine. I wish all American boys could see how my children enjoy their home, as they watch the vessels with their white sails that course along the Sound.' Now, boys, take your choice, smoking without a home, or a home without smoking.—Dr. Talmage.