p. 179 | A Most Alarming Evil

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1872

A Most Alarming Evil.

A poor little lad once received a bit of sugar-coated tobacco from an older youth, who told him to eat it, as he was doing. The little fellow, supposing it some sort of confection, quickly swallowed it. But in a very few minutes he grew deathly sick, and hastened to his home. He grew ill so fast that a physician was called, and everything was done that could be to aid him; but in spite of all, the poor little victim died in a few hours' time. The poison had taken such a powerful hold on an empty stomach that it was carried rapidly through the whole system. Is it not strange that any can risk putting such a poison into the mouth, even though they do not intend to eat it? How surprising that any lad can be so foolish as to wish to acquire a taste for anything so loathsome. Yet how common the practice has become! When the excellent Dr. Goodell had come back from a foreign land, and spent some time in visiting various places in this country, he said, “I see nothing in America so alarming as the increasing use of tobacco among the young men and boys.” He very well knew that tobacco and the pure religion of Jesus have no relationship—that tobacco and strong drink are twin brothers. Every boy who has learned to smoke and chew has started on the fair road to a drunkard's career. I hope that every reader will set his face like a flint against this loathsome vice, no matter though even a father's or a minister's example may point the other way. What would the Lord Jesus approve? should be the question, rather than what others practice.