Roy's Temptation | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 5, 1885

Roy's Temptation.

Roy had begun his student-life in the academy at A., resolved to improve to the utmost the advantages that he was now to enjoy.

Here was a new field of trial to him, where new temptations met him. Two hundred and fifty youths were crowded into the institution, and among this number were found, of course, some wild, thoughtless, and even vicious boys, who took delight in leading others into mischief.

Roy's room-mate, though he did not belong to the class we have mentioned, was a smoker, and the first day that Roy made his acquaintance he met the temptation of a cigar.

"Have a smoke?" said his companion, at the same time offering him a cigar.

"Thank you, I never smoke," Roy answered after hesitating a moment.

"Have you never tried a cigar?"

"Never, and I don't mean to try one."

"I think you'd enjoy a good cigar. Almost all the fellows here smoke," replied his room-mate. "You'd better begin."

"Well," answered Roy, "a poor fellow like me couldn't afford such an expensive habit, to say nothing about the evil of it. How much does it cost you annually for cigars, if I may ask?"

"I don't know; I never reckoned."

"Well, how much a day, should you think?"

"Twenty-five cents, when I buy them by the quantity," was the reply.

"Three hundred and sixty-five quarter dollars in a year; let me see how much that amounts to. Ninety dollars annually; enough to pay a good part of my school expenses. I think I will not form the habit at present."

His room-mate expressed some surprise at the amount, adding, however, "But I enjoy it."

"And I enjoy being entirely free from the habit," returned Roy. "It is a real pleasure to me to think that I am not a slave to tobacco."

"Do you think it is wrong to smoke?" asked his room-mate, who was a member of the church.

"It would unquestionably be wrong for me on account of the expense," replied Roy. "But aside from that, as a useless indulgence, which the majority of physicians agree, I believe, in regarding as injurious to health, I do think that smoking is wrong. And I think that professed Christians, such as you and I, should set a good example in this as in everything else."

"Do you call smoking setting a bad example?"

"If smoking is a bad habit, then the practice of it must set a bad example," replied Roy. "I think that Christians ought to avoid all evil habits. If they don't, how can they expect that irreligious men will avoid them?"

"Sure enough," answered his room-mate, "I think you are right; but it is very difficult to be consistent."

"I don't agree with you exactly," replied Roy. "It is easier for me to abstain from smoking on principle and be consistent, than it would be to smoke and try to make it appear consistent. The latter is very difficult indeed."

His room-mate laughed good-humoredly, but went on with his cigar. In a month from that time, however, he had renounced smoking. Roy's resolute stand against the habit set him to thinking, the end of which was his emancipation from tobacco. He became a more active Christian also, Roy's earnest spirit and consistent life leading him to draw nearer to Christ.—Sel.