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A FREE MAN

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 3.

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A FREE MAN.

My father, whose name is Donald Fraser, and his neighbor, William Fraser, were very intimate, and as much together as was consistent with their occupation, they being both industrious farmers. My father was nearly seventy years of age, and his friend William was several years his senior. Both were Highland Scotchmen from Invernesshire, and both were devotees of the pipe and the tobacco quid from their youth up. A quarter of a century before, they had both, from conscientious motives, given up their dram, as they called it, my father leading in that movement and persuading his friend to follow
One night at my father's house, during their chatting, they commenced filling their pipes, and William Fraser, turning thoughtfully to my father and tapping the bowl of his pipe with the handle of his tobacco knife, exclaimed, “Donald, what do you think of this smoking and chewing business?”
My father shrewdly answered by asking another question, and said, “What do you think of it yourself, William?”
William replied: “Donald, we say we are Christians; and if we are Christians, we are ‘free men in Christ Jesus.’ Now, Donald, when we are doing this thing, and can nae leave it off, are we free?”
“Do you think yourself we are?” replied my father.
“I am nae sure of it,” said William, who retained much more of the Scotch dialect than my father.
“And see here,” said my father, “what we spit and burn into smoke, of this nasty stuff, costs us nearly as much money as we give to the Master’s cause. Is this right?”
“Do you think, Donald, that if we should stop it we could do more for Christ?”
Both then, with one impulse, suiting the action to the words, said, “Let us put the things up then;” and both rising to their feet, laid the pipes and tobacco on the mantel-piece, where they lay for many a long day.
These two men never smoked or chewed again. William Fraser has gone to his rest; my father still lives, in his eighty-sixth year, a free man.—Selected.