SOME MORE ON THE SAME SUBJECT.
Another enthusiastic true temperance advocate, of Healdsburg, Cal., writes us on the same subject as Dr. Godsmark. The doctor speaks from the standpoint of science, and our other friend from experience. He says:— “A cigaret smoker is an opium fiend. I have been one nearly twenty years, and, O, such a hold it had on me! It was nothing but smoke from morning until night, smoke the minute I got out of bed, until the last second I went into bed. A smoke before retiring was then my prayer, and my satisfaction. If I was out of humor, a smoke was necessary to steady my nerves and put me in humor; but it generally always made me in worse humor. I was continually irritated. Cigaret smoking is, I think, the worst form of smoking. A person is looked down upon who smokes opium or who is drunk. Yet a smoker is nothing less than a drunkard. I used to think if I did not have a big glass of whisky before breakfast, I could not eat. I gradually gave up liquor. Liquor was easy to conquer compared to tobacco. Tobacco was my god. Day and night did I worship it, and, what was worse, the more I used, the more I wanted, and the more I used, the less satisfaction I got. If the young boys could only see the terrible effects of tobacco while they still have time and are young. I used to smoke to keep me from getting too hungry, and smoked after meals to take away the taste of my food, smoked when I was excited, and smoked when I wanted to get excited. Smoking benumbed my senses. I was half dead, and had no strength. I could sleep, for I was always in a stupor. I could not work, would lose my wind, in fact, was no man at all. I would fly into a passion easily, had no patience, had heart trouble, blood out of order, no appetite, always craving food, but could not enjoy it, had frequent choking spells, a continual cough, and raised large, hard lumps. My heart at times seemed to stop beating, and, in fact, I knew I was dying slowly but surely, yet I had not the courage to stop; I was a slave to tobacco. I always managed to have money for tobacco, whereas other necessities were forgotten or neglected.” He then tells us how he became cured. He used three boxes of “no-to-bac;” but his permanent cure he ascribes to God and his grace. Now he says when met by his friends, they say, “How well you are looking!” and, “How fat you are!” May God bless and keep this brother by his grace, and help others to learn, not by their experience, but by his. There is freedom from all hurtful indulgences in Christ.