p. 429 | Health and Temperance by Talmage

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 16, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 27.

Health and Temperance.

By Talmage

The Damage of Using and the Benefits of Refusing Tobacco.

Now I stand, this morning, not only in the presence of my God, to whom I must give an account of what I say to-day, but I stand in the presence of a great multitude of young men who are forming their habits. Between seventeen and twenty-three there are tens of thousands of young men damaging themselves irretrievably by tobacco. You either use very good tobacco or cheap tobacco. If you use cheap tobacco, I want to tell you why it is cheap. It is a mixture of burdock, lamp-black, saw-dust, colts-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.

Or, do you smoke cigarettes? There is an additional poison in them. Physicians tell me that they work physical ruin more rapidly than the regular cigar. If, on the other hand, you use costly tobacco, let me say that 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 farm to make you comfortable in the afternoon of 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 these tremendous statistics: '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 it amounted to a sufficient sum to purchase the place; and it is mine! Now, boys, you take your choice, smoking, without a home, or a home without smoking.'

Take another thing into consideration, and that is, vast amounts of property are destroyed every year indirectly by this habit. An agent of an insurance company says: 'One-half our losses come from the spark of the pipe and the cigar.' One young man threw away his cigar in one of the cities, and with it he threw away three millions of dollars worth of the property of others that blazed up from that spark. Harper's splendid printing establishment years ago was destroyed by a plumber who, having lighted his pipe, threw the match away and it fell into a pot of camphene. The whole building was in flames. Five blocks went down. Two thousand employees thrown out of work, millions of dollars worth of property destroyed.

But I am speaking of higher values to-day. Better destroy a whole city of stores than destroy one man. O, my young friends, if you will excuse the idiom, I will say, stop before you begin. Here is a serfdom which has a shackle that it is almost impossible to break. Gigantic intellects that could overcome every other bad habit have been flung of this, and kept down. Some one is seeking to persuade a man from the habit. The reply was: 'Ask me to do anything under the canopy of heaven but this. This I cannot give up, and won't give up, though it take seven years off my life.'

I must have a word also with all those of my friends whom it does not hurt, who can stop any time they want to, and who can smoke most expensive cigars. My Christian brother, what is your influence in the matter? How much can you afford to deny yourself for the good of others? It was a great mystery to many people why Governor Briggs, of Massachusetts, wore a cravat, but no collar. Some people thought it was an absurd eccentricity. Ah, no! This was the secret: Many years before, he was talking with an inebriate, and telling him that his habit was unnecessary, and the inebriate retorted upon him and said: 'We do a great many things that are not necessary. It is not necessary for you to wear that collar.' 'Well,' said Governor Briggs, 'I will never wear a collar again, if you won't drink.' 'Agreed,' said the inebriate. Governor Briggs never wore a collar. They both kept their bargain for twenty years. They kept it to the death. That is the reason Governor Briggs did not wear a collar. That is the gospel of the Son of God. Self-denial for the good and the rescue of others.—Talmage.