Tobacco Use Among Church Members Criticized
A RELIGIOUS paper has a letter from a correspondent on tobacco-using Christians, in which he states that of the 267 members of his church, 67 use tobacco, and pay therefor, annually, $845. This church, including the congregation, gave for all objects last year, pastor's salary, missions, education, church extension, freemen, etc., $842. One of these members gave 66 cents for church extensions, and $145 for tobacco; another gave $91 for tobacco, $1 for missions and $1 for conference claimants. From such Christians, “Good Lord deliver us! Amen.” It would be ten thousand millions of years before a continent of such Christians would convert a single soul; and should they accidentally convert one, he would be the worse for his narcotical conversion. A hundred and forty-five dollars for the “filthiness of the flesh,” and sixty cents for the extension of the kingdom!—was ever such a triumph of matter over mind as this recorded before?