TEN ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE USE OF TOBACCO.
By John G. Matteson
1. The use of tobacco is an unchristian practice, whether it is used for chewing, smoking, or in the shape of snuff. For that which is Christian comes from Christ, either by precept or example. The belief that we may use tobacco is no Christian belief or faith, for all Christian faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Rom. 10:17. And whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Rom. 14:23. Therefore it is a sin to use tobacco. The word of God instructs us concerning food and drink, raiment and work, and concerning our conduct at home and abroad. Even the marriage relation and duties of every member of the family are plainly presented and regulated by the Bible. But the use of tobacco belongs to none of these things, and it has been known in the world only a few hundred years. 2. The use of tobacco is a heathen practice. White people have learned it of the Indians, and they are heathen. “Be not ye therefore like unto them.” Matt. 6:8. 3. It is a useless and expensive habit. The city of New York consumes in one year tobacco for more than $17,000,000. According to English statistics, Great Britain gave in the year 1870, $2,500,000 to all Christian missions, and paid the same year only thirteen times as much for its duty on tobacco. That is $32,500,000. According to this comparison, England is more heathen than Christian. 4. It is an injurious habit. Dr. John B. Beck says in his Materia Medica that the active principle of tobacco is nicotine, and that half a grain of this active poison will kill a dog. “In large doses,” he says, “it is a virulent poison, acting principally on the brain and heart.” Many will ask, What, then, can tobacco be used for, if we may not chew or smoke or snuff it? It is good to kill vermin on animals. If the calf gets full of lice in the spring, you may kill them with a decoction of tobacco. But be careful lest you kill the calf too. Any one would naturally suppose that even a tobacco-user could learn to understand that that which was made to kill vermin was not made to eat or chew. 5. It is a nasty habit. Those who use tobacco shed a disagreeable odor from their mouth and clothes. They spit upon the clean floor, and they fill the air with poison for others to breathe. The hog is an animal who puts his nose into nearly every kind of filth, but he will not put it into tobacco. A brother in Iowa promised to lay aside his tobacco if his hogs would not taste it. He took a small box of tobacco, and we went out to the hog-pen. He put it in the pen, and called the hogs as usual. But when they came so near that they could smell the tobacco, they said unrf! unrf! (which probably meant, we will not disgrace ourselves by touching such stuff), and turned right back to their house. At last an old boar came out to see what was the matter. He had more courage than the rest, and put his nose close to it. There was some froth around his mouth, and the fine-cut tobacco stuck to it. Then he expressed his opinion like the rest—unrf! unrf!—and making a curious face, expressive of his disgust, he tried to purge himself from the unpleasant stuff. Will those who are Christians show themselves lower than their own hogs in this respect? King James the first of England says in his “Counterblast of Tobacco,” “The use of it is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and the black, stinking fume thereof does nearest resemble the horrible smoke of the bottomless pit.” He says if he should invite the devil to dine with him, he would give him a pipe of tobacco to help his digestion. 6. The judgment of nature itself is against it. Several years ago, when my two oldest children were about six and eight years of age, they saw for the first time in their life a man who smoked tobacco. They had never heard tobacco spoken of, and, consequently, knew nothing about the arguments for or against it. He was a mason, who was plastering my house. He had just lit his pipe. They looked in through the open door greatly astonished. When they saw me coming, they cried, “Pa, come and see! Oh! see that man! It smokes out of his mouth just like a chimney. He has got ashes close to his mouth, and fire right under his nose. Pa, isn’t that nasty?” Here is the testimony of nature itself, from the lips of innocent children, against the use of tobacco. “Have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” Matt. 21:16. 7. The use of tobacco is contrary to holiness and purity. It will make people who are not used to it drunk and sick, so that they have to vomit. The Bible says, “Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.” 1 Cor. 6:20. Tobacco is often prepared in a very nasty way. I was in a store several years, where we sold a great deal of tobacco, and many said that we had the best tobacco in town. That kind which we sold principally was black and juicy, and experienced tobacco-devotees pronounced it genuine and of excellent flavor. We had a large stone jar in the ware house with tobacco-gravy wherein the tobacco was pickled. This gravy we prepared from old, rotten prunes, old syrup, lampblack, and a little salt and water. This recipe I present free of charge for the benefit of all who desire to gratify their palate with such rare delicacies. 8. It is conforming to the world. But the Lord says, “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Rom. 12:2. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27. 9. It is a human ordinance. God has not commanded us to use tobacco or given us directions in regard to its use. Men have themselves invented the use of it. Let those who keep the commandments of God tear loose from mere human ordinances, and learn to obey God rather than men. 10. It is an unnatural lust of the flesh. The use of tobacco is a habit which most men have to force themselves to before they acquire it. God has not implanted this desire in our natures by creation, neither has he done it by redemption; therefore it does not spring from God, but from the opposite source—from Satan and sin. Consequently, it is sinful to use tobacco, and you cannot deny it. Let every Christian man and woman in the fear of the Lord immediately abstain from this unchristian, heathen, useless, expensive, hurtful, nasty, unnatural, unholy, worldly, and sinful habit. Make up your mind fully that the use of tobacco is sinful in the sight of God. Determine never more to touch or taste it, live or die. And ask God humbly to save you for Christ’s sake, that you may not die, but live to glorify him in this world and in the world to come. JOHN G. MATTESON.