TOBACCO by Roswell F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 9, 1877

TOBACCO

By Roswell F. Cottrell

The Bible does not mention this filthy and poisonous plant by name, but it does teach purity and cleanliness; that we should cleanse ourselves of “all filthiness of the flesh and spirit;” and that we should present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is our reasonable service. Now just think of offering to God, as holy and acceptable, a body reeking with self-pollution and the fumes of tobacco!

Adventists are not the only ones that see and deplore the evil of tobacco-using. There is a strong anti-tobacco element in almost every church in our land. The most virtuous and pure are opposed to it. They would banish it from the church as unfit to be tolerated in moral and Christian society; but it is in their midst, and they are powerless to get it out. Now, who can complain of the Adventist Church—the church that is being gathered out from the world and all the churches, to prepare to meet the Lord at his coming and to be translated without death into his kingdom—for keeping the nuisance out while it is out. Men of the best minds, worldlings or church members, will approve it. This growing evil is the bane of society; and thousands of the youth are destroying themselves by it.

Brother, or sister, as the case may be, look at this subject from a new stand-point. You are looking upon it as if we would take from you your rights and deprive you of your enjoyment; and that, as you suppose, without warrant from the Scriptures. It is not so; we desire your good; and if you will take our advice, you will ever be thankful for your escape from the slavery of this vice. Thousands are to-day deploring the fact that they are slaves to tobacco, a bondage from which they feel themselves powerless to escape; but no man that has become free from it ever regretted his deliverance. So, my brother, when you have risen in the might of manhood, and, by God’s help, have shaken off the shackles, you will ever be grateful to those who aided your escape.

Let us sum up: Tobacco is a virulent poison, and consequently is at war with life in every system into which it enters. Nature’s laws are uniform; and the use of this poison has killed many a one. Some say it does not hurt them, but agrees with them; but such lay nature, physiology, and common sense, in the lie. It is injurious in every case.

It is expensive. You profess, my brother, to believe and obey the last message to man, and sigh that you can do no more with your means to help forward the work and save men. But you pay more for this useless and injurious indulgence of a perverted appetite in one year, than you do for the cause of God and the salvation of men in five or ten years. When you pay this sum into the treasury of the Lord, you will prove the sincerity of your love; and you will be the better for it.

It is filthy. It is disgusting and offensive to all, male or female, who have not become habituated to its presence. In the house of God “incense,” or the “sweet cane from a far country,” is “an abomination” to God, when offered by the hand of sinners. Isa. 1:13; Jer. 6:20. What then shall be said of the stifling fumes of tobacco in the house dedicated to the service of a pure and holy God?

Those who would cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, and who are addicted to the use of the filthy weed, can find no better place to begin the work than here. Driving out tobacco will be a good foundation and a stepping stone to higher attainments.

R. F. COTTRELL.