Health and Temperance by W. E. Benham

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 36.

Health and Temperance.

By W. E. Benham

TOBACCO-USING A SIN.

EVERYONE must admit that a traffic as immense, and a use as great as that of tobacco, must and does involve moral character, and hence that it is a good or an evil, a virtue or a vice. If a virtue, it should be advocated and encouraged. The children should be taught to use it. Parents, ministers of the gospel, day and Sabbath-school teachers should instruct all, both old and young, to smoke, chew, and snuff tobacco. If a vice, it should be shunned and condemned by all, everywhere.

No one can say that there is anything clean in the common use of tobacco, nor that there is in its use any element of excellence, nor any trait of Christian character, nor any fruit of the Holy Spirit, leading upward to holiness and fitness for the heavenly kingdom. But all must concede that at least it is a filthy, bad, degrading habit, a mark of uncleanness, a fit characteristic of a sinner, a hurtful lust of the flesh, dragging downward to slavery, shame, poverty, and death. Any person given to this disgusting practice becomes more or less callous to all the pure, finer sensibilities of his nature, and hence often violates wholesome rules of propriety, and thus becomes obnoxious, and a nuisance to persons of unperverted tastes. And, therefore, if the prevalent practice of smoking, chewing, and snuffing tobacco, thus polluting the mouth, the breath, the clothes, and the whole person so using it, and befouling the atmosphere surrounding him, whether in company, the car, the waiting-room, the parlor, or whatever building wherever he may be, with the sickening stench of the filthy weed, is not a sin, and a dirty sin, too, what is?

If prostituting the delicate, innocent faculties God has given man to the vitiated, unnatural craving for this poisonous, nauseating, narcotic stimulant, which is abhorrent to the whole animal creation except the tobacco worm and two or three other creatures, is not a perversion of our pure nature, and therefore a sin against our own highest personal happiness, as well as that of others, what is?

Nor can any kind or amount of apologies or excuses justify this loathsome and hurtful practice. No matter who or how many use it, whether the vilest and most degraded person, or professor of religion, minister of the gospel, prince, president, or king, the inevitable pernicious result is always the same in each and every case. And nothing can change it.

I wonder why and how any human being can consent to sell himself to indulge in, and be guilty of, so foul an act. It is as mysterious as sin. Is it not an inexcusable insult to breathe its offensive exhalations in the presence of ladies? I do not see how any minister of Christ, or professor of religion can smoke, chew, or snuff tobacco, without hindering his own piety and usefulness as a preacher and pattern of righteousness, purity, and correct morals. Think you Christ, Paul, Peter, or John were, or would be, tobacco-users? Or that there will be tobacco-smokers in the heavenly kingdom? I regard the common use of tobacco not simply a bad habit, but a sin, and one of the most odious. And not only a sin per se, but that its inherent poison excites nervous irritability, and unnatural craving, injures the health, stifles the physical and moral sensibilities, quenches the Spirit, prepares the way for, and leads to, numerous other kindred sinful indulgencies, cancerous diseases, imbecility, and general wreck of its victims. It is an associate and companion with rum and all other intoxicating drinks. Indeed its public use, fouling walks, steps, and floors with its loathsome spittle, and stenching rooms and dwellings with its sickening smoke, is in some respects a grosser evil than drunkenness. The drinking man addicted to its use finds it extremely difficult to abstain from his cup unless he quits his tobacco also, for the latter creates a thirst for the former. Indeed I know of sad instances of reformed, and even professedly converted, men who, unwilling to abandon their tobacco, have in consequence returned to their former sins and drunkenness. If all tobacco-users do not drink, all or nearly all drinkers use tobacco. And if all tobacco-dealers do not sell intoxicating drinks, all dealers in intoxicating drinks sell tobacco. And as liquor-dealers are held criminally responsible for the curse and sin of drunkenness, so cigar and tobacco-dealers are for the nuisance, curse, and sin of tobacco-using.

Again, it not only pollutes and degenerates its victims, leaving its sickening stain wherever practiced, but it is a profligate waste of money. From carefully prepared statistics, we believe nearly or quite as much money is spent for tobacco as for bread; and can any one say that all this needless waste is no crime? . . . In the United States, in 1885, there were 3,132,000,000 cigars smoked—58 for each person; also 972,000,000 cigarettes smoked, mainly by boys; and including that smoked in pipes, chewed, and snuffed, 502,611,158 pounds of tobacco were consumed, an increase of 5,000,000 pounds over 1884, at an estimated annual cost to consumers of over $600,000,000. (Intoxicating drinks, $900,000,000. Bread, $505,000,000.) Three times as much money spent for tobacco and intoxicating drinks as for bread. What a frightful waste of money, health, and character. Read Isaiah 55:1-7.

I regard the prevalent use of cigarettes, so artfully spiced with cubebs, sweet ferns, and other aromatics to tickle the taste of unsuspecting youth, as one of the alarming and seductive devices of the enemy to ensnare and hurry them into the sinful use of tobacco, intoxicating drinks, and general dissipation.

Hence, I am persuaded that the common use of tobacco, besides being a filthy habit, is a sin against God—a violation of His holy law, even the first command in the decalogue, for it makes a god of a vitiated, craving appetite, and worships it, rather than the living Lord Jehovah. It defiles "the Temple of God" (If not what does?), and of such an one it is written, "Him shall God destroy." "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." So I believe that those addicted to this destructive and unholy practice are "carnal, sold unto sin," miserable slaves to their tyrannical lusts, and not the pure, joyful, free men of the Lord.

In conclusion, I would most kindly and earnestly advise and entreat everyone, old and young, in bondage to this vile passion, in the name and grace of Jesus Christ, the Merciful Deliverer, crucify the old man with all his deeds, break every yoke and chain of slavery to sin and Satan, and thus coming into the full liberty of the glorious gospel, enjoy a clean conscience in a clean body, and so secure a sure title to an inheritance among the sanctified in the everlasting kingdom of God.—W. E. Benham, Meriden, Conn.