Why I Gave Up Smoking

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1875

Why I Gave Up Smoking.

BY A MISSIONARY.

I WAS a smoker and the son of a smoker. I began to smoke when I began to preach; that is, when about twenty years of age. Most of the preachers of my acquaintance did the same; I thought it preacherly to imitate them. I smoked during the time I was at college; that was contrary to the rule of the institution; but then the President was a smoker, too. In after years, however, when we were having a friendly chat over our pipes, he positively and solemnly assured me that if he had found me out, he would have expelled me from the college instanter! When about to sail as a missionary to a distant land, I recollect having the honor and felicity of having, in a little room, not three miles from Paternoster Row, London, a pipe with a veteran in the service, whose praise was and is in all the churches. "A fine thing," said he with a little Scotch accent, "is a pipe of tobacco in a hot climate. Let me recommend you, my young brother, to take with you a good stock of pipes and tobacco."

You need not ask me whether I did so. In the course of time, however, when laboring as a missionary, I felt compelled, for the sake example, to become a teetotaler, and to throw myself, heart and soul into the total abstinence movement; but I still adhered to the beloved pipe.

In a parcel of temperance tracts kindly sent me, was one headed, "Dost thou smoke, Bill?" I read it, and it made me feel uncomfortable. Some copies had got into circulation among the people before I was aware. A fine young black man came to me one day, and after bowing and scraping, and bidding me "good morning," said, "Will massa please gie me one leetle tract?"

"Yes, Quamina, and welcome. Which will you have?"

"Dat tract called, 'Dos you smoke, William?'" (He thought it would be too vulgar in my presence to say "Bill;" politeness led him to so say "William.") I gave him the tract, but I felt I would rather he had asked me for any other than that, and my uneasiness was increased. The tract was evidently exciting some attention. It was condemning among the people their pastor's habit.

One night soon after Quamina's visit, having knocked out the ashes of my last pipe, before retiring to rest, a colloquy took place between my conscience and myself, of which the following is a faithful report:—

Conscience. You have given up all intoxicating drinks and you have done well. Why not give up that smoking too?

Myself. I cannot. It is a pleasant habit, to which I have been addicted for fifteen years.

C. Does it do you any good?

M. I must confess that it does not.

C. Is it not, in a variety of ways, positively injurious to you?

M. It is; both my judgment and my experience are against it.

C. Do you not, at temperance meetings, feel that many of the arguments urged against alcoholic drinks tell with almost equal power against the use of tobacco?

M. I cannot deny that I do.

C. How much have you spent on tobacco during the fifteen years you have been a smoker?

M. Oh! not much; I never smoke cigars, except when some ship captain makes me a present of a few; they are otherwise too expensive; the pipe is much more economical.

C. But how much has the pipe cost you since you became a preacher? Try to form an estimate.

M. (After a long pause). The amount, I find, is larger than I thought it was; I cannot, however, exactly say how much it is.

C. But I insist upon knowing. Honestly, now, can it have been less on an average than ten dollars a year, or one hundred and fifty dollars in the fifteen years?

M. I believe that will be somewhere about it.

C. And how much, during the same period, did you contribute directly toward the spread of the gospel?

M. I really cannot tell, for I try not to let my left hand know what my right hand doeth.

C. Come, come, none of that cant and nonsense. I insist upon knowing. Call to mind your contributions, and give me some approximate idea.

M. (After another long pause). I believe about fifty dollars.

C. (In a thundering voice). What, only one-third of what you have spent on tobacco?

M. Only one-third.

C. And yet you are a minister of the gospel?

M. Yes, I am.

C. A missionary sent out to this distant land?

M. Yes.

C. Supposed, of course, to be a very good man?

M. Yes.

C. And your business as a Missionary is to try to make these black and colored people around you good?

M. Yes.

C. You tell them that their money is not their own; and you urge them to deny themselves, and to make sacrifices in order that they may be able to contribute toward the support and spread of the institutions of Christianity?

M. I do.

C. You urge even the children not to spend their pocket money in oranges, mangoes, sugar-canes, and sapondillas, with other fruits and sweets, to give it to send the gospel and to plant its institutions where they are not yet known?

M. I do.

C. A pretty fellow, then, you are! During the time you have had the honor of being a minister of the gospel, you confess that you have spent three times as much of God's money on that worthless weed, or rather that injurious poison, tobacco, as you have given for the spread of that glorious gospel, which you call "Heaven's boon to man!" And yet you have the face to call upon others to deny themselves for that purpose! Shame, shame upon you!

M. I am ashamed and confounded. I scarcely ever felt more despicable in my own eyes than I do at this moment. From this night forth, I vow that I will never spend another penny in tobacco.

C. Good, good! Stick to that and you will be more worthy of your position and office.

So ended the colloquy. Having asked God to forgive me the great sin of which I had been guilty, and to grant me grace and strength to carry out the resolve I had just made, I went to bed.

The next day was the commencement of a great conflict. At the usual time for taking the pipe the craving for it was very strong. I managed to resist it, however, by putting to myself a few simple questions, such as, "What is the matter with you? Why are you restless and unhappy? Have you a headache?" "No." "A toothache?" "No." "Have you pain in any part of your body?" "No." "Are you cold?" "No." "Hot?" "No." "Are you hungry?" "No." "Thirsty?" "No." "Then why, in the name of all that is rational, are you not contented, and even thankful to God, for the exemption from pain which you enjoy?"

"In this manner I lectured myself against the unnatural craving. Every time I resisted the appetite, I felt I had achieved a victory; that I was rising higher in the scale of being; that my moral strength was augmented; that I was getting more in harmony with God's laws, and my own conscience; and that my example in regard to the youths of my congregation was becoming more worthy of me as a Christian missionary and pastor. Ere long the craving ceased and the appetite died away; I was emancipated! And now I would not be again enslaved for all the world calls good or great." Most devoutly do I thank God for my deliverance, both from alcoholic drinks and from tobacco. Against them both I am determined to battle till I die.—Advocate and Guardian.