Health and Temperance by India Methodist Watchman

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

Health and Temperance.

By India Methodist Watchman

APPETITE SLAVES.

THE man who loves tobacco, and uses it in a respectable way—if there may be said to be any respectable way, which we doubt—has an abnormal appetite. To abandon it wholly might seem to be one of the most difficult things of his life. But there is another man who loves intoxicating liquors, and his appetite sometimes brings grief to his friends, if not to himself. The man who uses tobacco has little or no sympathy with the man who uses liquors. He says, "I would not make a fool of myself, and that man ought to be ashamed of himself to allow his appetite to run away with him." But hold, my friend; that man's appetite does not run away with him more than yours with you. You are in the very same boat. In the estimation of many you are quite as silly. Your appetite is quite as abnormal and selfish, only he takes liquor and you take tobacco. Before God, the beam in your eye is about the same size as the beam in his eye. To some people you are equally filthy and disagreeable. But you call yourself a Christian, while he calls himself a sinner. Does God overlook your pious selfishness, and condemn the other because appetite does not take the same selfish turn that yours does?—India Methodist Watchman.