President Finney Gives Up Tobacco
"WHEN I was a young man," said President Finney, "almost every young man used tobacco, and I among the rest. After I was converted I continued to use it. The practice was so common that the question as to whether it was right did not occur to me. I was as innocent as a babe about it. But when I was holding revival meetings in New York City, I was one day filling my tobacco box from a paper I had just bought, when the gentleman in whose house I was staying came into the parlor and said, 'Brother Finney, do you think it right to use tobacco?' 'Right? Of course it isn't right. Here, you take this tobacco and keep it until I call for it.' The minute the question was presented to me I knew it wasn't right, and I have never touched tobacco from that day to this. And I believe what success I have had in life has been due in a great measure to my manner of settling every such question. When I saw a thing was wrong, I gave it up at once and forever, and when I saw a course was right and my duty, I entered it without stopping to confer with flesh and blood."—Selected.