p. 141 | Health and Temperance by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1890

Health and Temperance.

By Editor

EMINENT MEN ON SMOKING.

THE New York Herald recently asked the opinion of quite a number of eminent public men as to whether clergymen ought to smoke. It applies just as strongly to laymen, to everyone, as it does to ministers of the gospel. A man of any legitimate occupation or calling has as much right and privilege to be as good a man, as clean a brother, husband, and father, as useful a citizen, as much a tabernacle for the Spirit of God and pure good thoughts, as a minister has; and it is not too much to say that these, in an excellent degree, are unattainable where tobacco is used. We reprint some of the letters published in the Herald.

William R. Alger, the celebrated Unitarian clergyman and author, says:—

"No clergyman ought to smoke, because smoking is a vice. It is a vice, because it is master of labor, time, attention, and health. I believe that intoxicating liquor and tobacco are the two chief enemies of the human race. It seems, therefore, as clear as the sun in heaven that no clergyman can be held guiltless who does not set a personal example in opposition to them both."

Says the venerable Dr. James McCash:—

"Smoking will be put down when young ladies declare that they will not look with favor on a young man who smokes, and when congregations declare that they will not take a minister who smokes."

William Hayes Ward, editor of the Independent, thus expresses himself:—

"I can give no opinion based on experience of the effects of smoking, as the practice has always seemed to me filthy and useless, and therefore indulgence in it simply sensual. I think the practice inexcusable, except in the case of those who have begun it in an idiotic or vicious youth, and whose system is so saturated with the poison that they fear they will, through the shock the change would give the brain, revert into idiocy should they cease taking in the usual supply of nicotine."

Dr. Ward's estimate of the reason under which in his opinion the habit may be continued is not a flattering one. It is thus that Chaplain C. C. McCabe, the great Methodist mission-fund raiser, speaks:—

"Clergymen certainly should not smoke. No clergyman should do anything he does not expect and wish the young men in his congregation and Sabbath-school to do. How can a man reprove boys for smoking if he does it himself? No, save us from clergymen who smoke! I am glad the Methodist Church has decided not to admit young men to her ministry who are addicted to the practice."

Methodists allow the continuance of the habit on the part of old ministers, it has been remarked, on the principle stated in the text, "He which is filthy, let him be filthy still." The grace of God is sufficient, and old ministers ought to have sufficient grace to overcome such a confessedly bad habit.

Joseph Cook touches it lightly, but says that a few distinguished ministers are responsible for much of it, and on the whole condemns it. Theodore Cuyler emphatically condemns it—never smoked a pipe or cigar in his life, and never expects to. He leaves it to the consciences and common sense of ministers. Certainly the latter ought to be sufficient, but where it is not there is not much to hope from the former. The Rev. Edward Bucher, of Brooklyn, presents no uncertain front on the matter. He says, and his words are worthy of study:—

"My deepest feeling is excited by the great extent to which ministers of the gospel are involved in the sin of using tobacco. It not only injures them physically but mentally. Against unanswerable evidence of the widespread evils, physical, intellectual, and moral, they subject themselves to a habit of ruinous self-indulgence, and do all that example can do to induce others to do the same. Then of what avail is it for them to preach to men to deny ungodliness and every worldly lust? While ministers of the gospel oppose one with vivid eloquence, they advocate the other by example, and are a rampart to defend it against all assaults."

Says Samuel Francis Smith, the author of "America" (we would that smoking ministers would heed it for others' sakes):—

"I am glad to hear my testimony against the evil practice of the use of tobacco by ministers of the gospel. They are often called to visit in the chambers of the sick, whose sensitive frames are pained and disgusted by the ill-savored odors carried in the breath or in the clothing of visitors. Intimate conversations of sympathy with the afflicted, or of advice to the troubled and inquirers—all alike demanding proximity—will often be unwholesome and distressing, not to say impossible."

Rev. Newman Hall writes from London, England:—

"I began to smoke at eight years of age and left off the same day. The cane cut from the hedge made me sick, and all my experience since has made me more sick of what I regard a dirty, costly, tyrannical, and unhealthy habit. Excuse may be made for some elderly or afflicted smokers, but the practice should be especially avoided by ministers. There are in every church some who will be pained by such an example, some who may be injured by following it. Smokers are liable to become slaves to the habit, so that its indulgence gets to be a necessity of life. They are uncomfortable without it; they become reckless of the comfort of others; they must smoke in the street, in the car, in the house, in the bedroom. It often leads to drinking, wastes time and costs money which is needed for better objects."

Among many other good things, Lyman Abbott, successor of Henry Ward Beecher and editor of the Christian Union, utters the following:—

"From such study as I have been able to give to the matter, I am not able to discover any physical or moral argument for smoking. The arguments appear to be all on the other side. While the evils of alcohol are vastly greater than the evils of tobacco, on the other hand it appears to me easier to construct an argument in favor of the moderate use of alcohol than in favor of the moderate use of tobacco."

"The physical evils that result from the tobacco habit are notorious. The moral evils appear to me also serious."

"Whatever may be the imagined benefit of smoking to overworked men (and women—if it is a sedative, who need it more than the wives and mothers?), it is by substantially universal consent an injury to the young. And yet not only the young men in our stores and colleges but the boys in their teens are inveterate smokers."

"The minister should teach by his life; he should set an example which he is willing his congregation should follow; he should walk in the paths in which he desires that the boys and young men who look up to him should walk. As I personally do not wish to see the boys in my Sunday-schools nor the young men in my church and congregations smoking, I do not propose to set them the example of the smokers."

"There is certainly an incongruity in a smoking clergyman preaching a sermon on crucifying the lusts of the flesh or denying ourselves for the sake of our neighbors."

The above testimonies ought to be sufficient to set not only smoking clergymen to thinking, but smoking Christians as well. There is power in Christ to enable anyone who will lay hold of it, to quit such a ruinous, expensive, and filthy habit.