Tobacco-using | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 16, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 11.

Tobacco-using.

There are many noble, great-souled men who use tobacco in some form; but it is not tobacco which makes them noble and great-souled. They are noble and great despite the tobacco. There are mean, little-souled men who do not use tobacco; it is not the lack of tobacco which makes them mean and little; it is their nature so to be, and they would be littler and meaner if they used tobacco. There are men who use tobacco who are better in conduct and cleaner in person than some who use no tobacco. But the former class are not better because of their tobacco, nor the latter worse because of their lack of tobacco. Let us settle these simple facts once for all. Nevertheless tobacco-using, except for the destruction of vermin, is bad, irretrievably, unmitigatedly bad. Its effects are evil and only evil; and the defense that is made for it by medical men is made by those addicted to its use, blinded by its toxic powers to its effects upon themselves and others. These indictments and charges against the use of the weed will hold: (1) It is useless, utterly devoid of good. (2) It is expensive, costing from five cents to five dollars or more a day. Why expend so much money on an utterly useless habit? (3) It is filthy. It discolors the teeth, vitiates the breath, and saturates the clothing with an odor always unpleasant to refined and normal nostrils. (4) It affects the sight and hearing. (5) It causes serious diseases of the heart and other vital organs. (6) Insanity is one of its frequent fruits. (7) It blunts the moral sensibility, and proves to be a feeder of the use of alcohol. Why not break from the bondage of such a tyrant and enemy? The noble man would be nobler; the great-hearted man would be larger hearted; and the freed soul would mount with rapid steps into "a purer air and a grander view."