Tobacco and Whisky by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 16, 1879

Tobacco and Whisky.

By Editor

THE following account of a very sad case we copy from the California Christian Advocate. Many complaints have been made against the Seventh-day Adventists because they have persistently refused to fellowship tobacco-using. Our course in this is being vindicated, and we hope that the lines will never cease to be closely drawn against this abomination. All the talk about restricting men in their liberty we heard years ago in the anti-whisky reform. It is time that professed Christians understand there is no Christian liberty to do wrong.

“Rev. Jas. Stephenson, a prominent preacher of Dayton, Ohio, has been accused of immorality and suspended from the ministry. He was charged with drunkenness; while under the influence of liquor he was guilty of other immoralities and improprieties. The committee by a unanimous vote found him guilty and suspended him. The conference will, doubtless, expel him from the ministry and from the church.

“He had long been addicted to the use of tobacco, and his nervous system had been deranged, hence his craving for stimulants. That tobacco was to a large extent the cause of his downfall there can be no doubt. It produces a degree of intoxication and excites a thirst for malt or distilled liquors, hence under certain conditions the temptation to drink is well-nigh irresistible. If men never learned to smoke and chew tobacco they would seldom, if ever, become intemperate. We never saw a drunkard who was not an inveterate smoker. The habit of using the vile narcotic always precedes liquor-drinking. If a man does not and will not touch tobacco we have little fear of his ever becoming an inebriate.

“Had the annual conference twenty or thirty years ago, as at present, received none who use tobacco in any form, Rev. James Stephenson would not have fallen, bringing ruin upon himself and reproach upon the church of Christ. Had he never narcotized his brain and nervous system he never would have been tempted to drink to intoxication.”