Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1880

Temperance.

SMOKING AND CHEWING TOBACCO UNCLEAN HABITS.

"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." 1 Cor. 7:1.

"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, whose temple ye are." 1 Cor. 3:17.

The central idea of the religion of Christ is purity, and it applies to the body as well to the soul. Is it any wonder that God requires a pure temple to dwell in? Would we offer a dear friend, who came to see us, a filthy room to occupy? Nay, but we would provide for his reception with the greatest care. How much more careful should we be to furnish a pure temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in.

We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, and to keep under the body, of course we include here the passions, lusts, carnal affections, anything contrary to the principle of faith or the law of love, anything that in any way supplant the stay of the Divine Being. Now how can a man be said to keep under the body when at his leisure he must partake of that which, to a considerable degree, clogs the brain with a breathed smoke, and pampers the affections of the flesh.

Now, the common use of tobacco is a most filthy habit to lungs, mouth and clothes; it is a perfect stench. It is not necessary to see a pipe in a man's mouth to know whether he is a smoker, he literally stinks as he goes about, his very breath is fetid and loathsome. How can such uncleanness be reconciled with the purity required in the above passages of Holy Writ, and indeed not by them only, but by the whole gospel? If cleanliness is a part of Christianity, and it undoubtedly is, to be filthy is to be wicked; yet the common use of tobacco is extremely filthy, and therefore sinful. Besides, God positively asserts in his word that he who dares to defile his temple shall be destroyed.

We do not expect anything better of horse-jockeys and debauchees than that they should indulge in such filthy lusts of the flesh, but the children of God—the men and women who profess the holy religion of Christ—are expected to put away every unclean thing, and to abstain even from the appearance of evil.

A Methodist exhorter and class-leader came to the writer one day and said: "Brother, I am going in for sanctification," while the tobacco spittle was running down each corner of his mouth. Of course we said: "Brother, begin right in your mouth."

The following case, it is hoped, will convince some tobacco devotees of the impurity of their habit. A certain blacksmith used tobacco for about sixty years: he became convinced of the filthiness of his practice in the following manner: When working on hot iron there would arise an odor very offensive, yea, almost unbearable. Its character was like tobacco spittle falling upon a hot stove. The English language fails to express the feelings that a clean, sensitive, pure body, has when it comes into contact with such fluid. This man could not bear this awful condition of things, and wondered from whence it came. It was hot weather, and he was working hard and sweating freely, and drops of sweat would fall quite often on the hot iron. To make the thing certain he put a hoe into the forge, and when it was red hot he took it out, and with his hand wiped the sweat from off his face upon the hot hoe. And, Oh whew! What an odor! Can it be that I am so filthy! He was more than convinced, and resolved to abandon the filth forever. He has been free from it for about ten years. I think that all excessive tobacco consumers are in the same boat, and might be convinced in a similar way. Neither is filthiness of the flesh condemned only by the Christian religion, for Mahomed, in harmony with Bible sentiments, anathematizes impurity, and in his fifth commandment says, KEEP THY BODY CLEAN.

"There are but three kinds of animals which generally use tobacco. The Rock Goat of Africa, whose stench is so insufferable that no other animal can approach it. The tobacco worm, whose intolerable visage gives to every beholder an involuntary shudder, and one other nondescript animal whose tobacco-frothings and spittings defile his own visage, bespatter and bedaub everything within his reach; who besmudges and pollutes the atmosphere with his nauseous fumigations, and whose Stygian breath seems to denote approximation to some bottomless pit."—Dr. Coles.

In 1492, as Columbus lay with his ships side by side at the Island of Cuba, he sent two men, a "Caleb and Joshua," to search the land, and report what they might see. On their return, among others things, they said they saw "the naked savages twist large leaves together, light one end at the fire, and smoke like devils!" Smokers should bear in mind their pedigree! Barbarous! Sensual!

"In the house of God, where of all other places decency and cleanliness should be observed, it is appalling to notice the repulsive and abominably filthy state of many pews, rendered so by the spitting habits of tobacco smokers and chewers. Churches are most scandalously abused by the tobacco chewers who frequent them; and kneeling before the Great Jehovah, which is so becoming when sinners approach their Maker in prayer, is rendered impossible in many seats for ladies, because of the large quantity of tobacco saliva which is ejected in all directions."—Dr. A. Clarke.

The language of God is wonderfully significant: "Thou hast defiled my sanctuary with thy abomination,"—"I will take this abomination from between thy teeth;" "I cannot hear for this abomination." Thus and thus, my hearers, God speaks to you. We beseech you, break off this habit, and all the gold of California could not bless you as much as this single decision. "Break, my brother, from these bonds of iniquity," "Take hold," as a Christian—a dauntless reformer—and wake the church, and the nation, to this great and insidious curse.—Rev. A. Sims.