THE TOBACCO ABOMINATION.
By M. E. Cornell
In attempting to say a few words under this head, it is not with any expectation that it will be possible for me to find language to fitly describe the tobacco abomination. Having of late seen the evil carried to a greater extent than I ever before witnessed, I can no longer refrain from speaking out on this subject. In my late tour south I was about one hundred and fifty miles nearer where they buy and sell men, women and children into slavery, than ever before; I had known numerous instances of men and women selling themselves as slaves to the tobacco lust; had lived where in some instances little ponds of tobacco juice, and now and then a stray quid had been found even in the house of God, but never until the last few weeks had I seen all restraint thrown off, and the system carried out to perfection. While in—I walked over to the meeting house, which was being cleaned; and what did I behold? Tobacco juice not merely in ponds, but in comparison as lakes, seas and oceans, in which the heaps of quids and cigar-stubs were like so many promontories, islands and volcanic mountains, emitting an effluvia so revolting that adjectives and superlatives would fail to describe it. I turned away from the sickening sight profoundly impressed with the thought that there was a fit "cage for every foul spirit, and every unclean and hateful bird," and that Babylon was indeed fallen. I was told that every one of the five preachers in the place, and the majority of both old and young men, and many of the boys, yes, and even some of the ladies used the detestable stuff. In view of this can we wonder that the majority in that place should reject the holy law of God? The Apostle says, "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. viii, 7. And it is evident that those who indulge in the filthy, idolatrous habit of chewing or smoking tobacco, cannot be free from the carnal mind. But the thought that some among us, who are called brethren, after all that has been written on the subject, should still persist in using the infamous weed, is truly distressing: I can no longer hold my peace; for duty imperatively demands that the servants of God should "cry aloud and spare not" on this subject. Will my dear friends in bondage, allow me to place the sins connected with their practice in array before them: Come and let us reason together! You should immediately leave off the use of tobacco. 1. Because most men and all women who do not use it, and the majority of those who do, are ready to acknowledge it a filthy, hurtful practice. 2. Because its use is contrary to nature. Even the swine will not touch it, and the noble elephant regards an offer of tobacco as the highest kind of insult. 4. Because, to use tobacco is to gratify a worldly, fleshly lust, hence it is positively forbidden in the scriptures: Rom. xiii, 13, 14: Gal. v, 16: vi, 8: Eph. ii, 2, 3: Titus ii, 12: James iv, 3: 1 Pet. ii, 11: iv, 1, 2. 7. Because it cannot be used to the glory of God. 1 Cor. x, 31. 9. Because, the Apostle says, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." Rom. xiv, 21: 1 Cor. viii, 12, 13. 10. Because you have no reasonable excuse for using it. It is neither food nor medicine. But, says one, it is a medicine, for physicians often recommend its use for certain diseases. But because physicians sometimes prescribe it as an antidote, does it follow that it must be used excessively for years? Is it not a fact that when so used its medicinal properties (if indeed it has any) are entirely destroyed? After a certain period all medicine becomes second nature, and ceases to have the desired effect. Would sound wisdom dictate that because blue pills had cured one man, therefore two thirds of the human family should take to eating blue pills the rest of their lives? Then away with foolish excuses, and remember that the promise is to the overcomer.2 Dr. Clarke says: "Every medical man knows well that the saliva which is the first and greatest agent that nature employs in digesting the food, is copiously drawn off by the infamous quid, and the scandalous pipe. "The brains of smokers have been found on dissection, to be dried and shriveled up from excessive use of the pipe. That it is sinful to use it as most do, I have no doubt, if destroying the constitution and vilely squandering away the time and money which God has given for other purposes may be termed sinful. "The impiety manifested by some in the use of the herb, merits the most cutting reproof. When many of the tobacco consumers get into trouble, or under any cross or affliction, instead of looking to God for support, the pipe, the snuff-box, or the twist is applied to with quadruple earnestness. What a comfort is this weed in time of sorrow! what a support in time of trouble! in a word, what a god!" Clarke's Theology, pp. 405-408. Says King James I, "Tobacco is the lively image and pattern of hell; for it hath, by allusion, in it, all the parts and vices of the world, whereby hell is gained: to wit, first it is a smoke, so are all the vanities of the world; secondly, it delighteth them that take it, so do all the pleasures of the world delight the men of the world: thirdly, it maketh men drunken and light in the head, so do all the vanities of the world: men are drunken therewith: fourthly, he that taketh tobacco cannot leave it, it doth bewitch him, even so the pleasures of the world make men loth to leave them: they are for the most part enchanted with them, . . . Have you not reason to forbear this filthy novelty, so basely grounded, so foolishly received, so grossly mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof, sinning against God, harming yourselves both in person and goods, and taking also thereby the marks and vanities unto you, by the custom thereof, making yourselves to be wondered at by all foreign nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned!" He closes by saying, "It is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fumes thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." "Linnæus, the noted botanist, in his natural arrangement, placed tobacco in the Luridæ, which signifies pale, ghastly, livid, dismal, and fatal. 'To the same ominous class,' he adds, 'belong fox-glove, henbane, deadly nightshade, lobelia, and other poisonous plants, bearing the tremendous name, Atropa, one of the furies.'" "Says Dr. Shew, 'When tobacco is taken into the stomach for the first time, it creates a nausea and extreme disgust. If swallowed, it excites violent convulsions of the stomach and bowels to eject the poison either upward or downward. If it be not very speedily and entirely ejected it produces great anxiety, vertigo, faintness, and prostration of all the senses; and in some instances death has followed.'" "Linnæus says, 'The oil of this plant is one of the strongest vegetable poisons, insomuch as we know of no animal that can resist its mortal effects.'" "Dr. Waterhouse, a man of close observation said, 'he never observed so many pallid faces, and so many marks of declining health, nor ever knew so many hectical habits, and consumptive affections, as of late years; and I trace this alarming inroad on young constitutions principally to the pernicious custom of smoking cigars.'" "Dr. Wood, one of the authors of the United States Dispensatory, observes, 'that it is one of the most virulent poisons known; and that a drop of it, in the state of concentrated solution, was sufficient to destroy a dog; and small birds perished at the approach of a tube containing it.'" "If that's the case, then let us shun
That weed that many has undone,
And our just vengeance wreak upon
Tobacco!"