The Tobacco-Using Habit
By William Covert
My Experience and Observation
FROM childhood, I have felt called upon to use my influence against the use of tobacco. Whatever may be the purpose of its existence, I am absolutely sure that tobacco was not intended for man to chew and smoke. My opposition to the use men were making of it grew out of my observation concerning its effects upon those who were using it. The first lesson came by my accidentally tasting the nauseating weed. I borrowed a knife to pare an apple, and the instrument had been used by its owner in cutting tobacco just before I used it to cut into the apple. O, the nauseating taste that the tobacco oil upon the knife imparted to the apple! I then marveled that any one could ever acquire a love for anything so unpleasant to the palate as that tobacco was to mine. After that little experience with tobacco, I inquired if all men were expected to use tobacco, and I was told that it was a matter of personal option with each one. When I received the answer, there came a resolution into my soul, young as I was, which said: "I will never use it. A thing so repugnant to my unperverted senses as tobacco is, shall never have dominion over me." Next I saw a farmer boil some tobacco stocks and scraps from his tobacco shed and put the boiled water upon his young cattle. When I asked him why he was doing such a thing as that, he said he was killing the vermin on the cattle. I noticed that every member of the herd was trembling with weakness, and evidently suffering in agony as a result of the treatment. Then I thought I must see what the effect would be upon the little creeping things that had made their habitation upon the sorry looking cattle; and behold, before the setting of the sun, every creeper on the poor young cattle had died from the use of tobacco. The cattle recovered, because the thickness of their hides prevented the tobacco poison from slaying them, but the unfortunate bugs were not so deeply encased in their shields, and they died of too much tobacco. The farmer gave the bugs an overdose at the beginning, and it proved fatal. Yet if it could have been administered to them in moderation until the habit was acquired, perhaps they would have become advocates of its use. They did not have a chance to learn how to use it; but most of the boys of my acquaintance did get a chance on the sly to take a little at a time until the habit was fastened upon them, and then but a few of them had manhood enough left to shake it off. It seemed that they acquired the habit before judgment was enthroned or reason developed. Thus maturity, as far as they did mature, found them short on the very essentials that go to make up the highest state of humanity. The tobacco-using habit was acquired before manhood was developed in a sufficient degree to resist it; and after it was fastened upon them, their resisting power was subjugated to such an extent that they could not easily discard the habit. As I viewed the conflict, it seemed to me that my associates were giving place to an unhealthy, uncleanly, unnecessary, undesirable, inconvenient, expensive practise, without one redeeming feature to justify them in the course they were taking. And now, since I have had the opportunities of a long lifetime to observe the evil effects of tobacco-using, the conviction is confirmed that this habit is an unmitigated curse. The question is asked, Can any Christian man give a satisfactory answer to his own conscience for it?