p. 175 | A Victory Gained by Jesse Dorcas

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1856

A Victory Gained.

By Jesse Dorcas

BRO. SMITH:—Please insert an item of my experience on the subject of tobacco-using, in the Review, for the comfort, and encouragement of any who may be thinking of leaving off this filthy habit, and who think if they do, it will always be an affliction.

I commenced its use in the thirteenth year of my age, before I experienced religion. About three months after my conversion it came to my mind that this was wrong—that I ought not to use tobacco; but I looked around among those who were the leaders in the church, and I saw a great number of ministers and members using the same weed; but such were my convictions of its evil that had the church advised, it would have been no trouble for me to have given it up.

But in the course of time I became so strongly habituated to the use of tobacco, both chewing and smoking, that it would not have been so easy a matter for me to obey mortal man in this matter either in or out of the church.

Thus I passed year after year a slave to lust; suffering the remorse of a guilty conscience:—often thinking, Fool that I am. . . thus drag on a miserable life, then I would try to quit, but all to no purpose; till about seven years ago, I came to the full determination to quit, live or die; and to set about it too, in the strength of God's grace. From that time to this, thank the Lord, I have no trouble with tobacco; but in this as in all other great victories, I find that it is 'through the blood of the Lamb, and the word of our testimony' that we overcome.

Jesse Dorcas.

Fremont Feb. 14th, 1856.