SELECTIONS | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 16, 1857

SELECTIONS.

The Smoking Christian.

I could not find any account of him in that very valuable and ancient work that says so much about Christians, and from which most of the accounts are taken. I tumbled over lots of leaves about patriarchs and prophets, and apostles, but mine eyes failed me to find anything about smoking Christians. I saw things looked smoky about Sodom about the time Lot left it; and there was a smoke in the valley of Achor which Achan knew something about; and Dathan and Abiram knew something about smoke in the incense affair they were concerned with. And there must have been some smoke when the incendiary foxes did so much mischief in Samson's time. And there was smoke when the idolators made their children pass through the fire in sacrifice to Moloch. And there must have been smoke when the fiery furnace was kindled in Babylon by the enemies of Dan-

iel. And a plenty of smoke, too, when the converts at Ephesus burned those books worth "fifty thousand pieces of silver."

So the Scripture is not silent in regard to smoke, but it does not apply the term in any way to Christians. The two things did not seem to be found together. And I do think that if there was any particular beauty or fragrance in their being together, Paul would have known it, and would have put them together accordingly, among some of the many things which he says about Christians. But in my search I drove through everything he ever said about them, and came out perfectly empty-handed in this matter. It cannot certainly therefore be essential to religion that one should be a smoking Christian, else Paul's catalogue of Christian virtues would not have been as deficient in this thing as we now find it.

Since I could not find any direct mention made of smoking Christians, I thought I would see if there could be found anything which, being fairly interpreted, would be likely to exert any quenchable influence upon the fire that such people carry about them. And I had not been long at work before up came a passage which ought to smash every pipe in Christendom, and pitch every cigar into the sea, and send all the snuff-boxes to float away in their company. Without saying a word directly against smoking disciples, it utters a rebuke which ought to penetrate every cloud which these puffing people gather about them. Just put your eye upon the following: "Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, &c., think on these things." Why here is a whole platoon firing at once, each missile reaching its mark. Certainly it is true that if every shot out of that text hit somebody besides the smoker, the last did not miss him. "Whatsoever things are lovely!"—Smoker! you are wounded by the apostolic archer. Why, if a man is to put into his character and habits only such things as are lovely, would he, could he put into his mouth such an antagonism as tobacco in any of its forms?

But besides being unlovely per se, it is also relatively so, for the smoking disciple smokes everything about him. He smokes his house, his clothes, his Bible even. He smokes his wife, children and friends. He smokes the atmosphere that other people breathe. There is not a person or object that he has anything to do with that is not in danger of getting smoked. Now, if there be anything lovely in all this, who but a desperate smoker can discern it?

More. If there were anything particularly lovely in the matter of smoking, how comes it that, travel where you may, blazing capitals meet your eye. See the warning in the Railroad Depot. "No smoking here!" The emphatic rebuke next meets you in the cars. The hotels utter their voice—only that there is a smoking house somewhere about the premises, where smokers can herd together. And the steamboats send all smokers forward among the cattle, sheep and asses, if they will have their beloved indulgence.

Therefore a Christian cannot be a smoker without placards everywhere shall announce how little he adds, in this way, to the sweet savor of his character.

It would seem, therefore, that the disciples had better hasten and take their last puff. Perhaps they would do better to stop this side of another.—Evangelist.