The Sin and Danger of Tobacco
BRO SMITH: I send you the following extract from a farewell address to the convicts in the Wisconsin State prison, it being that part that treats on tobacco. Although we have seen much written on this subject in the Review; yet as long as it is used, perhaps it would not be out of place to give this an insertion. A. H. D.] WHEREFORE I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth. 2 Pet. i, 12. You do not see that the habit of using tobacco is sinful and wrong, and for this opinion you are not so blamable as a debauched public whose practice has led you into this error. Nevertheless the use of this drug is sinful and ungentlemanly as well as dangerous in leading us into society of the vicious and into the commission of acts more manifestly wrong. It is sinful because if the effect of its use is not pernicious, it is at least, useless, and the time employed earning and using the plant should be employed in doing something for the benefit of humanity at large and for ourselves individually. We have no right to waste an hour of our time; and if we devote it to growing, earning or using tobacco, it is lost, as I think I proved to you before, eternally! Here is an eternal loss to begin with. But there is another view of it, and that is that it is not only useless but hurtful, inasmuch as it destroys the nervous system, and is the cause of many diseases and prevents the cure of many more. In this opinion I am sustained by physicians of much eminence. Again, by the use of tobacco we infringe upon the rights of others by poisoning the air they are forced to breathe with the smoke of this poisonous plant, rendered still more deleterious by the filthy exhalations from our lungs and mouth. We also sin against the laws of God as well as those of advanced society by rendering ourselves disgusting, dirty, and loathsome to people of refinement in feeling or purity of thought. You have all heard that cleanliness is a virtue next to godliness, but I tell you that cleanliness is a part of godliness. No person can be called godly who is filthy and disgusting both to the eye and the smell; and where is the man or woman who uses this article constantly who does not become so? “Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect,” was a precept given us by the purest and holiest of men. So stainless, so spotless, so loving and perfect was this person in all his acts, words and thoughts that he commands the reverence and adoration of the civilized world! Do you think a pure spirit could dwell in a body saturated outside and inside with tobacco juice? And if a spirit is not pure can it be said to approach perfection? I would not wound the reverence of one of you and I do not intend to be irreverent when I remind you that in Jesus of Nazareth is embodied your highest conception of all that is worthy of adoration. Now just imagine that the portrait of this ideal of purity and loveliness was placed before you at this instant in the act of smoking or chewing tobacco. His head enveloped in its offensive fumes, or his beard besmeared with saliva! Does not your sense of propriety revolt at the idea of such a presentation? Would you not turn from such a picture with disgust, and charge it upon some blasphemous infidel that he had painted it to libel the author of your religion, and to bring odium upon his memory and character? There is not one of you who is looking for Jesus to come in the clouds of heaven, and is keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, but would spurn it from your presence, and would hold the artist who conceived and executed it in deserved contempt and abhorrence. Need I ask you now if you still consider it consistent with Christian purity and morality to use tobacco?