A Letter to a Friend Concerning Tea.
By John Wesley
19. "But what is saved will be no better employed." Do you say this with regard to yourself, or others? If with regard to yourself, it will be your fault if you do not employ it better. I do not say you will, but I am sure you may; and if you do not, it is your own sin, and your own shame. If with regard to others, how do you know that it will not be employed better? I trust it will. It cannot be denied that it often has, and that it always may be. And it is highly probable all who save anything from the best motive, will lay it out to the best purpose. 20. "As to example," you say, "I have lately been without hopes of doing any good by it." I suppose you mean, because so exceeding few will follow either your example or mine. I am sorry for it. This only gives me a fresh objection to this unwholesome, expensive food, viz., that it has too much hold on the hearts of them that use it; that, to use a Scriptural phrase, they are "under the power of" this trifle. If it be so, were there no other reason than this, they ought to throw it away at once; else they no more regard St. Paul than they do you or me; for his rule is home to the point: "All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any." Away with it then, however lawful, (that is, though it were wholesome as well as cheap,) if you are already brought "under the power of it." And the fewer they are who follow this rule, the greater reason there is that you should add one example more to those few. Though, blessed be God, they are not so few as you suppose. I have met with very many in London, who use less of it than they have done for many years; and above a hundred who have plucked out their right eye, and cast it from them, who wholly abstain from it. 21. You add: "But I am equally, yea, abundantly more concerned to set an example in all Christian behavior." I grant it; this, therefore, "ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone." 22. But "one day," you add, "I saw your brother drink tea, which he said was for fear of giving offence." I answer, First, Learn from hence to follow neither his nor my practice implicitly; but weigh the reason of each, and then follow reason, wheresoever it stands. But, Secondly, Examine your heart, and beware inclination does not put on the shape of reason. Thirdly, You see with your own eyes, I do not drink it at all, and yet I seldom give offence thereby. It is not then the bare abstaining, but the manner of doing it, which usully gives the offence. Fourthly, There is, therefore, a manner wherein you may do it too, and yet give no more offence than I. For instance: If any ask you, simply reply, "I do not drink tea; I never use it." If they say, "Why, you did drink it;" answer, "I did so, but I have left it off a considerable time." Those who have either good nature or good manners will say no more. But if any should impertinently add, "Oh, but why did you leave it off?" answer mildly, "Because I thought water gruel (suppose) was wholesomer as well as cheaper." If they, with still greater ill manners and impertinence, go on, "What, you do it because Mr. Wesley bids you;" reply, calmly, "True; I do it because Mr. Wesley, on good reasons, advised me so to do." If they add the trite cant phrase, "What, you follow man?" reply without any emotion, "Yes, I follow any man, you or him, or any other, who gives me good reason for so doing." If they persist in cavilling, close the whole matter with, "I neither drink it nor dispute about it." 23. If you proceed in this manner, with mildness and love, exceeding few will be offended. "But you ought," say some, "to give up an indifferent thing, rather than give offence to any. So St. Paul: 'I will eat no flesh whilst the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.'" I reply, This is not an indifferent thing, if it affects the health either of myself or of my brethren. Therefore that rule relating wholly to things indifferent is not applicable to this case. Would St. Paul have said, "I will drink drams while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend"? "But tea is not so hurtful as drams." I do not believe it is. But it is hurtful; and that is enough. The question does not turn on the degree of hurtfulness. "However, it is but a small thing." Nay, nothing is small if it touches conscience: much less is it a small thing to preserve my own or my brother's health, or to be a faithful steward even of the mammon of unrighteousness. O think it not a small thing, whether only one for whom Christ died be fed or hungry, clothed or naked! To conclude the head of offence: You must at least allow that all this is no plea at all for your drinking tea at home. "Yes it is; for my husband or parents are offended if I do not drink it." I answer, First, Perhaps this in some rare cases, may be a sufficient reason why a wife or a child should use this food, that is, with them; but no where else. But, Secondly, try, and not once or twice only, if you cannot overcome that offence by reason, softness, love, patience, long suffering joined with constant and fervent prayer. 24. Your next objection is, "I cannot bear to give trouble; therefore I drink whatever others drink where I come, else there is so much hurry about insignificant men." I answer, First, This is no plea at all for your drinking tea at home. Therefore touch it not there, whatever you do abroad. Secondly, Where is the trouble given, even when you are abroad, if they drink tea, and you fill your cup with milk and water? Thirdly, Whatever trouble is taken is not for "insignificant me," but for that poor man who is half starved with cold and hunger; for that miserable woman, who, while she is poisoning herself, wipes her mouth, and says she does no evil; who will not believe the poison will hurt her, because it does not (sensibly at least) hurt you. O throw it away! let her have one plea less for destroying her body, if not her soul, before the time! 25. You object, farther, "It is my desire to be unknown for any particularity, unless a peculiar love to the souls of those who are present." And I hope to the souls of the absent too; yea, and to their bodies also, in a due proportion, that they may be healthy, and fed and clothed, and warm, and may praise God for the consolation. 26. You subjoin: "When I had left it off for some months, I was continually puzzled with, Why, What, &c.; and I have seen no good effects, but impertinent questions and unedifying conversation about eating and drinking." I answer, Those who were so uneasy about it, plainly showed that you touched the apple of their eye. Consequently, these of all others, ought to leave it off; for they are evidently "brought under the power of it." Secondly, Those impertinent questions might have been cut short, by a very little steadiness and common sense. You need only have taken the method mentioned above, and they would have dropped in the midst. Thirdly, it is not strange you saw no good effects of leaving it off, where it was not left off at all. But you saw very bad effects of not leaving it off, viz., the adding sin to sin; the joining much unedifying conversation to wasteful, unhealthy self-indulgence. Fourthly, You need not go far to see many good effects of leaving it off; you may see them in me. I have recovered thereby that healthy state of the whole nervous system, which I had in a great degree, and I almost thought irrevocably, lost for considerably more than twenty years. I have been enabled hereby to assist, in one year, above fifty poor, with food or raiment, whom I must otherwise have left (for I had before begged for them all I could) as hungry and naked as I found them. You may see the good effects in above thirty poor just now before you, who have been restored to health, through the medicines bought by that money which a single person has saved in this article. And a thousand more good effects you will not fail to see, when her example is more generally followed. 27. Neither is there any need that conversation should be unedifying, even when it turns upon eating and drinking. Nay, from such a conversation, if duly improved, numberless good effects may flow. For how few understand, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God!" And how glad ought you to be of a fair occasion to observe, that though the kingdom of God does not consist in "meats and drinks," yet, without exact temperance in these, we cannot have either "righteousness, or peace, or joy in the Holy Ghost!" It may therefore have a very happy effect, if, whenever people introduce the subject, you directly close in, and push it home, that they may understand a little more of this important truth. 28. But "I find at present very little desire to change either my thoughts or practice." Shall I speak plain? I fear, by not standing your ground, by easiness, cowardice, and false shame, you have grieved the Spirit of God, and thereby lost your conviction and desire at once. Yet you add: "I advise every one to leave off tea, if it hurts their health, or is inconsistent with frugality; as I advise every one to avoid dainties in meat, and vanity in dress from the same principle." Enough, enough! Let this only be well pursued, and it will secure all that I contend for. I advise no persons living to leave it off, if it does not hurt the health either of them or their brethren; and if it is not inconsistent with the Christian frugality of cutting off every needless expense. 29. But "to be subject to the consequences of leaving it off again! This I cannot bear." I answer, First, It may be so. You cannot easily bear it. For, by your giving up the point once, you have made it much harder to stand your ground now than it was at first. Yet still it is worth all your courage and labor; since the reasons for it are as strong as at the beginning. Secondly, As to the consequences you fear, they are shadowy all; they are a mere lion in the streets. "Much trouble to others." Absolutely none at all, if you take the tea-kettle, and fill your cup with water. "Much foolish discourse." Take the preceding advice, and it will be just the reverse. "Nothing helpful toward the renewal of my soul in the image of Jesus Christ." What a deep mistake is this! Is it not helpful to speak closely of the nature of his inward kingdom? to encourage one another in casting off every hindrance of it? to inure ourselves to the bearing his cross? to bring Christianity into common life, and accustom ourselves to conduct even our minutest actions by the great rules of reason and religion? 30. Is it "not of any importance" to do this? I think it is of vast importance. However, "it is a very small circumstance in self denial." It is well if you find it so. I am sure I did not. And I believe the case is the same with many others at this day. But you say, "I have so many other assaults of self-indulgence, that this is nothing." "It is nothing," said one to a young woman, "to fast once or twice a week, to deny yourself a little food. Why do you not deny yourself as to anger and fretfulness, as to peevishness and discontent?" She replied, "That I want; so I deny myself in little things first, till I am able to do it in greater." Neither you nor I can mend her reply. Go thou and do likewise. 31. I have done what I proposed; and indeed in many words than I at first intended. I have told you the occasions of every step I have taken, and the motives inducing me thereto; and they have considered what either you or others have urged on the contrary side of the question. And now the advice I would give upon the whole is this: First, pray earnestly to God for clear light; for a full, piercing and steady conviction, that this is the more excellent way. Pray for a spirit of universal self denial, of cheerful temperance, of wise frugality; for bowels of mercies; for a kind, compassionate spirit, tenderly sensible of the various wants of your brethren; and for firmness of mind; for a mild, courage, without fear, anger, or shame. Then you will once more, with all readiness of heart, make this little (or great) sacrifice to God; and withal present your soul and body a living sacrifice, acceptable unto God through Jesus Christ.—John Wesley.