TOBACCO ON RELIGION

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 4, 1864

TOBACCO ON RELIGION

Tobacco-Using. No. 10.

TOBACCO ON RELIGION.

If paralyzing the native energies of the nervous system can impair mental and moral developments, then tobacco is doing its work of destruction on religious character. While it deadens the natural power, stability, and activity, of every nerve in the body, it puts a damper upon the developments of religious sentiment and feeling. Tobacco-users so abuse their spiritual energies in this respect, that they cannot conveniently carry out the form, much less apparent spirit, of religious services, without this ungodly agent. A social meeting for religious services, composed of tobacco users, deprived for several hours of that filthy companion, would be a dreary affair: there would be no signs of emotion except those of ungratified lust, and the Devil laughing over the victory he had won.

A deacon once said to me, in self-defence against my appeals to his conscience on the subject, "If I go to conference or prayer meeting without first smoking or taking a chew of tobacco with me, I cannot enjoy the meeting, I cannot speak or pray without it; the meeting passes like a dull and heavy task; I enjoy none of its exercises; and I long to have it close, that I may procure relief. But when I previously smoke or carry my plug of tobacco with me, I then can enjoy the meeting, can talk and pray, get good and do good, and all goes well."

My reply, in substance, was this: "Instead, deacon, of going to the social meeting under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, depending on an agency to give you enjoyment, and freedom of feeling and utterance, you go there leaning on the inspiration of tobacco—an agency not from above, but from beneath—one that is 'earthly, sensual, devilish.'"

This is a perfect sample of the condition and feeling of thousands; and more or less of all tobacco-users. They so deaden the natural sensibilities of the body and mind, by using it, that they are not immediately susceptible of the impulses of the Holy Spirit, by which alone a true spirit of devotion and religious enjoyment are induced. Everything to them is insipid and lifeless, without their tobacco. They absolutely depend on its exciting properties to give them what they call spiritual life. Unless excited by its immediate use, they come under its paralyzing power, which disqualifies them for any and every calling in life. But so far from being under any proper religious feeling, or any influence of Divine energy, they have yielded themselves to the ensnaring and bewildering excitations of the Devil, through his great agent, tobacco. They are in a like condition with the liquor-drinker, who, under its exciting power, can talk eloquently on religion, and shed alcoholic tears of alternate joy and penitence.

The time was when the professed ministers of Christ were accustomed to make use of the unhallowed inspirations of alcohol to prepare and preach their sermons. Now their eyes are opened to its diabolical agency. No ecclesiastical council would now ordain a man who was addicted to his cups. But while they reject this, many hold on to the more deadly and soul-crushing agent, tobacco,—an agent, which, when compared with gradual rum-steeping, is making their souls and bodies more perfect slaves to earthly lust. And, besides being a more inveterate enemy to grace, it is a far more filthy sin against God.

Now, instead of giving to the mind the unhallowed inspirations of the intoxicating drink, they give themselves to the inspiring properties of tobacco. The more intently they study, the more they chew and smoke the deadly stuff. Instead of denying the flesh, that the Divine agency may fill the heart, quicken the mind, and guide the thought, they so indulge this sensual appetite as to paralyze the finer susceptibilities of the soul, and, in a degree, shut out the Spirit of God. For tobacco and the Holy Ghost can no more dwell together in the same person, than the Holy Ghost and alcohol. The tobacco more effectually and permanently bars out the Spirit from the inner temple of the man, than alcohol in moderation, because of its protracted sedative influences, which the former does not possess. And it not only embarrasses the indwelling of the Spirit, by beclouding the man's inner temple, but by defiling the outer temple. The Spirit of God not only chooses a pure heart, freed from the stains of unhallowed lusts, but a body free from the literal defilement of gross indifference and filthy physical habits.

While the mind occupies its earthly tabernacle, its vigor and activity depend much upon the healthy state of the vital forces. Consequently, when those vital forces are impaired, mental energy and durability are diminished. Our religious enjoyment and usefulness depend much on a healthful condition of the mental faculties. When the vital forces are depressed, comparative gloominess hangs over the mental and spiritual energies. In this way, spiritual despondency, or apathy, or both, are general attendants on a depressed state of the nervous system. Whatever, therefore, depresses the vital or electric forces of the body, depresses the forces of the soul. Tobacco's most destructive thrust is hurled at the very seat of vitality—the electric circulation of the nervous system. Here is its chief work of destruction to the body. And, while doing this, it is jostling the equilibrium and power of the mind, and destroying the vigor and animation of the soul.

The dream of an elderly lady may possibly illustrate this truth. She was professedly very pious, but allowed, for many years, her devotions to her pipe, like thousands in the church, to exceed her devotions to God. She was more sure not to forget her vows to this carnal appetite, than not to neglect her closet for prayer. One night she dreamed of an aerial flight to the regions of the spirit world, where not only her eyes could feast on the beauties of elysian fields, but where she could converse with perfected spirits. One of these she asked to go and look for her name in the Book of Life. He complied; but at length returned with a sad countenance, saying it was not there. Again she besought him to go, and search more thoroughly. After a more lengthy examination, he returned without finding it. She wept bitterly. But she could not rest till a third search should be made. After a long and anxious absence, he returned with a brightened countenance, saying it had, after great labor, been found; but that so deep was the covering which years of tobacco-smoke had laid over it, that it was with great difficulty that it could be discerned. She awoke, and found herself prostrated with weeping. It is not for me to say, whether there was, or was not, any Divine instruction in this dream; but it produced in the old lady a repentance from her evil habits, and a pious resolution henceforward to give unto God, not a divided, but a whole heart—to cast the idol at her feet, and lay no more of her time, and money, and vital energies, upon its unholy altar.

Tobacco stands in the way of Gospel impressions on the minds of unconverted men. It not only dampens Christian love and zeal, and lessens the spiritual enterprise of the church, but blunts the mental susceptibility of those who have never known the power of Divine grace. Any artificial excitement creates a barrier to impressions from the Holy Spirit. Alcoholic liquors, or opium, or any other excitants of like character, form insuperable obstacles to saving grace. Take two individuals alike in every respect, except that one narcotizes himself habitually with tobacco, and the one who is free from the habit, would be found far more impressible, under Divine influences, than the other. This would be found true, whether these influences were bestowed while the subject was under its immediately exciting properties, or under its ultimate narcotism. That this poison obstructs the intercourse of the Spirit, seems practically admitted by the generality of tobacco-using professors; for, as they are about to enter upon the duty of prayer, they always cast away their quid. They seem intuitively conscious that tobacco and the Spirit have no affinity. Therefore, when they are about to pray, they cast this devil out of their mouth.

What would be the effect of a man's preaching from the text, "Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul," on the mind of an enlightened, common-sense congregation, with a plug of tobacco in his mouth, or being known as a smoker or snuffer of the weed? While he calls on them to put away unholy appetite, and save their money for the altar of Christ, he must put that most unholy and expensive oral lust forever from him. And while he would gain access to the hearts of an idolatrous world around him, he must persuade his church, who are the epistles of his ministry, to put away that idol which adheres closest to the flesh. For unconverted men will have very little confidence in the sincerity of ministers or churches, with all their professions of love for lost men, while they see, by demonstrative facts, that they will give more money, on an average, for a plug of Cavendish or a Principe, than to save a soul from hell.

If the money spent by the church for this object, could be spent for Bibles and their distribution, what a mighty enlargement of means would at once be brought to bear upon the extensions of Gospel light!

Tobacco costs the church, every year, more than five times as much as is collected for sending abroad Gospel light into a benighted world. Nor is this expenditure simply a waste of the pecuniary means of the church, crippling its financial strength, but a waste of time and talent, and moral power. And if we reckon only the waste of money, while so much is needed for extending the triumphs of the cross, it reflects shame and disgrace on the whole Christian church. To think that the means for sending the Gospel to all the world would be more than five times what they now are, if the money paid for tobacco by professors of Christianity, were cast into the Gospel treasury, is enough to chill one's blood to the heart. O, shame on the church for their stupidity and sin, touching this thing! Instead of loving Christ and his Gospel with all the heart, and denying themselves every needless thing, especially every worldly lust and ungodly indulgence, in order to increase the Gospel fund, they are wasting money, time, and energies, for that "earthly, sensual, devilish" appetite for tobacco. They are, also, by their example, encouraging others in a habit which helps to close the avenues of the soul against the saving power of the Gospel; and are practically saying to ungodly men, that the self-denial of unnatural lusts is a non-essential or an impracticable grace.

The literal defilements of tobacco hinder the progress of Divine truth. Instances have occurred, in times of religious revivals, where individuals who were occupying the position of inquirers, were so disturbed with the tobacco breath of the minister or deacon, who was conversing with them on the subject, that they have made this objection against putting themselves any longer in the seat of the inquirers. Oh, let ministers and deacons put away a breath which resists the Holy Ghost, and nauseates the subject of its convicting power! The Devil casts infernal smiles on those professors who champ and puff this deadly essence; not merely because it paralyzes physical energy and shortens human life, but because it stupefies the native susceptibilities of the mind, and blunts the soul to the moral suasions of Heaven. Nay, he triumphs while he knows that its nauseous fumes choke up the gateway that leads to the kingdom of Christ, and become a "stench in the nostrils of Jehovah."

(To be Continued.)