In the record of God’s providential dealings with the race, the Hebrews hold a high rank. These descendants of the worthy patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were proud of the blood in their veins, and in the days of Christ were heard to say boastfully, “We have Abraham to our father.”
Abraham was a truly grand character. “I know him,” says the great God, “that he will command his children and his household after him.” He is called the father of the faithful. The reason his children were to be in number as the dust of the earth, or as the sand upon the sea-shore, or as the stars of heaven, is given thus: “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” The secret of his moral greatness lay in the fact that he was true to principle, and possessed unlimited faith in God, and in his providential dealings with the faithful.
There is much of thrilling interest in the sacred sketches of Isaac, of Jacob and his twelve sons, of the bondage of Joseph and his elevation in Egypt, and of the subsequent slavery of the Hebrews and their miraculous deliverance. God designed to do great things for his people; hence it was his purpose, in his dealings with them, to restrict appetite, and to provide for them the most healthful food.
During centuries of slavery in a heathen land, the habits of the Hebrews had become more or less corrupted. And as their moral powers grew weak, in the same degree, appetite and passion grew strong. With a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, God led them from the land of servitude into the wilderness, where he proposed to reform them. Their wrong habits in Egypt178had made them irritable, and had disqualified them to endure the pangs of thirst, or the gnawings of perverted appetite.
In their journeying they soon came to Marah. The water here was bitter, and a cry of murmuring ran through the host, “What shall we drink?” A certain tree cast into the waters made them sweet. This quieted the murmuring of the people for the time. The Lord “made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I am the Lord that healeth thee.”
The candid reader will not fail to see that the gracious God of the Hebrews regarded the health of his people as a matter of great importance. He promised them health if they would obey him. Indeed, no fact appears more distinct in the sacred record than this, that in the great work of reforming them, and restoring them from wrong habits contracted in Egypt,—habits which affected the physical, the moral, and the spiritual nature,—God commenced with the appetite.
God did not propose to work miracles for the health of his people, while they were indulging habits injurious to health. He was soon to take the Israelites to the land he had promised them,—a second Eden, marred somewhat by the curse,—and to establish them there a healthy, happy, holy people. But before doing this, he would reform them in their dietetic habits, by taking them back, step by step, as near as possible to the purity of his original purpose when he provided the simple fruits, grains, and vegetables as the best food for man.
Thirty days after the departure from Egypt, the Hebrews were encamped in the wilderness of Sin, and there the circumstances of their position tested their trembling faith. It was evident that the chances for food were against179them, unless God should work a perpetual miracle. And the infidel question was murmured through the camp, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” The whole congregation murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
The case was an urgent one. Something must be done. The people must have food. The necessity of his people was God’s opportunity. Food came in abundance from heaven, and lay round about the camp. The God and Father of his people being judge in the case, he most certainly gave them that food which was best adapted to their wants. Well, did he send down to them cattle, sheep, swine, lobsters, oysters, clams, eels, and the like, tea, coffee, and tobacco? This he could, and would, have done, if these were necessary to life and health. But none of these were given. What did the God of Israel provide as food for that vast host? The following simple language gives the answer:—
“Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.” God was about to repeat his law in the hearing of all the people. Would they obey? Their appetites and passions were such that their obedience was a matter of doubt. This, however, seems to have been established in the Divine Mind, that unless they could control appetite, they could not be controlled by law. God proposed to prove their moral power, and he did it by testing them on the point of appetite.
From the description of the manna, one might safely conclude that it would be quite as disagreeable to a morbid taste as graham bread. Its shape, color, taste, and the manner in which it was prepared for food, are thus180given: “The manna was as coriander seed, and the color thereof as the color of bdellium. And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.”
It appears from the record that the people were not at first restricted to manna alone. In the morning they were to eat of the manna, and in the evening they were to eat of the flesh of quails. Whether flesh was given them once a day at first, that the change of their habits might be more gradual, or because of their frenzied murmurings, may be a matter of debate. But at a later period they were restricted to manna alone, as the following statement shows:—
“The mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting; and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; but now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all, besides this manna, before our eyes.” God gave them flesh, not because it was best for them, but to teach them that he best knew their real needs. As other means of instruction had failed, he let them have their own way this time, to humble them, and bring them to submission.
The leader of murmuring Israel was instructed to say to the people: “Ye shall eat flesh; for ye have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt; therefore the Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you; because that ye have despised the Lord which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?”
We are sometimes gravely informed by those knowing gentlemen who give their influence on the side of indulgence181of morbid taste, that the appetite indicates what is best adapted to the wants of the system. On the same ground, men may justify the drunkard, the opium inebriate, and the tobacco slave. Thousands are acting the glutton, and hastening to a wretched end, over this miserable untruth. How terribly false it was in the case of the Hebrews!
The great God, in his dealings with the Hebrews in the wilderness, not only restricted their diet to the simple manna, but he also taught them cleanliness. Both these restrictions were designed to promote health. Gluttony and filth are base companions; while temperance and cleanliness are congenial friends.
The excellent maxim, “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” is not found in the Scriptures, as many suppose, but in the Jewish Talmud. Yet he who reads the books of Moses attentively will not fail to observe that in those moral lessons which were given to the people through Moses, cleanliness holds a high rank among the acts preparatory to acceptance with God.
When the Hebrews were about to assemble at the base of Sinai, to witness the grandeur of Jehovah as he should descend upon the mount, wrapped in a cloud of glory, to speak the ten precepts of his holy law, the following was one of the preparations which the Lord directed Moses to make for the occasion: “Go unto the people, and sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes.” This act of cleanliness, given so specifically in the sacred record, was one of importance. It was not commanded simply because our heavenly Father was pleased to see his children dressed in clean apparel; but it was to impress them with the purity of God, and to show them that he cared for their physical as well as their moral well-being.
While the vast hosts of the Hebrews were in the wilderness, it was necessary for their physical and moral good that they should be neat and cleanly in their common habits. The particulars of the command given them are recorded in Deut. 23:10–14.
That holy God of the Hebrews, who could not view moral or physical impurities with complacency, is the Christian’s God. The death of his Son for the sins of men, and the world-wide proclamation of his glorious gospel, were never designed to give the idea that the Christian should be less particular and cleanly in the common habits of life than the Hebrew. Such habits were necessary to physical and moral health, and, from the very nature of the case, the same necessity exists in our time.
It is the most degrading and miserable fanaticism to suppose that the freedom of the gospel consists in slovenly dress, in rough, clownish, irreverent words and actions, or in careless, filthy habits of life. It is painful to state that there is much which passes with certain classes as plain, humble religion, that is a living disgrace to the Christian name. This results from the erroneous idea that God has abolished the rules of cleanliness found in the books of Moses, and that the gospel frees us from their restraint.
God is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever. The same practical instructions which he gave to the Hebrews through Moses, for their physical and moral benefit, he also impressed upon the minds of the inspired writers of the New Testament. Paul exhorts his readers: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Acceptance and heirship are the greatest blessings that God can offer on conditional promise to mortal men. Paul continues in the very next verse: “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” In these impressive words the purity (or impurity) of the physical nature is connected with that of the moral nature. The one is dependent upon the other. Filthy habits tend to moral impurity. The man who obtains real purity of spirit, will be led to cleanly habits of life.183Cleanliness, health, and purity of spirit, are from the same source, and are priceless adornments of the Christian.
God pity the poor! They labor under disadvantages, but they can be cleanly, neat, and orderly. While we admit that poverty, in some cases, tends to make people slack, disorderly, and filthy, we deny that this is necessarily the case. The log cabin, with its rude, scanty furniture, may show marks of tidiness, as well as the mansion of the wealthy. And the scanty clothing may be clean. Though patch may be put upon patch, all may show the rough beauty and cleanliness of a hand and heart moved by the true spirit of reform.
But what can we say of the criminal carelessness of many professing Christians relative to their outhouses? We know of no language that will fully meet the case. We may write the words unhealthful, pestilential, terrible, horrible; but when compared with what the itinerant sometimes meets in August or September, such words really mean nothing. The sense of smell can sometimes recognize the existence of the poisonous, demoralizing abominations at a great distance.
By means of improper food, bad water, and impure air, diseases are received into the system. The food and water may be pure, but if the air is corrupt, the system will be poisoned, and, sooner or later, sickness must follow. In our frequent tours in New England, and throughout the Middle and North-western States, we have visited many sick persons. When searching for the cause of their ill health, if we failed to trace it to heredity, or to improper diet or impure water, we have usually found it in a bad condition of the outhouses. Whole families are often prostrated with fever, sometimes resulting in death to one or more of them, and yet the good people gravely and tearfully talk of the mysterious providence of God that has caused so much sickness, and removed kindred and neighbors, when the chief cause is in their own yard.
Often the barn and poultry yard are near the house, and the emanations from them, in connection with the184vault usually found on the premises, are so foul that it is a wonder that any escape typhoid fever, which more frequently owes its origin to this cause than to all others. But what is worse, these abominations are sometimes so located that the drainage from them finds its way into the well. Among those so surrounded, health seems an impossibility. If a vault is used, it should be far from the well, and not too near the house; and dry earth or wood ashes, used as a covering, will absorb the foul emanations. The directions given to the Hebrews concerning cleanliness, show how careful God was that the camp should not become contaminated, and should lead us to the utmost care as to the healthfulness of our surroundings.
We wish to arouse the people upon the subject of securing health, moral elevation, and happiness by providing themselves with the most healthful food, good water, and pure air. If they will do this, and be temperate in all their habits, they may give drugs to the dogs, save pain and money, and be able to say, “I am well.”
Personal cleanliness by proper bathing is not only a healthful luxury, but a virtue. Again we quote Paul, where he connects physical and moral cleanliness: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.” The derivation of the word here rendered “washed,” seems to have exclusive reference to washing from physical impurities. The effort of immersionists to press this text into the service of their mode of baptism, is an utter failure. Baptism by immersion does not wash the body.
Another apostle says of Christian baptism, It is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh.” The expression of Paul, then, “Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water,” refers to moral and physical cleanliness.
Between the altar of burnt-offering and the tabernacle of the congregation was the brazen laver, containing water in which the Jewish priests were to wash themselves before185putting on the pure linen garments, preparatory to entering the sanctuary to minister before God, and it is distinctly stated that they must do this “that they die not.” Here we are again impressed with the purity of God, and how particular he was to instruct the Hebrews that cleanliness was, to say the least, closely connected with acceptable worship.
Has the change of dispensations changed the character and mind of God in this respect? Has the death of his Son given license to Christians to pollute their bodies and souls with filthy indulgences, which in the former dispensation would have been prohibited on pain of death?—No! no!! God is the same in all dispensations. And those moral teachings found in the books of Moses, which contain rules to secure cleanliness, justice, holiness, and the favor of God, are as changeless as the eternal throne.
THE APPETITE IN HUMAN HISTORY.
The history of the human appetite is indeed a sad one. The Creator designed that the appetite should be man’s servant, not his master. It was to be subordinate to the moral and intellectual faculties. This truth is seen in God’s first prohibitory declaration to man: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
God made man upright, and endowed him with powers of mind far above those of any other creature living upon the earth. He placed him upon probation, that he might form a character for the glory of the Creator, and for his own happiness. The first great moral lesson which the innocent pair of Eden were to learn, was self-control. God appeals to man’s nobler powers. He graciously gives him all he needs for the delights of taste, and for the support of life. And it was for man’s moral good, to say the least, that his eating from the tree of knowledge was prohibited. Of all the trees of the garden he might freely eat, save one. In this prohibition, the Creator places the appetite under the watchcare and guardianship of the moral and intellectual powers.
When man came from the hand of his Creator, he was declared to be “very good.” He was put upon probation, that he might develop a perfect character. But he failed to do this. He basely yielded to the tempter, and lost his innocence; and the entire race, for six thousand years, have felt, in soul, body, and spirit, the taint of sin. The weight of accumulated guilt and ruin, resulting from continual transgression of moral and physical law, has rested upon it. Sickness, pain, sorrow, and death are the legitimate fruits of transgression.
Man alone is responsible for the moral and physical wretchedness under which the race suffers. There was no necessity for Eve to yield to the tempter; and Adam is quite as inexcusable. The surroundings of our parents in Eden were delightful. The Infinite Hand had spread out before them a feast of pleasure in the stately trees, the climbing vines, and the beautiful shrubs and flowers. Eden also abounded with that which was “good for food.” God had caused every good fruit-tree to grow, affording variety, and an inexhaustible supply. He welcomed man to eat freely of them all, excepting one only; but of the fruit of that one tree he warned him not to partake, on pain of death. Thus surrounded with beauty and plenty, and thus warned by the beneficent Author of his happy existence, man basely yielded, and plunged the race in consequent ruin.
Eve was flattered with the idea that eating the forbidden fruit would raise her to a higher and happier life. Appetite, curiosity, and ambition triumphed over reason. But Infinite Wisdom immediately devised the scheme of redemption, which placed man on a second probation, by giving him another trial, with the great Redeemer to help him in the work of forming a perfect character. And, to say the very least, it is reasonable to suppose that, in the second probation, men would be tested just where God tested our first parents in Eden, and that the indulgence of the appetites and passions would be the greatest moral evil in this world during the period of human probation.
We are not left to mere supposition in forming an opinion upon this subject. The sacred record shows, in the clearest manner possible, that God has tested his people since the fall just where he tested man before the fall, and that among the most flagrant sins of the fallen race, resulting in the greatest amount of human woe, has been the indulgence of appetite.
Gluttony and drunkenness were the prevailing sins of Sodom. It is said of the people of Lot’s time, “They did188eat, they drank.” Appetite ruled them, or their eating and drinking would not have been mentioned. For their sins they were visited with destruction by fire and brimstone. It is also said of the people in the time of Noah, “They did eat, they drank.” Gluttony and drunkenness led to other crimes, and to wash the world from its moral pollution, God poured upon it a flood of waters.
For the first twenty-five hundred years after the fall, sacred history is exceedingly brief. For example, the life and wonderful translation of holy Enoch are told in a few lines. While, doubtless, the almost numberless good deeds and careful acts of obedience in the long life of this wonderful man would furnish to some modern writers material for volumes, the whole matter is summed up in these few words: “All the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: and Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.”
We could not reasonably suppose that very much could be said upon any one subject when the annals of twenty-five hundred years, embracing many of the greatest events in the world’s history, are crowded into fifty short chapters of the Bible. But when God was about to establish the tribes of Israel in the good land of promise, that they should be to him “a peculiar treasure” above all people, “a holy nation,” the sacred historian speaks more fully, and again the fact appears that God tests his people since the fall just where he tested man before the transgression in Eden.
In the providence of God the sons of Jacob went down into Egypt, where they sojourned in a strange land for hundreds of years. There they were humbled by slavery, but were delivered from it by the special hand of Providence, and in the most triumphant manner. The entire providential experience of the Israelites, both in their servitude and in their miraculous deliverance, was designed to lead them to revere, and trustingly obey, the God of their fathers.
The history of their departure from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea before them, and the destruction of their189pursuers, is one of thrilling interest to all Bible Christians. These manifestations were designed to remove their infidelity, to draw them very near to God, and deeply to impress them with the fact that the Divine Hand was leading them.
God brought another test upon them in the gift of the manna. The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.” The habits of the Hebrews in Egypt had become such that a change to the simple manna was a very great one. But this change, God being judge of what was best for them, was necessary to their physical, mental, and moral well-being. God designed to bring a whole nation near to himself, and give opportunity for the development of perfect character. He tested the Hebrews on appetite, as he did man in Eden, and murmuring and rebellion resulted. Had they proved faithful to God, he would have taken them through the wilderness in the brief period of eleven days, and would have triumphantly planted in the land of promise the mighty host of Israel, whom he had borne “on eagles’ wings” from Egypt. But they did not sustain the trial of their faith, and, in consequence of yielding to the clamors of appetite, they fell all along the way in the wilderness, so that only two of the adults who left Egypt were permitted to reach Canaan. I repeat it: the history of the human appetite is a sad one.
We here leave the Old Testament record upon this subject, after noting that in the Jewish age there were men of God who controlled appetite, as did the holy Daniel, who refused to defile himself with the king’s meat and wine. Please read the first chapter of the history of this bold representative of pure hygiene.
The mission of John the Baptist was to prepare the way for the first advent of Christ. In the address of the angel to Zacharias relative to John, there is a brief chapter on hygiene: “Thou shalt have joy and gladness, and190many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.” It is said of this plain, temperate, yet mighty man of God: “The same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.” Some suppose that the prophet subsisted upon a sort of grasshopper diet, but this opinion may be seriously called in question. The following position seems to be sustained by good authority:—
“The locust was a fruit, a bean-like pod, with a seed in it similar to the Carob, or husk, on which the prodigal son fed.”—Butterworth.
“Locust, akris, Gr., may either signify the insect called the locust, which still makes a part of the food in the land of Judea, or the top of a plant. Many eminent commentators are of the latter opinion.”—Clarke.
At the very opening of the Christian age, the mission of Jesus is heralded by John, who sets an example of self-denial and temperance. The teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy apostles are in perfect accordance with the proposition that God, in all dispensations of probationary time, tests man just where he tested the innocent pair in Eden. “Take heed to yourselves,” said the Son of God, “lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.” And the words of Paul, addressed to the Christian church, make proper eating and drinking a matter of grave importance: “Whether, therefore, ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” The apostle argues in another place, that if there were no resurrection of the dead, there would be no future existence, and his laborious and abstemious life would bring him no future reward. He says, “What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.” However much the apostle regarded it important to live temperately in order to a life of usefulness and happiness191here, it is evident that he looked forward to the resurrection of the dead for the great reward of self-control. He says, in another place, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
But many of the professing Christian churches of this day treat this matter as though God had become discouraged in trying to lead men and women to a life of self-denial and self-control, and had changed his plan, no longer testing them upon the point of appetite, as formerly.
It is a humiliating fact that the moral powers of the majority of those who profess to be true followers of Christ, have become so far weakened by the indulgence of appetite and passion, that the most successful way to move them to acts of benevolence is through appeals to the appetite. Hence the almost universal custom of holding church festivals. These gluttonous feasts strengthen morbid appetite and inflame passion, and in the same degree weaken the moral powers, and benumb the finer sensibilities of the soul. The slave of appetite is moved less by such worthy and stirring considerations as the glories of the eternal world, the reward of philanthropic deeds in this life, and the final righteous retributions of a just God, than he is if treated with roast turkey, oysters, ice-cream, and the like. These charm his soul, and apparently open the closed avenues to his feelings of benevolence and to his purse, — a result which the worthy consideration of heaven, earth, and hell failed to produce.
If God is now testing professed Christians upon appetite, as he tested Adam and Eve and the Hebrews, then the case, with the exception of a decided minority, is a lost one. With the majority, the moral and intellectual powers are the servants, while the appetite is master. This was the condition of our first parents as they stood in Paradise lost,—the condition of the Hebrews who perished in the wilderness under the wrath of God. And in the light of the Scriptures these modern epicures are not192walking in the favor of God any more than were the perishing Hebrews, or Adam and Eve when they coveted the fruit which God had forbidden.
There are multitudes who are slaves to the expensive, health-destroying, filthy habit of tobacco-using. Ninety-nine out of one hundred of these will acknowledge the evils of the practice. Then why not abandon the use of tobacco?—Simply because the nobler powers are enslaved by appetite. We have not a word of censure for men who call in question the piety of those professed followers of Christ who are controlled by appetite and passion. Such do not truly represent the religion of the Bible. The religion of our Lord Jesus Christ is entirely another thing. The Redeemer of the world was tempted on all points as we are, yet without sin. When tested in the wilderness, he conquered, not on his own account, but for us. And Christians are to overcome as he overcame. That our adorable Redeemer might be able to succor his tempted followers, and help them to overcome, he, in the forty days’ fast in the wilderness, endured the keenest pangs of appetite. In him it is possible for the glutton, the drunkard, and the poor inebriate of every stamp, to overcome. With those who are ruled by appetite, and who have not the help of Christ, the work of reform is exceedingly doubtful. And we can hardly conceive of anything more insulting to Heaven, than the profession of the pure religion of the divine Son of God by men whose reason and conscience are ruled by appetite and passion.
THE POWER OF APPETITE.
God designed that the appetite should be man’s servant. When controlled by the moral and intellectual powers, it is one of God’s blessed gifts; but when it becomes master, it is a debasing tyrant, crushing out of man that which is noble and God-like.
We go back in imagination over long ages, until we stand amid the glories of Eden before sin entered, and there we meet the painful fact that one of the weakest points in the character of Adam and Eve, while in all the perfection of manhood and womanhood, was the appetite. Their failure to exercise self-control upon this point—together with their curiosity and ambition—led to their fall. As the consequent moral darkness and downward tendency increased with each successive generation, the reign of appetite became more debasing and supreme. If appetite could move our first parents to an act of base disobedience, what must be its power over men and women of the nineteenth century, in whose physical, mental, and moral nature the taint of the fall still exists, with all the aggravations which have been acquired since Adam and Eve passed out of the gate of Paradise?
It is true that among the patriarchs and prophets were men who walked with God, and were the masters, not the slaves, of appetite,—like Daniel and his friends, who refused to defile themselves with the king’s meat and wine. The apostles treat of Christian temperance in a most pointed manner. The apostle Paul says that “every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things,” and then adds, by way of application to the Christian life, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection,194lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”*
We live in an age remarkable for Bibles, the Sacred Scriptures now being read in two hundred and fifty-two languages and dialects; and yet there has probably never been a time when the people of Christian lands have been more completely under the rule of appetite. The gospel is preached everywhere. The present is said to be an age of wonderful light and gospel liberty; but unfortunately, the gospel as too often preached in our time hardly touches the appetites and passions of men. And why should it, when so many of the teachers of religion do not feel called upon to renounce wine and tobacco or to restrain appetite?
Many temperance men, with the waning cause of temperance as it relates to intoxicating drinks on their hands, are feeling that but little can be done in reforming drunkards, or in restraining young men from becoming such, while they indulge in the use of tobacco. The only way to cure men of the love of whisky is to restore the appetite to its natural state. And this can never be done while the common and free use of tobacco, tea, and coffee is continued. The only way to make real temperance men, is to teach the people to abandon all unnatural habits, and to use only those things which God designed for the use of man, and these in their natural state, as far as possible.
One has only to reflect a moment in order to be overwhelmed with astonishment at the unnatural, expensive, debasing habit of tobacco-using. We need not say that it is a filthy habit. If tobacco-chewers would only swallow that which is so sweet in their mouths, instead of spitting it out to the annoyance of cleaner people, their path would be less offensive; but instead they eject on the street, in public places, and on the cars, that which is extremely odious to all who are not initiated in the disgusting habit.
The habit is unnatural. Not one lad in a thousand liked tobacco when he first tasted it. And more than this, most boys suffer a terrible sickness, and pass a severe struggle, in taking their first lesson in tobacco-using. Then why do they form a habit so unnatural and disgusting? But one answer can be given: The habit is made respectable by judges, lawyers, ministers, doctors, and men of all ranks, and their influence is pressing our dear boys, with few exceptions, into this terrible vice. And these men, especially those who profess to be Christ’s ambassadors, will have to answer for the result of their influence in the final settlement of the Judgment.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of every one thousand tobacco inebriates would be glad to rid themselves of the habit; but they have become slaves to appetite, and have not the moral courage to persevere in that self-denial, and pass through that suffering, necessary to master the vice. We are not writing the condition of the few only. It is a painful fact that a majority of the men of our time have surrendered to the debasing rule of the appetite for tobacco.
“I know it is a filthy, expensive, and hurtful practice,” said a minister, “and I would give three hundred dollars to be rid of tobacco; but the habit is formed, and I cannot overcome it.” Officers were not wanting in our armies, during the late American war, who could lead their men into the hottest fight without the quiver of a muscle, and yet had not courage enough to break off the habit of tobacco-using. It is the mind that makes the man. Just in proportion as appetite and passion grow strong by excessive indulgence, the intellectual and moral powers are enfeebled. And in the same proportion as the moral and intellectual are strengthened by self-denial, healthy conditions are restored, morbid appetite is dethroned, and the chains fall off from the enslaved victim.
The restraints of the Sacred Scriptures, and the self-denial especially taught therein, are wanted to save men from the controlling power of appetite. The sentiments196uttered by Christ and his apostles upon this subject are the purest of the pure:—
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.”— Jesus.
“Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”—Paul.
“Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”— Peter.