Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-06-12

morsel under the tongue" and in LEVITT
Gus to read about the unclean animals that
chew the cud. l lave known P%resbyteries
ana General Assemblies and General Syn
DDS where there was a room set apart for
the ministers to smoke in.
oh, 1t is a sorry spectacle, a consecrated |
man, a holy man of God, looking around
Tor something which you take to be look
ing for a larger field of usefulness. He is
not looking for that at all. He is only |
looking for some place where he can dis
charge a mouthful of tobacco Juice! l am
glad the Methodist Church of the United
States in nearly all their Conferences have
passed resolutions, against this habit, and
1t is time we had an anti-tobacco reform
IN the Presbyterian Church, and the Epis-
copal Church, and the Baptist Church, and
the Congregational Church.
NARCOTICS.
There are ministers of religion to-day
lndulsing in narcotics, dying by inches,
and they do not know what is the matter
with them. I might in a word give my
own experience. 1t took ten cigars to
make a sermon. 1 got very nervous. One
day l awakened to the outrage 1 was in
tlcting upon myself. l was about to
change settlements, and a generous whole
sale tobacconist in Philadelphia said if 1
would only come to Philadelphia he would
all the rest of my life provide me with
cigars free of charge. l said to myself:
II in these war times, when cigars are so
costly and my salary so small, I smoke
more thar l ought to, what would I do if I
had gratuitous and illimitable supply?
And then and there, t~wenty-four years
ago, quit once and forever. 1t made a
new man of me, and though I have since
then done as much hard word as any one
l think l have had the best health Goo
ever blessed a man with. A minister of
religion can not afford to smoke. Put into
my hand the money wasted in tobacco in
Brooklyn, and I will support three orphan
asylums as grand and beautiful as those
already established. Put into my hand
the money wasted in tobacco in the United
States of America, and I will clothe, feed
and shelter all the suffering poor on this
continent. The American Church gives
81 700, 900 a year for the evangelization of
the heather, and American Christians
spend 5000, 900 in tobacco.
AN ANALYSIS.
Now, 1 stand this morning not only in
the presence Of my God, to whom 1 must
give an account for what I say to-day, but
l stand in the presence of a great multi
tude,of young men who are forming their
habits. Between seventeen and twenty
three there are tens of thousands of young
men damaging themselves irretrievably
by tobacco. You either use very good to-
bacco or cheap tobacco. If you use cheap
tobacco, l want to tell you why it is cheap.
1t is q mixture of burdock, lamp-black,
sawdust, colt's-foot, plantain leaves, full
ler's-earth, lime, salt, alum and a little
tobacco. You can not afford, my young
brother, to take such a mess as that be-
tween your lips. If, on the other hand,
you use costly tobacco, let me say I do not
think you can afford it. You take that
which you expend and will expend if you
keep the habit all your life and put it
aside, and it will buy you a farm to make
you comfortable in the afternoon of life.
A merchant of New York gave this testi-
mony: "In early life 1 smoked six cigars a
day at six and a half cents each-they av-
eraged that. Thought to myself one day:
'Ill just put aside all the money 1 am con-
suming in cigars, and all I would consume
if l kept on in the habit, and I will see
what it will come to by compound inter-
est.'" And he gives this tremendous sta-
tistic: "Last July completed thirty nine
years since, by the grace of God, 1 was
emancipated from the filthy habit, and the
saving amounted to the enormous sum Of
$S29, 102. 03 by compound interest. We lived
in the city, but the children, who had
learned something of the enjoyment of
country life from their annual visits to
their grandparents, longed for a home
among the green fields. I found a very
pleasant place in the country for sale. The
cigar money now came into requisition,
and l found it amounted to a sufficient
sum to purchase the place, and it is mine.
Now, boys, you take your choice, smoking
without a home, or o home without smok-
ing"
OTHER
Listen to that, young man, and take an
other thing into consideration, and that is,
vast amounts of property are destroyed
every year Indirectly by this habit. An
agent of an insurance company says:
"One-half our losses come from the spark
Of the pipe and the cigar" One young man
threw away his cigar in one of the cities,
and with it he threw away $3,OOO,0 900 worth
of property of others that blazed up from
that spark.
But 1 am speaking of higher values to-
day. Better destroy a whole city of stores
than destroy one man. o, my young
friends, if you will excuse the idiom, will
say stop before you begin. Here is a serf-
dom which has a shackle that it is almost
impossible to break. Gigantic intellects
that could overcome every other bad habit
have been flung of this and kept down.
Some one was seeking to persuade a mar
from the habit. The reply was: "Ask me
to do any thing under the canopy of
Heaven but this. This I can not give up
and Won't give up, though it takes seven
years of my life."
I must have a word also with all those of
my friends whom it does not hurt, who can
stop any time they want to, and who can
smoke most expensive cigars. My Chris
tian brother, what is your influence in the
matter? How much can you deny your
self for the good of others? 1t was a great
mystery to many people why Governor
Briggs, of Massachusetts,, wore a cravat
but no collar. Some people thought it was
an absurd eccentricity. All, no! This