Chapter IX: Part SIX (4)

He was almost sober now. Excitement had cleared his stupid brain. Looking from one to the other of the lads, he could not help noticing the painful contrast; one so clean and well dressed, the other soiled and ragged.

He knit his brows closely, and sat very still, like one arguing for himself.

“I’ll tell you what it is, mother,” said he, turning his eyes toward Mrs. Harwood, “I’m not going to have our Jim running about, looking like a beggar’s child. He’s just as good as any of the boys around here, and I’ll not have him ashamed to be seen with the best of them. I will drink nothing stronger than coffee, while I live, God being my helper!”

“Oh, thank God!” exclaimed the poor woman, dropping upon her knees and clasping her husband’s neck. “Oh, thanks be to God!” she repeated. “He will be your helper. In Him is all compassion and all strength; but without Him our poor resolves are as nothing.”

Freddy stood looking on for a little while, greatly moved by what was passing, then he walked quietly to the door and was going out, when Mr. Harwood called to him:--

“Just one word before you go. I’m sorry to say it; but it’s in my thought now, and I feel that it would better come out. May be I wouldn’t say it another time.”

Freddy stopped and turned toward Mr. Harwood.

“I’m sorry to say it, Freddy, I am, for you are a nice boy, and have always been good to Jim. But you’ll thank me for it, may be, some of these days.”

There was something in Mr. Harwood’s manner that sent a feeling of alarm to Freddy’s heart. He stood still, waiting, every pulse-beat sounding in his ears.

“May be your father’s head is stronger than mine was five years ago,” said Mr. Harwood, “but I’ve seen him at the “Black Horse” too often of late, going on just as I began. It isn’t safe, Freddy! It isn’t safe, and I don’t like to see him there. Look what I have come to! But there was a time when I could hold my head as high as Mr. Wilson or anybody else in the neighborhood.”

Freddy waited to hear no more. It seemed as if night had fallen suddenly on his young spirit, and as if the air would suffocate him. He turned and ran wildly away, such a weight and pain in his heart, that it seemed as if he would die. Mr. Wilson was coming along the road, and was near his own gate, when he saw Freddy hurrying across from Mr. Harwood’s cottage, his face white as a sheet and strongly agitated.

“My son! what ails you?” he cried in alarm.

“O father!” was all that Freddy could say, as he stopped before him, and looked up with a strange, frightened face.

“I will not believe it,” he sobbed, bursting into tears and hiding his face in his father’s hands. “It’s all a lie of Mr. Harwood’s!”

“Won’t believe what? my boy,--what has happened to grieve you so? A lie of Mr. Harwood’s? What has that drunken wretch dared to say?” His voice changed to an angry tone.

“I can’t tell you, father. It would choke me, but it’s all a lie. Oh, I wish I hadn’t said anything about it! But I felt so miserable, and you came right on me.”

Mr. Wilson led Freddy within the gate to a seat under one of the trees.

“Now, my son,” he said in a kind, firm voice, “tell me just what Mr. Harwood said.”

Freddy then related all about the drunken man coming to the gate, and what had occurred there, and all that he saw and heard when he went home with Jim, and at last he sobbed out the awful, warning words of Mr. Harwood.

As Freddy came to this last part, Mr. Wilson turned his face so far away that his son could not see it; but he felt his father’s arm that was around him clasp him more tightly. Then Mr. Wilson placed his lips fondly and with a long pressure, on Freddy’s forehead.

“I will talk with Mr. Harwood about this,” he said in subdued tones, as they rose and went toward the house.

Mr. Wilson went to see Mr. Harwood that very day. Their interview was affecting to both, and good for both. The warning words had not come a moment too soon, and Mr. Wilson felt this so deeply that he could not be angry with his poor friend.

No one ever saw either of them at the “Black Horse” after that, nor did they ever again permit the cup of confusion to come near their lips.

PROHIBITION

There is a cause for the moral paralysis upon society. Our laws sustain an evil which is sapping their very foundations. Many deplore the wrongs which they know exist, but consider themselves free from all responsibility in the matter. This can not be. Every individual exerts an influence in society. In our favored land, every voter has some voice in determining what laws shall control the nation. Should not that influence and vote be on the side of temperance and virtue? The advocates of temperance fail to do their whole duty unless they exert their influence, by precept and example, by voice and pen and vote, in behalf of prohibition and total abstinence. We need not expect that God will work a miracle to bring about this reform, and thus remove the necessity for our exertion. We ourselves must grapple this giant foe, our motto, “No compromise,” and no cessation of our efforts till victory is gained.--_Mrs. E. G. White._

_Does Prohibition Prohibit?_

“‘Prohibition doesn’t prohibit!’ That phrase has been worn threadbare by friends of the liquor traffic. They claim that as much liquor is sold in ‘dry’ districts as in ‘wet.’ Yet they do not look with indifference upon the strides made by prohibition; they are working as if the very life of their business depended upon the defeat of the temperance forces. And it probably does; for every distillery, brewery, and saloon must have a license before its doors can swing open for business. In France the liquor dealers found it most profitable to have no prohibition law; for when the government granted liberty to the liquor trade, the consumption of alcohol increased nearly one hundred percent.”--_Temperance Torchlights._

_Some Results of Prohibition_

“I consider the prohibition law in Kansas as worth more to the railroad men than any other one thing.”--_Superintendent of Santa Fe Railroad._

“The five ‘wettest’ counties of West Virginia have four hundred fifteen convicts; the other fifty counties have four hundred thirteen. One-eleventh of the counties furnish one-half of the convicts.”--_Statistics of 1909._

“There is more hypocritical, illegal selling in license States than in Maine; for every joint or blind tiger under prohibition in Maine, there are sixteen blind tigers in licensed New York, plus twenty-seven thousand State licensed saloons.”--_Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens._

“Atlanta, at the end of 1908, showed 3,903 fewer arrests for drunkenness, and 8,102 fewer arrests for disorderly conduct--200 fewer juvenile arrests.”--_Mrs. Mary Harris Armor._

“One-third of our counties are without prisoners in their jails or paupers in their almshouses; one-half of our counties sent _no convicts_ to our prisons this year, and one-half of our prison inmates never lived in Kansas long enough to acquire a residence here. Churches and schools flourish, the spiritual outlook is hopeful, and the saloon is practically banished.”--_Governor Hoch, of Kansas, in his Thanksgiving Message._

ATLANTA, GEORGIA.--“For the first time in its fifteen years of existence, every cell at the police jail yesterday afternoon was empty. Not a prisoner was incarcerated, and the turnkeys and matrons were having a very dull afternoon. The police attribute this remarkable condition to the prohibition law which went into effect the first day of the year.”--_Washington Times, Jan. 25, 1908._

* * * * *

“Without one dollar of revenue from the saloon, Maine has a larger percentage of the total population in the public schools than any other of the New England States, or New York, with its twenty million dollars of revenue from the saloon. It has more teachers employed in proportion to the school population than any other State.

“It is stated by Lady Henry Somerset that in one district in Liverpool, England, in which there is no saloon, there is but one pauper to every one thousand inhabitants. In another district, in which there are two hundred saloons, there is one pauper to every twenty-eight inhabitants.

“Abyssinia has prohibition, and the penalty for taking liquors into that country is death. In the capital of the country only two murders have been committed in the last forty years. Smoking is also prohibited.”--_Temperance Torchlights._

CIGARETTE POISON

“You smoke thirty cigarettes a day?”

“Yes, on the average.”

“Are they to blame for your run-down condition?”

“Not in the least. I blame my hard work.”

The physician then took a leech out of a glass jar.

“Let me show you something,” he said. “Bare your arm.”

The cigarette fiend bared his pale arm, and the other laid the lean, black leech upon it. The leech fell to work busily, its body began to swell. Then, all of a sudden, a kind of shudder convulsed it, and it fell to the floor dead.

“That is what your blood did to that leech,” said the physician.

“I guess it wasn’t a healthy leech, any way.”

“Wasn’t healthy, eh? Well, we’ll try again.”

And the physician clapped two leeches on the young man’s thin arm.

“If they both die,” said the patient, “I’ll swear off--or at least, I’ll cut down to ten a day.”

Even as he spoke, the smaller leech shriveled and dropped on his knee, dead, and a moment later the larger one fell besides it.

“This is ghastly,” said the young man; “I’m worse than the pestilence to these leeches.”

“It is the empyreumatic oil in your blood,” said the medical man. “All cigarette fiends have it.”

“Doc,” said the young man, regarding the three dead leeches thoughtfully, “I half believe you’re right.”--_Evanston (Illinois) Index._

MADE A DRUNKARD BY HIS CIGAR

I knew a young clergyman whose oratory obtained for him the admiration of many influential persons, among whom was a gentleman of fortune, who courted his company and taught him to smoke.

The young minister was warned of his danger, but could not be persuaded to renounce that which he considered a harmless indulgence. He insisted that his cigar soothed his mind and composed his feelings. A friend, in reply, told him that the mind never needs composing when in health; and the feelings never need artificial soothing only when improperly irritated; and added, “Beware how you indulge in a bad habit.”

Impatient under the rebuke, the clergyman replied: “I smoke but seldom, and could almost do without it.”

‘Seldom’ and ‘almost’ are two fatally ominous words. ‘Seldom’ will become ‘regular,’ and ‘almost’ be converted into ‘always.’ And as smoking and drinking are companions, let me beseech you, said his friend, “not to make them yours. Ministers should be a fence around the pit of perdition.

“Some inexperienced youth may see you smoke, and, imitating your example, become a confirmed smoker, and sooner or later a confirmed drunkard. The line of demarkation being once effaced, he may soon be lost in the vortex of sin.”

Little did this young preacher suppose this to be a prophetic picture of his own mournful case. But he continued the habit, and, little by little, his splendid talents became dim, and his hearers forsook him. His wealthy host, who first taught him to smoke, witnessed his growing desire for stimulants, and with a look more expressive than words, declared that “in spite of praying and preaching, professors of religion like the good things of this life, as well as others; and that, after all, saints and sinners are pretty much alike.”

The days of this eloquent young clergyman were ended in ignominy; and a life which promised to be happy and illustrious, was early brought to a miserable close. His intemperate habits, it was supposed, killed his young wife, and made a beggar of his child. He died in a madhouse, blaspheming the very Saviour whom he had once preached.

Avoid smoking. “It is the devil’s leading string, beginning with a hair and ending with a cable.”

_President Anti-Cigarette League of America_]

SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS

BY DAVID PAULSON, M. D.

In the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, when I was a student, I performed an experiment that vividly impressed upon my mind the naked fact that nicotin is a deadly poison. A large, healthy cat had become such a nuisance that it was decided to kill it. This I proceeded to do by the following method: I soaked enough tobacco in water to make an ordinary cigarette. Then I injected under the cat’s skin a hypodermic syringe full of this tobacco juice. In a few moments the cat began to quiver, then to tremble more violently, then it had cramps, and in less than twenty minutes it died in violent convulsions.

I take no pride in relating this experiment, for I know a shorter as well as a more merciful method of ending a cat’s life.

But what interests me now is the truth that thousands of young men and boys are waking up to the fact that tobacco in any form, and cigarettes in particular, are unmitigated evils. And that for their own sakes, they cannot afford to introduce into their bodies that which only makes them weak, sickly, and useless.

I will tell you, briefly, how the burden of this terrible curse was rolled upon my heart. God used a never-to-be-forgotten incident to burn into my soul the tremendous importance of this cigarette evil.

One day, an old lady, with a faded red shawl thrown over her stooping shoulders, came into my office, and asked if I could see her boy. Two strong men then brought before me a poor boy of seventeen years, wild-eyed and insane. The mother asked if he could be cured.

After investigating the case, I was compelled to tell her that the outlook was hopeless, and that she might just as well send him to the lunatic asylum. She broke down and sobbed as though her heart would break. I asked her what had brought this terrible condition upon her son, and she said:--

“Oh, it was cigarettes. He began to smoke more and more, until he used fifty a day, and then his mind gave way.”

That day I became thoroughly enlisted in the anti-cigarette war. O that our souls might become saturated with the importance of fighting this awful evil! Cigarettes are making our boys weak and puny and unmanly. They are sapping the strength from their muscles, and making them unable to win their way in the world.

I care not how intelligent or brainy a boy may naturally be, a short period of cigarette smoking will tell on him. He may not notice this himself, at once, but others will. And I wish the young men and boys to remember that if there is work to be done in the world which requires much effort, either of brain or muscle, the cigarette smoker is not chosen for the job. Why?--Because when the time comes to use the brain or the muscles for some supreme effort, the poor, poison-soaked muscles fail to respond, and the benumbed brain cannot do its best work. I think if the boys only understood that cigarettes and tobacco were ruining them physically and mentally, and preparing them for certain defeat in life, they would shun both as they would the plague.

_The Cigarette Fiend is an Object of Pity_

When I talk on the cigarette evil in the Chicago public schools, I ask how many of the children know of some poor crippled boy whose leg was cut off by a street-car accident. Such a boy, if he has brains and character, may yet fill a position of trust and usefulness in the world, but the boy who begins to smoke cigarettes early enough, can never be of any use in this world, and unless he repents, there will be no place for him in the next. To try to put knowledge into his brain, is as hopeless a task as to try to fill a basket with water.

The cigarette-smoking boy is looked upon by other people as an object of pity. There is nothing truly brave or heroic about him. There may have been naturally, but nature has been doped and stupefied and abused, until there is nothing left in the poor lad that is manly at all. If he wants to be a great hunter or a fine marksman or sharpshooter, he must either give up this ambition, or else let the cigarette alone forever. If he would like to be a famous doctor or a skillful surgeon, he must not ruin his nerves, or he cannot trust himself to hold a surgeon’s knife. No one would be willing to risk his life in such hands.

Hang a half dozen brick around a boy’s neck, and ask him to swim a race with you. Would that be fair? But the cigarette habit pulls one under in life’s struggle, just the same.

What would the boys think if they saw a lad vigorously rubbing sand into his eyes? They would think him crazy. Is it any more foolish to rub sand into the eyes than it is to rub poison into the brain?

Suppose I should hand a boy my watch, and presently he begins to pour tar into its works. Would you think he had much sense?

O it is cruel and unmanly to ruin and clog up and destroy these wonderful bodies of ours. What an astonishing piece of machinery the brain is! Almost everything depends upon having the head clear,--the reasoning powers sharp and acute. But the deadly cigarette destroys the keen sensibility of the nerve and brain cells, and renders the victim unable to think clearly or logically.

Men who train great wrestlers and athletes to perform almost unbelievable feats of physical endurance, know better than to allow them to poison and paralyze these muscles of iron. Who ever heard of an athlete smoking half a dozen cigarettes just before starting in to win his medal as champion?

_Destroys on the Installment Plan_

Who has not watched the old family cat and noticed how she kills a mouse,--a little at a time,--crushing her teeth into the poor thing’s body, then letting it limp away a short distance, then springing upon it and crushing it some more. Now the cigarette kills the boy in just the same way, or, in other words, on the installment plan.

Any experienced physician can pick out a cigarette slave almost as far as he can see him; for no one can smoke cigarettes a very long time, before he begins to have the devil’s trade-mark stamped upon him.

We must never forget that we only pass over this road once,--we have but one life here to live; and when we reach the end of the journey, if the _Master_ cannot say to us, “Well done,” our life has been a hopeless failure.

_A Simple but Sure Cure_

But suppose you have in mind some poor fellow who has become enslaved by the unmanly habit. Of course you pity him in his helpless bondage. Well, you may assure him that he may be saved by living exclusively on a fruit diet for several days, eating all he wishes of it three or four times a day, drinking plenty of water, and availing himself of a sweat bath or two if convenient. I know from experience that God is on the side of the fellow who is trying to do right,--that he may look to Him for special help. Then the poor cigarette slave will be astonished to see that it _is_ possible to slip out from under the yoke of habit.

Now in conclusion I want to say a few words to grown people who use tobacco. I have seen a father teach his boy to pray, to ride a bicycle, and to spell; but I never yet have seen a sensible, respectable man teach his boy to smoke. This is the best argument I know against tobacco using. If a man really believed tobacco was good for him, he would want his wife, or his sister, or his mother, and his child to share with him in this blessing.

_The Real Truth about Tobacco_

Tobacco does give a certain amount of unearned felicity, just as alcohol or morphin does; but it charges a terrific toll in the way of high blood pressure, injury to the nervous system and the digestive organs, and more or less impairment of the whole man. Every man who is a tobacco user sacrifices some of the best that is in him, spiritually, mentally, and physically. The intolerable craving for the after-dinner cigarette is often produced by the juicy beefsteak, highly spiced food, or tea and coffee, that compose the meal. Hence, he who would be delivered from the tobacco habit, should religiously avoid such articles of food as create a demand and an unnatural craving for tobacco.

But some will ask, “is it worse for a child to smoke a cigarette than it is for a man to smoke a cigar?”--Yes, for three reasons:--

_First_, a man may safely tolerate a quarter of a grain of morphin, while we dare not give a child more than a sixteenth part of a grain. A young person’s nervous system is peculiarly susceptible to the influence of such narcotic drugs as nicotin and morphin, and hence an introduction to either of them early in life, spells almost certain disaster, mental or nervous, later in life.

_Second_, the loosely packed cigarette does not permit the nicotin to condense to the same extent as when it is drawn through pipe or cigar; hence the smoker gets the full benefit (?) of this virulent poison.

_Third_, the oxidation of the cigarette paper produces deadly poison which is only second in its effects to that of nicotin itself.

Well, then, to sum up: Is it any wonder that so many thousands of our brightest, smartest, keenest young men and boys are signing the Cigarette Pledge? They are keen enough to see that cigarettes and tobacco used in any form, mean weak brains, flabby muscles, diseased heart, and a useless and unhappy life.

THE MAJOR’S CIGAR

After a separation of many years, I met my old friend, Major ----, at a railway station. If he had not spoken first, I should not have recognized my Virginia comrade of ’64. It was not merely the disguise of a silken hat and a shaven cheek, but,--as I told him after we had chatted awhile about each other’s ups and downs since the war,--I was sure this was the first time I had ever seen him away from the table, without a cigar in his mouth.

“Haven’t smoked for five years,” was his reply. “I’m down on tobacco as thoroughly as you ever were.”

“Good. Tell me about it.”

We locked arms, and walked leisurely up and down the platform. Dropping the dialogue, this was, in substance, his story:--

“It wasn’t a sudden conversion. I never was quite so easy in my mind over it as I pretended to be. I intended to taper off when I got home from the army. And I did,--smoked less in three weeks than I used to in one.

“But one summer I went off on some business for our company, which kept me up in the mountains, among the charcoal burners, three days longer than I expected. I got out of cigars, and couldn’t obtain any at any price.

“In forty-eight hours I was more uncomfortable and unstrung than I had ever been in my life. I actually borrowed an old Irishman’s filthy clay pipe, and tried to smoke it. I thought of that miserable summer we spent, crawling about the trenches in Virginia, and, I am ashamed to confess that I wished I was there again, with a cigar in my mouth.

“Then, I began to realize what a shameful bondage I was in to a mere self-indulgence. I, a man who secretly prided himself on his self-control, nerve, manliness,--who never flinched at hard fare or rough weather,--a downright slave to a bad habit; unnerved and actually unfit for business for lack of a cigar. It made me angry at myself; I despised myself for my weakness.

“Going into the matter a little further, I found that the money I had spent for cigars in a dozen years would have paid for my house and furnished it. I had smoked away more money than I had laid out for our library, our periodicals, and our intellectual culture generally. Cigars had cost me nearly twice as much as I had given to church work, missions, and charity.

“My conscience rose up at the record. I knew I could not plead any equivalent for the outlay; it had not fed me; it had not strengthened me; it had simply drugged me. Every cigar had made the next cigar a little more necessary to my comfort. To use the mildest word, it had been a _useless_ expenditure.

“My detention in the mountains was calculated to open my eyes to my domestic short-comings, and I saw, as I never saw before, how selfishly unsocial tobacco had made me at home. I smoked before I was married, and my wife never entered any protest against my cigars afterward.

“But our first baby was a nervous child, and the doctor told me it would not do for it to breathe tobacco smoke. So I got into the way of shutting myself up in the library of evenings, and, after meals, to enjoy my cigars. As I look at it now, nothing is more absurd than to call smoking a _social habit_. It’s a poor pretense of sociability, where a man is simply intent on his own enjoyment. My wife owns now that my tobacco-tainted breath and tobacco-saturated clothing were always more or less a trial to her.

“The satisfaction it has given me to be rid of a tobacco atmosphere, and the thought of my contemptibly selfish indifference to her comfort all those years, have humbled me, I tell you. And I wouldn’t exchange my own daily satisfaction now-a-days in being a _cleaner_ man--inside and outside,--for the delight that anybody gets out of his cigars.

“I didn’t need to go outside of my own door to find reasons enough for giving up the habit; but I think I found still stronger ones, after all, when I went away from home.

“The more I thought about the harm tobacco does in the community at large, the more sure I felt that it was time for me to stop giving it the moral support of my example. I know I smoked too much, and that my nervous system is still the worse for it; and I think the people who are likely to be hurt the most by it, are just the ones who are most likely to smoke excessively.

“And then, I’ve noticed that the doctors who stand up for tobacco are always men who use it, and are liable to the suspicion of straining a point in justification of their own self-indulgence.

“On one point, though, I believe the authorities agree. No one denies that it is a damaging indulgence for boys. It means a good deal when smoking is forbidden to the pupils in the polytechnic schools of Paris, and the military schools of Germany, purely on hygienic grounds. The governments of these smoking nations are not likely to be notional in that matter.

“But the use of tobacco by our American boys and men is excessive and alarming. We ought to save our rising generation for better work than they can do if tobacco saps the strength of their growing years, and makes the descent easier, as it no doubt often does, to worse vices. I don’t know how to forgive myself for the example I set before my Sabbath-school class of bright boys, year after year, by my smoking habits.

“It isn’t in the family, either, that the selfishness of the habit is most apparent. I don’t believe, other things being equal, that there is any other class of men who show such a disregard in public for other people’s comfort as tobacco users do. A man would be considered a rowdy or a boor who would willingly spatter mud on the clothing of a lady as she passed him on the sidewalk. But a lady to whom tobacco fumes are more offensive than mud, can hardly walk the streets in these days, but that men who _call themselves gentlemen_,--and who are gentlemen in most other respects,--blow their cigar smoke into her face at almost every step.

“Smokers drive other men out of the gentlemen’s cabins on the ferryboats, and from the gentlemen’s waiting rooms in railroad stations, monopolizing these rooms as coolly as if they, only, had any rights in them.

“I can’t explain such things except on the theory that tobacco beclouds the moral sense, and makes men especially selfish.”

The Major’s train came in just then, and as he took my hand to say “Good-by,” the smoking car of the waiting train drew his parting shot.

“See there! did you ever reflect how the tobacco habit levies its taxes on everybody? The railway company furnishes an extra car for the smokers, which, in the nature of the case, must be paid for by an extra charge on the tickets of all the passengers. What a stir it would raise if the legislature should attempt to furnish luxuries to any special class at public cost in this way!

“How we’d vote them down! I vote against this thing by throwing away my cigar.”

WHY HE DIDN’T SMOKE

Johnnie Lord, the son of Mr. Jeremy Lord, aged fourteen, was spending the afternoon with one of his young friends, and his stay was prolonged into the evening, during which some gentlemen--friends of the family--dropped in.

The boys withdrew into the recess of the bay-window, while the men chatted sociably together.

The two boys kept their ears open, as boys will, and, taking their cue from the sentiments expressed by their elders, endorsed one or the other, as they happened to agree with them.

“Gentlemen, will you smoke?” asked Mr. Benedict, the host. A simultaneous, “thank you,” went around, and a smile of satisfaction lighted every face but one. He was not gloomy or a drawback on the others, but his smile was not one of assent. A box of costly and fragrant (?) cigars was soon forthcoming.

“Fine cigar,” said one, as he held it to his nose before lighting it. “What, Linton, you don’t smoke?”

“I’m happy to say I do not,” was the firm rejoinder.

“Well, now, you look like a smoking man, jolly, care free, and all that. I’m quite surprised,” said another.

“We are hardly doing right to smoke in the parlor, are we?” asked a red-faced man, puffing away heartily. “I yield that much to my wife’s dislike of the weed. She makes a great ado about the curtains, you know.”

“For my part, that’s a matter I don’t trouble myself about,” said the host, broadly. “There’s no room in this house too good for me and my friends to smoke in. My wife has always understood that, and she yields, of course.”

“But you don’t know how it chokes her,” said young Hal Benedict. “Yes, indeed, it gets all through the house, you know, and she almost always goes into Aunt Nellie’s, when there are two or three smoking. There she goes, now,” he added, as the front door shut.

“Why, it’s absolutely driving her out of her house, isn’t it?” whispered Johnnie Lord, from his nook. “Too bad!”

“Why don’t you smoke, Linton?” queried one of the party. “’Fraid of it? Given it up lately? Of course it doesn’t agree with some constitutions.”

“Well, if you want to know why I don’t smoke, friend Jay,” was the answer, “I will tell you; I respect my wife too much.”

“Why, you don’t mean--” stammered his questioner.

“I mean simply what I said. When I was married, I had the habit of smoking cigars. But I saw that the smoke annoyed her, though she behaved with the utmost good taste and forbearance. Seeing this, I cut down my cigars so as to smoke only when going to and returning from business.

“But even then, I considered what my presence must be to a delicate, sensitive woman, with my breath and clothes saturated with the odor, and I began to be disgusted with myself, so that I finally dropped the habit, and I can’t say I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t be, I know,” said another, admiringly. “I’m candid enough to own it, and I think your wife ought to be very much obliged to you.”

“On the contrary, it is I who ought to be obliged to my wife,” said Mr. Linton, while the host smoked on in silence, very red in the face, and evidently wincing under the reproof that was not meant.

“I say, Linton is a perfect gentleman,” whispered young Benedict.

“He’s splendid,” supplemented Johnnie Lord, who was thinking his own thoughts; but the smoke was really getting too much for him, and presently he took his leave.

The next day Johnnie Lord was thoughtful; so quiet, indeed, that everybody noticed it. In the evening, when his father lighted his pipe, with its strong tobacco, Johnnie seemed to be on thorns.

“I can’t think that you don’t respect mother,” he blurted out, and then his face grew scarlet.

“What do you mean?” asked his father in a severe voice. “I say, what do you mean, sir?”

“Because mother hates the smoke so; because it gets into the curtains and carpet--and--and--because I heard Mr. Linton say last night, that he did not smoke because he respected his wife too much.”

“Pshaw! Your mother doesn’t mind my smoking--do you mother?” he asked, jocularly, as his wife entered the room.

“Well--I--I used to, rather more than I do now. One can get accustomed to anything, I suppose, so I go on the principle that what can’t be cured must be endured.”

“Nonsense! you know I could stop to-morrow if I wanted to,” he laughed.

“But you won’t want to,” she said, softly.

Now I don’t know whether Johnnie’s father gave up the weed. Most likely not; but if you want to see what really came of it, I will give you a peep at the following paper, written some years ago, and which happens to be in my possession.

“_I John Lord, of sound mind, do make, this first day of January, the
following resolutions, which I pray God I may keep_:--

“_FIRST: I will not get married until I own a house._

“_SECOND: I will never swear, because it is silly, as well as wicked._

“_THIRD: I will never smoke, and so make myself disagreeable to
everybody who comes near me, and I will always keep these words as my
motto after I am married_:--

“_‘I don’t smoke because I respect my wife.’ Mr. Linton said that,
and I will never forget it._”

And Johnnie kept his word like a hero.

EXPERIENCES OF JOHN B. GOUGH

When in Worcester, England, twenty-six years ago, I was the guest of a gentleman, a member of Parliament, who resided just opposite the city, on the bank of the river,--a delightful place.

I was at that time a smoker, and although I had never smoked in a gentleman’s house without an invitation, I deemed it necessary to have my smoke after dinner, if I could get it without annoying others.

So, after dinner, I strolled down to the riverside, out of sight of the house, took out my cigars and matches and proceeded to light a cigar. The wind blew out the match. Another was tried, and another. I took off my hat to shield it from the wind. It was of no avail. I got some brimstone down my throat, or something as bad; but the cigar would not ignite.

Then I kneeled down close to the rock by the path, at the side of the river, and with my hat off, endeavored to secure the object. Now, I never go on my knees but I am reminded of prayer, and the thought came:--

“If anyone should see me, he would probably think that some man had sought that retired spot for devotion, and that he was saying his prayers; and what am _I_ doing?--I am sucking away at a cigar, hoping to obtain fire enough from the match to get a smoke. What would the audience say, who heard me last night, if they should see me?”

The inconsistency of my practise with my profession struck me so forcibly that I said, “_I’ll have no more of it._”

I rose from my knees, took the cigars and the matches from my pockets, and threw them into the river, and I never touched a cigar to smoke for eighteen years.

* * * * *

The reformed drunkard, John B. Gough, who became the great evangelist of temperance, kept his freedom from drink at the cost of occasional terrible torture. To its awful intensity, an old friend, with whom he made his home whenever he visited Chicago, bears witness. The story contains not only a vivid warning against drink, but a hopeful illustration of the victories that, with God’s help, may be won.

“One day I found Mrs. Gough sitting by the window, holding her newspaper upside down. Mr. Gough was lying on the lounge on the other side of the room, with his face to the wall.

“‘What is the matter?’ I asked in alarm.

“‘What makes you think anything is the matter?’ Mrs. Gough asked.

“With a gesture, I indicated the newspaper.

“‘Oh, there _is_ matter!’ she cried. ‘Go to John!’

“I sat down by him, and began to talk to him in a low voice, while I smoothed his hair, as he loved to have me do because it soothed him. I reminded him of the good he was doing, of the thousands he had redeemed from drink, and of the families that he had made happy.

“All at once he turned over and looked at me. I hardly knew him! His eyes were sunken, his skin was ghastly gray. Then he said with the deep voice that so thrilled his audiences:--

“‘Do you believe I love that woman over there by the window?’

“‘I have never doubted it,’ I replied.

“‘Do you believe I love you?’ he asked.

“‘It is one of the chief joys of my life to know that you do,’ I said, with a lump in my throat.

“‘Then if you want to know how I feel,’ he cried, ‘It is this way: as if I’d be willing to see you both in hell, if it would only be right for me to take just one drink!’

“To such an extremity as this can the morbid craving for drink reduce even a good man. The temptation came upon him now and then with awful force. It was heart-breaking to see him. At such times he never dared to be left alone. Once when he was thus attacked by temptation at a hotel away from his friends, he locked the door of his room and threw the key out over the transom.

“‘Once the devil gets a clutch on you, he never lets go,’ he said. ‘God save our young people from thinking that the habit is only a little thing!’”

TALMAGE ON TOBACCO

At a Friday evening lecture in New York City, Dr. Talmage spoke on the evil habit of tobacco using, as follows:--

“There are a multitude of young men smoking themselves to death. Nervous, cadaverous, narrow-chested, and fidgety, they are preparing for early departure, or a half-and-half existence that will be of little satisfaction to themselves, or of little use to others. Quit it, my young brother. Before you get through this life, you will want stout nerves and a broad chest and a brain unclouded with tobacco smoke.

“To get rid of the habit will require a struggle, as I know by bitter experience. Cigars and midnight study nearly put an end to my existence at twenty-five years of age. I got so I could do no kind of study without a cigar in my mouth--as complete a slave as some of you are.

“At one time I was about to change pastorates from one city to another, when a wholesale cigar dealer offered as an inducement to my going to Philadelphia, that he would give me all my cigars, free of charge, all the rest of my life. He was a splendid man, and I knew he would keep his promise.

“Then I reasoned thus: If now, when my salary is small, and cigars are high, I smoke up to my full endurance, what would become of my health if I got all of my cigars for nothing? Well, I have never touched the infernal weed since. From that time I was revolutionized in health and mind,--emancipated by the grace of God.

“I implore young men to strike out for the liberation of their entire nature from all kinds of evil habits. Even on our railroads they have introduced a pig-pen on wheels,--the smoking-car--and it is being made easier and easier all of the time to sacrifice physical strength and health.

“All those who break down their health through indulgence, and go into the grave sooner than they would otherwise have done, are suicides, and the day of judgment will so reveal it.”

* * * * *

A prominent church man once said: “I used to use tobacco. When I gave it up I had a hard time for ten weeks. I was unable to sleep at night, would walk the floor, but God gave me the victory.”

Dr. Cole, a prominent Methodist physician, said: “I used to use the weed, but I reached the time when I wanted to lead a better spiritual life, and I felt that tobacco stood between my Maker and my soul.”

TOBACCO AND THE CIGARETTE