King's Business - 1918-11

THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NE S S 931 and give very prominent space to an article on ‘ ‘ Educating our Ministers at the Front,” the main object of which is to show that our ministers at home are altogether too narrow on th'e tobacco and kindred questions and that a little experience at the front would take this and kindred foolishnesses out of them. It also prints a one column advertisement of Larus & Brother Company of tobacco which begins with a very large type statement: “ Noted General Pays Tribute to Tobacco.” This advertisement after this caption reads: “ All my life I have heard that smoking was unhealthy until I read an article on Military Leadership and Training written by a high Army officer. This officer said:'“ If you don’t smoke a pipe, learn, and teach your men to smoke a pipe ; it quiets the nerves wonderfully, and gives one steadi­ ness that is so necessary for a military man. ’ The next time I went to town I went to Primm’s Tobacco shop and asked for a real pipe tobacco, and they gave me a tin of Edgeworth Plug Slice. Gentlemen, it is sure there with „the nerve-quieting, satisfying qualities. I have not tried Edgeworth Ready- Rubbed yet, but it has go to go some to equal the Plug Slice. Yours very truly, (Signed) S. W. Jones, 1st Lieut. Inf. R. 0 .” We are not told who this high army officer is. However, it is quite possible that some high army officer might say what he is here quoted as saying, for a man may be a high army officer and still be very foolish in some directions, but what he writes will not convince anyone who has made any thorough study of the "effects of tobacco. Of course, we do not think ourselves that it is a very important part of a minister’s business in working among soldiers to attack such a minor evil as the use of tobacco. He has something far more important afad more fundamental to do, and that is. to lead the soldiers to a definite accept­ ance of Jesus Christ and thus to the only adequate preparation either to live and fight or to die and go home to eternal glory. But certainly he has something far more important to do than to aid and abet the tobacco trust in its attempt to profiteer out of the war, and it also seems to us that the treasurer and general field secretary of the Y. M. C. A. War Work Council in France c.ould write upon something in which there would be more real profit than what Fred B. Shipp has written upon in the mischievous and contemptible article quoted above. Such articles do not increase the enthu­ siasm of »a good many thoughtful men and women for the work of the Y. M. C. A. nor does it help their desire to give generously to the work to which they have been giving very generously in the past. IS IT PATR IO T ISM or Treason? The Northwestern Christian Advocate in another part of the same article to which reference has already been made, well says, “ Patriotism is used to cover a multitude of abuses. One can secure public approval of almost any act if he prefaces it with the declaration, ‘ I am doing this in the name of patriotism.’ The other day a vaudeville stunt was ipdulged in in the crowded Chicago loop district. A small stage had been erected on the sidewalk and two too-scantily attired dancers performed shamefully before the noon-hour throng. They got by with it because it was in the interest, it was stated, of some war-fund. Had the disgusting act been attempted a

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