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L I GHT ON
PUZZLING PA SSAGES a n d PROBLEMS |
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By R. A. TORREY
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exposes and condemns himself. The best defense of smoking ever written was written by a very brilliant Harvard professor, who afterward died himself from “tobacco heart,” years before he needed to die. Doubt less the evil effect of tobacco upon the health is not as great in some persons as in the many. In a few it may seem scarcely perceptible, but no one can say of any man that smoking will not prove his utter physi cal ruin, and with the overwhelming major ity of tobacco users it is hurtful to a greater or less extent. A fine Christian young fel low, who defended his use of tobacco by say ing his father used it and he was one of the best Christian men he knew, has been re cently greatly grieved by the prolonged and very serious physical prostration of his father, due, according to his physician, at least partly, if not wholly, to his use of to bacco. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost and no minister or any Chris tian has a right to defile or in anywise injure the temple of God (1 Cor. 6:19, 20; 3:17). Two of the most famous ministers of modern times, one.in America and one in England, owed their premature death to tobacco. Third, smoking is a very selfish habit. No one can smoke without infringing, on the rights of others. The man who smokes on the street defiles the air for at least twenty feet in every direction. He blows .his poisonous tobacco smoke not only into the air he must breathe but that which others must breathe. He is a public nuis ance and no minister or any Christian has a right to be a public nuisance. “No man has any more right to blow tobacco smoke into the' air I have to breathe than he has to spit tobacco'juice into the water I have to drink.” The man who smokes in a house makes the air of the house foul. The
Should a minister of the Gospel smoke? NO ! We might leave this question with this short, dogmatic and decisive answer and doubtless many of our readers would be pleased if we did, but it would not help many a man who needs help. So let us say, first of all, that there is no reason against a minister’s smoking tobacco that does not apply equally to any other Christian, though it may bear with greater force against a minister because of the position of greater influence, and therefore of greater and more solemn responsibility in which God has placed him. But why ought' not a minister or any Christian smoke ? First, because smoking costs a large out lay of money with absolutely no return of any real value. Every penny a minister possesses, or any Christian possesses, be longs really to God and we have no right to squander our Lord’s goods. We are under solemn obligation, sealed by the blood of Christ by which we were redeemed (1 Peter 1:18, 19), to make every penny of our Lord’s money count to the uttermost. Certainly it does not count to the uttermost when squandered on tobacco. Even though a man spends but ten cents a day on cigars, cigarettes or smoking tobacco, that amounts to $36.50 in a year, and that money cer tainly would count more for God if put into foreign missions than if put into foul smell ing and poisonous smoke. It is more than thirty-six times as much as the average church member puts annualy into foreign missions. Second, because smoking is a very harm ful practice in its physical results. This is one of the facts that medical science has Settled. The doctor who any longer de fends smoking on physical grounds simply
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