Vanity, All Is Vanity | Page 3

Thou insignificant worm! What dost thou hope to do with that monster tree? Grate, grate, grate! For years that almost imperceptible grating goes on, while the mighty locust lifts its towering branches in fancied security. Finally, a storm comes and the locust hopes to brave it as he has many others; but, alas, its strength is undermined; Its vitals are eaten away, and it falls,--a victim to the tiny worm. Thus does tobacco, or alcohol, or opium, or any other poison when taken habitually, undermine the system, slowly, imperceptibly,--but surely.
Go into any tobacco factory of cigars, snuff, or plug, and bring out a healthy man if you can.
Tobacco so destroys the sensations and functions of the mouth that, mild natural drinks, are not tasted; hence one craves strong drinks, something that will goad the deadened nerves into action. It produces a state of exhaustion in the whole system that calls for an artificial stimulus. Alcohol, ever true to its companion, steps in and supplies this artificial stimulus. It is a scientific fact that tobacco is responsible for more drunkards than alcohol. I know from my own experience, that smoking naturally calls for drinking. Walk through your town and look at the signs, and you will see them allied under the same colors, "liquors and cigars," "beer and pipes,"--always. When biddy can furnish but one decanter there you can get 'two cigars for a cent.' When a party of old gout-toed wine-bibers make a supper what do they do? Drink and smoke. When a party of Indians, trappers or soldiers gets to town "to have a blow out," what do they do? Drink and smoke. When "bloods" go out on a 'bender' what do they do? Drink and smoke. When low unprincipled men, thieves, villians, rowdies, rakes, murderers, the filth and offscourings of humanity meet together to carouse or design devilish schemes, what do they do? Drink and smoke.
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CHAPTER 2.
TOBACCO FROM A MORAL STAND-POINT.
Go to our jails and penitentiaries and you will find their inmates, almost to a man, tobacco-eaters and alcohol drinkers. As the chameleon takes its color from the object it is attached to, so does the mind of man, from the body it is attached to. No wonder, then, that a brain poisoned, will suggest poisoned thoughts, criminal thoughts and acts. O that preachers might know this, or, knowing it, might act on it in their efforts to regenerate man's moral nature. Let them commence at the root of evil to remove it. Evil, like a Cancer, while the root remains the canker grows worse. Mind and body is united in every effort, if the main spring is weakened so is the stroke. "A bitter fountain can not send forth a pleasant stream."
When we undertake to reform a man the first thing is to see that the brain is healthy; not poisoned and diseased. For an unhealthy organ can not perform healthy functions. You might as well try to improve the sense of smell with the nose stuffed full of snuff, as to try to improve the moral sense while it is poisoned with the essence of snuff. Try to change a man's heart that is palpitating with poison and lusting for more! If you wish to be a successful soul doctor, you must commence at the seat of all moral diseases; a poisoned and disordered mind. Take the poison out of him first, and keep it out for at least thirty days, until the brain can begin to have its natural healthy action, and then he will arise and walk in dry places seeking rest.
We affirm, and shall prove in the course of our lecture, that tobacco obtudes and destroys the moral as well as every other sense of the human intellect. Proof. When you see a habitual tobacco user in the company of his friends you will see him either squirting his poison fluid over his friend's hearth, house, floor, and stove, and breathing his loathsome poisonous breath into the face of his friend, or pouring his poison smoke into the eyes, nose, and lungs of all present. When all present are coughing strangling and almost out of breath; they