Facts about tobacco / compiled by Rev. Edward P. Thwing.

  • Thwing, Edward Payson, 1830-1893.
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts about tobacco / compiled by Rev. Edward P. Thwing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    readily seen what the progeny of such creatures very likely will be. • 3. “ I cannot stop. ” This humiliating confession is an appalling evidence of the stultifying power of the vice. Said a young man, <c I be¬ lieve my pipe does me harm ; I feel it is injuring me; but were I certain that it would curtail my life by fifteen years, I could not give it up ’’! ! How distressing to hear such a statement from a free-born son of Britain 1 “ I am a slave to tobacco,'’ says a lawyer, “ and I will give a hundred dol¬ lars to be told how to get rid of it without killing me.'’ This loss of self control is considered elsewhere. It is nec¬ essary here merely to suggest the query, ‘ ‘ Is it not truer to say ‘ I will not ’ instead of 6 I cannot give it up?’ ’’ This is really the case. If one resolutely determines to abandon the vice and seeks the aid of God, victory is sure. More on this point under the “Cure of the Habit.’’ 4. Good people use tobacco. It is admitted that a man of very good character, in other respects, may be under the dominion of this habit. Says Dr. Graham : <c Tobacco has impaired the delicacy of his moral sense. It has in some sense impaire d the nice powers of his understanding to perceive moral truth. It has established in the physical economy of his body an appetite, whose despotic and often irresistible influence upon the intellectual and voluntary powers vehemently urges, and even absolutely com¬ pels, the understanding and will to comply with its demands. When, therefore, we try to convince him that it is naturally and morally wrong to use tobacco, we shall find it extremely difficult to reach his moral sense through the opposing energy of his lust. His lust will not allow him to fix his mind seri¬ ously and earnestly on the evidence we present, but will keep it constantly employed in contemplating the importance of the gratification to his happiness, or in seeking for arguments to defend the gratificatian, or for evasions and subterfuges from the force of evidence/’