Vanity, All Is Vanity | Page 3

on you it
has some effect and finally by a continual pressing of that effect it will
kill you. Put your ear to the huge locust tree and hear the gentle grating
of a bore worm. 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